Jamie glanced up at her, confused.
David held the microphone up to his face and sang scratchily, “Baby J. and Mika, sitting in a treeeeeeee—”
“Hey! Sophia.” Mika tossed the other microphone my way. “You’re up.”
The title of the next song appeared on the screen in English and katakana: “Last Nite” by the Strokes. I gave Mika a quizzical look—what is David talking about?—but she just shrugged it off. I sang jumping up and down on the couch, rocking my head until my braids fell out. When I was done, David whistled and applauded. I opened my eyes and—Jamie was staring at me. Smiling at me, actually, with his mouth closed. What right did he have to stare at me? And smile? And stare at me?
I sat down and pressed my hands against the hot surface of the couch. My phone buzzed in my bag. A text from David:
THAT FUCKING HAT!!
I laughed and then covered my mouth. Thank God someone was on my wavelength. I texted back:
careful!! or mika will challenge you to a duel…
His response came a few seconds later:
Pah!! Mika always forgets her dueling pistols. PS, Why is Lonely Sofa on the lonely sofa?!
A content, dreamy feeling flooded through me. I started to type back when someone plopped down next to me. I jumped in surprise.
Caroline.
“That was great!” she said.
“Uh-huh.” I shoved my phone back in my bag, covering the screen with my hand. “Thanks.”
Nirvana started playing, Mika screaming along in a way that didn’t exactly resemble a tune. I picked up my melon soda from the table. Caroline fanned herself with a menu and whispered, “Oh my God! That Jamie guy is cute. Did he used to be that cute?”
“No,” I said. “Definitely not.”
Caroline checked him out, like she was weighing up his pros and cons. “Well, he’s cute now. In a geeky way, but I think it’s charming. He does seem kind of nervous, though.”
“Trust me. He used to seem way more nervous than that.” Also fidgety. He was always tugging at his hair or shuffling his feet or drumming his fingers against something.
“It’s probably because he’s so in love with Mika,” Caroline said.
I spat a watery ice cube back into my glass. “What? He’s not in love with Mika.”
“Look at him!” she said. “Look at them! They’re all over each other.”
I looked. “They’re just sitting.”
Caroline shook her head, and her ponytail smacked my face. She smelled like an abundance of raspberry body lotion. “Sophia, I know you’re super smart and all, but you have no idea how to read signals.”
There was a signal I would have really liked to give Caroline, but didn’t.
“Who needs more drinks?” Mika asked.
“I’m okay,” Jamie said, sipping his beer.
Caroline made a show of yawning and leaned across me so she could talk to Jamie. “I’m so tired. Hey. Aren’t you tired, Jamie? You’ve been on a plane all day!”
Jamie sat back against the couch and put one hand behind his head. Everything about him seemed easier than it used to. There was even a lazy southern twang to his vowels that definitely hadn’t been there before. “I’m all right. If I go home now, I’ll have to unpack. Besides, you only move to Tokyo for the second time once, right?”
Caroline pouted. “Mika said your parents made you go to that school in the States. Why’d you come back?”
“Hello!” Mika said. “Did anyone hear me? Drink orders, please.”
Mika called for the drinks. She asked for takoyaki as well, and my stomach growled when they arrived; I hadn’t even realized how hungry I was.
As I broke apart my tiny ball of fried dough with octopus in the middle (more delicious than it sounds), Caroline leaned over me again. “Anyway,” she said to Jamie, “I bet your parents are super thrilled you’re back.”
He shrugged, and I noticed his gaze flicker down. “Yeah,” he said. “Super thrilled.”
An hour or so later, room 47 was hot.
Way hotter than my house. Hot enough to reach critical mass. I twisted my sweaty hair into a knot on the top of my head, and Mika took off her T-shirt, revealing a white tank top underneath. The air in the room had gone thick and boozy. Caroline was quietly singing some schmaltzy, romantic song, and David kept making ridiculous moon eyes at her, kissing her forehead and the side of her neck as she sang. Then came the moment I’d been dreading. The moment when Caroline and David began to completely and unapologetically make out.
“Aaaaaaghhhh! Nooooooo!” Mika groaned. “Get a room!”
“Technically this is a room,” Jamie said. He reached across the table and dragged over the basket of takoyaki David had been eating from.
Caroline straddled David’s lap, and he ran his hands up and down her back, grasping at the fabric of her shirt. My stomach wadded itself into a tight ball, and the inside of my head ballooned with pressure. Critical mass achieved.
“Making out at karaoke is so raunchy,” Mika said, pulling a disgusted face.
“So you’ve never done it?” Jamie teased. He tossed a takoyaki into the air and caught it with his mouth.
Mika hit him on the arm, hard this time. “God. You know way too much about me.”
On the screen, a woman was standing on a bridge, staring forlornly at some boats. The video had nothing to do with the song playing, a synthetic melody pulsing through the room that no one was singing to. This was awful. To my right, the boy I liked was slobbering all over a girl I definitely didn’t like. To my left, Jamie and Mika were talking and giggling and flirting.
Majorly flirting.
Maybe Caroline was right. Maybe they liked each other. Maybe they’d made out in a karaoke room before—or would do so in the near future.