Back To You

Chapter Thirty-Nine

I'm standing in a karaoke bar. A freakin' karaoke bar. And it's ten-thirty on a Saturday night, which means it's packed. The bar is crammed with people sipping cocktails and taking shots. Dark, wooden booths line the walls and are bursting with patrons. High-top tables in the center of the room seat couples and groups of friends, and everyone – and I mean everyone – is watching a curvy blonde as she gyrates and attempts to sing Buttons by The Pussycat Dolls. I don't know what his plan is here, but if Greyson makes me get onstage and sing, I'll die.

"Which song should we choose?" he asks. I tear my wide eyes away from the stage long enough to see him flipping through a binder filled with laminated pages listing song after song. "Don't Go Breaking My Heart? Endless Love? Nah, those are too common. How about Start of Something New from High School Musical? I feel like that song is in my vocal range. Oh! What about that song from the Fifty Shades movie? The one with T-Swift and Zayn! I think I can hit those high notes like he does." He sticks his finger in his ear and closes his eyes as he sings the chorus to "I Don't Wanna Live Forever" in the highest voice I've ever heard come out of his mouth.

I grab the book from his hands and close it. "We don't need to pick a song, because we're not singing."

"Of course, we are." He takes the book back and begins to flip through it again. "Now, help me pick a song we can duet."

"No. I'm not going up there."

"Yes, you are."

"No, I'm not."

He slams the book shut and turns to me, crossing his arms over his chest. "What happened to you turning over a new leaf? Not being so afraid of everything."

"There's sitting in the window seat of an airplane forty-thousand feet in the air and then there's getting on stage in front of a room full of people and facing utter and complete humiliation. There's possibly wetting myself. And there's singing! I can't sing!" I take a deep breath as my stomach rolls with nausea. "Social media is a real thing, you know. I'll be the girl all over TikTok who can't sing and pissed herself while she did karaoke. I'll go viral! And it'll be out there – in the cloud or wherever things go – forever because you know once something is on the internet, it's on there for life! Family and friends will see it. Future employers. Oh my, God. I'll never get a job –"

"Okay. Relax, please," he interrupts. He takes my face in his hands, squeezing my cheeks and squishing them together so I can't talk. "You're not gonna go viral as the girl that pissed herself because that's not gonna happen, and do you know why? Because I'm gonna be up there with you. I'd never let you make a fool of yourself alone. That's way too much fun and personally, I'd never skip the chance to act like an idiot and make you laugh. And at the end of the day who cares if we embarrass ourselves. Do you know any of the people here tonight besides me?" I shake my head. "Do their opinions matter?" I shake it again. "After all is said and done do you think you'll remember this moment as being fun, or being scary?"