Since Forever

Chapter 29

Archie's POV

There's karaoke at camp the following evening instead of a movie. I think Gabe and Ruby are running out of ideas. And apparently we have a karaoke machine I never knew about.

I'm sitting on the floor of the mess hall next to Zac and Freddie, legs crossed. Zac shifts and his knee brushes mine. He shifts back, and now we're touching. Like, continuously. I steal a glance at him, but he's so focused on the front of the room that he hasn't noticed our legs. How can he not notice?

"...no explicit music, and no songs about sex. Got it?" Gabe raises an eyebrow sternly. "We do have a hook and we will not hesitate to pull you off the stage with it."

A girl up the front raises her hand and asks innocently, "There are songs about sex?"

Half the room erupts in laughter and the other half rolls their eyes and sighs disapprovingly. I roll my eyes and sigh disapprovingly, while the idiot next to me cracks up, his knee shaking as he laughs, rubbing against mine. I smile slightly at the pleasant feeling of our closeness. Damn him for being so cute.

"I know you know what I'm talking about," Gabe says firmly. "No Whistle, no Locked Out of Heaven, no PILLOWTALK, and no Unholy."

A few people pretend to be confused as to why he banned those songs. Ruby takes the mike in an attempt to get them to behave. "Listen up, if you ruin karaoke for everyone, you will be sent to bed early. You will also clean up after breakfast tomorrow. Does that sound fair?" People grumble and Ruby shrugs. "Well, life isn't fair." She walks off the stage to get the karaoke machine and Gabe stares after her in awe.

After the karaoke machine is set up and people have started to put their names down to sing, the music is turned on. Two girls start off by completely butchering I Can See You.

I'm dancing with Freddie, Zachary, Finn, Alice, and Zac who keeps pointing at me when they sing 'I can see you'. I laugh. Even though we're in a group, I'm still technically dancing with Zac. And I love it.

A boy goes up next and sings Seven Nation Army, significantly better than the girls singing Taylor Swift. We jump around and wave our arms and scream the wrong words in all the right places. Full disclosure: I don't know this song very well. It's catchy and all but I don't know the words. Zac doesn't seem to either, which makes me feel slightly better.

The next song is Let It Go, sung by the entirety of one the other cabins. The eight girls know all the words without having to look at the little karaoke screen. I am impressed by this until I realise that most of us know all the words, including me. This song was really overplayed when it was popular.

Get Low is sung next and Gabe decides he doesn't like it but he apparently does not have a hook, so can't seem to get the guy off the stage. The rest of us on the floor have moved into one of those circles where people take turns dancing in the middle. Some of the outside of the circle are holding hands and swinging their arms. Zac grabs my hand firmly and we swing our hands. Freddie makes no move to take my hand on my other side and I can't help but notice that Alice isn't holding Zac's other hand. It doesn't mean anything though. She's probably not a touchy person.

Zac doesn't let go of my hand as we all scream along to Youngblood and he's also still holding on when Alice goes up to sing a song by Avril Lavigne that I haven't heard before. I'm starting to sweat. This is weird, right? He should have let go by now; the circle broke up ages ago.

I'm not even sure he's realised he's still holding my hand. He's singing loudly along to the song which is undoubtedly on his playlist. "Kiss me just like the world is ending / Give me one last perfect memory / I don't want to say goodbye / Let's meet up after we die / So kiss me just like the world is ending / Kissssss meeeeeee."