I laughed, but watched him, hoping he didn’t really believe that.

Applause rang out from the next table as a girl finished singing some song I didn’t recognize. I clapped along.

“Ruby Chertok, you’re up!” said the man with the mic.

“What. I. No.” Everyone was looking at me.

“Yay!” Jules stood and clapped. “You can do it!”

“You are such an asshole,” I growled.

She curtsied.

“Ruby Chertok?” they called again.

Oscar’s smile dropped. He leaned in. “You don’t have to. They’ll go on to the next person and we’ll eat some nachos. Let’s eat some nachos!”

He was thinking about Wing Club—I wanted to jump into his lap and kiss him. I wanted to curl into a ball from the memory. Instead I wobbled upright.

Jules waved for me to sit back down. “It was a dumb joke, you don’t have to actually—”

“I’ll do it.” I shrugged, with effort. “It’s singing, it’s fine.”

Jules let out a surprised whoop and Oscar started clapping along.

I wandered to the mic. “I don’t even know the song.”

The guy with the mic winked. “Everybody knows this song.”

And crap, the music had already started and I was holding the mic. In the middle of a Mexican restaurant with big windows open to Amsterdam. But I needed to do this. This was silly, pointless, the lowest of low culture, and dear God above, I had to see something through.

The words Tommy used to work on the docks appeared onscreen.

I opened my mouth, silent.

“Come on!” Jules shouted. The music kept playing.

I shrugged wildly. “I don’t know it!”

Some frat boys at the bar started to boo, as well they should. I couldn’t even make it through a karaoke song. I buried my face in my elbow, the mic making a long scratching sound on my hair, when a terrible voice rang out through the speakers.

“She brings home her pay for love . . . for looooove!”

I opened my eyes to see Oscar standing next to me with his own mic, taking up the reins of whatever song this . . . wait, I did think I knew it! And here came Jules too, sprinting across the restaurant to lean into the mic and sing along.

By the time we got to the chorus, I had it and I was singing too, all three of us together, cacophonous, laughing.

I didn’t even notice when they dropped out. I just knew I’d finished “Livin’ on a Prayer” by myself and didn’t die and even got a standing toast from those drunk guys.

“Damn you’ve got a good voice,” Jules said, pulling me happily back to our table.

“Doesn’t she?” Oscar beamed proudly and I couldn’t help but beam back.