Karaoke

•Amethyst•

I'm sure you're wondering why I'm doing all of this by myself. I mean, I've never been on a date and here I am getting ready for one, without my best friend. Samantha wanted to come, oh she wanted to come so bad, but her parents felt like she didn't hang out with them enough. They felt like she didn't even remember their existence, which I could totally relate to, so she promised to stay with them the entire weekend.

Poor Xander was going to have to make out with himself.

Anyway, I quickly ran into my bathroom and did my make up and hair. When I was finished, I smiled at my appearance. I put on some nude eyeshadow, winged eyeliner, some hot pink lipstick, and the usual foundation, concealer, and mascara. I smiled at my face that wasn't covered by my glasses, the contacts that Samantha got me coming in very handy. I also smiled at my space buns, the two strands of hair on either side framing my face nicely.

"Eres tan lindo," a familiar voice cooed.  (you're so cute).

I smiled. "Thanks mom."

She walked inside and kissed my temple. "I'm so happy that you're finally going on a date."

I rolled my eyes. "I never found the right guy, okay?"

"That's what they all say, honey. Unlike you, I started dating at fourteen, and guess who it was?"

"I already know but since you love telling this story-"

"It was your father! We never stopped being together since."

I sighed. "Yes, mom. I know. You've been in love with dad forever and you only wish the same thing would happen to me."

My mother pouted and placed her hands on my shoulders. "Amethyst, look at me," she ordered softly. I sighed and turned to her, kind of annoyed that my mother would bring up her love story on my first date. "You know that I love you, right?" I nodded. "You know that you are my favorite thing to talk, look, brag, and dream about, right?" I smiled. "I just want you to be happy, baby. That's all. Your dad makes me happy, and you deserve that happiness more than anything. I don't want you to be anything like me, don't think that, I just wish that you would've found your love earlier."

I sighed. "I know you do mom, I know." I kissed her cheek and turned to the mirror to do some last-minute changes.

She chuckled and walked out of my room, muttering something under breath. I shrugged it off, not worried about what she had to say, and fixed my hair a bit.

*Maximus*

"Shit! Shit! Shit! I look like a fucking hobo!" I cursed as I ran around my room frantically, my fifth outfit still not good enough for Amy.

"Shut the hell up!" Audrey screamed as she laid down on my bed.

I groaned and grabbed a pair of black ripped jeans and my Air Force 1's before running back inside my bathroom.

"You're like a freaking fly, my God! Just calm the fuck down before I knock you out!" Audrey growled.

I opened the door and stuck my head out. "You tend to forget that I've been boxing as long as I can remember, don't you?"

"You tend to forget that I don't care."

I rolled my eyes and stuck my head back in, closing the door after me.

"I can literally kick you out of here, you know!" I screamed as I pulled on a shoe.

She chuckled. "I'd like to see you try."

I rolled my eyes, put on my other shoe, and came out of the bathroom. Audrey fake gagged at my shirtless figure. I walked toward her with my arms out and her face morphed into one of surprise. I smirked and grabbed her feet, causing her to scream and kick her legs. I yanked her off of the bed, caught her before she fell on the floor, and threw her over my shoulder. She screamed and punched me, but I felt basically no pain. I was a boxer after all. As soon as I got to my bedroom door, I dropped her outside and slammed it in her face, locking it so she couldn't come back in.

I not only tried but succeeded.

~<~<~<

I opened the door to the bar and let Amy get inside first. She looked up at me and smiled, the contours of her face more defined because of the low lighting, her eyes reflecting the red light that they used to illuminate the place.

"Max! My man! Come on over and get a drink! I know you love to have a soda before you go and sing!" Milo, the bartender, called for me.

I grabbed Amy's hand and pulled her over to the bar. Milo was a young man, actually, who was only twenty-three and was the man who came up with the brilliant idea for my date. I had been coming to that bar since I was a kid, and since his father owned it, Milo was always there too. He had definitely become a man once he started working, because before he looked sixteen at twenty.

His black hair was spiked up everywhere, making him look like he just came out of bed. His dark brown eyes looked black in the low lighting, and his sleeves of tattoos on either arm made him look kinda scary. His piercings on his lip, ear, nose, and eyebrow weren't really helping him look like the friendly person he was. He was fairly tall, only two inches shorter than me, and was pretty damn muscular.

If I didn't know him, I'd be hiding Amy behind my back to make sure he didn't eat her.

"Hey Milo!" I greeted once we got to the bar.

Amy waved shyly and held onto my arm. "Hi," she squeaked.

Milo chuckled and winked at her. "Aren't you the shy type? I didn't even see you there. What's your name?"

Amy squeezed onto my arm a little tighter. "Amethyst," she mumbled.

Milo leaned over the counter and cupped his ear. "What'd you say? I can't hear a damn thing over these people."

I chuckled removed my hand from Amy's grasp, putting my arm around her waist. "Come on, Milo. You know her name. If Audrey didn't tell you by now than you definitely have heard it from me over the years."

Milo smirked and got off the counter. "So this is that doe-eyed beauty that you could never shut up about. I remember when I was fifteen and you just kept yapping and yapping about this pretty girl in your fourth grade class."

I blushed and looked down at Amy, seeing her smiling up at me. Milo cooed, causing me to look back up at him and scowl.

"Go ahead and take a seat, love birds. The show's about to start," he said as he motioned to the two empty seats in front of him.

Amy climbed up, which was honestly one of the most adorable things I've ever seen, and huffed when she finally sat down. I easily placed my butt on the seat with no problems, but I wasn't surprised about that.

"What do you want, Purple lady?" Milo chirped.

Amy furrowed her eyebrows at the name. "What do you have?"

"Soda, alcohol, and water," He stated bluntly.

Amy bit her bottom lip, her nervous habit that I noticed very early on, and looked at all of the choices behind him. I chuckled and leaned into her ear, about to whisper all of the drinks to her.

"What's your favorite drink?" I asked her.

She smiled. "Apple Juice."

I nodded. "Favorite soda?"

"Ginger Ale."

I sat up and turned to Milo, who had a mischievous smirk on his pierced face. "A Ginger Ale for Amy and a water for me."

He nodded and turned around, getting the drinks for us. I turned to Amy and saw her fidgeting with her fingers, her bottom lip still

in her teeth. She was definitely nervous about this date, I was too, and I could tell that she didn't know what to say.

"Let's play twenty questions," I suggested.

She looked over and smiled. "Okay. Do you want to go first or should I?"

"You can go first if you really want."

She smiled. "Okay," she paused. "I don't have anything, can you go?"

I chuckled. "Sure. What's your favorite color?" I asked.

She smiled. "Periwinkle. What's yours?"

"Maroon. My whole family loves that color, actually."

She smiled. "That's cool." She thought for a few seconds. "Who's the most annoying sibling?"

I didn't even point out that it was my turn and just kept on enjoying that she wasn't as nervous anymore. "The twins. I can't choose one, it's the both of them."

She chuckled. "That's cute."

"Do you have any siblings?"

"No. But I do have a little cousin who looks a lot like me." She paused and thought a bit. "Speaking of looking like someone, why don't the twins look alike, like, at all?"

I frowned a little bit. I didn't expect her to really notice, I thought that she would just think that they were fraternal or something. It wasn't like I didn't want her to know the real truth, I just didn't want her to look at the twins differently. Every time someone finds out the truth, the twins are always treated differently by that person.

"Is there something wrong?" Amy asked. "And no, that question isn't a part of the game."

"Nothing's wrong, it's just that... I don't want you to treat them differently after I tell you this, okay?" She raised an eyebrow but nodded her head. "They're adopted, the both of them. Their from different moms but were born around the same time, on the same day, and surprisingly in the same hospital. My mother always said 'Even if you didn't come from the same person, you're still twins. You have one mom, you were born around the same time, in the same day, in the same hospital like any other pair of twins. So when people ask, say that you're twins, because that's what you are.'" I smiled just thinking about it. "If anything, people think that Ainsley's adopted because of her red hair, but she looks the most like my mother out of all of us."

Amy smiled widely. "I would've never guessed that they were adopted, knight. Thank you so much for telling me."

I nodded. "Yeah, we're all really tight. Do you have a large family?"

She nodded. "Huge. My mom has three sisters and my dad has five brothers and three sisters. All of them have two to three kids, except for my mom and dad, of course."

My eyes widened. "Wow, that's a big family. I'd love to come to a family reunion just to see how packed it would be."

She smiled. "We have to go to my aunt's mansion just to fit everyone in. Okay, um, my turn! How did your parents meet?"

"This is a fun story, actually. My dad was born and raised in Italy, and was known as the 'bad boy' throughout his entire town. He smoked, got illegal tattoos and piercings, skipped school, stole things, got in fights at least once a day, snuck out of his house all the time, and stole a lot of my grandpa's liquor. Then one day, my mom went over to Italy for a school trip in college. Her hotel was pretty close to my dad's town, and since my father loved to run around and cause trouble anywhere he could, they ran into each other, literally.

My mom spoke a little bit of Italian so she was able to curse him out when he bumped into her and caused her to drop all of her stuff." Amy laughed at that. "My dad, as he puts it, says that he was so mesmerized by my mother's beauty that he didn't even hear her cursing him out. My mother picked up her stuff and kept walking to wherever it was she was going, leaving my dad behind. He followed her to where she was going, without her knowing, and stole a random woman's uneaten pasta and gave it to her. My mother, of course, was freaked out and completely denied the lunch. My dad didn't give up and kept following her around, trying to win her over with random things he stole or with his 'Italian charm'.

My mom eventually had enough and told him to leave her alone. My father didn't and kept saying random things to try and win her over, but my mom didn't understand him. He was apparently speaking too fast and his Italian accent made it hard for my mom to understand any of his sentences. My father, and I quote, said 'Your mother looked like I asked her how the universe was made.'" Amy and I laughed. "Anyways, my mother then realized that she was supposed to learn as much about the little places of Italy to inspire her art, which was the reason why she was in Italy in the first place. As a plan to get rid of my father, she told him that if he could win her over in two days by showing her all of the places around town, she would keep in touch. Obviously the plan backfired, because my mother couldn't stop thinking about my father. Eventually, by the end of the second day, my mother gave him her number and my father gave her his. They talked and talked for months until my dad came to America one day, knowing only a small bit of English, and surprised my mom at her favorite coffee shop.

My mother wondered what he was doing there, though she was the happiest person she could be, and he told her that he was going to move there. For her. And well, the rest is history. Five years later, Audrey and I were born, two years after Alexander was born, three after that the twins were adopted, five after that was Ainsley, and nine months after that was Noelani."

Amy smiled. "Your family is amazing, Max."

He smiled. "Yeah, they are. How did your parents meet?"

"Their story isn't that interesting, actually. My parents lived in the same town all their lives, but they didn't meet each other because they went to different elementary schools. They went to the same middle school as well, but my mom was one of the popular girls and my dad was sort of a nerd. It's cliche, but true. When high school came around, they were in so many classes together.

My mother was super smart, kind, and friendly while my dad was kind of shy and closed off. In one class, they did an activity about their backgrounds. My parents had very similar ones in regards to being the first of their family to be born in America. They even had a conversation in Spanish for the class.

Then they found out that they had even more in common. They were the smartest in their class, the youngest sibling in their family, the shortest girl or boy in their family, and many other things. They hung out so much and eventually fell in love. I've never seen them unhappy with each other for more than a week, and it's usually over something stupid."

"Like what?"

"Like... which show is better: Spongebob Squarepants or Tom & Jerry? When it's obviously Tom & Jerry."

"I don't know, shortie. I think that little yellow square is the best thing since sliced bread."

Amy giggled. "See? My dad said the same thing, except in Spanish." A/N: I was watching Tom & Jerry making this part.

"Remember when you taught me a little bit of Spanish? Back in Kindergarten."

"I was teaching you how to read better first, right? And you punched Jacob and Danny, right?"

I smiled shyly. "Yeah-" Milo interrupted me over the microphone.

"Ladies and Gentleman! It's time to start some Karaoke! It works like this: I'll pick a song for you, you sing it, and the crowd will vote by cheering. Whoever gets the loudest cheer wins free drinks for a month!"

The crowd cheered. Some random guy screamed for them to shut up as he was trying to throw up, but no one really listened to him. In fact, it just made them cheer louder. The man could be a cranky old hungover drunk on his own. Anyway, I nudged Amy playfully and nodded to the stage. She instantly shook her head no and played with her fingers, her shy self coming back to the surface.

"Come on! Aren't you a dancer? Isn't your job to entertain?"

She shook her head. "It's different. When you're dancing on stage, it's different. Yeah, you know the people are cheering, the judges are making critics, the lights are shining on you, and the music is booming, but you don't care. All you care about is your body moving and your emotion shining through those movements. After you're offstage, then you realize that something happened, but you don't even remember the half of it because you're not in the moment. Singing is so different. It's not your body conveying words when you can't, it's your mouth conveying words when you can.

You can mess up in dance all you want but you can usually just play it off and the crowd will love you. But with singing? You can't just mess up a word and pretend like nothing happened. You can't be like 'Oops! I forgot the whole line, I guess I better make up something on the spot!' Who can do that Max? Who? Not me, that's fucking who."

I chuckled at her little rant. "So I get it. You just want people to make a fool out of themselves first, so when you go up there, you sound like a goddess!" I said, purposely missing the point just to mess with her.

She groaned. "I literally wonder why I have yet to strangle you."

"Because you can reach, duh. You silly little goose."

"Fuck off."

"Feisty goose, aren't you?"

"I'm not a damn goo- oh, just forget it."

~<~<~<

"I volunteer Amy as tribute!" I screamed when Milo asked if anyone wanted to go next.

Amy slapped a hand over my mouth and shook her head. "No way on this everloving green earth will I go up there and look like a fool in front of eighty drunk people."

"Don't forget the sober ones!" I cheered, though it sounded more like "On gorget a ober guns!"

"Come on little Amy! Let's hear what you've got, chica!" Milo cheered as he held out the microphone.

Amy glared at me before grabbing my collar and bringing me close to her face. "I'm going to call you Maximus Magnum King for the rest of the fucking night."

My eyes widened. "Damn. What a badass."

"I'm Latina, you idiot. What do you expect?"

"Nothing more, nothing less. Anyway, go up there! The crowd is waiting for you!"

She groaned and hopped off the chair before scurrying over to Milo. She shakily grabbed the microphone and stepped onto the stage, her face showing that she was not comfortable with the situation I had put her in. Milo spoke a few words to her before disappearing into the booth that held his playlist for all of the music. Amy sighed and looked at the screen when the title and artist played on it. It was "Sue Me" by Sabrina Carpenter. Her face lit up in recognition before she started bouncing to the beat of the intro.

"Remember when you said that there's no second chance?

Oh baby, I heard you been hoping you could change the past," she sang softly, her hips swaying to the music as her rich voice sang.

She started to get a little more excited after a few seconds and became less tense. Her hips swayed more freely and her voice got a little louder. She started to move more on stage, her presence captivating everyone that was watching, and her voice causing everyone to listen. By the chorus, she was having the time of her life and strutting on the stage, flirting with the audience, even rolling her entire body to the beat.

"So sue me for looking so pretty tonight," she sang as she winked at a college boy who looked fairly young.

She pointed at me, "Wearing your favorite color under the lights." Her body rolled seductively as she flipped the small amount of hair hanging from her buns off her shoulders.

"For moving on, doing everything right," she sang as she blew a kiss to another man in front of her. He was definitely older, but you could tell that he was enjoying the attention he got from the younger female in front of him. He wasn't being weird, since he did have a beautiful woman holding his hand, but he was totally having fun.

So was I seeing my hot date singing and dancing on the stage.

"It's hard to see me on when you've been off as hell

But I'm not gonna throw myself because you adore yourself," she sang as she strutted off the stage, patting an old man's head as she walked passed.

She was slowly making her way over to me, I realized, but she doing a very good job of hiding it. She spun around a few people, sat on one or two tables, she even poked a man on the nose at the bar. She was having the time of her life out there and the crowd was having just as much fun, especially since she looked really good doing what she was doing. Eventually, she was close enough to me, and I was suddenly nervous.

"Oh I, I, I guess I'm hard to ignore," she sang as she leaned into me. Her eyes held lust and her lips looked absolutely delicious. Her hand trailed up my neck, sending goosebumps along my whole body, and she rested her fingers under my chin. "Pick up that jaw off the floor," she sang as she slowly pushed my chin up, causing my mouth to close.

She smirked evilly before sharply turning away and walking back to the stage, the sway in her hips causing my eyes to stare at her ass. She continued on sing the song, her movements so hypnotizing that I didn't even realize she made me look desperate in front of everyone. I didn't really care though, since she was hella sexy and I wasn't afraid to show I appreciated it.

When she sang the last verse, she stared seductively into my eyes and smirked, "Sue me, baby."

The crowd roared loudly when the music stopped and Amy instantly was brought back to reality. She smiled shyly at them and hurried over to where she was sitting. As soon as she plopped down, Milo asked if anyone else wanted to go. Amy instantly grabbed my wrist and raised my hand in the air.

"Maximus King would love to sing for all of you, wouldn't you Max?" She turned to me and raised a threatening eyebrow.

I chuckled and nodded. "I'd love to."