I made my way to the karaoke setup on slightly unsteady legs. The microphone was heavier than expected, warm from Pickle's grip, and slightly sticky.
The opening piano notes of "Total Eclipse of the Heart" filled the bar, and suddenly I was standing in front of forty-something people who expected me to sing.
I'd made a terrible mistake.
The first verse came and went in a blur of muscle memory and panic. I'd heard the song enough times to know the words, even if I'd never paid attention to what they actually meant—something about bright eyes turning around and falling apart.
Not entirely inappropriate.
Everyone around me sang along, badly but energetically. Hog's bass voice carried the melody while Murphy provided questionable harmony. Even Juno swayed along, raising her drink in salute.
The chorus hit, and I sang instead of only mumbling along. My voice wasn't great—too rough around the edges—but it was mine.
"Turn around, bright eyes..."
The words caught in my throat.
The next moment happened without warning, like stepping onto black ice. One second, I was singing along with a room full of drunk hockey players, and the next, I was drowning in the sudden, overwhelming realization of what the song was about.
Loss. Longing. The space left behind when someone important disappears from your life.
"Every now and then I fall apart..."
My voice cracked on the word "apart," and suddenly the microphone weighed a thousand pounds. The bar noise faded to static, and all I heard was my own breathing, too fast and too shallow.
Jake would've been with us, in the front row, probably recording the whole thing on his phone so he could embarrass me with it later. He would've been singing along, voice breaking on the high notes, grinning like this was the best thing that ever happened to him.
He wasn't here. He was in Rockford, probably taping his stick in some AHL locker room and pretending he didn't miss Thunder Bay's particular brand of organized disorder.
"And I need you now tonight..."
The words came out as barely a whisper. Forty-something pairs of eyes waited for me to pull it together, finish the song, and be the reliable guy who never let anyone down.
I couldn't do it.
I set the microphone back in its stand and walked away, pushing through the crowd toward the back hallway by the bathrooms. Behind me, I heard Pickle's voice pick up the melody, covering for my sudden exit.
It was just a song, a stupid karaoke performance in a dive bar full of people who'd probably forget about it by tomorrow.
So why did it feel like I was falling apart?
I stayed there for maybe ten minutes, listening to the muffled sounds of the bar through the thin walls. The karaoke continued, and so did the laughter.
When I finally returned to the table, nobody said anything about my disappearing act. Pickle just slid another beer in my direction and started telling a story about his sister's attempt to teach her cat to play fetch.
I caught Juno watching me, and I knew she'd seen precisely what had happened up there.
I'd cracked. In public. In front of witnesses.
And somehow, the world hadn't ended.
The apartment was too quiet when I got home.
Not regular quiet. It was aggressive quiet, pressing against my eardrums and making me aware of every slight sound. The hum of the refrigerator. The click of the thermostat. My own breathing.
The alcohol intoxication was starting to fade, and the kitchen called to me, as it always did when my brain was too loud. Baking was control. Baking was chemistry and precision, and following rules that worked—flour, sugar, butter, eggs—ingredients that behaved predictably when combined in the correct proportions.
Chocolate chip cookies. Classic. Foolproof. I could make them in my sleep.
