“Don’t you think you should be the voice of reason here?”
He laughed. “I already tried that. It didn’t work. So, okay. I’m in.”
I chewed the inside of my cheek. “All right. You really don’t have to do much for this to work. You’re out here wearing a green frog onesie. That’s enough to blow their minds. Just stand there and look cute, okay?”
He smirked. “Let’s do this.”
29
JEREMIAH
Thirty-eight years.
Thirty-eight years I had wandered in the dark, lost and seeking.What is my purpose?I asked the church elders, and the church elders spewed bullshit.What is my purpose?I asked God, and God stayed silent.What is my purpose?I asked myself, and I answeredfuck if I know.
Then Lennon Graves belted out the first lyric offkey.
And God said, let there be light, and there was light.
My world was illuminated.
And I knew.
I was put on this Earth to don a fuzzy green bullfrog costume and shake my ass like I was selling it so my girl could have the dubious honor of receiving more applause than her sociopath nemesis.
Not because it was the right thing to do. There was no honor here.
Not because justice required it. Their war would only escalate.
But because she wanted me to. That was enough.
This karaoke contest was without a doubt the stupidest thing I had ever been a part of. I didn’t care. It made no fucking sense, but I had never been more sure of anything down to the very marrow of my bones.
My purpose in this life and every other was to make Lennon Graves happy by any means necessary. And right now, that meant letting her call me a bullfrog and dancing my ass off.
The song wasJoy to the World, and from the moment Lennon declared I was a bullfrog, our audience lost their damn minds. Lennon sang, if you could call that noise singing, and I danced. I gyrated my body. I waved my arms. I made a goddamn fool of myself. It was…not good. None of this was good. Not Lennon’s singing, and definitely not my dancing.
She took one shocked, wide-eyed look at me and half-wheezed, half warbled the next line. That was the last time she looked at me for the rest of the song. Apparently my ass shaking ruined her concentration.
My friends had a front row seat to the whole thing. The guests and ranch hands and some of the staff were there, too. People I had worked hard to earn the respect of who might be having second thoughts about myleadership right about now. There was shocked silence as Lennon’s truly terrible voice rang out, and then they erupted into hoots and hollers.
Seb stomped his feet in time to the music. Put his thumb and index finger to his lips and let out a piercing whistle. Mateo laughed so hard tears streamed down his face. He had to push his glasses to the crown of his head to wipe his eyes. Even Liam, grumpy son of a bitch that he was, clapped along with the music, his shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter. Holly sat there, mouth agape, like a woman turned to salt.
Later, she and I would talk. There were things that needed to be said. But right now, I had one job and that job was shaking my ass.
“Everybody!” Lennon hollered. She brought her arms up in a wide arc until her palms met in a loud clap over her head.
That got everyone on their feet, clapping and stomping to the final verse. She sang about spreading joy all over the world, to all the children and the animals, and my heart damn near burst out of my chest.
The audience went wild. When Lennon threw herself into my arms, my heart went wild right with the rest of them. Laughing, I spun her in a circle.
Joy. That was Lennon. She was joy to the world. She was joy to me.
My hand stayedon Lennon’s lower back as our friends surrounded us. I hooked my index finger into the beltloop of her cutoff denim shorts, my thumb gently rubbing her soft, bare skin above the waistband.
“Whimsy!” Mateo hollered, jabbing both his index fingers at my chest. “That’s what I’m talking about! Fucking awesome, man. Andyou.” He threw an arm around Lennon’s shoulders and smacked a kiss on her forehead, making her giggle. “Incredible. How did you convince him to do it?”
Her gaze slid to me, dark eyes full of wonder. “I really don’t know.”
