AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter 1
Huey
In the corner of my bar, a cheerfully drunk man sang loudly and out of tune. My temples throbbed in rebellion and the man’s friends cheered.
How the hell had I let Johi talk me into this?
Johi passed me a bar mop, took one look at my face, and rolled her eyes.
“Come on, it’s not that bad,” she said. “Just tune it out like you tune out all the stupid conversations people have in here every night.”
A month ago, she’d caught me in a distracted moment and given me the hard sell: “Being a random dive bar that happens to be in Brooklyn might’ve been enough to stay in business in 2003, but at this point you need a draw. Karaoke is fun, inexpensive, and people have to drink to force their carcasses onstage to make a spectacle of themselves, so it’s good for business.”
She’d emailed me links to the research she’d done and promised she’d be in charge, and I’d grudgingly caved. Everything she said made sense, and the bar could certainly use an income boost. We already had a small raised platform in the corner where live bands once performed.
Johi had done everything, just as she’d said she would. She’d even gotten her roommate Derricka to emcee. And she’d clearly been right that the activity would draw a crowd.
Now, though, I realized she was trying hard to keep a straight face. In fact, I thought she might’ve been trying to hide a smile all night.
“Johi.”
“Hmm?” she said casually—too casually.
“Did you just win a bet with someone that you could convince me to do a karaoke night?”
She gasped, as if mortally offended. “You wound me, sir!” Then she grinned.
I sighed. “Was it Whitman?”
“Dude, no. It wasn’t a bet—though now I realize I could’ve totally made some money off him, damn it. No, I just, uh…Don’t laugh, but I seriously love karaoke. Like, it will make me a hundred percent happier once a week to get to watch it. So I’m pretty pleased with the upgrade I’ve just given my life, that’s all.”
I took in her bright smile as the tinny opening riff for the next song began in the background.
“You…love karaoke.” I searched for the words. “Why?”
“Aw, Huey, it’s great. It’s fun, and it feels like a treat when people pick songs you like. Every now and then you get legitimately great singers. But even when people are bad, they’ve chosen to let the world see that they’re bad in the service of having fun. It’s brave. Plus I like to look at people and try to guess what they’re gonna sing.”
I narrowed my eyes and shook my head.
“Well, consider yourself scheduled for Tuesday nights for the rest of your natural life.”
She gave me two thumbs-up, made them into finger guns she shot at me, and winked, then moved off to help the customers who had just walked in.
In the karaoke corner, a girl sang a ballad that I vaguely remembered being on the radio when I was in high school. It felt like a hundred years ago. She had a decent voice but was clearly nervous. As the song bled to silence, she covered her mouth with her hand and her friends exploded in applause. I guessed Johi would say she was being brave.
I wouldn’t know.
Derricka enthusiastically called up the next victims.
They wound through the crowd, the woman tugging the man by the hand. She moved easily and seemed confident, her short, dark hair bleached in the front and her shoulders set. The guy trailing behind her looked slightly less enthusiastic, but when she grinned at him he rolled his eyes and grinned back.
He was small and slender, with intense dark eyes and a dreamy smile. His hair fell to his chin in messy brown waves that he shoved back distractedly.
I assumed they were a couple, but then the woman stuck her tongue out at the guy in a way that said friends or siblings.
The song was projected on the screen behind them and I snorted a laugh. “Ten Hour Fall,” by Riven.
Theo Decker, the former lead singer of Riven, was my best friend Caleb Blake Whitman’s partner. When I’d complained to Theo and Whitman at dinner one night about Johi making me have a karaoke night, Theo had grinned and said I should do all-Riven karaoke.
He’d been joking, of course, and I’d left the song choices up to Johi—with a firm ban on They Die Roses, The Elsewheres, Danny MacDoyle, and post-1997 Marble Jubilee—but I looked up whether there even were Riven songs available, mostly so I could potentially torture Theo by sending him videos of people butchering his songs. There were only two songs available, and I told Johi to get them both. I’d forgotten about it until now.
When the first chord played and Theo’s lyrics streaked across the screen, I didn’t look away. The man holding the microphone shoved his hair out of his face and shrugged self-consciously, but when he began to sing, he was good. Really good.
