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March
23,
2001
Ashley wants to meet him, and she
can't really bitch because she's disappeared with the Aussie, whose name
is Bob for just as long as I have with Ethan, so we decide the perfect
solution is a double date. That way everyone can meet everyone and
we can judge each other all at once and get everything out of the way.
I mention it to Ethan and he seems perfectly okay with it. I was a
little scared, because I haven't met any of his friends yet, and you
know how completely it deep sixes a relationship if your best friend
doesn't like the guy you're dating.
Ashley suggests
we go karaoking down at the Gaslight.
This sounds like the worst idea in the world.
I can't do karaoke unless I'm really drunk, and I think it's way
too early in the game to display this particular side of myself to
Ethan. And it's really hard
with karaoke. You have to
drink enough to get up there and belt something out, but just one drink
too many and suddenly you're grotesquely off-key. |
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But Ashley's fearless, probably because she can sing no matter how many beers she's pounded down, so she mentions the idea in front of
Ethan. Even
worse, she's already enlisted the Aussie on her side and he's
all excited to go. So
it's two against one, and Ethan's the tiebreaker.
And he looks at me, and I'm trying hard to nonchalantly
signal him without Ashley seeing that I hate this idea.
But he smiles at me, and I just can't help but feel the
rush. The rush
that's fast becoming familiar.
I will do anything for you as long as you keep smiling at
me that way. "Whatever's
good with you" he says to me, and Ashley immediately takes
it to mean we're going to the Gaslight.
The
Gaslight is such a dive, that's why we love it.
If you put your name on the list right at 9, it only
takes maybe an hour and a half for you to go up, and that's
plenty of time to get comfortably sloshed enough to chase those
stage fright jitters away. Of
course, with Ethan being around, the jitters have practically
tripled in size.
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