𝚂𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚗
𝙰𝚐𝚛𝚎𝚎𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝
'𝙸 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚋𝚎𝚎𝚗 𝚍𝚎𝚎𝚙𝚕𝚢, 𝚖𝚊𝚍𝚕𝚢 𝚒𝚗 𝚕𝚘𝚟𝚎 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚜𝚒𝚗𝚌𝚎 𝙸 𝚖𝚎𝚝 𝚢𝚘𝚞.'
Ashton woke up to music, and Reggie and Luke talking about a new song, then Julie walked in, "Guys, you aren't supposed to be out here playing alone." She told them when she saw them with their instruments strapped across their chests.
"But we're not alone, 'cause we always have each other." Reggie chuckled as Luke placed an arm around his neck and huddled closely. Julie groaned as she unplugged the amps, which the boys protested against.
"But... but we had the volume level on one." Luke argued.
Reggie smiled, "Yeah but we rocked it on level ten! You want us to play it again?"
"I really don't think she does." Ash voiced from the couch as she got up and gestured for the boys to go back to the line they formed and joined them.
"We've been waiting for you to get home." Luke said to Julie as he slung his arm over my shoulder. "We have some pretty major news to tell you. We had a band meeting earlier, and...," he pointed to Reggie, who drum-rolled on his thighs, "we wanna invite you to join Sunset Curve. And no, you're not dreaming."
"Oh." Julie stopped her frantic tidying and looked back at the three of them.
"She said 'oh'." Luke laughed nervously. "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 honoured, but I can't think about anything but Flynn right now." She sighed. "She's still mad at me for lying. She hasn't even texted me back."
"Is that a yes?" Luke asked with hope lacing his voice.
"Read the room, dude." Julie scoffed as she walked away.
"Oh come on!" Luke exclaimed as he let go of Ash's shoulder to follow her. "We need you, and you need us because you need music. We found this poem that you wrote, and Reggie and I, we added this really cool melody to it. It sounds awesome." They began to sing the words, but Julie cut them off before they could even hit the first note.
"Where'd you find that?" She asked, looking at the lyrics on the paper. And the boys froze, looking at Ashton for help. She simply shrugged, not wanting to get involved in the situation.
"Uh... definitely not your dream box." Luke said, pulling Reggie in front of him for defence.
"You went through my stuff?" Julie exclaimed.
"Yeah, we can do that now." Reggie announced proudly and Ashton hit his head with the back of her hand.
"No! No, you can't!" Julie scolded him, which Ash nodded with. "Boundaries! Give it back!" She chased Luke around the piano.
"No!" He said firmly. "Hey, you need to realize how insanely talented you are. OK? Listen to this." He began to read the poem. "If somebody hurts you, I'm gonna get hurt too." Then he sung the song he and Reggie worked on, "And my life, my life would be real low, zero. Flying solo"
"Oh-oh!" Reggie added in at the end, which Ash grinned at. He held his hand out, and she swiftly sent hers colliding with his. As much as she hated the fact the boys rummaged through Julie's things, it was a pretty good song they sung.
"It's a killer melody." Luke told Julie, trying to convince her.
"I wrote that about Flynn when she was helping me with all my mom stuff." Julie sighed. "I gotta go."
"Hey, what about the band?" Luke followed her to the garage doors.
"Oh... I almost forgot." She paused for effect. "Stay out of my room!"
"Yeah?" Luke chuckled cheekily. "We will if you join our band."
"Goodbye, Ash." She smiled at the girl before shutting the doors behind her.
"Well, that went perfectly, wouldn't you say so?" Ash grinned at the two boys, who just mumbled something along the lines of 'no'.
"I just don't understand." Luke sighed. "We're the most kickass band ever! And somehow she doesn't want to join."
"Yeah, well, she might not. She's allowed to deny." Ashton told him. "We might've been the most kickass band in the ninety's but the world's changed since out break through, boys."
"So what do we do?" Reggie asked.
"Adapt, I guess." She shrugged. "I liked that song, by the way. It was pretty rad."
Are you kidding? It was amazing!" Luke jumped up, and handed her and Reggie a copy each as they stood around the piano to talk about the song and riffs they needed to add to perfect the song. Luke started to sing the words along with the silent strums of his guitar.
"Guess that means I'm buying lunch that day." He began. "I know all your secrets You know all my deep dish. Guess that means that some thi-"
"Wait, so..." Reggie interrupted, Luke and Ash share an eyeroll added with a sigh. They both knew whenever Reggie said that, there's always going to be a stupid question afterwards. "When she says, 'deep dish' is she talking about, like, pizza, or..." Just as Ash was going to tell him about to explain the term the girl had written, Alex poofed into the studio and the ghosts all rushed over to him.
"Oh! Oh, hey, man. Where you been?" Luke greeted him.
"Yeah, we were, well at least I was, worried about you!" Ashton told him. "Where did you go?"
"Yeah you kinda missed important stuff." Reggie said.
"What, like deep pan pizza?" Ash scoffed as she placed her head against Luke's arm. "Anyway, tell us everything."
"Yeah. No, I met a new ghost friend." Alex said as a soft smile grew on his lips.
"For real?" Reggie said, suddenly intrigued in his story.
"Yeah, he answered a ton of questions." Alex nodded with a wide smile, which Ashton definitely picked up on.
"Yeah? Like whether Julie was gonna join the band or not?" Luke snapped and pulled the notebook from under Alex swiftly.
"Luke." Ashton warned him, raising her head for just a second to silently tell him to calm down. His eyes softened as she dipped her head back into his shoulder.
"Um... Well, we didn't... We didn't really get to that," Alex answered quietly, much to Luke's disappointment, "but I think I know why we're here. OK? All ghosts have, like, unfinished business. So, we need to do our unfinished business so that we can cross over.
"Cross over?" Ashton repeated in confusion.
"As in go to heaven, or in Luke's case: hell." Alex answered.
"Why would we do that?" Luke asked, and the others frowned at his statement. "I'm just saying, this is like our second chance. 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 and I made a killer melody to one of her lyrics."
"Oh... Without your drummer. Cool." Alex nodded slightly defeated on the inside.
Ashton raised her hand, "Hey, I was asleep so..."
"Yeah well, you're a fast learner." Luke tapped the side of her face like a baby, "Besides, drumming is so '90s. OK? We're just gonna stomp our feet now." he demonstrated, winding the blonde boy up in the process.
"OK." Alex took in a shaky breath. "Well, you know what else is so '90s? Being rude. All right? Get woke. These are sensitive times. Learned that from my ghost friend." He leant over to Reggie and Ashton.
"Woke." Reggie chuckled as he repeated the word. "That's... That's cool."
"Yeah. Woke. But not like ' i just woke up '." Ash joined in the giggling.
"What does it mean, dude?" Reggie asked.
"No clue." Alex shrugged. "It just sounds rad."
"Alright, well I'm going to talk to Julie an-" Ashton gets interrupted by Luke jumping over the piano and racing towards her.
"And try to get her to join the band?" He asked hopefully.
"And see how Flynn's doing." She corrected him. "Keep working on that song."
"Yes ma'am." Luke placed two fingers against his forehead and used them to salute her.
"Oh, and Alex?" He raised his head at the mention of his name. "When I get back, I want to hear everything about that cute ghost boy you met. I think he could be special." She teased before she poofed out, and into her former room. The guys wait a few seconds to check that the girl is actually gone before erupting into conversation.
"So, have you told her yet?" Alex asked Luke, who was copying the song out again, this time changing a few lyrics to fit the rhythm more. He trailed his eyes down as if to avoid the subject.
"Really dude?" Reggie climbed over the back of the couch and sat beside the lead guitarist. "It's totally obvious. It's a miracle she hasn't found out already."
"Listen, I appreciate how much you care about my love life, but it's not happening any time soon, boys." Luke told them both before returning to his lyrics.
"And why not?" Alex questioned, "Its clear she feels the same way about you. Just tell her!"
"It's not that simple." Luke shook his head.
"Well, sure it is." Reggie nods, turning to Luke, and grabbing his face, "You just say... uh, Ashton Brooks, I have been deeply, madly in love with you since I met you. I love everything about you, and would be grateful if you would smother me in kisses."
Luke pulled away quickly, "Uh... that was weird. And I can't just do that!"
"Why, man? Just tell her how you feel!" Alex said. "Trust me, it'll work out better."
"I told Bobby I wouldn't tell her. He said it would totally break the dynamics of the group. The agreement was that I could tell her once we played the Orpheum."
"But we did. Tell her!" Reggie said.
"We didn't play the Orpheum, we did a sound check, it's not the same." Luke told him. "Once we get a gig there, I'll tell her after. But right now, I've got to appreciate my deal with Bobby."
When Ashton got herself into her old room, she found Julie at her desk, writing notes from classes out. She was startled at the sudden appearance of the older girl but welcomed her in regardless.
"Hey." She smiled softly.
"Hi." Ashton said as she walked closer. "What are you doing?"
"Oh, just biology, nothing interesting." She shrugged.
"I'm sorry the guys went through your dream box. They did it with me too." She told her as she sat on the edge of the bed.
"You had a dream box too?" Julie asked wide-eyed.
"In that exact spot, too." Ash chuckled. "Full of lyrics, notes, love letters... anything important I did was put in that box."
"Love letters?" Julie raised her eyebrow. "For who? Luke?"
Ashton felt her cheeks heating up as she swallowed hard on air and stammered, "O-oh no. Definitely not. I-It was just a boy, in my high school. Nobody important."
"Oh, I just assumed- okay." Julie nodded. "Wait so you lived here."
"I used to. This was my room." She smiled as she looked around the somewhat familiar walls. "It didn't look like this though."
"Oh, I know." Julie chuckled. "I remember when we first moved in, it was all purple with a few decorations, I think your family took the rest."
"Figures." Ash laughed. "They always took anything I had.
Julie moved closer, "What do you mean?"
"Well," Ashton sighed, "I got my guitar when I was twelve, and I only had it for a week before my dad threw it out my window, it landed in mom's dahlias."
"Dahlias." Julie smiled. "They were my mom's favourite too."
"They were beautiful when I died, I'm glad you kept them." She told her.
"Look, I'm sorry for coming off so rude earlier, I didn't thank you for writing 'Bright'." She apologises. "So... thank you."
"It's fine, it was most Luke anyway." Ash chuckled, "Plus, you rocked it better than I did in rehearsals."
𝙳𝚒𝚍 𝚒 𝚎𝚗𝚓𝚘𝚢 𝚖𝚊𝚔𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚚𝚞𝚘𝚝𝚎
𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚋𝚎𝚌𝚊𝚞𝚜𝚎
𝚁𝚎𝚐𝚐𝚒𝚎 𝚜𝚊𝚢𝚜 𝚒𝚝, 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚗𝚘𝚝 𝚕𝚞𝚔𝚎
𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚠𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝚜𝚞𝚙𝚙𝚘𝚜𝚎𝚍 𝚝𝚘 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚔?
𝙶𝚞𝚒𝚕𝚝𝚢. 𝚂𝚘𝚛𝚛𝚢 𝚗𝚘𝚝 𝚜𝚘𝚛𝚛𝚢.