“Logan.”
“High.”
“Lo.”
The intro music started and I kept shaking my head left and right, telling her there was no way I was going to do it, but when Rihanna’s part came on, the microphone rose to my lips and I began singing the female’s part of the song; high pitched, sounding like fucking hell.
Alyssa covered her mouth to keep her uncontrollable chuckles to herself. I gave her a look to kill before turning around to face the audience and fully embracing my feminine side. I thought I did pretty good. I thought I was the one to make our performance magic.
But then something happened.
Eminem’s verse came up, and Alyssa transformed into something I’ve never seen before. She stole the DJ’s b
aseball cap, tossed it on her head backwards, and started marching back and forth on the stage, getting the audience involved in the performance, making them wave their hands back and forth as she rapped.
Alyssa Marie Walters was rapping to Eminem. And she was fucking incredible. She put her all into it, hand gestures, facial expressions, giving it everything she had. She was so wild and beautiful in that moment. Free.
When the chorus came up, she looked at me, and I started singing again, high-pitched and terrible.
Then, she rapped again, nailing every word.
When it came to the last verse, the hardest verse she had to rap, she took a deep breath. She locked eyes with me, and before she started, her shirt collar rested between her lips. She nodded once. I nodded once. She dropped the collar, and started rapping the final verse directly to me.
And it was fucking sexy.
Her body swayed back and forth, she became the words and the words soaked her in, and once she finished, she dropped the microphone, the crowd went wild, and I sang the final Rihanna chorus to her.
When we finished, we couldn’t stop laughing. We wrapped each other into a tight hug, as the people in the audience cheered us on, begging for an encore.
We performed five more songs before we retired to a booth in the back of the bar for a few celebratory drinks.
We stayed most of the night, chatting about anything and everything. We laughed more than we had in a long time. For a while, it felt like it used to.
Her laughs became my inhales. Her smiles were my heartbeats.
I watched her mouth move as she told a long story about something or another. Truth was, I stopped listening. I stopped listening a long time ago, because my mind was somewhere else.
I wanted to tell her how I felt about her, all over again. I wanted to tell her how I was falling for her once more. I wanted to tell her how I still loved her wild hair, and still loved her mouth that was always chattering about something or another.
I wanted to…
“Logan,” she whispered, frozen in the booth. My hands had somehow landed against her lower back and I guided her closer to me. My lips hovered inches away from her mouth. Her heavy exhales were mixing with my deep inhales, as both of our bodies shook in each other’s hold. “What are you doing?”
What was I doing? Why were our lips so close? Why were our bodies pressed against each other? Why couldn’t I break my stare? Why was I falling in love with my best friend all over again?
“Truth or lie?” I asked.
“Lie.”
“I’m not addicted to your smile. Your eyes don’t make my heart race. Your laughter doesn’t give me chills. Your peach shampoo doesn’t drive me crazy, and when you chew on your shirt collar I don’t fall deeper in love with you. Because I’m not. I’m not in love with you.”
Her inhales grew deeper and her exhales were heavy. “And the truth?”
“The truth is I want you. I want you back in my life, in all ways and more. I can’t stop thinking about you, High. Not to escape reality, but to embrace it. You’re my heart. You’re my soul. I want you. All of you. And more than anything right now, I want to kiss you.”
“Lo…” Her voice was shaky. “You’re still the first person I think of when I wake up. You’re still the one that I miss when you’re not beside me. You’re still the only thing that ever felt right to me. And if I were honest, I’d say that I want you to kiss me. I’ve wanted you to kiss me all my life.”
I locked my fingers with hers.