Sebastian nearly fell of off his chair laughing.
I couldn’t for the life of me remember what I said. But it was probably funny. I’m really funny.
I started laughing too. “Saints, I am so funny!” The table was getting closer and closer. Then my head hit it and it occurred to me that maybe I was the one moving rather than the table. “I’m so funny,” I said with a sigh. “Why doesn’t anyone like me? People are sutos...stu...sup... supposed to like funny girls. Everyone knows that. Funny girls are in. Everyone likes Tina Fey. I’m funny like Tina Fey. Why does no one like me?”
Everything in front of my vision was dark. Maybe I’d passed out or something…
I felt a hand on my forehead, brushing the hair back. I blinked, suddenly able to see, and glanced up to see Sebastian looking down at me. He smiled. I liked it when he smiled. It made me smile too and I didn’t tend to smile a whole lot.
“I like you.”
I sighed. My heart ached a little, and I knew I was definitely a little bit on the way to be kind of in love. It absolutely wasn’t acid reflux ‘cause I hadn’t eaten anything at the bar.
“So don’t feel bad,” he continued.
“I wish you did,” I said as a delayed answer to his first comment.
“You’re way funnier than Tina Fey. Plus you can do magic. Tina Fey can’t do magic. Well, comedy magic. But hoodoo is much awesomer.”
“Did you mean magic with a ‘k’ on the end?” I asked, frowning. “Because that’s not cool.”
“I mean it like magic.”
“Yeah, but...” I held onto the table and pushed myself into a sitting position. The world tilted a little when I did and I struggled to focus. Although my powers were great and wondrous, I wasn’t positive hoodoo was responsible for there being two blurry Sebastian’s in front of me. First of all, I couldn’t clone people, and second of all, if I could, they wouldn’t be blurry. I hope. “In your head, when you were saying the words, did you have a ‘k’ on magic? Like magick? Because that’s something lame the Wiccans and new agers do. They suck. They’re not funny like me and Tina Fey.”
“I promise there wasn’t a ‘k’,” he said. He reached forward and clasped my hand that rested on the table. “I don’t want you to be sad. There’s no ‘k.’ ‘Kay?”
I wanted to kiss him. He said he liked me. And there was no ‘k’ on magic. Surely that meant—
“Briar.”
That voice was very disapproving-sounding. I didn’t want to look at its owner, but my body wasn’t listening to my mind and I looked at Lilith anyway.
“You have mom-face,” I said.
“Pardon me?”
“Mom-face. It’s the face my mom makes before she says something mom-ish and judgmental to me.”
She gave me a stern look but didn’t saying anything. I turned back to Sebastian, but couldn’t remember what the hell I’d been thinking in the first place. Well, besides the fact that he was really cute and I enjoyed looking at him...
Several metres from us, some forty-something woman sang a country song badly into a microphone next to the karaoke machine. It wasn’t until the chorus that I realized she’d been massacring that song from Grease that the blonde girl sang in her friend’s backyard, when she saw the guy’s head superimposed on the kiddie pool and then randomly threw the pink paper in it. I was always like, “WTF?” during that part because I totally didn’t get the metaphor.
I watched the scary lady in 80’s stretch jeans singing for a few minutes. “She’s really bad.”
“We should totally sing something,” Sebastian said.
“Saints, yes! We can dedicate it to Devlin and the skank—”
“Noelle.”
“Same thing—and it’ll be awesome.” The country song was nearly over, so Sebastian and I started to rise.
“Briar!” Lilith had mom-voice down pat to go with her mom-face.
“I’m not doing anything stupid,” I said, anticipating her warning. “I’m doing karaoke. Nothing bad can come from karaoke.”
Sebastian got near the stage before me and went through the song catalogue. I couldn’t focus my eyes long enough to read much, so I was glad he was prepared to pick us a song.
“Okay, I’ve got it,” he said.
“What?”
“The most obnoxious song on the planet, but it’s totally how we feel.”
When it was our turn on stage, I took the microphone first and tried to compose myself. I stood under rather bright lights and was suddenly very aware of all kinds of people staring at me. Of course, Devlin and Skankerella weren’t.
“We’d like to dedicate this song to two very special people in our lives,” I said, gripping the microphone tightly in both hands and gazing seriously into the crowd. “Well, they’re not in our lives anymore because they suck and one of them is skanky. But anyways—”
The opening piano of Hoobastank’s The Reason started.
He was so right! The song was obnoxious and perfect.
We sang loudly. Badly and loudly, in fact. We took turns during the verses, or as well as we could without always remembering the order of the lyrics or remembering to look for them on the screen, and belted out the chorus together. Sure, we might have sucked as badly as stretch-jean-country-lady, but we were doing it for love. That was the important thing.
I glanced at Lilith the odd time. She just shook her head and ignored us. What a killjoy.
About mid-way through the first chorus, Devlin and Skankerella looked over at us. I almost burst out laughing and missed my line when I saw the look of shock and horror on their faces. Priceless. But then Sebastian tried to hog the whole microphone and I forgot about them for a few moments.
When it was my verse again, I got to be the mike hog, and I met Devlin’s gaze. I missed it so badly. For months, the only time I could see that gaze was in my head when I did a spell. And because I tried to do spells on him so rarely, I never saw him and I missed him all the more. But here he was, real. And looking at me like I was on crack, but that was better than nothing.
Our song ended. We managed to leave the stage without being booed off. The experience had been cathartic—I felt all refreshed.
“That felt good,” Sebastian said as we walked towards our table.
“Karaoke and beer. Solves everything. Wish I’d figured that out prior to spending all my time and money on hoodoo supplies.”
He put his arm around me, and I felt torn. I leaned into him slightly, enjoying the contact, but in a way, it just left me empty. No one ever put their arm around me, or hadn’t in months, and my brain had trouble processing it. I closed my eyes and expected to breath in the scent of aftershave; instead I got soap. I didn’t fit quite the same way under his arm, and it was a little awkward.
I missed Devlin.
“I think your hoodoo solved everything,” he said.
“Oh really?”
“Yeah. I mean, what are the odds that they’d end up here, tonight, at this time? Noelle didn’t come here with me ever. Did you and Devlin go here?”
I shook my head.
“See? You did it. And you did spells to break them up, so they already don’t want to be together. Now they’re going to realize how much they miss us and come back to us. Problem solved.”
He sounded so sure of himself. I wish I was that sure...
Sebastian sat down. I didn’t. Across the room, I saw Devlin and Noelle standing to leave. No, no, this wasn’t good. If they stayed, they could get drunk and possibly break up while Sebastian and I glared at them.
I started moving towards the exit, Devlin and Skankerella as my target. Lilith jumped up and stepped in my path. She reached for my arm, gentle but firm.
“You don’t want to do this,” she said.
I pulled my arm away. “Yeah, I do.”
“Briar—”
She didn’t follow when I ran towards the door.
Devlin glanced over his shoulder and saw me approaching. He rolled his eyes, whispered something to Noelle, and then he stayed behind while she went out ahead.
When he turned to face me, I felt like I’d been physically slapped. I’d never seen him look so hostile, and I felt my confidence slip away.
“What the hell, Briar?”
“I just...” Fuck. What had I been planning to say? Oh, yeah, right. I hadn’t planned anything. Because I’m stupid.
“What?” he repeated.
“I...I miss you.”
He sighed.
“And I’m sorry. I love you and—”
“So you stalk me? Is that it?”
“Well, no.” Maybe kinda... “Unintentionally—we thought we were stalking the skank and—”
“Her name is Noelle.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s actually ‘dirty slut.’”
“So you hooked up with her psycho ex-boyfriend and—”
“He’s not a psycho! And she cheated on him! Apparently with you. Or if it wasn’t you, I hope you got her tested for S.T.D.’s ‘cause eww.”
Devlin opened his mouth to say something. I was losing him. I knew it.
“But…” I cut in. “But I love you and...I just want you to forgive me.”
“And what’s that supposed to achieve? Me forgiving you?”
Why was everyone asking such hard questions while I was drunk?
“Does that mean we’re supposed to get back together?”
“W-well...”
“You made your choice,” he said coldly. “It’s over. Deal with it.” He stormed out of the bar and I couldn’t think of what else to say.
Dejected, I wandered back towards our table. Lilith still had Mom-Face but at least she didn’t say “I told you so.”
I slumped down in my chair. “That wouldn’t have happened to Tina Fey.”
“It’s okay,” Sebastian said. “It’s Friday. We can do reconciliation stuff—that’s what you said before. We’ll go do it right now and then tomorrow—”
I was sick of hearing it. Sick of all of it. “I liked you better when you were plotting against Alicia.”
“But—”
I stood again. “I’m going to get a drink.”
“But you have beer here,” Sebastian said, raising my half finished glass.
I ignored him. I had the harder stuff in mind.