Ready For You by J. L. Berg

drinks as Mia and Liv joined us.  
    “Mia! Look who’s here!” Leah said with an evil gleam in her eye.  
    I hated Leah right now. Family or not, I wanted to strangle her.  
    “Hi, Garrett,” Mia said meekly.
    I reciprocated. “Evening, Mia.”
    Clare’s eyes flew up to mine, and I could see the apology written all over her face. I had no doubt that she remembered who Mia was and how much she had once meant to me and in her Logan-frazzled mind, she’d forgotten that we were both now sitting at the same small table.   Together.   Clare knew how uncomfortable this situation was for the both of us.  
    The table was silent. Had it not been for the loud noise of the bar and the wailing voices from the karaoke going on behind us, I was fairly certain I could have heard a pin drop.  
    This isn’t awkward. No, not at all.  
    “So, who’s singing first?” Leah asked loudly, clapping her hands together.  
    We all groaned.
    The question was followed by a handful of, “No,” and “Hell no.”
    “Oh, come on! It’s karaoke night and no one is going to sing? Come on! Anyone? Clare? Oh, I know! Mia, what about you? You need to do something crazy tonight, especially in that outfit! Get your ass up there and sing.”  
    I glanced over at Mia, and her eyes were wide.
    “I don’t think so,” she answered.
    “Oh, come on! Why not?”
    “I can’t sing,” she answered.  
    I laughed out loud. “Lie,” I blurted out.
    Mia’s eyes heated in anger, and I felt a bit of triumph. Good, feel anger. I’d been living waist-deep in the shit for years.  
    “The girl I once knew would have gotten up there and sang her heart out at the first chance.”

    “So, Mia…what do you like to do when you aren’t being all prim and proper and shit? I asked, fiddling with her hair.  
    We were sitting on the grass and sharing a crappy slice of pizza.  
    “Why do you keep calling me Mia? It’s not my name, and I don’t curse. It’s not polite,” she said, exasperated.  
    I knew she wasn’t really frustrated though. The curve of a smile on her face said otherwise.
    I grinned, ignoring her comment about my language.   I pulled a piece of pepperoni off my pizza and tossed it in my mouth. “Neither is Amelia. It’s too formal and uptight for a teenager. Mia is more your style. I like it.”
    “Hmm…” was all she said.  
    A silence fell between us as she picked at her salad. I’d skipped the salad. She should have, too. Salad from the school cafeteria was scary.
    “I sing.”
    “What?” I said.
    “You asked what I liked to do. I like to sing.”  

    The grown-up Mia gave me a hard stare, and then she slowly rose from her chair. Everyone at the table cheered and hollered at the accepted challenge. I just gulped in fear. I was a fucking fool. I didn’t want to hear her sing. It would end me.
    Maybe she’d lost that talent. Maybe it’d gone away with age, and she now sucked at it. It could be true. I hadn’t heard her sing since she returned. She hadn’t let out a hum or an absentminded chorus, not one single note, as she’d cleaned the floors.  
    She walked over to the corner where the stage was set up. She huddled in close with the DJ, who was standing under a banner that proudly boasted he had every song ever known. She bent over the book of songs, and then she finally pointed and nodded, having made her decision. After the person in front of her finished singing Boyz II Men’s “I’ll Make Love to You,” Mia quietly took the stage, and I stopped breathing.  
    The lights all pointed toward her, and a few males, who would be dead soon, hooted and howled as she wrapped her slender fingers around the microphone. She gave me a pointed look right before the music kicked in, and “The One That Got Away” by The Civil Wars filled the bar. She was seeking her revenge on that stage. I’d pushed her and forced her up there, and this song was her way of throwing it back in my face.  
    As soon as she sang the