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Jem’s mouth opened in an O.
“Holy shit,” Auggie crowed.
“You didn’t,” Jem said, but he was already laughing.
Emery shrugged and passed back the wallet, and Jem wrapped him in a hug, and everybody had to cheer again.
More drinks. More food. It was, it turned out, karaoke night, and as the club staff set up the equipment on a temporary stage, someone in their group ordered shots—that part was hazy—and Theo came back with a roll of quarters.
“You’re shitting me,” North said.
“In college, North always beat everybody at quarters,” Shaw said, hanging from North’s neck. He was talking at approximately the speed of light, and North tried to make a mental note to cut off his Coke the next time he had a chance. “North always beats everyone at quarters!”
Auggie said something to Theo that made Theo grin, and then they started to play. Tean, Shaw, and John-Henry opted out, but the rest of the guys were in. They set up the goal cups and the penalty drink, and they started to play. North managed to get his quarter in—barely. Emery didn’t, and he had to drink. Auggie drank too. Jem got his quarter in with a smirk.
But so did Theo. And something about the way Theo grinned—a tiny expression, only for himself—made North worried.
He messed up the next round and had to drink, and Emery—after a lot of swearing—drank as well and then said, “I’m out.” Auggie had to do a shot, and then, with a surprisingly guilty look at Theo, said, “Me too.”
Jem made his next shot, and Theo.
North didn’t. He ripped another shot.
After that, he knew he was fighting an uphill battle. He couldn’t prove it, but he was pretty sure Jem was cheating somehow—although what that might look like in a game of quarters, North had no idea, and he wasn’t in any condition to consider it more carefully. Theo, on the other hand, was just a machine, and he destroyed North.
Finally, North had to surrender. “I give up! I give up!”
Theo laughed, and Jem slapped him five, and somehow North was grinning as big as anyone else at the table.
That was when the music started, and a familiar voice came over the speakers. Shaw had gotten on the stage somehow without North noticing, and next to him, of all people, was John-Henry, grinning.
“This song goes out to my soulmate—” Shaw began.
“Take it off!” someone from the crowd shouted.
John-Henry grinned and patted the air for quiet.
“We want to see the duct tape!” another man screamed.
Whatever that meant, it made John-Henry burst out laughing. Even Emery laughed, and North felt a moment of remote surprise when he realized Emery Hazard was drunk. And I’m drunk, he thought, although that was less clear to him. We’re all drunk.
“—North McKinney,” Shaw concluded.
Maybe it was the beer. Ok, it was definitely the beer. But North felt himself tearing up.
The song was “Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy),” by Big & Rich, and an enormous cheer went up from the crowd. North already knew Shaw had a nice voice, but he was surprised—and then not—that John-Henry did too. Because of course John-Henry did. Because he was John-Henry. The best part was that they both got into it, and when the chorus came, Shaw dropped down to all fours, and John-Henry stood astride him and pretended to twirl a lasso. If that wasn’t a panty-drop moment, North decided, he didn’t know what one was.
That was why he almost missed Tean and Theo’s private contest. The two men were sitting in the booth, faces screwed up as they stared at each other, and for one unsteady moment, North thought they were shitting themselves. Then Tean reached into his mouth and pulled out a cherry stem that he’d tied into a knot. With his tongue.
“Oh my God,” Auggie hammered on the table. “The doc!”
Tean blushed, but he was smiling, and Theo grinned wryly as he pulled the cherry stem from his mouth—untied, North noticed.
“That is my man!” Jem shouted as he crawled down the booth to pin Tean against the wall and start what looked like a serious make-out session.
Everything was less clear from that point. North had a vague recollection of Tean (once he’d wriggled free from Jem) and John-Henry trying to balance coasters on their noses. And he remembered Emery and Shaw doing barstool races, spinning and then running and then spinning again until they couldn’t stand up straight and had to lean against each other, laughing. And then, of course, the dance-off.
He couldn’t remember how it started, only that he found himself at the edge of a clearing on the dance floor as Jem made his way to the center of the circle. The music changed, and when the beat dropped, Jem started break dancing. North knew enough to recognize top rock, and Jem was doing some quality footwork. Then, when the bass hammered in, Jem went down. He started with the flare, his body supported on one arm as he swung his lower body around in a circle. Then he flipped over, and North had no idea what the next move was called, only that it was some kind of transition into the windmill. Jem rolled and spun, only his shoulders and arms making contact with the floor. The music swelled, and all of a sudden Jem was doing a one-handed handstand—a freeze, North thought it was called. And then it was over.
