Page 97 of Top Shelf

Chase: Viktor you’re coming right?

Me: Yes.

Chase: With your WIFE???

I glance at Heidi, who’s still tucked into the other end of the couch, scrolling through her phone. She looks over when she notices me watching. “What?”

“Chase is organizing karaoke.”

She gasps. “Oh my god, I’m absolutely coming!”

Her whole face lights up with such pure, ridiculous delight that I know immediately I will do whatever it takes to see it again.

Even sit through Chase Walton murdering a Snoop Dogg song.

Me: Yes. With my wife.

Chase: MANDATORY MORALE!!!!!!!

Reid: Stop saying that.

By Friday, Chase has reserved some tables at a karaoke bar just off Colfax, complete with sticky tables, red vinyl booths, and the smell of fried food mixed with bad tequila. It is exactly the kind of place Chase loves.

Zoe arrives with Chase and immediately tells him he is not allowed to sing first because “this is not a hostage situation.” Carina and Reid come in next, Reid glaring at the karaoke machine with the same face he used to use for shootouts. Logan and Lulu slide into the booth with a basket of fries between them. Tamara and Eli are already arguing over whether power ballads require sincerity or drama, and Jake and Charlie show up last—Charlie laughing as Jake insists he will only sing if she does it with him and sings louder.

Heidi walks in beside me wearing black jeans, a cropped white top, and lipstick red enough that I think about ruining it before we make it to the table.

She catches me looking and smirks. “No to whatever you’re thinking.”

I lean down so only she can hear me. “I was thinking many things.”

“Were any of them appropriate for karaoke?”

“No.”

“Mm,” she hums. “Good.”

She slides into the booth, and I sit beside her because I no longer enjoy spaces that keep her out of my reach. Her thigh presses against mine under the table, which is normal for us both and should mean nothing. But my body does not treat it as nothing.

For the first hour, the room becomes exactly what Chase intended. Loud, stupid, and warm. It gets worse when he decides every performance needs a dedication.

“No,” Zoe says immediately.

“Yes.” His voice booms into a spare microphone he has somehow acquired despite not being employed here. “Karaoke without dedications is just yelling at a television.”

“That is literally what karaoke is!”

He ignores her. “Grant, Karlsson, you two are the new couple, so you’re first. The rules are simple—before you sing, dedicate the song to a person, event, or statistically significant achievement.”

Reid looks up from his beer. “Statistically significant?”

“This is a sports organization.”

“This is a bar.”

Zoe takes the microphone away from him before he can retort, and picks “Buttons” by the Pussycat Dolls, which she dedicates to “women everywhere who have survived a man explaining rules nobody asked for.”

Chase dramatically falls to his knees at her feet as she gyrates on the spot and sings directly at him. By the second chorus he has given up any hope of looking like he isn’t enjoying being publicly bullied by the woman he loves.