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Note to readers:

This novella includes brief mentions of gender dysphoria and fatphobia.

Dedication

For memories of Chopsticks III, and the friends who let me sing along

And for pop music, which saves me still

1

Sam

All my friends were assholes.

I tried to leave for the bar later tonight; I really did. I sat around my apartment for as long as possible, snacking on cheesy puffs and watching my cats growl at each other. Garfunkel always antagonized Simon and Simon always played right into it. They were both idiots.

But even after stalling for what felt like forever, I was still the first one at Moonie’s. Like always.

Moonie’s was technically The Moonlight Café, although nobody actually called it that. The café in particular always tickled me. As if we were conjuring uncomfortable chairs on the sidewalk in Montmartre, sipping tiny cups of espresso and chomping on perfectly flaky croissants. You couldn’t get a croissant at Moonie’s if you begged on your hands and knees.

Still, I loved Moonie’s, in this pure, uncomplicated way, like children loved snow days, or cats loved tiny dots of red light. I loved its not-so-slight seediness, its sticky floors and dreadful food selection, its weird location in the middle of an industrial wasteland section of the city. Moonie’s wasn’t a place you happened to stumble into during a night out on the town. Moonie’s was a place you went to on purpose.

And even though it didn’t actually advertise itself as a queer bar, all the queers knew it was Our Place. We all came here on purpose. For some reason. Some cheap liquor, excellent karaoke reason.

What I didn’t love was having to be the one who saved our table every time, awkwardly thumbing through my phone and nursing a beer until someone else in our group finally decided to show. It was like my friends completely forgot that time we showed up and our entire favorite table—including the tables from the side we always dragged over to make ÜberTable—was taken by a sloppy bachelorette party. It had been a qualified disaster, but apparently I was the only one who cared.

Or perhaps, my friends simply knew I was the only one who cared. Hence taking advantage of me always being here early to save our table.

Although, okay. If I was being honest...I was also here this early for my own sake. Because if I wasn’t out of the house by 8:30—the time of night I was typically already rolling into my jam jams and gleefully snuggling under my covers to watch YouTube until I passed out—then the probability of me actually leaving the house at all decreased exponentially.

Sometimes, I wondered if I’d gotten too old and pathetic for even Moonie’s.

But no. I wasn’t. Not yet. Because I was here now. And each time I came here, it reminded me, reassured me. That I still had the ability to break loose a little. And I needed that.

After tossing my jacket around a chair, I walked to the bar on the opposite side of the room, waited for the super unfriendly butch bartender to notice me. She was here almost every time we came to Moonie’s and had never smiled at me once. I was equal parts terrified of and deeply in love with her.

My phone buzzed in my pocket.

Claire: Harry just vommed all over the nice rug

Kort: truly disgusting

Claire: going to have to cancel the sitter

Kort: ugh, why are babies

Claire: I’m so sorry :(

Kort: we made poor life choices

“You need something?”

I jumped. Fuck. Scary Butch Bartender finally noticed me while I was oblivious on my phone, which definitely meant she hated me even more now. This was an ominous start to the evening.

“Sorry, I’m so sorry. Just a Rainier.”

She plopped the can on the counter and wordlessly stuck out her hand for my card. After I handed it over with what I hoped was my most charming, so-sorry-again, I-am-gonna-tip-you-so-hard smile, I slinked back to our table. Well, my table, currently. Should I make ÜberTable now, to make sure we had it? Except…with Claire and Kort out, that meant their weird neighbors likely wouldn’t come, either, which sucked, because even though they were fucking weird, they reliably provided at least half of our most memorable Moonie’s moments.

With a groan, I remembered Nate was out of town, too. So he and whatever randoms he normally pulled in were also out.

We might not even have to shove an obnoxious number of tables together at all.

I slumped down into my seat at my singular table, accompanied by my cold can of lager and my friend, Instagram. Which I definitely had already caught up on while I was eating cheesy puffs in my apartment.

Sigh. Twitter it was.

Things only began to look up when Kiki, the karaoke jockey, walked by on her way to her station fifteen minutes later and gave me a wave. I smiled back. Kiki was without a doubt our favorite KJ. She liked us, didn’t let the same people hog the mic over and over, and was cute as hell. I was pissed Claire and Kort were missing out on a Kiki night. Their loss for deciding to raise spawn.

I’d finished off my Rainier by the time another text of doom appeared on my phone, this time from Rae: I am so sorry, if I don’t get this brief done this weekend I am royally screwed.

So. Claire, Kort, Weird Neighbors, Nate, Nate’s Randoms, and Rae were officially missing out on a Kiki night.

I stared at the sparkly letters that adorned the wall next to me, that had adorned this wall for all of eternity: HAPPY BIRTH AY, they shouted, seemingly at anyone, the D long missing. At Moonie’s, every day was someone’s birth ay. It had become a phrase of affection amongst my friends and me, particularly at the drunken end of a karaoke night, shouting it at each other nonsensically: HAAAPPY BIRTH-AYYYY!

But clearly, the likelihood of birth ay proclamations tonight appeared dim. With everyone else out, the only friends who remained were Steve, whom I loved but who refused to sing at karaoke, which lessened the fun a bit, and Kelsey. And you truly never knew if Kelsey was going to ever actually show to an event or not. Which would be annoying with anyone else, but Kelsey was so fucking hysterical whenever she did decide to show that her flakiness was instantly forgiven every time.

Even if she did show tonight, me, Kelsey, and Steve would be...kind of an odd group. Missing too much of the glue of everyone else. Best to bail now for the good of the order.

I stood, moving toward the bar. Man, Butch Bartender was gonna be pissed when I closed out on a $4 tab.

But then the door opened.

I was already at the bar when she walked in. I sucked in a breath.

Lemon yellow dress tonight, splashed all over with large, blood-red poppies. Her shoulders were draped in a velvet jacket the same shade of red as the flowers on her dress. Although the jacket didn’t hide the neckline of said dress, which dipped low in a glorious V, framing her breasts perfectly. She laughed as her group walked to their table, and I caught a bright, brief glimpse of it—straight white teeth framed by cherry red lipstick, curving around an exhalation of mirth—before she turned away. She was wearing thick hoop earrings, sea green, just enough of a color contrast to the rest of her outfit to look clever. When she turned, I could see glitter on her cheeks, sparkling gold even under the dim lights.

She always looked good.

But fuck, she looked good tonight.

“Another?”

Butch Bartender had caught me unawares again. And when she held up another sweating can of Rainier, I nodded. Like the miserable human being I was.

I scooted back to my table, telling myself it was not super creepy to nurse another beer for the sole purpose of getting to hear my karaoke crush sing her signature opening song. I mean, I did put on pants and everything for this outing. It would be sad if I left before I even heard one song. Especially if it was hers.

My karaoke crush, or KC as I called her in my head—being that my brain always forgot her actual name, being that we had never actually talked to each other—and her group of friends weren’t here every time our group was, but like a lot of other Moonie’s regulars, we frequently overlapped. When she didn’t show, I had a rotation of other karaoke crushes amongst the Moonie’s Strangers Who Didn’t Necessarily Feel Like Strangers When We Were Here, as I had a rotation of crushes for almost every aspect of my life.

I was very good at being thirsty. Less successful at the actual drinking part.

Everyone else paled in comparison to my #1 KC, though. She always wore the prettiest clothes, usually brightly colored dresses, as she was tonight. Sometimes she mixed it up, though. Last summer, during a particularly rough heat wave, she came to Moonie’s wearing short overalls in this wacky checkered pattern over a tight tank top. I had never seen her show that much arm or leg before, and she looked so powerful on the dance floor when she sang that I almost passed out.

Because that’s what #1 KC was: powerful. I’d overheard her chatting at her table with her friends before, and her speaking voice was surprisingly feather light and high pitched. But when she had a mic in front of her, she had one of those voices that you could tell came straight from her gut. Like the strength of her lungs could blow, blow, blow your house down. She didn’t prance around the dance floor like some of these queers did—although to be clear, I was always here for a prancing queer—but moved her body in a way that mattered, in a way that made you stop and pay attention. She was big and gorgeous and whenever she sang I wanted to just...melt into her.

And then sneak into the bathroom with her and bang against the wall.

Not that that would ever happen.

But a non-binary-person-who-appeared-to-have-no-friends could dream.

Aaaand there she went. Walking up to Kiki. Putting in her first request.

I took a big swig of Rainier. Which I then proceeded to choke on. The bar was starting to fill up now, and not only was I taking up a whole table by myself, I was apparently losing the ability to even function properly.

I got a hold of myself, and moved to a small two-seater, back in the corner. As far from ÜberTable as I could get. Such was my fate.

My phone buzzed in my pocket again.

Text from Steve: wait so is anyone making it to Moonie’s tonight?? Running super late anyway, let me know!

Kiki picked up the mic and moved to the center of the floor.

“Time to get this party started, my people! My request list is still pretty light, and you know it won’t be that way for long. Bring me your songs, babes!”

With a wink, she launched into the first song of the night.

Kiki liked to kick off karaoke herself, which, considering she was going to spend the next several hours of her life listening to drunk people screech and holler in her ear, she fully deserved. She had a great voice, a cute little shimmy, and she always chose the best throwbacks.

Although when she launched into Jennifer Paige’s classic 1998 hit, “Crush”—which I would have appreciated on any other night, because, hilarious—I nearly thwacked my forehead onto the table.

Instead, I steadfastly stared around at the rest of the room, only glancing at the back of my #1 KC’s head for the briefest of moments, telling myself Jennifer was right. It was just a little crush. Not like I fainted every time we touched. Not that we had ever touched. So perhaps the jury was still out on that one.

And then Kiki was back behind her little table, and shouting into the mic: “Here we go, everybody! Put your hands together for crowd favorite, Lilyyyyy!”

#1 KC—Lily, how did I always forget that, so pretty—got up from her table. She walked over to Kiki with a smile and took the mic. Her yellow dress swished.

And I couldn’t tell if I was excited, or if I was sad. Excited, because it was going to be awesome. Sad, because once Lily sang Carrie Underwood, Kiki would let a bunch of other losers sing until she gave Lily another round. Which meant that after this, I’d truly have no excuse to be here anymore. And dammit, coming all the way out to Moonie’s without getting to have a true Moonie’s night was a disappointment of epic proportions.

But then Lily opened her mouth.

And okay, maybe the awesomeness beat out the disappointment. Even though I’d heard Lily sing “Before He Cheats” at least ten times before, it still kicked me in the gut as soon as she started.

I never knew what she’d end up singing later on, but every single time she was here, Lily started the night with “Before He Cheats.” And I admired the hell out of it every single time, because I had to be at least six drinks in to even think about approaching a microphone, and even then, only when one of my friends dragged me with them. But to be one of the first singers of the night meant putting yourself out there to a half-full room of sober people. And it wasn’t like Lily chose an easy one to start with, like a Lisa Loeb “Stay” kind of selection, one you could quietly croon while everyone else got their cheap drinks and shitty fries and ignored you.

No, Lily chose this bluesy, shit-eating country song with a chorus that used up entire lungfuls of air. It was like she needed to launch herself into this balls-to-the-wall song to get herself into the groove. Because she was a little hesitant at first, a little shaky during that very first right now of the opening verse. But soon she was belting it, leaning over when she got real into the best lines, swaying her hips across the floor during the sassy verses, and Jesus. What a star. By the end, her eyes would be sparkling, and everyone in the room would be a little bit in love with her.

Or maybe it was just me. But seriously, every time she sang about scratching her keys into the side of that dude’s car—well, I wouldn’t have minded if she wanted to carve her name into my leather seats. Or whatever. I would be one hundred percent down with whatever the fuck she wanted to do, was what I was saying.

And while I always felt this way, there was something about watching her sing tonight while I sat here alone that made the whole experience heightened. The table next to me had filled up with a bunch of people I didn’t recognize, and they were all chatting loudly with each other like Lily wasn’t singing “Before He Cheats,” and I sort of wanted to bash their heads in. Even though Past Me had probably chatted with my friends too during “Before He Cheats.” Because it was a bar, and that was what you did. And you weren’t drunk enough yet to loudly shout along with every dumb song every stranger chose to sing.

But Present Me had literally nothing else to do except stare and listen to every word of it. And fuck me, but it felt like Lily was singing directly to me. And it was magnificent. Every hair on my body stood on end.

Except. Maybe Lily was singing directly to me.

Because suddenly, that was what was happening.

My karaoke crush was staring back.

2

Lily & Sam

They were alone tonight, which was odd. Maybe that was what made my eyes snag onto theirs, the surprise of their solitude, and their eyes so intent on mine. I had felt their eyes on me before, of course—I was good at this, and I’d always gotten the sense from the way they watched, from the enthusiasm of their applause after I finished a song, that they knew I was good at this, too.

And even if you knew you were good at something, it felt fucking satisfying to have a stranger acknowledge it.

But why were they all by their lonesome at that little table in the corner tonight? They—and I was pretty sure they used they, because sometimes they wore a black jean jacket with a they/them pin on it—often seemed to be the first one here of their group, but eventually their friends would join them. I liked their group; it felt like theirs and ours had this unspoken Moonie’s camaraderie. We cheered and danced for each other’s songs, respected each other’s favorite tables if one group got here first.

But I had always secretly found this stranger, the one currently sitting alone in a corner, to be particularly adorable. They seemed shy; never sang by themselves, always dragged up with one of their friends later in the night. And even then, they refused to look at the crowd, staring only at their friends as they shuffled awkwardly around the dance floor with one hand in their pockets, grinning. Having fun but embarrassed, face flushed bright red. I always wanted to run up to them afterward and squeeze their cheeks.

And then maybe squeeze their ass, if they let me, just to see how they’d react.

They also consistently knew the songs, which I respected. That was the thing about karaoke: everyone thought they were safe throwing any song up, since the words were right there on the screen in front of you. But if you didn’t really know the lyrics, the beats to come in on, the rhythm of the lines—you were screwed.

Cutie in the Corner didn’t have a great voice, and might have blushed and shuffled while they sang, but they always knew the words.

When I caught their eye tonight, though, their face wasn’t red, and they weren’t grinning. They were...looking at me like I was the only one in the room, eyes dark and serious.

And I was almost done with the song, so the claws of Carrie’s confidence were firmly implanted now. I felt sexy and strong and good. And their eyes on me felt right. Like maybe everyone else in the room were the real idiots, for not looking at me like that. And so I kept staring back.

And, well, damn. Singing at Moonie’s was always a bit of a rush, but maintaining eye contact with a stranger while I did it was...was...kind of hot. And really fucking intense.

I kept thinking they’d look away. Or that I would. But I found I couldn’t. Or didn’t want to. Or both.

The Power of Carrie must have been strong tonight. Because while they looked at me, and I sang about getting my revenge, it almost felt real. Like I could be a star. Like I had someone waiting for me in the crowd who thought I could be a star, too.

By the end of the song, my heart was fluttering around in my chest in this hectic pitter patter, and I felt hot all over.

When I handed Kiki back the mic, my hand was shaking.

Quickly, I wiped my palm on my dress. I took a deep breath.

And I turned around and walked right past my table—oh god, my friends were going to give me so much shit—and headed straight back there to that sad little corner, and the stranger who had just made me feel sexy as hell. Because it was Saturday night. And it was Moonie’s. It didn’t matter if I made a fool of myself. It was safe.

I watched their eyes grow wide as I plunked myself down in the seat across from them. They looked slightly petrified, which was real stinking cute. And helped me feel a little more normal. Because some of the heat that had flared in me while I was singing cooled when I realized I was back to wanting to pinch their cheeks. Which was probably good.

“Hey,” I said. “Do you mind if I sit out that embarrassing post-singing high here with you for a second? You know, when you have to go back to your table after a song and suddenly don’t want anyone to look at you ever again so you have to pretend to act chill even though you’re not?”

Their mouth only gaped for a second. And then they blinked and appeared to get control of themselves.

“Oh my god,” they said. “You should never feel embarrassed. You are amazing.”

I bit my lip to keep myself from smiling too hard. Why had I never talked to this person before? I should have them on speed dial for whenever I needed a boost, back in the non-Moonie’s real world.

Because the truth of the matter was, I wasn’t a star. Or amazing. At least not in that breathless way they had said it. I was as shy as Adorable Blusher here appeared, most of the time. Or maybe shy wasn’t the right word. When I applied it to myself, shy made me feel like a little kid. I was introverted. Quiet. Which was fine; that was who I was and how I was comfortable.

It was only when a KJ handed me a mic, and all I felt was the warmth of the lights and the dark comfort of this bar, which only ever seemed to be full of queers and freaks—my people—that I got to be...something different.

“Thank you.” I cleared my throat, wishing now that I had stopped at my table to get my drink. I always needed a few good, strong swigs after Carrie. “Where are your friends tonight?”

“All bailed,” they said on a sigh, seeming to relax a little. “Which would have been nice to know before I left the house, but, oh well.”

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