Page 67 of Obey

The bar patrons join her to say, “Karaoke night!”

Maddox is sitting up straighter, his attention fully on her. “Karaoke,” he whispers, sounding endearingly awed.

It’s sort of adorable, seeing a grown man like him look so excited. I remember him telling me in the car that he hadn’t done it since we were teens, but things are different now.

Everything is different now.

“You’re getting up on stage with me,” he tells me in a whisper as he grabs my wrist. “We’re gonna celebrate my return to karaoke in style.”

“No way,” I say, shaking my head vehemently. “You go first. I gotta… uh, drink more. Figure out which songs I still know.”

Maddox scoffs at me. “You know the classics. You probably know more now than you did before.” His smile falters, but he paints it back on quickly enough to where I almost miss it. “C’mon. You have to do this with me.”

I don’t mind karaoke when it’s in the private rooms they have in the Asian-style karaoke places back in New Bristol. But in front of all these people in a small town bar?

The music starts playing a nineties pop song, and I let out a small sigh of relief. A woman starts belting out the song, off key but clearly having fun. The crowd is laughing and generally being kind, at least.

“You really want to?” I ask Maddox. “It’s not gonna be…weird?”

“Of course it’s gonna be weird,” he scoffs. “It’s karaoke.”

He’s looking at me so hopefully that I know I won’t be able to say no to him.

I’d do a lot more than embarrass myself in front of a whole small town for him.

“Fine, fine.” I run my hand through my hair. “Let’s pick a rock song, or…”

He’s already heading to the stage, lining up to get his song in. Our song, I guess. Fuck.

Jim laughs and passes a beer to me. “Drink up. Sounds like you’ll need it for your singing debut. I certainly wouldn’t be caught dead on stage.” His smile drops a bit. “Maybe if I’d been more into singing, Patty wouldn’t have left me.”

Oh, shit. I want to listen to his marital troubles less than I want to sing.

“Thanks.” I take a large gulp of the beer before going to join Maddox in line.

Maddox is already bouncing on his heel, still looking like an overeager puppy, and he grins at me as I approach. He grabs my hand brazenly, pulling me close to him, and it strikes me as such a strange moment to have in some small podunk town in the middle of nowhere. He’s never been the type to show affection in public, but I realize he’s changed a lot.

So have I.

I just hope that doesn’t mean we’ve grown in completely opposite directions.

I reluctantly put some distance between us when I catch somebody staring. If we were in New Bristol, I’d tell them to fuck off, but I don’t want to cause a huge scene here even though we’ll be leaving soon anyway.

Maddox follows my gaze, his lips thinning, but he doesn’t attempt to touch me again.

Two country songs later, it’s our turn.

“Don’t worry, you know this one,” Maddox says. He hands me one of the mics, and I tap it to make sure it’s on.

The music starts up, and yes, I know this one. It’s the rock song that had caused our argument in the car. That feels like ages ago now, even though it couldn’t have been more than ten days.

He eyes me, and I can tell he’s afraid I’m going to refuse this olive branch. Instead, I nod to him.

It’ll be good to turn this song into a good memory once more.

Maddox gets into it, the concern about the latent homophobia in members of the audience melting away as he turns this into an animated performance. He quirks a brow at me, inviting me to get just as into it, and I throw caution to the wind as I start to sing with him. Fuck it. I’m only going to live once, and in the lifestyle we lead, that could be cut short at any moment.

I may as well enjoy myself where I can.

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