What If It's Us(45)

“Fourth first date?” Samantha asks.

“We want the first date to be epic and worthy of how we met,” I say. “So we keep calling do-over when things detour a bit.”

“Our beginning was very epic too,” Dylan says. “I was just smart enough to get Samantha’s phone number.”

I want to remind him that he almost messed up his epic relationship, but that’s bad form in front of our future people; I’ll save it for when we’re alone.

Samantha grabs his arm and looks into his eyes. “It was very romantic and epic the way you came to my job and waited in line and talked to me. Everyone should follow your lead!” She half hugs his waist and looks back at Arthur. “The poster you set up for Ben sounds wonderful, by the way. I feel like I’m in the presence of romantic greatness.”

Arthur blushes. “Thanks. Luck was on our side.”

The woman behind the counter calls out Arthur’s name. He apparently put his name down when he got here. We’re led into this boxy room with one L-shaped couch, a TV, and two microphones. In the center of the table is my worst enemy—the binder of songs that we’ll be choosing from tonight. In front of one another. For the first time. Even Dylan and I haven’t done karaoke together. We’ve sung together, but we’ve never ever had a microphone and we were never sober.

“Dylan! Go use your beard to get us some alcohol.”

“I can’t drink,” Dylan says. “Still too nauseous after that seafood.”

“Don’t blame the seafood,” Samantha says.

“Fine. Get yourself whatever and the rest of us something not boring,” I say.

“I don’t drink,” Samantha says.

“Me either,” Arthur says. “Doesn’t mix well with my Adderall.”

“I’ll drink for all three of you,” I say, which makes me sound like an alcoholic, but there’s no way I’m getting through this hour sober.

Dylan rushes out of the room.

Arthur and Samantha flip through the binder.

“Do they have Hamilton or Dear Evan Hansen here? This karaoke place back home didn’t have updated songs yet,” Arthur says.

She flips through the pages. “That would’ve been amazing, but I’m not seeing any here either. The Broadway selection is okay. Tons of Disney.”

“I can do anything from Hercules and Little Mermaid and Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast and Tarzan and Toy Story and The Jungle Book.”

“Is that all?”

“I know a couple songs from 101 Dalmatians,” Arthur says with pride.

Dylan returns with four cups. Thank god. He hands everyone a cup and I take a sip, expecting it to be harsh. But it’s kind of flat and gross.

“Is this Coke? Without alcohol?”

“She not only saw past the beard, but she mocked me.” Dylan shakes his head and downs his Coke like a shot. “It was awful.”

Samantha convinces Dylan to perform a duet with her, which just gives me all sorts of anxiety because Arthur is probably going to want to do the same, right? I agreed to karaoke night in the first place because Dylan assured me we would all just do group songs. But Arthur showing up has completely changed the game. We went from a party of three to a double date. The rules are out the window. Duets are allowed, and this is going to be a shit show.

The disaster begins with “Telephone” by Lady Gaga featuring Beyoncé. Samantha pulls out her phone, recording herself as she sings Lady Gaga’s parts beside Dylan, and damn, I love Dylan because he doesn’t even need to look at the monitor to sing Beyoncé’s parts. He just takes the phone from Samantha and sings straight into the camera like it’s some old-school, punk-rock music video and not a song about boyfriends being thirsty for their girlfriends when they’re out having fun without them.

Arthur sits next to me the entire time, our knees touching as he bounces and sings along.

The song ends. “Let’s do ‘Bad Romance’ next,” Dylan says.

“Not the most romantic choice.” Samantha taps the microphone against his forehead. “Try again, dodo.” She turns to me, and I get the sinking feeling like when I’m in class and a teacher wants me to answer a question. “You want to go?”

“You can go again,” I say. “I like watching.”

“Better be me you’re watching, buddy,” Dylan says.

Arthur pulls the binder into our laps. “Want to sing something together? I can take lead. My dad isn’t big on singing either, but when we were road-tripping to Yale, I was singing whatever came on the radio and he’d jump in at the chorus.”

“I might need another few minutes to get hyped,” I say.

“I’ll sing a duet with you, Arthur,” Samantha says.

“My hero.”

“I tried coming to yours and Ben’s rescue with that Yale meetup, so this’ll make me feel better,” Samantha says.

“I really didn’t even know that meetup was happening,” Arthur says. “I know it’s not my year, but I would’ve gone just to get some tips on the applications.” He rests his hand on mine. “God, how awesome is life right now. I mean, everything is really coming together. So many possibilities for where we’ll all end up next year. I’m cool with any of the Ivy Leagues, though Yale and Brown are really hit or miss, you know. I may end up putting a bunch of liberal arts schools on my list, just to be safe.”