Chapter 18
James
The Karaoke bar was new, I'd never been here before, but it seemed like something that could help break Reggie out of his shell, the one he kept crawling back into. Music and alcohol - sounded like a foolproof plan to me, no?
“Two gin tonics please?” I asked the barman, following Reggie's wandering gaze from the corner of my eye. I hadn't asked him what drink he'd like but as they didn't offer firewhiskey or any other drink of the wizarding world here I didn't think he'd have understood the options. I hadn't before I'd tried them all, so.
“What is this place?” Regulus asked, the colourful lights of the bar gorgeously illuminating his face.
“A karaoke bar,” I handed him one of the drinks, “people pick songs they know, or ones they don't, and sing along to them, basically. Except it's just music they sing along to. I'll go first so you can see what I mean, gives you time to go through the options of songs as well,” we took a seat at a table by the stage and I pushed the options folder on the table towards him, thinking of which song to sing myself. Thank Merlin Pads and Moony had kept me up to date with muggle music.
I took another sip of my drink, for reinforcement, as the previous person finished up. Thankfully there was no queue and as I sat up the person working the karaoke machine already nodded to me in greeting, I returned the gesture.
“Okay, so basically,” I turned to Regulus who was very focused on his options suddenly, “I go to the guy there,” I pointed to the man I'd greeted, “tell him what song I wanna sing and he puts it on, I get on stage and sing. That's all,”
He nodded, head in the clouds.
“Look,” he finally lifted his eyes to mine, “it's not as hard as you think, I promise. And if you need more reinforcement in the form of alcohol, just ask the barman for another one. It's all on me,” I winked and could've sworn I saw a blush on his cheeks despite the dark room and colourful lights. I left for the stage with a smile tugging at my lips.
“Can you do “Make your own kind of music” by Cass Elliot, please?” I asked, the man nodded and pushed some buttons. Music came on just as I reached the mic. I took a deep breath, found Reggie in the crowd - my reinforcement, my alcohol, my drug of every kind - and began singing.