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“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?
