Finally Free -- JATP Luke x MaleOC

Chapter 27

The next day, Alex had personally made sure that Luke and Reggie wouldn't go to bother Jay. Needless to say, it sort of annoyed Luke.

"Dude, he said not to come today," Alex argued.

"I'm just gonna go check in on him and Julie," Luke said back.

"We can drop in on Julie today," Reggie pointed out from the couch. "She never said not to bother her at school."

"Sure, but only Julie," Alex said pointedly, knowing his bandmates.

"You're so stuck up today," Luke said.

"I just have respect for people's boundaries," Alex said.

Despite all of that, none of the boys had gone to the high school today. Alex had eventually gone out to find Willie, Reggie followed Ray around for the afternoon, and Luke had decided to visit his parents. He still hadn't recovered from the revalation that his parents still celebrated his birthday, even after twenty-five years.

The three of them had all returned back to the studio once they were sure Julie and Jay would be out of school. They were surprised  to see only Julie arrive at the studio, but none of them asked about Jay. They all assumed he was busy, just as most high school seniors were.

"Luckily my dad is still okay with us practicing in here," Julie said as she sat at her keyboard. "But now I have a strict curfew."

"Well, we can still rehearse," Luke said excitedly. "The gig is tomorrow! We've got work to do!"

So the band rehearsed without Jay. They definitely felt his missing presense, especially considering he was singing a lot more for 'Finally Free.' It made sense in their heads: Jay wrote the lyrics for the song, of course he would want to sing them.

Luke had wondered where Jay had gotten the inspiration for 'Finally Free,' but he never asked. To him, the first step was getting Jay to show him his songbook. Any questions about motivations and inspirations could come after that. Luke could already see part of what Jay was capable of, and he wanted to see more.

Julie was more open with her music than Jay was. She hadn't written like he had, but she was good. She had taken Jay's song and, with everyone's help, had changed it around so that it would fit everyone's voices and instruments. The boys were lucky that they had found both of them, even more so that they were in a band with them.

"We're all bright now
What a sight now
Comin' out like we're fireworks"

Julie was singing Jay's parts of the song since he wasn't here. Luke had chalked up his absense to a college visit or something he had to take care of after school, but it had been over an hour since Julie had arrived home and there was still no sign of the boy.

Luke was honestly starting to get worried, not that he'd ever admit it. He knew if he did then the boys would start going on about how he had a thing for Jay.

Which he didn't.

He doesn't like Jay that way.

And even if he did, it's not like they could actually have a relationship. Jay was alive. Luke was dead.

The other boys seemed to share Luke's sentiments because moments after they had finished their run of the song, Reggie spoke up.

"Hey, where's Jay at?" he asked Julie. "It's been a while since school ended."

"He's probably not coming today," Julie answered carefully, giving Luke an idea that she was hiding something. "He's pretty busy."

"Yeah, he mentioned something in trig," Alex said.