Dedicating this Chapter to thevaliant07, thanks for being one of my first supporters and for reading, voting & commenting on this story since it started. :) Thanks a lot! :)

Imp - This is to say that I'm NOT making fun of anyone or anything in this story, fun is only being made of my characters because of the situations they land themselves into, well, mainly Keith. :D happy Reading! Enjoy! :)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CHAPTER - 8

MORE THAN KARAOKE

We chose to sit at the corner table instead of a vacant table in the center of the almost full restaurant. The place was dimly lit except for the karaoke stage that had an instrumentatbandat its left side and a mic placed in the center. A spotlight was currently focused on the woman who was singing a Christmas carol and her family was applauding for her. The entire restaurant had a cozy maroon feel to it. The walls were filled with paintings and photos with the theme of music. The ceiling had some square shaped small chandeliers all over adding to the warm feel of the restaurant.

"This is so cool," Kim said in awe.

I grinned as we sat at our chosen table. Kim asked me to order for her as well and I knew what was good here, so that was not a problem. A waitress came over to take our orders and I checked her out, just like she checked me out. I smirked at the blonde, making her blush and quickly checked her name tag.

"Good evening," she greeted when she reached our table and looked specifically at me. "I'm-"

I interrupted her, "Hi Chelsey." I smirked and she blushed a bit more.

"Y-yes, your waitress for the evening. May I have your orders now?" she asked, looking at me all the time.

"So, you'll be serving me tonight?" I reframed her words and gave her my famous irresistible smirk as she bit her bottom lip, looking at me.

"Player." Kim coughed, breaking my concentration from Chelsey. I shot her a glare, but she eyed the menu as if she had said nothing and the menu in her hand was the most interesting thing in the world.

Chelsey probably didn't hear Kim or chose to ignore her, as she took a step towards me and bent a little. She purred, "With pleasure."

A sense of accomplishment rang in my head and I smirked at her response, this was exactly what I had expected.

"Slut." Kim coughed and again, I shot her a glare.

This time Chelsey didn't ignore her as she asked, "What?" The question was directed towards the girl who apparently had developed a sudden cough and cold in the last two minutes.

"Water, woman. I need water." Kim looked at her with wide eyes and stressed on 'woman'.

I rolled my eyes at Kim and gave our orders to Chelsey who completely avoided Kim after Kim's demand for water. She walked away, but not before winking at me.

"What was that?" I asked Kim.

"What?" she asked too innocently.

"You know what." I told her, rolling my eyes.

She grinned. "If I hadn't stopped you both, I would have been watching a live porn show right now," she said while shuddered, making me laugh.

"No, not here. Maybe in the store-room or men's restroom," I said, faking thoughtfulness in my voice and scratching my chin. She scrunched up her nose showing her disgust and I smirked smugly.

"Where do you see yourself five years down the line?" I asked her out of the blue.

She looked taken aback by my sudden question, but recomposed her features. She shrugged her shoulders. "I don't really have any plans," she mumbled. I raised an eyebrow in question and she continued, "I want to be a professional photographer. I love capturing great moments in frame. I want to live my life freely, without any burdens, without any regrets, without any sorrows; just happiness and smiles," her voice merely a whisper as she finished her sentence. She looked like she was in a daze as she eyed the table between us.

"Have you always wanted to be a photographer?" I asked her.

Her smile faded when the question registered in her head and she looked at me. She shot me a fake smile and muttered, "Spur of a moment kind of decision." She started looking at the stage trying to avoid looking at me. I didn't have to be a genius to figure out that her mood was spoiled because of something I had said or some memory that I had made her remember because of my questions. The woman had now stopped singing and my hands automatically went up to clap, like everyone else's in this room. This place had that effect on everyone. It radiated energy and liveliness.

"Can you sing?" I asked her.

Her eyes went wide. "No, no, no, no. Singing and dancing are not my cup of tea," she told me, shuddering at the mere mention of these two words.

I let the matter drop as Max, the lead singer of the band, came to stage and started singing 'Last Christmas'. In the meanwhile, Chelsey came back with our food and her flirting mood. She flirted with me, fluttering her eyelashes, giving me secret smiles and all the while, Kim didn't say even a single word. I looked at her expecting her to be looking at Chelsey and me with distaste or smirking secretly or any kind of 'Kim-reaction' but I found her looking thoughtful and roaming her finger on the rim of the glass in front of her.

I thanked Chelsey and she reluctantly went away. We ate our food in silence, an uncomfortable silence. I kept stealing glances at Kim, who was too busy looking at her food and taking bites of the steak, I had ordered for her. Max kept singing Christmas songs after songs. The restaurant went silent as we let his soothing voice reach our ears. He was an incredible singer.

"Is there anybody who would like to come up here and sing for all of us?" he asked, his English accent dominating his voice. Nobody answered. "C'mon people. It's Christmas. Whoever wants to sing, just stand up." He grinned, looking around. Still, nobody stood up.

An evil smirk made its way on my face as a plan popped up in my head. I turned to face Kim, who was still looking intently at her leftover steak. "Kim!" I said in a desperate, rushed, panicked voice. Her face snapped up to look at me and I pointed at her shoulder, wide-eyed. "Don't move, there is-"

I didn't have to complete my full sentence to make her do, what I asked her not to do. After all, she was a girl who always do what they are asked not to do. She moved. Actually, she stood up in panic and started brushing her right shoulder and arm with her left hand. Within a second, the spotlight was on her. "We've our next singer. Give her a big hand everybody," Max announced.

It took a minute for Kim to absorb my whole plan and realize what just happened. When she did, she shot me death glare, which couldn't fade away my victorious smirk.

"So, love, what is your name?"Max asked and I watched as Kim's cheeks turned red, either from the thought of singing in front of everyone or because Max called her 'love'.

I answered for her, when she didn't answer, "Kim." Her head snapped towards me and she narrowed her eyes towards me. My smirk just grew.

"Give a hand for Kim, everyone," Max announced and everybody did what they were told to do.

Everybody looked at her expectantly when she didn't even budge from her spot. She cleared her throat and fidgeted with a button of her over-coat. "Who is Kim? I'm Kimberly and I should really sit down as some Kim is supposed to sing now." She laughed nervously as she looked around. I hearty laugh escaped my lips at how she was willing to be called by her full name just to avoid singing. She was amusing.

"Oh, C'mon. Kim, Kimberly; it's all the same. Everybody is waiting for you." Max pressed and everybody started cheering for her.

She looked at me one last time and muttered, "Start sending goodbye messages to your friends and family now. You're so dead." I chuckled heartily at her warning.

I watched as she took a few turns from the tables separating our table from the stage. Spotlight followed her every moment. She reached the stage and stopped near Max. She didn't trip like I expected her to do.

"What song would you like to sing?" Max asked and kept the mic in front of her.

She frowned in response. "How would I know?" The crowd chuckled and laughed at her response and her eyes went a bit wide, maybe she didn't realize that mic was directly in front of her. Her eyes met mine and I sent her a reassuring smile and motioned her to rock the stage by bringing my fist lightly in the air. She smiled at my gesture and after a moment, whispered something in Max's ear, making sure to cover the mic with her hand this time.

Max raised his eyebrows and said, "As you wish." With that, he went towards his band and told them the song to be played. She rubbed her sweaty palms on her jeans showing that she was nervous. It was good to see this side of her for the first time.

Everybody went silent as the music started playing. My eyebrows furrowed in confusion as I heard the popular music of Queen's 'We will rock you'. I guess, she took my 'rock the stage' gesture a bit too seriously.

She started in a low, nervous voice.

"Buddy you're a boy make a big noise 

Playin' in the street, gonna be a big man someday."

She was right when she said that singing was not her thing. In fact, I would say, she was a better dancer than a singer. Still, her voice got confident as she sang further.

"You got mud on your face, big disgrace 

Kicking the can all over the place, singin,"

She brought up her hands in the air as she did the trademark step of this song and sang further.

"We will, we will rock you (ha ha)."

Everyone in the restaurant lifted their hands in the air and did the step including me. We sang with her.

"We will, we will rock you. C'mon."

A smile made its way on her face when she noticed that nobody was making fun of her singing. In fact, everyone was singing with her and enjoying. Soon, she herself started enjoying it and sang the rest of the song. Throughout the song, all of us did the trademark step and sang with her on the title lines of the song. It was like a concert of a bad singer, who could still make people enjoy because of his liveliness, in this case, her liveliness and smile. All during that time, the huge grin didn't leave her face and I was happy to know that I helped in making her mood better, maybe that's why even I had a grin on my face. I guess it was just this place, as I said before; this place radiates energy and liveliness. That's what it was.

"That was so awesome," she gushed when we stepped out. Her eyes were lit up with excitement and happiness. Her lips were stretched in a grin so huge it looked like someone had inserted a hanger in her mouth.

I looked around to spot Lee but he was nowhere to be seen. I laughed and told her, "You're a pathetic singer."

She was not offended as she playfully hit my arm and declared, "You still enjoyed." I didn't argue, knowing how true it was.

My phone vibrated in my jean pocket and I stopped to take it out. Kim didn't notice that I had stopped and kept on walking towards the car that was parked a few meters away from us. I looked at the caller id and 'Emily' was flashing on it. I looked up to find Kim and saw her strolling carelessly towards the car. I turned back towards the restaurant and picked up the call.

"Yeah," I asked, feeling bored even before the conversation started.

"Hey, Keith baby," she purred on the other side. I rolled my eyes. Even my mom stopped calling me that years ago.

"Yes, mom," I said mockingly.

"What?" She shrieked.

"You douche bag, bastard. I'll kill you." I abruptly turned around at Kim's shouting, angry voice and saw her running towards me furiously. In a reflex, I held up my hands in surrender and racked my brains to think of what I had done to make her so furious at me. Did she find out about all my lies?

'Oh, no!' I thought.

"He stole my bag," she shouted in panic once she reached me.

'Oh, yes!' I thought.

"You had a bag?" I asked her scrunching my eyebrows together. She looked at me with clenched jaw and I realized that I had asked a wrong question at the wrong time. "Okay..." I trailed off and again asked, "Who?"

"His name is Billy. He lives downtown with his girlfriend," she said immediately and I looked at her confused. She groaned and shouted, "Do you think he told me his whereabouts before stealing it? How would I know?" I grinned sheepishly and she pointed towards an alley. "He went there."

In an instant, I started running in that direction with Kim following behind me; the phone call from Emily, long forgotten and cancelled. From far off, I could see a huge man running with a handbag in his hand. I followed him as he took too many turns from one alley to another. We were far from him, but not too far to see that he entered some door in the dark alley.

We reached that door and Kim tried to catch her breath as she bent down to keep her hands on her knees. I was not out of breath, thanks to the football training.

"What do we do now?" I asked her.

"Go inside, what else?" she answered.

"Are you crazy? Look at this place! He might have his entire gang inside or something," I told her. I was not scared of fighting, but I was not stupid as well to fight huge gang members for just a bag.

She clenched her jaw and narrowed her eyes. "I want my bag and I'll get it," she said with finality and with that she opened the door and went inside. I groaned in frustration and followed her.

The smell of cigarettes hit me the moment I stepped in. Kim suppressed her cough and waved her hand in front of her nose to clear the smoke. As we took a few more steps inside, we noticed a spiral staircase going up and we started climbing that. It led to a door which had 'Green Room' written on it. Kim opened the door only to find nobody inside it. There were just many wigs, furs and slutty huge dresses kept all over the place. Suddenly, we heard loads of cheering voices of men and I concluded that we were in a very wrong place. But the girl with me didn't think so and kept on walking in the direction of the noises. She peeked through a curtain which was separating us from the crowd and I pulled her back, so that she was no longer towards the curtain and it was my back towards it.

"What are you doing? You're not going to do anything stupid just for a bag," I hissed.

"Okay, my bag is grey in color with black thin stripes on it and a huge silver buckle. The guy who stole it is bald and has french beard. He is wearing a black leather jacket with lots of patches on it. Oh, and he is really huge," she told me in one breath.

My eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "Okay?"

"Good! Now, go!" With that, she pushed me backwards

Before I could voice out my confusion any further and ask her where I was supposed to go, I felt a sudden push, but somehow managed to stop myself from falling and balanced on the shining floor. The noises from before grew louder as if they were right in front of me. Slowly, I lifted my head to look in the direction of the noises and what I saw, shocked me. On the stage, there were four other guys standing with only in their boxers or boxers teamed with their unbuttoned shirts. My sudden entry had resulted in the attention of the audience to be diverted towards me and the entire crowd was looking at me from head to toe, with hunger and lust clear in their eyes. When realization dawned upon me, I gulped my own spit as suddenly I was feeling too thirsty due to nervousness. My palms started sweating and I rubbed them on my jeans to get rid of the sweat or better, the situation.

The question that had died in my mouth was answered by the huge crowd in front of me.

I was in a Gay strip club and I was the stripper. Thanks to Kim.

 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A/N- 

Please VOTE, COMMENT, FOLLOW & spread a word about this story if you like the story. :)

Again, fun of homosexuals is NOT made in this story as I myself support their rights completely. Fun is just being made of my characters because of the situations they land themselves into.

Thanks! :) <3

5th January 2016 - Edited! :)