Page 79 of The Taste of Deceit

“You asshole.”

She surfaces laughing so hard she has to wipe water out of her eyes.

“Worth it.”

I shake my head, set my own glass beside hers, and dive in after her. The water is warm enough that neither of us wants to get out for almost an hour. We float on our backs, race from one end of the pool to the other, and spend far too much time trying to dunk each other underwater. More than once, one of us has to climb out only to refill our wine before climbing right back in.

By the time we finally give up, my stomach hurts from laughing.

Wrapped in towels, we make our way back upstairs long enough to throw on clean clothes before wandering into the theater room with another bottle of wine tucked under Katie’s arm.

The room is ridiculous. Oversized recliners face a massive screen that takes up nearly the entire wall. Colored lights glow softly along the ceiling, and the sound system is nicer than most actual movie theaters.

Katie grabs the microphone sitting beside the karaoke machine and points it at me.

“First song.”

“I’m not going first.”

“You absolutely are.”

“I’m absolutely not.”

She narrows her eyes.

“I planned this whole night.”

“And?”

“So I make the rules.”

I sigh dramatically.

“This is a dictatorship.”

“Damn right it is.”

Twenty minutes later, we’re both screaming lyrics to “I Wanna Dance with Somebody”. Any hope of sounding good disappears somewhere around the second song. Neither of us cares. We dance across the front of the room like we’re performing for a sold-out stadium instead of an empty theater, laughing whenever one of us misses a line or comes in at the wrong time.

At one point, I catch my reflection in the dark television beneath the screen. My hair’s a mess. My cheeks hurt from smiling. I don’t think I’ve laughed this much in a long time. Katie finishes “Last Friday Night” with a dramatic bow that would be embarrassing anywhere else.

I clap anyway.

“You’re so full of shit.”

“I know.”

She hands me the microphone.

“Your turn.”

I roll my eyes, take it from her, and shake my head.

“If this ends up on the internet, I’ll kill you.”

She grins.

“Bitch, I don’t even know how to upload a video.”