Thirteen
THIRTEEN
HORSE KACEY MUSGRAVES HAS IT OUT FOR ME
I look up and Nic’s climbing onto the small stage in front of the frozen animatronics.
“Bet he does Lynyrd Skynyrd,” I say.
“Or Hootie and the Blowfish.”
“Or, like, Jars of Clay.”
We’re giggling when the opening beats of “7 rings” from Ariana Grande starts playing and Nic, who is a beast of a man, throws an imaginary ponytail over his shoulder and blows kisses to the crowd as the animatronics awkwardly jerk to life. The crowd is immediately into it at a surprising level.
“So it’s that kind of party,” Cass says, eyes dancing.
She runs up to the karaoke DJ and puts her name in while Nic prances across the stage like he’s wearing stacked, spiked heels. The animatronic band lurches and exaggeratedly blinks behind him, a full half-beat behind. The entire bar comes to life, scream-singing the lyrics with him, wolf-whistling and shouting like it’s a competition and Nic’s already won. It’s an exuberant, uninhibited display. Even the bartenders are dancing.
Jasmine gets up next, which I find surprising. She doesn’t seem the drunk karaoke type, but the second she launches into Aretha Franklin’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” I realize my mistake. Jasmine can flat out sing. Everyone eggs her on like it’s Sunday morning church and she’s singing the Holy Ghost into the room.
“Who is that ,” Cass yells into my ear. I follow her finger pointing to a statuesque Black woman standing off to the side. She has a braided updo that accentuates her heart-shaped face and is wearing lime green short shorts that highlight her extremely long legs. I look over at Cass and she’s practically drooling.
“I must meet her,” Cass says right as the DJ calls her name like a game show host.
“Cass Zimmerman, come on dowwwwnnnnn.”
She nearly tips over our wobbly table as she eagerly hurries to the stage. The opening strains to Pat Benatar’s “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” come on and Cass, who’s always so alive and ready for whatever the world has to offer, plunges in, blatantly flirting with her new crush.
Kick plops down at the table next to mine. He tips his chair back and nudges me.
“She’s pretty incredible.”
“You have no idea.” I look at him watching Cass. “She’s gay, you know.”
“What,” he says, affronted, “I can’t admire someone in their element without making it sexual?”
“I have a feeling you make pretty much everything sexual.”
He leans in close, his palm-branch eyelashes inches from mine. “Is that one of the bullet points on your little list about me?”
I tear my gaze from his and take a sip of my margarita. I will not be bewitched by his sleepy-eyed grin, no I will not. Besides, Kick’s still my competition as far as I’m concerned. And you don’t fraternize with the enemy, that’s rule number one. Actually, rule number one is never join a cult, but the fraternizing thing is up there.
When Cass hits the chorus she gets the entire room up and dancing—Nic, Deacon, Deacon’s date, Jasmine, Don, Cheddar, even Emily. They all love her. As they should.
Up next is Sparrow’s keyboard player, then a guitar tech. I guess Deacon was right. At the tour launch party, everyone does karaoke.
We’re too many songs and margaritas in when Cheddar runs onto the stage and grabs the mic, pointing right at me and Kick. “Who here thinks the new kids should sing a duet?”
Applause breaks out and all eyes turn to me and Kick, all of them saying yes, get on the stage right now. A loud, deep voice behind me shouts, “Do it.”
“Oh, no,” I say, “I don’t?—”
“Come on, Goldie.” Kick stands up from the table next to me and holds out his hand. “Unless you’re scared?”
I get up from the table and bat his hand away. “I’m not scared of anything.”
“My kind of woman.”
I march ahead of him and look for Emily on the way up, feeling certain she has a satisfied smirk on her pinched face. She’s sitting near the front, gloating. I bet she put Cheddar up to this, trying to prove her point that Kick and I should sing together. She’s about to realize her mistake.
Up close, the animatronics are even more dead-eyed, their eyeballs like big round, polished Magic 8 balls possessed with an unidentifiable evil. I turn my back to them and put on my best performance smile. I take the mic in front of Horse Kacey Musgraves, ready to one-up whatever cheesy performance Kick tries to do.
“I picked a song for you,” Cheddar says, motioning to the karaoke DJ. “Do you guys know ‘Don’t You Want Me’ from The Human League?”
I lean away from the mic. “You know this song?”
Kick keeps his eyes on me and says “hit it,” into the mic, flashing that confident smile he never seems to lose .
The track starts, a synth-heavy eighties beat. Kick pulls his mic off the stand and looks out at the crowd, shaking his hips like he’s trying to earn singles in the waistband of his jeans. I attempt to match his energy, dancing in front of my mic stand. Emily’s scheming aside, I’m going to win this duet and show Sparrow I’m the rightful artist to be opening their tour.
Kick turns to me, eyes flashing, and sings the first line like it’s just the two of us. Like we rehearsed this before the party. He’s not even looking at the lyrics on the screen.
I’m swaying to the music but can’t look away from him. He gets closer and closer, singing right to me. It’s for show, I know this, but heat climbs up my neck and into my jaw, singeing my cheeks. I turn to the crowd and get them to clap in time to the synth beats but he’s still in my space, singing to me like we’re completely alone, like we aren’t on display in front of the entire Sparrow crew and management team, in front of all the members of Sparrow.
The chorus hits and we wail into the mics about how much we want each other. It’s too wrong and so right. Tiny heat explosions sizzle down my neck and my chest. Our voices sound like they were designed to sing together, like we’re two parts of one whole. I want to hate this, want it to be a train wreck, but we’re incredible.
The crowd goes wild, whistling and hollering like we planned to reveal our secret chemistry at this exact moment. All their reaction does is amp up our performance.
When it’s my turn to sing the verse, I dance in a circle around Kick, forcing him to follow me with his eyes. I’m performance flirty, stage sultry, playing it up as wildly as I dare, making the audience believe I want him as much as he wants me.
I pout my mouth into a kiss when I sing the word you causing Kick to stare at my lips. Which makes me stare at his lips.
This song was a bad idea .
We go full out on the last chorus, singing right to each other, our noses nearly touching, flirting so hard my molars ache.
By the time the song ends, our arms are wound around each other’s and our mics are in each other’s face, our heavy breaths on each other’s lips. The crowd loses it and gives us an enthusiastic standing ovation. Kick untangles us and takes my hand in his, sending an electric current shooting up my arm as we take a dramatic bow.
I hop off the stage as quickly as I can, the applause still roaring. When I get back to our table, Cass is wearing the biggest smirk I’ve ever seen. And she’s added a third chair to our table, now occupied by the leggy girl in the lime green shorts.
“Mari Lorraine Gold. What are you doing?”
“Since when is my middle name Lorraine?”
“You two practically procreated in front of Horse Kacey Musgraves.”
“Cheddar picked the song,” I argue. “What was I supposed to do?”
She eyes me, unconvinced. “In that case, you won’t mind if I post a video. Because Mo took video. This is Mo, by the way. She’s on the merch team.”
“Nice to meet you,” I say.
“You two were really something,” Mo says with a twinkle in her green-shadowed eyes.
I shrug and take a huge bite of a black bean egg roll. “Post it or don’t post it, I don’t care. It’s not like it meant anything.”
“Post what?” Kick says, pulling up a chair.
“Cass filmed our song,” I say.
He whips his head toward her. “I’m gonna need that video.”
“Are y’all gonna do songs like that on the tour?” Mo asks. “Cause I’d pay to see that again.”
“I can’t tell if you’re serious or making fun of us,” I say.
“I’m completely serious,” she says. “I bet other people would pay to see it, too. ”
Kick and I exchange a look, his side more curious and mine more horrified.
“That is not happening, Kick Raines,” I say, turning back to my food. “Do not get any ideas.”
He steals an egg roll from my plate. “I’m full of ideas, Goldie.”