midnight memories | luke patterson (on hold)

4

LOS ANGELES, 2020

After spending the day with the boys, we arrive back at the studio. "Guess she's still not home." Alex shrugs his shoulders. "Guys... I don't know about you, but I could use a snack." We all turn to see Reggie pouting. "Can ghosts even eat?" I ask, raising a brow. "Let's go find out." Luke says as he poofs out of the studio.

We appear in the house, but not in the kitchen. "This.. is definitely not the kitchen." I say as we all walk further into the room, I reach the dresser to see a picture frame. In it is a picture of a mother and a little girl, Julie. This is Julie's room. "We definitely shouldn't be in here." I turn to the guys and announce. "We're just looking around what's the harm in that?" Luke asks. I look around at the guys to back me up, but Reggie is already lying down in Julie's bed and Alex is now attempting to pick up the picture I was looking at just seconds ago. Ugh. I can never win with these idiots. "Fine. But when Julie finds out and kills you a second time, I will sit there and laugh." I roll my eyes as Luke laughs. I look over at him examining a box on Julie's shelf.

I guess we were all too focused on looking around that we didn't hear Julie open the door and walk in. "What are you doing in my room?" Julie looks shocked at first, but her face slowly changes into one of annoyance. Told you so. "Uh..." Reggie opens his mouth, but can't come up with an excuse quick enough. Alex joins in with Reggie, looking back and forth between us and going "um..." Luke is the one who finally comes up with an excuse, "We were looking for the kitchen?" He answers in an unsure tone. I said he came up with an excuse, never said it was a good one. Julie quickly catches on saying "This... this can't happen. It's creepy."

"Get off my bed, please." With that, Reggie quickly jumps off Julie's bed. Seeing the boys so scared of her is the funniest thing ever. "Hey, Julie." We all turn to see Luke with a look of distress on his face. "What's in the box?" He asks. I mentally face-palm. "That's off limits." Julie states, making it clear it's something private. "Oh. Oh, ok." Luke chuckles. "Girl stuff." He ends in a high pitched voice. Unintentionally, Julie and I both cross our arms at the same time and give Luke a death glare. "Oh, like butterflies and glitter?" Reggie asks innocently. "You guys are idiots." I shake my head. Julie looks at me and nods her head in agreement. "Oh, come on. I'm sorry about them." Alex apologizes, but Julie brushes it off, responding to Luke. "It's none of your business. And yes, there might be some glitter." She answers Reggie's question.

Reggie smiles feeling successful. "Hey!" We all look at Alex. "I actually picked something up." He announces, he had been trying to pick the picture up since we first got here. And just as fast as he had finally picked it up, Alex quickly dropped the picture onto Julie's bed. "I dropped it." He looks up at Julie. "Is that your mom?" Luke asks, while we all hover over looking at it. "Yes, and it's my favorite picture of us. If you break it, I'll break you." Julie threatens as she pulls the photo off the bed. I laugh at her comment, "Get in line." We all back away from the bed. "Ok, well sorry because we're kind of unbreakable at this point." Alex states. Smartass.

"I don't get it." Julie starts, "You guys can mess up my bed, pick up your instruments, but you can't pick up other stuff?" She asks. "I know, right? It's hard." I say as I look up at Luke standing right next to me. I'm just now realizing how close we are. "But for some reasons our instruments, easy." He adds onto my sentence. "Yeah, like super easy. Oh, and check out what I learned today." Reggie announces proudly. He stands up and suddenly his guitar appears. However, he's quickly knocked over, not expecting it to be that heavy. I let out a loud laugh, catching the eye of Luke, who smiles at me. "Yeah, that looked super easy." Julie says sarcastically. Reggie is still groaning from under the bass, while Luke starts to speak again. "It's like I always thought, our instruments are attached to our souls." His face full of excitement.