Page 26 of Yours, Finally

I shifted my gaze at Lina, who looked back at me with a gleam. The warmth of Jake's skin still tickled the back of my hand, and I had to fist it not to reach for him and ask for more, but all I did was wrinkle my nose at Lina and roll my eyes.

By the time my name was announced, I was ready to make the best of it. Gabe and Lina whooped, while Jake laughed and clapped, and I took to the stage with a big smile.

'Love is a Battlefield' by Pat Benatar started playing and I danced to the music; a long time ago I'd watched the video and I tried to imitate the shoulder move the singer had done for it. The memory was hazy and soon I had devolved to my own moves for the rest of the intro.

I put my all to the start of the song. With a groan-slash-rasping voice, I sang about strength, and kept on dancing while reading the lyrics I barely remembered. My smile faltered as I got more into the song and made sense of the lyrics, but I pushed through. Danced it away, like I hadn't noticed how the song could apply to me… and Jake.

Where was the young women empowerment I remembered from the video? They fought the patriarchy with cool dance moves! But the music alone was different. The lyrics talked about the push and pull of a relationship that has always been there, at the edge of turning into reality, only to fall apart again. Keeping you hooked. Full of angst. Or whatever you wanted to get out of the song, of course.

But I grinned, danced, and pretended I was fighting the patriarchy, too. I took in the claps, the singing that reached me from nearby tables, and bowed when the song ended. I kept my smile as I put the mic back in its holder, and went back to our table.

"That was amazing!" Gabe said. "You sing better than I remembered."

"So I didn't make a fool of myself?" I stole a glance at Jake, who looked at me with a smirk.

"You did not." Lina high-fived me. "So I got inspired and signed up myself."

"I did too." Jake continued to direct a smile my way. "Thank you for that."

"I'll have a hard time competing with the show you gave everyone, though," Lina added. "You're just so damn likeable."

"Not bad for a stuffy VP, right?" I laughed. "Besides, I'm sure you can stun them all, cuñadita."

"Yeah, no." She gave me a doubtful look. "I'll have fun, but I'm glad I'm not following your act."

"You'll steal the show, amor." Gabe kissed Lina on the cheek.

She smiled but gave my brother the side eye. "You say that because you love me."

"Yeah, and it's perfectly reasonable." Gabe took her chin, turned Lina's face to him, and gave her a smacking kiss on the lips.

Jake stared at his glass with a smirk on his lips. I gazed at the stage, where someone did a pretty good rendition of a love song.

I was ecstatic for Gabe and Lina and the love they shared. To see my big brother build the kind of relationship we'd been lucky to see in our parents growing up. Yet I couldn't deny the little tear that opened in my heart, that I couldn't say the same for myself.

Plenty of people might have said I was failing modern feminism by craving romantic love. To that I said, fuck it. If I wanted to know what romantic love felt like, that was my prerogative. The truth in my heart. And if you really got me going, I might have argued that diminishing the value of someone longing for love was a form of misogyny.

That wasn't where my thoughts went that night. They went to the fact Jake was by my side, and I had wondered for years if he might be that love for me.

If with him, I might finally feel what love should feel like.

It wasn't until he took to the stage that I had to confront just how deeply entwined Jake and the longing for love were inside of me.

He didn't even blush. Something had changed for him, and he appeared confident as he took the mic in his big hand. I could have looked at the screen to know what song he would play but I didn't— I couldn't, my eyes were for him alone.

The stage light had a tint to it that made his hair look more red than blond, and when he gazed out to the crowd, his eyes seemed a faint violet. I leaned forward on my chair, as if it would help me document every detail. Even my breathing slowed down, and I stilled, all in the service of avoiding any distractions. I wanted to consume every morsel of him I could get from the moment.

'Black' by Pearl Jam started playing, and my already-light breath hiccuped to a stop. I knew the song but didn't really remember the lyrics; the fact it was a rare choice for karaoke meant I should pay attention to it.

I did as best as I could but oh, his voice. His voice— it cut deep into me. Maybe because it was Jake, or maybe because he wasgood, but his singing held power over me. A spell in how he sang the song his own way; still a deep voice like the original singer, but also like he got to share the words and make them his own.

Everyone else could hear it, too. People around us whooped and laughed and clapped in excitement; some of them joined but no one compared. Jake filled the place with his voice, with throatiness where it helped, raspiness and grit when it grabbed you by the core and made it rumble along.

"Wow." Gabe left a shocked gust of air out. "Wow, Jake."

"Did you know this?" Lina turned to Gabe and dropped a heavy hand on his leg. "How good he is?"

Gabe shook his head, his eyes still on his best friend. It pained me to keep my eyes away from Jake to watch their interaction, but Lina caught my gaze.