Page 95 of The Match Faker
“Shit,” Jade says.
Ed and Rocco watch me from the other side of the bar, but I can’t bring myself to meet their eyes. Bernie keeps sending me gentle smiles; that just makes me want to cry more.
“Maybe we should go?” Jade tugs on my wrist, squeezing when I turn to her, the tears welling in my eyes visible. “Let’s go,” she says resolute. She knows I hate to cry in public.
Nick starts his intro to Underground Karaoke and the crowd thunders with the excitement and anticipation of alcoholically lubricated live performances.
He hates me. He might actually hate me.
My mind is numb, my ears filled with the sound of bees, even though I know that’s incorrect. There are no bees here. Jade easily drags me from my barstool, collects my coat, pulls me toward the safety of the exit.
My god, I’m an idiot. Leading with abusiness proposalrather than the truth, that I’m falling for him. I fell. I fucking love Nick Scott. Bartender, son, brother; liar, boss, friend, best kisser I’ve ever kissed. I fell for him because he loves the things he loves without shame, and he feels judged by his father but still wants his approval, and because when a complete stranger poured herheart onto his bar top he didn’t laugh at her or judge her, he helped her.
Nick helped me.
I plant my feet on the sticky floor before Jade can tug me through the exit. She whispers, “Come on, sissy. Every exit is an emergency exit if you try hard enough.”
I shake my head, squeezing her hand, and turn back to the bar. “I want to sing,” I say to no one in particular. Before Jade can persuade me not to, I march back to the bar, where Bernie stands with a clipboard in hand. “Bernie, I want to sing.”
She looks at me, then over my shoulder. Presumably at Nick.
“Anyone can sing, right?”
She heaves a sigh and says, with a click of her pen, “Anyone. What song?”
Shit. I hadn’t thought that far ahead. A crowd pushes in from behind me, the other karaoke-ers waiting to get their names on the list. I’m going to sing in front of all of them.
What have I done.
“‘Night Moves,’” I hear myself say. “Bob Seger.”
She scribbles the info down before nodding toward the stage where the band is tuning their instruments. “It’ll be about five more minutes, but you’re first up.”
I walk on wooden legs to the side of the stage, lean against the wall. The cool brick and rough surface helps ground me in my body, the feeling in my limbs returning.
“Jazz,” my sister hisses. She stands directly in front of me. Where did she even come from? “What are you doing?”
I rummage through my bag, looped around her shoulder, for my hand sanitizer. My hands aren’t particularly dirty, it just feels good to control something right now, like the percentage of living bacteria on my hands. “Singing in public. Terribly.”
The lights go down, but the volume in the bar goes way up. This is going to happen. It’s happening. People whistle, the shrill sound making me wince and Jade clap her hands over her ears.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” she asks.
I shake my head. “No.”
“Do you want me to come with you?” We’re just inches from each other, but Jade has to yell to be heard over the noise and the musicians warming up beside us.
“No.” My stomach rolls with nerves. “I have to do this myself. I have to do itformyself.”
Jade smiles. She looks proud of me, and even though my hands shake and my heart won’t leave my throat and I won’t have a voice to sing with, even though I think I could pass out at any moment, beneath all of that, I’m proud of myself, too.
“It helps,” I say. “To know you’re here.”
Jade hugs me, one of her better hugs. Tight, warm, vibrating with laughter, or love, or just pure energy, I’m never quite sure. “Always,” she whispers in my ear.
The crowd erupts around us as Nick hops back onto the stage, Bernie’s clipboard in his hand. “Our first performer,” he says into the mic as he glances down at the sign-up sheet, “is…”
He pauses. Frowns. He scans the rest of the list, lifts the paper to scan the list behind it. When he flips the paper down, he looks at me. For the first time in what’s felt like forever, his voice changes, soft, tender, warm, when he says, “Jasmine.”