ghosting ♪ reggie peters [jatp]

12

12. THE CLOCK IS TICKING

A crowd had formed outside of Julie's garage as Ray set up his camera equipment for the mini-concert at the Molina's. Flynn put together an impressive set up with fairy lights lining the fence and the grand piano sitting just outside of the garage doors. The band tuned their instruments and warmed up as Flynn took the microphone to address the audience.

"What's up, everybody?" She greeted, gathering everyone's attention. "Time to put your hands up, do a little dance, yup. Here's the new anthem from Julie and the Phantoms."

The doors were opened to reveal Julie, who approached the piano with a smile.

"Ready, boys?" Eleanor smirked, adjusting her ponytail.

"Always," Reggie replied, bumping his shoulder to hers.

"Thanks for coming, everyone," Julie spoke after taking a seat.

She took a deep breath and pressed her fingers into the keys, jumping straight into the song. As expected, the audience cheered once the ghosts appeared, and Julie stood up and began to dance around the band. She bounced from Reggie to Eleanor to Alex, but skipped over Luke, who frowned as she turned her back to him.

Further into the second verse, Luke was growing frustrated as Julie continued to ignore him. Eleanor smirked at his reaction, knowing exactly what Julie was doing. Perks of being the only other girl in the band is getting to hear the gossip shared between Julie and Flynn, but she of course kept it a secret from the boys.

After the bridge, Julie sang acapella until Luke became fed up and started improvising a guitar solo, much to the rest of the band's surprise. The boys joined in on the harmonies, and feeling left out, Eleanor threw in her own riff to stay relevant and add to the final chorus. Still, she felt drowned out by everyone's talent. She shook off the feeling and continued playing, putting in all of her effort for her final part of the song.

Eleanor, Reggie, and Alex disappeared as Julie and Luke sat back down at the piano and finished the song, sharing the microphone and gazing deeply into each other's eyes as they sang.

"That's...intimate," Eleanor giggled and the two boys agreed.

❛ ━━━━━･♫♪.♫♪･━━━━━ ❜

Cooling down from the performance, Eleanor slumped into a lawn chair in the backyard. The crickets chirped a droning tone, soon becoming white noise to the girl as she lost herself in her thoughts.

Reggie poofed behind her, glad to finally find Eleanor after searching around the studio for her.

"You okay?" He asked, placing a hand on her shoulder. She jumped at his presence, and clutched a hand over her heart after shouting in alarm.

"Reggie, you scared the shit out of me," She gasped, whipping her head around to face him.

"My bad...but seriously, are you okay?"

"Yeah, yeah. Just thinking."

"What's going on in that pretty little head of yours?"

Eleanor tensed at the subtle compliment as he took the seat across from her and scooted the chair close enough that their knees were almost touching.

"It's stupid," She sighed, pressing her palms into her thighs.

"I'm sure it's not. What's bothering you?"

"It's just...The first time we have a guitar solo in a song, Luke gets to play it with no warning, while I'm stuck here strumming the same chords over and over again. I know I just joined the band and everything, so I'm probably not entitled to say anything, but I just feel kind of stuck in the background. Like, you're all so insanely talented and have amazing stage presence, but I feel like I'm dead weight, you know?"