“Aaaaaand the shoe drops,” I said, crumpling my chip bag and flinging it at her.
Kristen looked proud of herself and Josh shook his head, wiping his mouth with a napkin in his best I’m-staying-out-of-it performance of the night.
“Kristen, no. I’m sure Jason doesn’t want to hear us sing. I’m sure that Jason doesn’t want to sin—”
“I love karaoke,” Jason said.
“He loves karaoke!” Kristen beamed at Jason.
“I’m going to kill you,” I breathed, only half kidding.
After dinner, when the plates were cleared, Kristen and Josh went to fire up the microphones and I cornered Jason in the kitchen.
“I am so, so sorry,” I said, putting my forehead to his chest. “I told you. I told you this would happen.”
He smiled down on me. “What? Karaoke?”
“Yes!” I said, looking up at him. “She’s trying to get you to sing!”
“I do sing professionally. This isn’t particularly distressing for me.”
“It’s distressing for me!”
If he turned into Jaxon Waters in front of me, I was going to pass out.
“Why?” he said, tipping my chin up. “You don’t want me to sing for you? Still a little traumatized by the car wash a cappella?” He smiled, doing that thing where he puts his mouth really close to mine and I can’t focus anymore. He normally reserved this type of behavior for our good-night kiss on the porch. It was highly distracting.
“Uh-huh,” I murmured, not remembering the question.
He pulled away a little, letting me get my wits back. “I’m having a good time. Relax. Josh warned me about the karaoke. He said he’d talk her out of it if I wasn’t okay with it. It’s totally fine.”
“Josh told you?”
“He did. Also, I have no idea how to spell ‘chlamydia.’”
I snorted.
He leaned in and whispered against my mouth again. “You’re going to tell me everything Kristen said on the way home, right?”
“Uh…she said to swing from branches and touch your— No,” I said, shaking myself out of my stupor.
“Touch my what?” he asked, grinning.
The sound of “Love Shack” began to spill through the doorway. Josh started the song and Kristen broke in with “Loooove SHACK!”
I rolled my eyes. “These two plan to close the place down.”
He smiled. “Let’s go in there before they think we’ve snuck off for a quickie.”
“Kristen is all for me jumping your bones. It wouldn’t surprise me if both our beers were spiked with ecstasy. In fact, don’t drink anything she gives you.”
“I don’t need a drug to want to take you for a quickie,” he said, sliding his hands under the bottom of my shirt so he held me by the bare skin of my waist. He put his mouth by my ear. “Will you come with me to Minnesota this weekend?”
I literally started choking on my own saliva. “To Minnesota? Like, to meet your parents? Tomorrow?”
“Yes, to meet my parents. And my asshole of a brother, David.”
The asshole comment made me laugh. Then my eyelid started twitching.
He nuzzled his nose to mine. “I don’t know when I’ll be out there again, and I want you to come with me. It’s really casual. My parents are very laid back.”
I didn’t want to go three days without him. But meeting his parents? Already? And wasn’t Minnesota really, really cold?
“Jason, I’ve been your girlfriend for like five minutes.”
“Yeah, and I already told them all about you.”
I pulled my face back to look at him. “You did? What did you say?”
“The truth. That you held my dog ransom until I agreed to go out on a date with you.”
I hit him and he chuckled.
“Come on. Don’t make me miss you for three days. It’ll be fun. Come with me.”
He said he’d miss me. I melted.
“Okay,” I said.
He beamed. “Yes?”
“Yes. Fine. Take me to Minnesota.”
Screw it. Why not? What else was I going to do while he was gone besides wish I were with him?
He smiled and put his forehead to mine, pulling me closer to him. “I want something else,” he said to my eyes.
I arched my eyebrow, but he just laughed.
“Not that. Although I wouldn’t mind that,” he added. “I want you to cook with my mom when we get there. It would mean a lot to her.”
I rubbed my nose to his. “You couldn’t stop me if you tried.”
He smiled and was leaning in to kiss me when Kristen popped her head into the kitchen. We jumped like teenagers who’d just gotten caught making out on the sofa.
“Hey! Get a room!” she said, talking into the microphone so it reverberated through the house. Then she whispered into the mic, “Seriously, the guest room is all made up. Make yourselves comfortable.” She bit her lip and bounced her eyebrows and then disappeared back into the living room.
Jason and I put our heads together and laughed.
“Come on. I want to sing a duet with you,” he said.
I groaned.
“Need a shot of courage? I bet Kristen has some tequila.” He grinned.
“Tequila officially tastes like the time I almost died. I’m going to have to go it sober.”
He chuckled and dragged me into the living room by the hand.
When “Love Shack” was over, Kristen roped me into singing “Hopelessly Devoted to You” with her. I died of embarrassment, but it was her birthday and Kristen was happy and that was what mattered.
Then the inevitable happened and Jason’s turn was up.
“What do you want me to sing?” he asked Kristen. “Any requests?”
“‘The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,’” she said, without even thinking about it.
It was for me. There was no question. I was going to kill her.
Jason put a thumb over his shoulder. “Hey, you know, I have my guitar in the truck. Would it be okay if I got it?”
Kristen’s eyes flew wide. “Seriously? Yes. Yes, you can get it. Are you kidding me? Go!”
Jason got up and went out to the truck. Josh and Kristen looked stoked. And why wouldn’t they be? They’d gotten a Grammy-winning musician to serenade them at their barbecue. I, on the other hand, felt a fine sweat breaking out across my forehead.
I was just getting used to the idea of having a boyfriend. I was still months away—maybe even years—from getting used to the idea that he was Jaxon Waters. The only way that I dealt with this fact was by doing my best to forget it. I was completely not ready for this.
Kristen and Josh sandwiched me on the sofa, elbow to elbow. Jason came back in with a guitar case and I felt myself being sucked into his vortex, just watching him pulling out his instrument. I was a complete groupie, it was embarrassing. I wondered if he could tell.
I picked up a Parenting magazine from the coffee table and started to fan myself while Jason stood in front of the TV, tuning his strings. That alone was enough to give me heart palpitations. But when he began to play…That was absolutely unreal. It was all over for me. I was officially in love.