midnight memories | luke patterson (on hold)

10

After that oddly terrifying encounter with magic man, I walked into the studio to catch Reggie, Julie and Luke in the middle of a conversation.

"We're playing a school dance? Sweet!" Reggie excitedly cheers. "It's not exactly the Strip." I overhear Luke mumble. I finally let my presence be known to the rest of the group. "Hey guys! Where's Alex?" I ask, avoiding all possible eye contact with Luke.

"Where do you think he is?" Reggie jokes. "Ah I gotcha." I realize he's with his friend. "Kelsey! How are you feeling?" Julie walks towards me, leaving the guys to watch our conversation from the piano.

"I'm doing alright. You'll never believe what happened." I prepare myself to tell her everything, except the part about Caleb. "We got a gig!" Reggie interrupts Julie and I's conversation. "Where?" I curiously ask. "Julie's school." Luke says, causing me to finally look at him just to see that he's not looking at me either.

"Listen, I wasn't in love with the idea at first either, but it could be a great way for us to build a following, right?" I'm not sure if Julie is trying to reassure us or herself. "Yeah. Yeah. You need to play wherever you can, whenever you can." I back Julie up.

Luke smiles at Julie, "No, you're right. Let's rock those kids' faces off and then play the clubs." He says, a lot more enthusiastic about playing for a bunch of kids. "And then record a single that gets a billion streams?" Julie adds on, causing us to all look at her as if she was crazy.

"I don't know what that is, but hopefully it gets us a manager and a tour." Luke smiles like an idiot. It's so hard not to feel anything for him. As they continue talking about their future as a band, I start to zone out.

Someone's snapping fingers cause me to come back into reality. "You good?" Julie moves back. "Yeah, yeah I'm fine. Just thinking about how terrible Reggie would be at the banjo." I laugh. The guys were now engaged in their own one on one conversation. "Hey, so what were you going to tell me about before?" Julie reminds me.

I look over at Luke. Even though he wouldn't care, I still don't want him to hear about it. "Let's go outside." I hint to Julie, luckily she picks up on what I mean and we both walk out of the studio without the two boys noticing.

"Ok. So remember that kid Tyler?" I asked her. "The super cute, curly haired boy you told me about? Of course I do! You were practically gushing about him." She laughed. "Well, here's the thing. He kinda wrote a song about me, sang it to me, and then kinda asked me to give him a chance." I spoke nervously. "From what I'm hearing he kinda likes you." Julie playfully mocks me. "So what did you say!?"

"I... rejected him." I say, which causes her smile to drop. "Is it cause of—" I nod my head answering her question before she even finishes it. "I see, I see. Well what are you going to do?" That's a good question. What am I going to do? "I have no clue Julie, but I'll figure something out." I send her a reassuring smile.

With the end of our conversation, we walk back into the garage, only to find one boy there. "Where's Luke?" Julie asks. "Oh! Um..." Reggie jumped at our entrance. "Spit it out Reg!" I laughed at the boy staring at me with wide eyes. "He went... looking for Alex!" Reggie answered, but didn't seem too sure of his answer.

"I guess if you guys want, we can practice until they come back." Julie smiled. "Thanks Julie but I got plans with your dad." Reggie gives us a quick wave and disappears. "I'm not the only one who thinks that's weird right?" Julie looks at me concerned. "Nope." I say staring at where Reggie just poofed from.

After about an hour of writing and coming up with melodies, the boys all returned to the studio. Once I saw Alex, I walked towards him. "So where did Luke find you?" I whisper. "Huh? I haven't seen Luke all day." Alex furrows his brows at me. "Oh. Interesting." I say quickly before walking away.