the living room, Willowdean and Ellen are standing on the coffee table in T-shirts and underwear; Willowdean’s reads Tuesday on the butt. She’s a little bit of a mess, but I feel seen, to be honest. “Two doors down, we’re laughing and drinking and having a party,” they sing.
Tucker waves me over to where he sits on the floor. Hannah and Clem sit beside him on the couch, squeezed onto one cushion. “I like your sister,” he says.
“I like your . . . friend,” Clem says.
I narrow my gaze, but she keeps bopping her head along to the music.
My fingers are splayed out on the carpet between me and Tucker, and I watch from the corner of my eye as he inches his hand closer.
The song finishes, and Alex takes the microphone from Willowdean and Ellen.
“Awww, come on!” they say. “One more.”
“I fear those two have discovered karaoke for the first time,” says Hannah, “and now there’s no going back.”
“I love the legendary Dolly Parton as much as anyone, but that was your third song in a row. Time to pass the mic,” Alex says.
Before the words are even out of his mouth, Kyle yanks the microphone away from him. “Me, me, me, me!”
My spine goes ramrod straight as I feel Tucker loop his pinkie finger over mine.
I want to look. I want to see what our nearly intertwined fingers look like together, but I’m scared that if I even breathe, he’ll move.
Kyle takes the coffee-table stage, kicking his mom’s basket of potpourri to the side, and breaks into a very passionate rendition of Taylor Swift’s “You Need to Calm Down,” which is honestly pretty edgy for him and I’m a little bit impressed.
Before long, the living room is shouting along with him, and when the song ends, he lets himself free-fall onto the couch, where Clem and Alex catch him. And all the while, Tucker’s pinkie finger stays right where it is.
“Who’s next?” Alex asks from underneath Kyle.
“Pumpkin!” screams Kyle.
Immediately, I want to duck into his mom’s silk robe like a turtle, and on top of that I don’t want this moment with Tucker to be over.
“Yes!” chimes in Clem.
Tucker nudges me, his pinkie leaving mine. “Say yes.”
I shake my head.
“You could get up there and sing ‘Jesus Loves Me’ right now and this whole house would go nuts. That’s how drunk everyone is,” he says.
“Yeah, everyone else is drunk,” I say. “The problem is I’m not.”
“It’s perfect,” he says. “You’ll be epic to everyone either way.”
I look at him, the word on the tip of my tongue.
“Say it,” he urges.
“Yes,” I blurt before I can change my mind.
Kyle howls and throws the mic at me, which I catch, but barely. I check the songbook and go with a song I feel deep down in my bones.
I hike one foot up on the coffee table, testing its stability. It’s solid, but it’s also probably never had to hold a six-foot-three, three-hundred-plus-pound person before.
There’s a moment of quiet while I’m waiting for the song to start and I’m forced to look at everyone staring back up at me. I don’t have the benefit of being under a spotlight in a dark bar.
“I want you to know that I’m happy for you. I wish nothing but the best for you both,” I sing.
A few people cheer with recognition. This is the one and only Alanis Morissette song I know, which I was exposed to on our way home from a choir competition in ninth grade when Ms. Jennings played us her personal playlist on the way home. I immediately went home and listened to the song on repeat while I sang/screamed along, feeling all the anger of a woman scorned. Unlike the song, I’d never been left for another woman, but something about the pain and anger made me feel validated and invigorated.
Clem holds her lit phone up, and a few people, including Tucker, follow suit as we reach the buildup for the chorus.
“And I’m here to remind you of the mess that you left when you went away.”
I guess I’m not the only one who feels this song so deeply, because the whole living room is singing along. More phones pop into the air. Some people from the backyard fill in.
Suddenly, I’m untying my robe and whirling it around me as I pace back and forth on the coffee table.
“You better work!” shouts Kyle.
It doesn’t matter that I’m in old sweatpants and a T-shirt and Kyle’s mom’s robe. I’m in