Reggie, Luke and Odette sat on the couch, watching Alex pace back and forth, deep in thought.
"I think he's practicing his model strut," Reggie guessed as he laced his fingers through Odette's.
"He's so nervous, it's almost making me nervous," Luke said as he glanced at Reggie and Odette's intertwined fingers and smiled.
Odette nodded. "You're nervous, I'm nervous, we're all nervous."
Alex looked between them. "Okay, you guys know I don't handle change well. Excluding Odette joining the band, as she was already sort of part of it. All right? Death? That was a change. Okay? Then we became ghosts-"
"Another change," Odette interrupted.
"Yes, thank you. And now we can be seen whenever we play with Julie. Big freaking change!"
"You have to admit it was a cool change."
"Yeah, but still."
"With Julie, we can play on stage again and be the band we never got to be," Reggie said. "With Odette as a band member."
"I mean, who wouldn't be? I just - you know, I wanna figure out."
"Forget why," Luke told him. "Man, I say we invite Julie to join Sunset Curve."
Odette nodded. "That could be fun. Having another girl in the band would be nice."
Reggie grinned. "Yeah, she could be the new lead singer."
"I'm the lead singer!" Luke argued.
"Dude, that girl has the voice of an angel and can make us visible. Without her, we're just like elevator music." Odette shuddered at the thought.
"You don't have to be so mean about it. And we're on the runway again." Luke pointed to Alex.
"I'm sorry, okay?! I gotta clear my head," Alex said as he walked to the garage and tried to open it in frustration.
"Dude, you're a ghost," Reggie told him. "Just poof out!"
Odette nodded. "You'd look a lot less stupid."
"Don't tell me how to ghost! Be nice, Odette!" Alex inhaled and poofed out.
---
Alex walked the streets of LA, trying to clear his head.
He saw two men walking towards him who looked like Ghostbusters.
"Oh God, I'm busted," Alex muttered. "Oh God! No!" He cowered into himself, but the men went through him.
Alex stood straighter. "Okay."
"Beep beep!" a boy called with a chuckle as he skated. "Comin' through! Hey! Oh! Nice hat! Cheese!" He chuckled and hit Alex, knocking them both to the ground.
Alex groaned and coughed. "Aah!"
"Ah," the boy said with a cough and cleared his throat. "Oh man! Oh, you dinged my board."
"I dinged your board? Dude, you ran me over. You're lucky I didn't... Y-Y-You... you... you ran me over. You're a ghost?"
"Mm. Yeah. Ever since I learned the hard way that..." he removed his helmet and threw his head back, causing his hair to cascade down, "...skating in traffic was bad. Hey, sorry I, uh, smashed into you. I thought you were a lifer and I'd just pass right through."
"Uh, a lifer?"
"Yeah, that's, uh... That's what we call people who are living." The boy smiled, seeing Alex's puzzled expression. "You're new to this whole ghost thing, aren't you?"
Alex chuckled. "Yeah. Is it that obvious?"
"Totally." The boy chuckled. "Hey, I'm, uh... I'm Willie."
"Oh, uh, Alex."
"So, um, what brings you to Hollywood, man? You, uh, sightseeing? Picture with that, uh..." he clicked his tongue, "Marilyn girl?"
"Uh... Yeah, actually, I was having a minor afterlife crisis, so, you know, just clearing my head until you tried to crack it open."
Willie chuckled. "I did pancake you, huh? I'm sorry." He composed himself. "Um, so, minor afterlife crisis?"
"Yeah, I just... I just keep freaking out about everything, you know? Shouldn't we be in Heaven or something?"
"Who's we?"
"Oh, uh, me and my bandmates. We all died."
"Right. Now, that's tragic, man. You guys have some kind of accident, or..."
"Yeah. Yeah, you could... you could say that. We ate some bad hot dogs and the girl in our band, her heart suddenly gave out."
"Whoa! No way."
"Yeah."
"Weirdly, that is what happened to Mozart. Sorry about your friend's heart issue."
"Wow. That's actually comforting. Thank you. And thanks for about her." Willie chuckled. "Hey, do you mind if I ask you a couple more questions?"
"That's kind of your thing, isn't it? All right. You just gotta keep up." He skated away.
"Hey! Um... wait up!"
---
Julie entered and sighed heavily before calling, "Dad!"
"Aah!" Ray exclaimed with a chuckle. "Good. You're home."
Julie looked at the papers. "What's all this?"
"Ah, just, you know, some stuff on other schools with music programs and... and some private lessons stuff. I know it looks like a mess, but your dad's got this."
"Well, luckily for you, I got back in at my school."
"Wait. Wait, what? You're not joking me now?"
Julie chuckled. "I went down, I put on a show with some ghosts... Getters, go-getters, and Principal Lessa let me back in."
"Yes! Yes!" He hugged her.
"Oh! Mm! Ohh!"
"You're awesome. I am happy for you. You are the best!"
The papers Ray was holding flew to the floor and Julie giggled before saying, "I got it. I got it." She picked up a flyer. ""The Australian School of Music"? That's halfway around the world."
"I... I was gonna bring you home for Christmas." Julie made her way up the stairs. "Hey, you rock. The best. Yes." He threw the papers in the air.
---
Odette, Reggie and Alex were playing with the instruments whilst waiting for Julie.
"Reggie, Odette, what do you think of this riff?" Luke asked as he played the riff.
Odette nodded. "Yeah, I can go with that."
"Sweet. I'm feeling that. And then I come in with a little, uh-" Reggie began.
Odette cut him off. "Then Julie and I come in with her killer lyrics."
"And Sunset Curve is reborn," Reggie said as Julie entered the studio.
Odette smiled and waved. "Hi, Julie."
Julie frowned. "Guys, you aren't supposed to be playing out here alone!"
Odette glanced around. "But we're not alone. We're always together."
Reggie nodded. "Yeah, we're not alone 'cause we always have each other!" Luke hugged him from behind and Reggie took Odette's hand.
Julie rolled her eyes as she unplugged the aux, thinking it eerie how Reggie and Odette had basically said the same thing.
"But we have the volume on level one," Luke said.
"But we rocked it on volume ten," Reggie added. "You want us to play it again?"
Julie pulled out the last aux as Luke said, "I really don't think she does."
Odette nodded. "Seems not."
"We've actually been waiting for you to get home! Okay, we have some major news to tell you! We had a band meeting earlier and..."
Odette cut Luke off. "We want you to join Sunset Curve! I mean if you want to..."
"Oh," Julie said.
Luke frowned. "Oh. Um, she said "oh". Um, that's what you say when you get socks on your birthday. Not when invited to join the most epic band ever."
"Sorry, I'm honored, but I can't think about anything but Flynn right now. She's still mad at me for lying. She hasn't even texted me back."
"Yeah, you're in a tough spot. So -- you wanna join the band?"
"Read the room, dude." Julie began exiting the room and stopped.
"Oh, come on! We need you and you need us because you need music! We found this poem that you wrote and I did some thinking last night and added this really cool melody to it."
Odette smiled. "It's really cool."
Julie frowned. "Where did you find that?"
Everyone shared a look before Luke pulled Reggie and Odette in front of him.
Luke said, "Uh, definitely not your dream box."
"You went through my stuff?!" Julie cried as she chased Luke who ran in a circle around the piano to avoid the angry girl.
"Yeah, we can do that now," Reggie told her.
"No you can't! Boundaries! Give it back!"
"No. You need to realize how talented you are!" Luke cried, causing his bandmates to look at him in shock. "Okay? Listen to this." He sang, "If somebody hurts you, I'm gonna get hurt too. We're all flying solo."
"Oh oh," Reggie and Odette sang.
Odette smiled. "You got a great melody."
Julie looked between them. "I wrote that about Flynn. When she was helping me with all my mom stuff." She sighed. "I gotta go."
"Hey!" Luke called. "What about the band?"
"Oh, I almost forgot." She stopped where she was standing. "Stay out of my room!"
"Yeah!" Luke phased halfway through the door. "We will if you join our band!"
Odette shoved her friend. "Blackmail? Because that ends so well."
---
Alex and Willie were sitting on the back of a bench.
"I mean, it's just... it's just so random, you know, that we disappear for 25 years, and then Julie plays our CD, and then bam!" Alex said. "We're back."
"It's kind of funny, right?" Willie replied. "You thought when you died you'd get all these answers, and now you just have more questions."
"Hilarious."
Willie chuckled and a man dressed in a dog suit sighed heavily as he sat on the bench and removed the head.
"Why did he..." Alex began and the two snickered.
"So, who's this, um... Julie?" Willie asked.
"Oh, she's the girl that discovered us. Did I mention she can see us? You understand my whole freaking out thing?"
"A lifer can see you?"
"Yeah, man. No, it gets crazier. All right? This morning, we're playing music with her, we become visible to her entire school."
"Whoa, I've never heard of that happening before. Maybe this Julie's connected to your unfinished business."
"Mm-hmm. Yes. Totally. I would completely agree if I had any clue what you're talking about."
"Right. Um... unfinished business. It's why people become ghosts when they die. There's still something they need to accomplish, and once they complete it..." he clicked his tongue, "...they can cross over."
"Okay, so how do we figure out what our unfinished business is?"
"I don't know. You know, some ghosts never do. I still haven't. But, you know, I'm not too worried about it because being a ghost lets me do my favorite thing... skate anywhere I without getting busted. I mean, bro, when I'm not skating here or the beach, I'm skating Justin Bieber's empty pool."
"Wow!"
"Yeah."
"Who's that?"
"You seriously have so much to catch up on, bro. Dang!" He chuckled. "All right. I'll you later, hot dog." He stood and grabbed his skateboard.
"I really don't like that nickname. It's how I died!" Willie skated away and Alex said to the man in costume, "He's cute, huh?"
---
Luke, Alex and Odette stood by the piano as Luke looked at a song.
Luke and Odette sang while Reggie tapped on the piano keeping rhythm. Reggie kept sneaking glances at Odette, in total awe of her.
Reggie cut Odette off and asked, "Wait, so when she says deep dish, is she talking about, like, pizza, or-"
Alex appeared next to Odette and she screamed before saying, "Don't do that! Where have you been?"
Reggie turned to his friend. "Hey, man! Yeah, where you been?"
"Kinda everywhere," Alex replied. "Yeah. No, I met a new ghost friend."
Reggie and Odette stared at him and asked, "For real?"
"Yeah. He answered a ton of questions."
"Yeah? Like whether Julie was gonna join the band or not?" Luke questioned as he pulled his notebook out from underneath Alex.
"Well, we didn't -- we didn't really get to that. Okay, I think I know why we're here. Okay? All ghosts have unfinished business. Yeah, we need to do our unfinished business so we can cross over."
"Why should we do that? I'm just saying this is like our second chance. I'm just saying all we need to do is get Julie to play with us."
"Yeah," Reggie agreed. "Not only can that girl sing, she can write, too. Luke made a killer melody to one of her lyrics."
Luke handed him the notebook.
"Oh," Alex commented. "Without your drummer and instead new singer. Cool."
"Drumming is so 90s, okay?"
"We're just gonna stomp our feet now," Luke told them.
Odette scoffed. "Why would you stomp your feet when you could bang on the drums?"
Alex nodded, then looked back at Luke. "Okay. Well, you know what else is so 90s? Being rude. All right? Get woke. These are sensitive times."
Alex slapped the notebook on Luke's chest and Luke whispered, "Ah! Alex! Ow."
"Woke?" Odette repeated.
"I learned that from my ghost friend," Alex whispered.
"Woke," Reggie said with a nod. "That's a cool word."
"Woke," Odette said again. "What does it mean?"
"Don't know."
"No clue," Alex told his confused bandmates.
---
"Flynn!" Julie called. "I've been looking all over for you!"
"Not everywhere, because here I am," Flynn muttered.
"I've been texting you all day. The least you could do is text me back."
"I sent a poop emoji. I think that says everything." She pulled something from her backpack. "I was just leaving this." She pulled out a Double Trouble T-shirt. "I don't need it anymore."
"I'm not taking it."
"Fine, then my dad can wash his car with it, though with all this betrayal on it, might scratch the paint."
"Listen. I'm really sorry I didn't tell you. You gotta know how important you are to us. There's no way I would have made it through this year if it wasn't for you."
Flynn frowned. "Yet it was four strangers who got you back into music. I don't need people in my life who lie and keep things from me. Goodbye Double Trouble." She turned to walk away.
"They're ghosts," Julie said, stopping Flynn.
"What?!"
"The boys and girl in my band. They aren't holograms. They're ghosts. When we play together, people can see them. It's weird, I know."
Flynn's eyes narrowed. "What do you two mean, ghosts? The type that rattle chains and go boo?"
"No. And I'm pretty sure that's just a hurtful ghost stereotype. These guys and girl are just normal dead dudes and girl. Well, Reggie is a little questionable."
Flynn pulled out her phone and began messaging someone.
"Who are you messaging?" Julie asked.
"Your dad," Flynn replied without looking up. "He told me to text if I was ever worried about you." She looked up. "I'm worried."
Julie grabbed the phone from Flynn's hands. "Okay, you want to be difficult. Meet me in my mom's studio in 30 minutes. And I'll prove that we are not crazy. Please don't text my dad." She gave Flynn back her phone.
"You have 30 minutes."
"Eggs? Why did you bring eggs?"
"Oh! Um... No." She chuckled awkwardly. "See, I grabbed those by mistake. It's not like I was going to egg your bedroom window or anything. Thirty minutes! Go!"