He stumbles onto the small stage, grabs the microphone like it's personally offended him, and proceeds to assault Bonnie Tyler's legacy with the vocal equivalent of a cat being strangled.
"Turn around," Brad wails, pointing dramatically at his friends. "Bright eyes!"
"Oh my God," I whisper. "He's not even close to the right key."
"I don't think he's even close to the right song," Riley says.
The entire bar seems to collectively wince as Brad hits—or rather, violently misses—the chorus.
And it’s spectacular in the way natural disasters are spectacular.
You can't look away.
"You know what?" I announce, suddenly emboldened by bad singing and Jose Cuervo. "I'm doing it."
"Doing what?" Sasha's eyes narrow suspiciously.
"Karaoke. I'm getting up there."
"Emma, no—"
"Emma, yes." I slide off my stool, the sand-dusted floor crunching under my sandals. My heart thuds with the reckless freedom that only comes after heartbreak and bad margaritas. “Watch and learn, ladies. This is what moving on looks like.”
I march toward the sign-up sheet, weaving through tables and ignoring Riley's whispered plea to "please God, think about what you're doing."
I'm three feet from the DJ booth when someone, trying to avoid my trajectory, shifts over to my right.
His elbow catches the edge of a passing server's tray.
The tray tilts.
My margarita—my third margarita, the one I'd just ordered, the one that's dangerously full—goes airborne.
Time slows.
I watch in horror as the glass tumbles through the air, ice, tequila and lime spinning in a perfect curve ofdoom. It hits the edge of the bar, ricochets, and explodes across the front of the most expensive-looking white button-down shirt I've ever seen.
The shirt is attached to a man.
And not just any man.
A man who looks like he stepped out of a magazine spread titled "Silver Foxes Gone Hemsworth.”
He's tall—easily over six feet—with dark hair that's silvered at the temples.
Sharp jaw. Straight nose.
With the kind of bone structure that makes you wonder if he's secretly related to every Renaissance statue ever carved.
His eyes, currently fixed on his dripping shirt, are a steel gray that probably looks devastating.
You know, when he's not covered in tequila and lime pulp.
"Oh my God." The words tumbleout of my mouth in a horrified rush. “I am so so sorry. I didn't—that wasn't—I swear I didn’t mean to—“
He looks up. Blinks.
Once.
