The Fire Between High & Lo (Elements #2)(73)

He laughed. Good. I was so happy he was laughing. I laughed, too, because he was so handsome. I laughed because he was my friend again. I laughed because my heart knew that would’ve never been good enough for me.

“Yes, I’m listening.”

I stood up tall, pushed out my chest, and said, “Karaoke.”

“Oh God, no.”

“What? Come on! Don’t you remember when we went out for karaoke when we were younger?! And you did Michael Jackson’s Billy Jean with all the pelvis humping and all?” I reenacted his hip movements from the past.

He snickered. “Yeah. I also remember being coked up when I did the pelvis humping.”

My face dropped in shock. “What? You were high when you did that?”

“Yeah, otherwise I would’ve never agreed to doing karaoke, trust me.”

“Oh. I just thought you were excited about their Michael Jackson and Justin Bieber collection. Anyway. Today, we are going to do karaoke at O’Reilly’s Bar.”

“No way.”

I nodded taking his hands into mine. “Yes way.”

“Alyssa. I appreciate that you’re trying to make me feel better and stuff, but seriously, you don’t have to. I’m better now. You made me better. Plus, there’s no way in hell I’d ever do karaoke again.”





Chapter Thirty-Eight


Logan




I was doing karaoke again.

Somehow Alyssa managed to pull me on stage in O’Reilly’s Bar, and put a microphone in my hand. She promised we’d do a duet so I wouldn’t be performing on my own, but still I could feel the nerves in the pit of my stomach. She picked the song, “Love The Way You Lie,” by Rihanna and Eminem.

“You know the words?” she asked me. “I sing it all the time when I’m driving in my car, so I know the lyrics by heart.”

“I can follow along on the screen.”

She smiled wide. I smiled wider.

My greatest High.

When the music started playing and the first lyrics started coming on the screen, no sound came from either Alyssa or myself. The people in the bar started shouting at us to sing, but neither one of us were.

The DJ turned off the track and gestured toward us. “Um, you do know that you have to open your mouth to sing, right?”

I looked at Alyssa with confusion. “Why weren’t you singing? It said it was Rihanna’s part.”

“Oh. I don’t sing her part. I like Eminem’s rapping parts.”

“What?” I hissed, stepping closer to her. “I’m not singing Rihanna’s part.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m not a chick.”

“But you have that beautiful high-pitched voice, Lo. I think you’ll make a beautiful Rihanna,” she mocked.

“I’m hitting replay one time, folks. It’s now or never,” the DJ said.

“I’m not doing this, High,” I said as we stood nose to nose, with our chest out.

“Oh, you’re doing it.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

I shook my head. “No.”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“Alyssa.”

“Logan.”

“High.”

“Lo.”

The intro music started and I kept shaking my head left and right, telling her there was no way I was going to do it, but when Rihanna’s part came on, the microphone rose to my lips and I began singing the female’s part of the song; high pitched, sounding like f*cking hell.

Alyssa covered her mouth to keep her uncontrollable chuckles to herself. I gave her a look to kill before turning around to face the audience and fully embracing my feminine side. I thought I did pretty good. I thought I was the one to make our performance magic.

But then something happened.

Eminem’s verse came up, and Alyssa transformed into something I’ve never seen before. She stole the DJ’s baseball cap, tossed it on her head backwards, and started marching back and forth on the stage, getting the audience involved in the performance, making them wave their hands back and forth as she rapped.

Alyssa Marie Walters was rapping to Eminem. And she was f*cking incredible. She put her all into it, hand gestures, facial expressions, giving it everything she had. She was so wild and beautiful in that moment. Free.

When the chorus came up, she looked at me, and I started singing again, high-pitched and terrible.

Then, she rapped again, nailing every word.

When it came to the last verse, the hardest verse she had to rap, she took a deep breath. She locked eyes with me, and before she started, her shirt collar rested between her lips. She nodded once. I nodded once. She dropped the collar, and started rapping the final verse directly to me.

And it was f*cking sexy.

Her body swayed back and forth, she became the words and the words soaked her in, and once she finished, she dropped the microphone, the crowd went wild, and I sang the final Rihanna chorus to her.

When we finished, we couldn’t stop laughing. We wrapped each other into a tight hug, as the people in the audience cheered us on, begging for an encore.

We performed five more songs before we retired to a booth in the back of the bar for a few celebratory drinks.

We stayed most of the night, chatting about anything and everything. We laughed more than we had in a long time. For a while, it felt like it used to.