Finally Free -- JATP Luke x MaleOC

Chapter 57

"Well, thanks to Willie, Panic! At The Disco needs an opening band," Luke said, getting back onto the topic of their plan.

"Then I guess someone up there needs to know we're available," Alex smiled, regaining his energy.

Alex expected to feel different after his conversation with Willie. And yet, he felt strangely at peace. He couldn't say everything he wanted with words, but that one hug seemed to convey everything he wanted to convey.

Upstairs in the promotor's office, they saw the supposed "very professional" promotor slamming the handset of the telephone against the base.

"Stop!" the man yelled into the reciever. "Stop saying the bus drove itself!"

There was another person in the room, a young woman with a pixiecut, platinum blonde hair. She groaned as the man slammed his phone repeatedly again.

"Yeah, Willie was right," Reggie remarked. "This guy's a total pro."

"All right boys, let the magic happen," Luke snickered. "And Alex, no dancing."

Alex kept his eye contact with Luke as he did a small hop and extended his arms to form a large oval that was about aligned with his navel. He then danced over to the other side of the woman's desk, doing a quick spin before elegantly tipping over her pen holder so it spilled over the floor.

Well, he thought it was elegant.

Once the woman went down to pick up the spilled pens, Alex quickly swiped another pen that was laying on the desk and wrote the phone number he spent way too long memorizing. Next to him, Reggie went onto YouTube and searched the video that Julie's dad had uploaded onto the website, a task that took Reggie quite a while to understand considering none of them were quite used to the internet just yet. By the time she arose with the pen holder, Julie's voice was playing through the laptop speakers.

"Tasha!" The promoter man exclaimed. "Get me CJ and tell him I need a band to open in three hours."

"Sure, but you might wanna check this out," the woman, Tasha, said confidently.

The promotor man ended the call he was on and came over to Tasha's side, making Alex move back a little. He had a smile on his face as a small laugh escaped him, his arm now resting on Reggie's shoulder.

"Somehow this video started playing on my laptop," Tasha explained. "It's got half a million hits in just two days."

"Who are they?" the promotor asked, his eyes locked onto the screen.

"They're a hologram band, they call themselves 'Julie and The Phantoms.'"

"Tell your friends," Reggie commented.

"Where are they located?"

"Our very own City of Angels."

"Book 'em!"

Alex, Luke, and Reggie had a mini-celebration as those words left the promotor's mouth.

"Sure, I just don't know how to-"

Tasha's voice died out as she saw the phone number written out on the scratchpad in Alex's neat handwritting.

"Your handwritting is better than mine," Luke mumbled bitterly.

"Definitely," Alex nodded. "And Jay's too."

It was Jay's phone number that Alex had written out on the scratchpad. When Jay said he needed to make a call, he had left to call his friend CJ to check out the Orpheum's schedule and just how booked they were. CJ told them they were booked for months in advance and the only way they could get a performance in was if a band somehow couldn't make it anymore. That was when Jay formed the idea that had just taken place. The boys accompanied Jay as he took a field trip to a nearby park, the place where Jay and Willie had met years ago. Jay informed Willie of the plan and he was more than happy to help.

Back at the garage studio, Jay was sitting patiently on the couch while Julie continued to pace back and forth.

"Jules, calm down," Jay said as she kept going. "Your anxiety is giving me anxiety."

"I can't calm down," Julie said, exasperated. "There's a thousand things that can go wrong with this plan."

"But they won't," Jay reassured. "The chances of those things going wrong are pretty low, trust me."

"Takes one year of AP statistics and suddenly he's a master at probability," Julie remarked, rolling her eyes. Jay smiled and lightly threw a couch pillow at her, which she caught and quickly threw back as a familiar woosh sounded and three ghosts appeared.

"Oh my gosh, what took you guys so long?" she exclaimed. "Did Willie do it? Did yoy talk to them? Did they watch? Did they like it? Are we playing tonight? Can someone answer me? Why is no one saying anything?"

"Because you're not giving them a chance to," Jay said calmly, standing and placing a hand on Julie's shoulder as her wild arm movements slowed to a stop.

"Woah, that's a lot of questions!" Reggie exclaimed, overwhelmed by the amount of words that just came out of Julie's mouth. "Luke, you wanna take this one?"

"Take a seat," Luke said as the three of them huddled around the table and Jay pulled Julie down to sit next to him.

"It's fine, everything's fine," Luke assured.

"Yeah, you should be getting a call right...now!" Alex said, pointing at Jay's phone that lay face up on the table.

Nothing.

An expectant yet anxious look was passed around the band.

"Okay," Alex murmured. "Right...now!"

Alex pointed again and, right on cue, a number popped up on the phone screen as Jay's ringtone echoed throughout the studio.

Julie screamed and Alex held a hand out to the boys next to him for a high five while Jay picked up his phone, a large grin on his face. He quickly shushed all of them and swiped to answer the call, quickly putting it on speaker so that everyone could hear the conversation.

"Hello," Jay started once he picked up.

"Hi, this is Tasha from the Orpheum in Hollywood" Tasha greeted from the other end, inciting a celebration from Julie, Luke, Reggie, and Alex. "Is this Jay from 'Julie and The Phantoms?'"

Jay pulled the phone away from his mouth and cleared his throat, causing everyone else in the room to freeze in their positions.

"Yes, this is him," Jay replied.

"Hi, are you available to open for us tonight?" Tasha asked, straight to the point.

"Oh, of course!" Jay answered, excitement slipping into his own voice.

"Okay, great."

"Thank you so much!"

"We'll see you tonight."

"Perfect."

Jay ended the call and watched the scene in front of him with silent amusement. Luke and Reggie had picked Alex up and were now twirling him around as he moved his arms and legs as if to seim through the air.

"We're playing the Orpheum baby!" Julie exclaimed in excitement, cheering along with the three ghosts.

Jay smiled, though it was more of a sad smile than anything else. If playing the Orpheum really was their unfinished business, then the time he had left with the boys of Sunset Curve was far shorter than he had realized. But he remembered the words he had said to Luke only yesterday, words that he truly did mean: they needed to make the most of every moment they had left. And that meant there was little time for mulling over what the future might hold.

And so Jay tossed his phone aside to the couch and joined in on the celebrations.

After all, it's not every day you get to play at the Orpheum in Hollywood.