Closest I Get

Chapter Four

Mid-November

It's late. And they've had a little bit to drink.

Jade's fiddling with Tori's entertainment system when she hears Tori yell from across the room.

"Hey! What are you, a child? Stop touching things," she says when she walks back to her living room gripping a couple bottles of beers.

Jade stares at her before running wide open palms back and forth over Tori's things. Jade hears Heather laugh before patting Tori on the leg.

"Mature," Tori offers before taking a sip of her drink. Jade only plasters an impossibly sweet smile before crawling to the coffee table to pick her own bottle. She stays seated on the floor and focuses her attention elsewhere. When she places her beer back on the coffee table, she leans down to read the name of the machine.

"Oh my god," she gasps loud enough for the two people on the couch to turn to her.

"What is it?"

"You have a karaoke machine."

"Oh, no, that's all right. We don't have to do that," Tori says as she shakes her head and waves them off.

"Aw, no. I want to hear you sing. Jade told me that you used to sing and that you were really good," Heather says as she sits up from the couch and pulls herself to the edge.

"You said that?" Tori asks looking directly at Jade. She doesn't want Tori to look at her like that anymore, so she turns away and places her attention to finding the songbook to go along with the karaoke machine.

"No big deal. I mean, you were good. But I was better, remember?" She smirks towards them and she can see Heather laugh before turning back to Tori.

"What do you say, babe? Come on, this'll be fun. I'd love to hear you sing."

"Pretty please, Tori Vega, with a cherry on top." Jade does her best to keep a straight face just as Tori busts out laughing and leaning on her girlfriend.

"What's so funny? Why is she laughing?"

Jade waves it off. "Back in high school, I'd mock her with this accent-"

"And it was preposterous because I sounded nothing like it!" Tori supplies after she calms herself down a little.

Jade avoids staring at Heather, but she can't help it when she notices the younger woman sitting dumbly on the couch watching the two of them, like an outsider. Jade knows that look, that feeling; she sits through it virtually every time Tori and Heather are together with her.

"What about you, bartender? Do you sing?" Jade asks when she extends the microphone towards her.

Heather leans back on the couch and shakes her head. "No way. I'm literally tone deaf. Like my parents made sure that I kept my singing to a minimum."

"Oh, come on. I stopped singing a long time ago and I'm only making a comeback 'cause of you!" Tori begs but Heather seems to hold her off.

"Why don't you guys sing instead?"

"Yeah, Jade!"

"Oh, I don't know," Jade says, playing around.

Tori rolls her eyes at her. "This was your idea! It'll just be like that time we were at Nozu."

Jade shifts her attention to a now-excited Tori and a quiet Heather. It's just a song, she tells herself.

Just a song.

.

Just a song turns into a full-on concert for Heather who sits in awe behind the two of them as they belt out songs after songs. They sing songs from high school and it transports Jade back to a time where it's just her and Tori. They finish off their concert with a duet of "Take a Hint," the song that puts Tori in a much different light for her.