So This Is Love ~~~~ R.P.

x. Second Chance

"Junk?" Luke asked insulted.

"Some of this stuff's in pretty good shape," Julie's dad observed as he touched Alex's cymbal. "Maybe we could make a couple bucks."

"What? Yo stop touching my drums. Tell him to stop touching my drums," Alex said defensively.

"I like that song you had on."

"Sweet! We're Sunset Curve." Luke said even though Julie's dad can't hear us.

"Tell your friends," Reggie added.

"It's just and old CD I found," Julie told her father.

"Well, still, it's nice you're listening to music again," her father responded. "Out here, you can play whatever you want, whenever you want."

"Oh." Luke said, intrigued.

"That's nice," Alex comments.

"Stay out of this," Julie told them.

"Oh. I-I'm sorry. I didn't..." her father replied. He thought she was talking to him.

"No, no, no, no, no. Not you. I mean. Um...Er- well, can you give me a minute?" Julie rambled.

"Hey, we'll figure out this whole music program thing."

"Thanks dad." And with that, Julie's father left the garage.

"He likes our song," I said.

"Uh yeah. He doesn't count. He's a dad," Alex quips.

"Why can't you guys be normal ghosts? Go haunt an old mansion or something. I hear Pasadena's nice!" Julie replied snarkily.

"I think she's warming up to us," I tell Reggie.

"Yeah. I've always wanted to go to Pasadena," Reggie said. I roll my eyes at his random nonsense.

Luke poofed in front of Julie just as she was about to leave.

"Ah! Don't do that," she said.

"Sorry," Luke said, "I know that this whole thing is insane, but do you know how rad this is? People... like actual, real life people, can hear us play."

"Yeah." Julie said flatly, "I've just had a really really bad day. I've got to go."

"Well, I'm sorry you had a bad day, but three guys-"

"And a girl."

"Three guys and a girl just found out they had a bad 25 years-"

"26 and a half..."

"Jaiden, could you like, just like let me do this?" Luke said turning his attention back to Julie. "And then they found out the one thing that they lived for in the first place, they can still do. That's pretty rad."

"Yeah. You're right. It's just..." Julie trailed off.

"Your bad day. I know. Look, I'm sorry we came into your life, but... what I just felt in there actually made me feel alive again. We all felt alive again. So, you can kick us out if you want, but we're not giving up music. We can play again. That's a gift no musician would ever turn down," Luke said emotionally. "You gotta know that. Clearly, your mom is into music."

"Was. She passed away," Julie said solemnly.

"I am... so sorry," I say.

"Yeah, we... we didn't know," Alex added.

"It's all right," Julie replied. "You guys haven't seen her anywhere, have you? From wherever you're from."

"Um... No. No, I mean, you're kind of the first person we've seen," Luke answered.