The pub was louder than usual. Laughter bounced off the wooden beams overhead, football highlights flashed silently across mounted televisions and somewhere near the dartboards Soap was insisting, far too confidently, that he could beat Gaz in three rounds. Price had already accepted defeat when it came to keeping the team remotely sensible, settling into his chair with a pint while Kyle rolled his eyes and reached for the darts. Ghost stayed where he preferred. At the bar. Half turned away from the crowd, nursing the same glass he’d barely touched in the last twenty minutes. He wasn’t much for nights out but Price insisted the team needed the occasional break from training grounds and briefing rooms. No missions. No paperwork. Just one evening where nobody had to think about tomorrow. Ghost wasn’t convinced it worked. The noise might drown out memories for a few hours but they were always waiting when the silence returned.

Then the lights over one corner of the pub dimmed. A battered karaoke machine crackled to life, earning a chorus of cheers from the regulars. A tiny stage, barely raised more than a foot off the floor, sat beneath a cheap spotlight. Someone stumbled onto it. A woman. She almost missed the first step climbing up, caught herself with a laugh, then bowed dramatically to an audience that hadn’t asked for a performance. Soap snorted into his drink. “Poor bastard’s had too many.” Ghost barely glanced over. Until she started laughing. Not the polite kind. Not forced. A genuine, carefree laugh that filled the room before the music had even begun. She took the microphone with both hands and squinted at the lyrics on the screen. “Oh, this is definitely the wrong song…” The crowd cheered anyway. She shrugged. “Too late now.” The music started. She didn’t have the polished voice of someone trying to impress people.

She missed a few words, pointed the microphone towards the crowd during the chorus and laughed whenever she got something wrong. At one point she completely abandoned singing altogether, dancing across the tiny stage with exaggerated confidence while strangers clapped along. The entire pub seemed to brighten around her. Simon found himself watching. He didn’t know her. Didn’t recognise her. Didn’t even know her name. Yet she looked…free. Like someone who hadn’t spent years carrying the weight of every decision on her shoulders. No hesitation. No second guessing. Just existing in the moment because she felt like it. It was foreign, dangerously so. Most people he met carried something behind their eyes, fear, anger, regret. She carried none of it. Or if she did, she hid it better than anyone he’d ever seen. Soap followed Ghost’s gaze before grinning. “You’ve been staring for about three minutes.” “I haven’t.” “You absolutely have.” Ghost ignored him.

On stage, the woman finished the song with a dramatic spin that nearly sent her straight off the edge. She windmilled both arms to catch her balance before bursting into another fit of laughter, covering her face as the entire pub applauded. Instead of taking a bow, she pointed accusingly at the karaoke machine. “That thing tried to kill me.” More laughter. Even Price smiled into his drink. “She’s got confidence,” Gaz admitted. “Or absolutely no shame,” Soap replied. “Bit of both.” Ghost said nothing. She wasn’t loud in the irritating way some drunk people became. She wasn’t demanding attention. She simply…enjoyed herself. There was something strangely infectious about it. She climbed off the stage, accepted a fresh drink from someone she’d apparently befriended within minutes and disappeared into the crowd, still laughing as though the world hadn’t given her a single reason not to.

Ghost watched until she vanished behind a group near the pool table. He finally looked away. Only to realise his glass was still untouched. Soap noticed immediately. A smug grin spread across his face. “So…” Ghost sighed. “Don’t.” “You fancy the karaoke girl.” “I don’t even know her.” “Aye.” Soap leaned back with entirely too much satisfaction. “But you’d like to.”