Page 98 of Top Shelf
When she finishes, he takes the microphone back.
“My turn.” He scrolls dramatically, selects his song, then holds the mic too close to his lips. “This one goes out to the Storm boys on the PK in November last season. Nobody believed in you. Sometimes I didn’t believe in you. But you did it, boys. You fucking did it.”
Eli throws a fry toward the stage. “We were fourth in the league!”
“Upububup.” Chase raises a hand before Eli can retort again, then selects “Livin’ on a Prayer” by Bon Jovi.
The entire table groans. He grips the microphone with both hands, stalks the tiny stage like there are twenty thousand people in front of him instead of a karaoke bar full of teammates and their partners.
After him, Logan sings a country song in a voice better than anyone expects, then Lulu turns a breakup anthem into an interpretive dance. Tamara and Eli duet together, and Reid refuses to sing until Carina picks a song for him and leads him up to the stage.
He stands beneath a rotating purple light with the same expression he used to wear when someone screens him on a power play.
Carina hands him the microphone. “Dedication?”
His eyes find hers, and I think he might say something romantic, but he turns back toward us watching him.
“This goes out to the left goalpost in Game Five of the conference semifinal three years ago.” Every hockey player at the table loses his mind, and Reid waits for the noise to die down. “It knows what it did.”
“What’s the song?” Jake calls.
Reid looks at the screen. “Aerosmith. ‘I Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing.’”
Chase falls sideways into Zoe.
Reid proceeds to perform the entire song in a voice so flat and serious it becomes impossible to tell whether he is joking. Carina spends most of it clinging to his arm and laughing, while the rest of the bar slowly begins cheering for him as if they have accidentally stumbled into a live celebrity performance. Once he’s done, he returns to the booth without acknowledging the applause.
“Beautiful,” Chase tells him, nudging him his beer.
“Fuck off.”
“That post would be proud, Hutchy.”
“I will leave.”
Heidi laughs until her eyes water, and I watch her more than the stage. She’s loose tonight, in a way I have not seen enough. Her hair tumbles and moves over her shoulders every time she turns to shout at Lulu. She steals fries from the basket in front of Logan, drinks a terrible tequila shot then shudders with her whole body, and makes no attempt to shrink herself when Chase points at her to declare she’s next.
She flips him off.
“Dr. Grant!” Chase clutches his chest. “You wound me!”
“As a medical professional, you’ll live.”
Chase points the karaoke remote at me next. “Fine. Swedish Batman, you’re up.”
“No.”
“That sounded very final for a man who’s married into our group chaos.”
“No.”
“Aww.” He turns to the room, widening his arms. “He’s scared.”
Heidi chokes on her drink.
“That is not true,” I say.
“Oh, right.” Chase snaps his fingers. “You only like Swedish music. Sorry. Is it because the Backstreet Boys aren’t Swedish enough for you?”
