Biddies pub, late Friday night. The air's thick with music, warm pints, and poorly sung ballads. The friend group — all eight of them — has claimed the long booth near the corner, half full of chip wrappers, half full of secrets.

Joey Lynch sat at the edge of the group, long legs stretched under the table, a plastic pint glass half-empty in his hand. He wasn’t drunk. Not really. Just warm enough to feel everything sharper.

Across the table, she laughed — his girl. Not really his, though. Not anymore. Maybe not ever.

She was tucked under the arm of some big lad from the rugby team, the kind with a too-clean smile and a blazer that still smelled of his mum’s ironing. Joey hated him. Didn’t know him — but hated him all the same.

“Your turn,” Gibsie said, elbowing him with that devil-may-care grin that Joey used to find hilarious and now only half did.

“What?” Joey blinked.

“Karaoke. You and me. I put us down.”

Joey shot him a look, but Gibsie was already dragging him toward the stage, already whispering, “You’ll thank me. Or hit me. Either way, fun for me.”

The screen lit up. Undressed – Sombr.

Joey swallowed hard.

“No.” His voice was low.

“Yes,” Gibsie grinned. “Too late now.”

The music started, low and steady. Gibsie took the first lines. Joey waited — hands tight on the mic, eyes on no one and everyone all at once.

And then it came. Joey’s part.

“I don’t want the children of another man to have the eyes of the girl I won’t forget…”

He looked at her.

Straight at her.

Across the room, her eyes lifted from her drink. Locked on his.

The rugby lad beside her leaned in to say something, but she didn’t answer. Didn’t blink.

Joey sang the line like it was carved from bone. Quiet but certain. Every word raw and real in a way he never let himself be. Until now.

Their friends were silent. Even Lizzie, even Claire. Shannon blinked. Hughie looked like he’d stop breathing if anyone else did first. Johnny just stared down at the table.

And her?

She sat still. So still. Eyes wide. Lips parted. Like she wasn’t expecting it. Like maybe she was.

Joey didn’t look away until the last word slipped through his teeth.

Then he handed the mic back.

Didn’t wait for applause. Didn’t wait for her. Just stepped down, stepped past, stepped out.

And the silence he left behind echoed louder than any song.