Page 100 of Top Shelf

“Yes.”

“So come prove it.”

Chase makes a strangled sound and points between us. “You can’t make the Swedish guy sing *NSYNC. He needs to sing Backstreet Boys with me.”

“I don’t need to do anything with you,” I tell him. “You’re not my wife.”

“That’s hurtful, Vikky.”

“Don’t call me that. And it is accurate.”

Heidi slides out of the booth and offers me her hand. “Come on, Karlsson. Sing with your wife!”

There are many reasons to refuse. I know none of the dance moves, and I know even fewer of the words. Chase will never let me forget this, and my teammates have phones.

But Heidi reaches toward me, her face bright with challenge and laughter, and every reason becomes useless. So I take her hand, and the booth erupts.

“Wait!” Chase passes the spare microphone. “Dedication first.”

Heidi looks at him, then over to me. Her expression becomes deeply suspicious.

“I’d like to dedicate this performance to Viktor Karlsson, who could have watched Chase be confidently wrong and chosen peace.”

“And I’d like to dedicate it,” Chase cuts in, “to the institution of marriage, which has apparently taken a perfectly decent Swedish defenseman and turned him into an accomplice.”

Heidi blinks at him. “You’re not involved in our marriage.”

“I was happy before it.”

She laughs. “You were yelling about Backstreet Boys ten minutes ago.”

“Exactly! Now look what you’ve done to me.”

She ignores him and chooses *NSYNC’s “I Want You Back,” which is when I discover that Heidi doesn’t just know the song, she knows the choreography—enthusiastically. Memorized years ago when she was a teen and stored somewhere in her body, only to now be resurrected with no shame at all.

She points at me encouragingly, directing me to sing, so I look at the screen and do my best. The first line goes badly, and Chase makes a sound like a howling animal from the booth.

Heidi catches my shirt and drags me back toward her. “Ignore him.”

“I am trying.”

“You’re doing amazing, sweetie. Confidence is part of performance.”

“I play professional hockey in front of eighteen thousand people.”

“And yet this is where you crumble.”

She turns into the next step with absolutely no shame, hair flying around her shoulders, then points at me when my line appears on the screen.

So I sing. Badly.

The room claps along, and Lulu screams encouragement. Zoe is recording, and Carina laughs into Reid’s shoulder. Even Reid is smiling, which is rare enough that someone should document the date.

But Heidi is not embarrassed, and that’s what holds me still for a beat longer than the terrible music. She doesn’t pause to check if people approve, and she isn’t making herself smaller because the dance is silly or her voice isn’t perfect or because everyone is watching.

She gives herself to the moment with her whole body, laughing when she misses a step, recovering, pulling me back in with her hand on my shirt and a grin aimed straight at my chest.

I’ve seen Heidi angry. Both flustered and focused. Filthy in the shower with her hand around my cock and my name in her mouth. But this version is different. She is unguarded. A woman inside her own body without apology, singing a boyband song in a sticky karaoke bar as though the world has never once made her feel too much.