Page 5 of The Fake Divination Offense
I take back all my previous smartass thoughts about his karaoke name.Magnificentis completely accurate.
He’s about Seb’s height and size, but thinner, slighter, wearing a scarlet satin shirt unbuttoned to his stomach so it billows away from his bare chest, with tight black pants tucked into clunky gold boots. His pale skin is covered in a dusting of rosy golden glitter, and with his overall demeanor, I can’t figure out if it’s makeup or he’s part pixie.
Alexo sways in the musical interlude between verses, eyes shut, more of that rose-gold paint shimmering across each eyelid, his messy tangle of strawberry-blond curls gleaming pink in the stage lighting.
Wow, my brain supplies. And then keeps repeating that word in a dumbstruck rollover when Alexo the Magnificent dives into the next verse.
His eyes fly open, deep onyx brown, highlighted in thick black liner and mascara, and as the music builds, rage sparks there. A small pool of it at first, then it grows and grows, spreading acrosshis whole face until he’s snarling with the swell of the words and music,livin’ just to find emotion.
When he belts out that first long note, I don’t want to look away, but my head swings back, and I catch Darian’s eye. The whole damn bar is watching Alexo perform, most people slack-jawed, others bobbing to the song.
Darian meets my gaze over all the heads, and when I cock an eyebrow in an unspokenAre you seeing this?, he says something that gets picked up by his enchanted earring and subtitles under his face:
“This is why you leave karaoke to the professionals. You have to followthat.”
I roll my eyes and turn back to Alexo, because fuck Darian, that’s not what I meant. I’m not sure what I meant. I just—gods, this guy is throwing his whole body into the performance, dancing across the stage, and the crowd claps along. But Alexo seems unaware of them, each word of each verse coming from the very pit of his soul. I almost wonder if I missed him telling the audience he’s a siren and he’d be inadvertently casting an enchantment on us with this routine, but he doesn’t have the look of someone casting spells. This is for him. Just for him.
But I take a little of it for me, too.
There’s this god who fell out of favor centuries ago—Cendis, the god of small fires. Candlelight, sparks, embers, tiny touches of heat. He dropped away as people were more drawn to raging elemental fire gods, but I always found what he represented to be far more potent. He was the god ofbeginnings. Of having the ability to start a fire in the first place.
That’s what I see as Alexo bares his soul with this song. Someone trying with every wisp of their existence tobegin.
To be free.
Where the crowd is fully enjoying the song, dancing and laughing, a partying Thursday night, I go more and more slack as the music carries on. The lyrics drop in the last interlude, and Alexo’s previous dance moves were a warm-up.
He pirouettes around the stage, back arching, legs kicking up to his face, arms pinwheeling in a mesmerizing braid of limbs and fluidity. All the while keeping the mic cord from tangling and playing around the karaoke machine with the lyric screen he’s not once looked at—and avoiding a few reaching hands from the audience.
I jolt forward at that, shoulders bunching. I’m close enough to the edge of the stage that all I have to do is move to get the attention of the front row. When I glare, they sink back a few good inches.
Just because it’s unsafe. I don’t want him to trip. Obviously.
Alexo doesn’t notice. He whirls back into the last swell of lyrics, clinging to the mic with both hands, and singing,singinghis fucking heart out. Each long note becomes its own mini performance piece, his spine folding so far backward he’s defying gravity, and that part of my brain still goingwow, wow, wownow addshe’s flexiblealong with pathetic little whimpers.
The song fades out as Alexo holds in the position of the final note, hands still death-gripping the microphone, eyes pinched shut.
The music barely ends when the crowd explodes, hooting and cheering and clapping.
Alexo’s eyes blink open like he’s coming out of a trance. He straightens up and his gaze casts over the crowd, a slow smile lifting one side of his mouth—
His eyes land on me.
Something flashes through his expression, a quick scroll of surprise—and fear.
If it isn’t people fearing me for my aggressive patron god, it’s people fearing me for my size. Both valid reasons, unfortunately, but I don’t want this guy to be afraid of me, a want that flurries desperately in my chest.
I’m right up against the stage, arms folded over my chest, and he’s got the higher ground on me from this angle. I let my arms drop to my sides and try a grin. Encouraging, awed.
Alexo lets his eyes dip down my body before they ping back up.
He smiles.
It’s wide and wondrous, digging dimples into his cheeks and illuminating his dark eyes.
Oh, for gods’ sakes. Give a bi guy a chance, would you? Fuckingdimples.
Alexo eases the mic back onto the stand, faces the crowd, and sweeps into an elegant bow.
