Page 61 of Your Echo
I’m about to hit send when my phone gets ripped out of my hands.
“JP, what the fuck?” I demand.
He bounces away with my phone and starts typing something on the screen.
“Yoga babe is coming to karaoke!” he crows. “I just told her you’ll buy her drinks all night if she does.”
“You asshole. She doesn’t even drink.”
JP looks back down at the screen. “Oh, she just replied: ‘You’re bad at convincing people. Did you forget I don’t drink? And why are you texting in French all of a sudden? I can’t say no to karaoke with Sherbrooke Station, though. My roommate would kill me if she found out I turned that down.’”
JP starts doing some kind of Latin-inspired celebration dance. It distracts him enough that I can steal my phone back. I type out an explanation to Stéphanie and tell her she doesn’t actually have to come. Her reply arrives a moment later:
Just give me a few minutes to change. Also I am NOT SINGING.
* * *
“Is this...normal for him?”
It’s almost midnight. The karaoke place is fuller than I’ve ever seen it, which isn’t saying much since I only come here once a year. Matt and Kay are whispering together at the far end of our booth, Cole is staring down at the bottom of his whiskey glass, and I have my arm around Stéphanie’s shoulders.
“I wish I could say no,” I tell her, answering her question, “but yes, this is normal for him.”
JP found a table full of people from his hometown and is now standing up on said table and leading them all in a rendition of ‘Since U Been Gone.’ Seeing fiveveryFrench Canadian guys stumble through the lyrics of a Kelly Clarkson song is not something I’ll ever forget, no matter how much I might want to.
“I’m surprised he still has his shirt on,” Cole mutters from beside me, breaking about an hour’s worth of silence.
“Hey, it speaks,” I joke.
“And it leaves.” He drains the rest of his whiskey and stands up. “I’m heading out, guys.”
“Cole, wait!” Matt calls, but Cole just shakes his head and takes off toward the exit.
“Is he okay?” Stéphanie asks me.
I trace the swell of her shoulder with my thumb. She’s still got her stage makeup on, and the purple bar lights reflect on the glitter in her hair. She looked stunning before, but in this lighting, with her thigh pressed up against mine, she looks sexy as hell. I’ve barely paid attention to anything other than her mouth all night.
“He will be,” I tell her. “He’s having issues with his girlfriend, but they’ve broken up like five times before, and they always get back together.”
“Why do they keep breaking up?”
I shrug. “He doesn’t really get into it with us. They’ve known each other since Roxanne was just sixteen. She came to Montreal all by herself, and Cole helped her through some shit. Cole has this...can’t live with her, can’t live without her kind of thing when it comes to Roxy.”
“Ace! Ace! Ace! Ace!”
We all turn to where JP is holding a microphone, still up on the table and leading all his new best friends in the chant.
“What the fuck do you want?” I shout over the noise.
JP does a Jackie Chan type jump-kick off the table and then runs up to me with the mic.
“You’re up!” he announces. “R.E.M. or Bruce Springsteen?”
“Neither,” I say firmly. “Make Matt sing.”
“Dude, no one wants to hear me sing,” Matt pipes up.
He’s not wrong about that. I’ve heard Matt sing before, and there’s a good reason JP is the one who does backing vocals for the band.
