I should have left then, probably. If I didn’t want the lap straddling, tongue stuff to happen. But I didn’t. Instead, I stayed long enough until time slid into the blurry karaoke alternate universe. Where all that mattered was each song, singing along and laughing and forgetting that anything other than this—pop songs and nostalgia and queer people—existed.

The first song I somehow allowed myself to be pulled onto the dance floor for was Flo Rida’s “Low,” which was, both the song itself and the dancing that was happening to it, absolutely ridiculous. There was no real stage at Moonie’s, just the open dance floor at the front of the room, so whenever the night hit that spot, that point where all self-consciousness fled and someone chose a song that really popped, half of the room congregated up there, swarming around the singer, one silly, uncoordinated mass that tore down all borders. Including the border that should have prevented Sam Bell from ever, ever dancing to Flo Rida’s “Low.”

But Lily, of course, could get low, like really fucking impressively so, and I just sort of bounced around haphazardly and tried not to get too hard while she worked her hips and her breasts and her shoulders in an exceedingly distracting way. The only thing that saved me from combusting was the fact that there were twenty other assholes around us doing the same exact thing.

Five seconds after “Low,” as we were making our way, sweaty and breathing too hard, back to the table, the next singer busted out a Lady Gaga banger that I had definitely not even thought about in at least ten years. Which meant we immediately changed course and charged back to the dance floor.

And then—shockingly, because I had almost forgotten—Kiki called our names. Lily and Sam.

And next thing I knew, I had a microphone in my hand, and Lily was beaming at me. And I told myself that this would be the easiest thing I’d ever done because I could let Lily carry us the entire way. But my face flushed red anyway as the words flashed on the screen attached to the ceiling above us: “Total Eclipse of the Heart.”

And then the words popped up, and Lily elbowed me in the side and said, “You’re Voice 1,” and fuck, I couldn’t just let Lily carry us because this was a duet. Which I would have fully realized when Lily put it down on that slip of paper if I hadn’t been so distracted by her face, and the dimples in her round cheeks when she smiled.