When Luke poofed back into the garage, he saw Julie sitting behind her piano, playing along with Alex's drums and singing part of the second verse. "Whoa, Julie."
"Grab your guitar. We got work to do," she said.
After a quiet conversation ending with a wishing of happy birthday, Luke turned to Alex. "So, where's Reggie then?"
"Out getting a friend," he smiled slyly.
He appeared just on time then, walking through the garage doors dramatically. "I have returned with a killer rhythm guitarist!"
"Oh no. She's not in here yet, is she? I can't see her," Julie said.
"No, no. Reggie's too dramatic for that," Luke sighed, taking a seat for the show.
"And! Before I introduce the lovely Josephine Newton," Reggie said, "I have some stipulations. First, they have not yet agreed to join the band. This is a no strings attached practice to see how things go. Second, they use she/they pronouns and I got explicit permission to tell you all that. Third, Jo is gorgeous, so Julie, prepare to be amazed."
"If you think you've seen the extent of Reggie's flirting, just you wait," Alex warned.
Julie laughed lightly and turned towards the doors. "Alright, then, where is the infamous Jo Newton?"
Reggie popped his head out the door and grabbed her hand, pulling her into the space. "I feel like I should make it known that I heard that entire conversation," Jo said, then turning to Julie.
The curly-haired girl stood as a smile broke out on her face. "I can see you."
"It's nice to meet you," Jo said with a light laugh.
"Awe! I wish you guys could hug!" Alex interrupted.
"Alright, enough with the sappy stuff," Luke said. "Are we gonna play or what? Jo, can you sight-read?"
"Course," she said, swinging her guitar around her body and looking over Reggie's shoulder to the song sheet. Luke's messy scrawls mixed with Julie's neat script across the page.
"Jo, I love your guitar," Julie gushed, tempted to reach out and run her hand along the stickers.
"Thank you. It was one of the few things I kept coming into the afterlife. Or was able to keep, I should say. Caleb always tried giving me a shit ton of new guitars, all the colors of the rainbow, but I always came back to my trusty friend here."
The last notes of Finally Free rang out in the space. They were all silent for a moment, looking amongst themselves. That is, until Reggie exclaimed, "Jo, are you kidding me?!"
She laughed and covered her blush with a hand. "Shut up. That was all you guys."
"Finally Free was good before. Now it's awesome!" Luke said.
"You've got to come to the gig with us!" Julie pleaded.
Jo looked over at Alex for help, but he only shrugged with a smile. Reggie shook her shoulder. "Come on, Jo! You know it'll rock!"
Jo groaned. "I really can't. It's already- Shit! It's almost seven! I really gotta go or Caleb's gonna have my head on a stake."
"Oh... Well, have fun," Julie said, still offering a smile.
"Tell Willie I said hi," Alex added. "Actually, don't. Wait, nevermind, just say I asked about him. No, that sounds desperate. Tell him I said hi. I'm saying hi."
"Good call. Maybe we can play again sometime, but right now... I've gotta go. See you, guys." Jo walked through the garage door so she could poof away outside, but Reggie quickly followed her.
He caught her wrist lightly. "Thanks for coming. Even if it was just for fun."
"No problem. And it was fun. More fun than I've had with music in a while. Thanks for thinking of me."
Reggie laughed lightly. "I'm always thinking of you."
Jo blushed, but pulled her wrist out of his hand. "I'll see you around."
When she poofed back into the Hollywood Ghost Club, there was another ghost in her seat at the hair and makeup table, looking at a page of sheet music and playing around with one of her rhythm guitars. Jo glanced around and saw Lina down the line, going to stand behind her chair and meeting her eyes in the mirror. "What the hell is going on?"
"A lesson," a voice said from behind her. She saw him in the mirror, but turned to meet Caleb's eyes properly. "You're disobedience can't be tolerated, Josephine. I've said it a hundred times and I'll say it again. You. Are. Replaceable. Incredibly replaceable. So, when you don't cooperate, you will be replaced... Watch from the sidelines tonight. See if you learn something."
Jo bit her lip until Caleb was far away from her. She turned back towards the mirror, meeting Lina's eyes. "You're just gonna let him do this to me?"
Lina looked between Jo and where her father disappeared from. "Sorry, Jojo. It's nothing personal, but Dad... I mean, it's my fault. Just be mad at me, okay?"
"God, Li, don't get all self-sacrificial on me," she said with an eye roll. "Just stop making excuses for him and be honest with me!"
"Just spend the night with Willie, okay? Then we can go back to normal after tonight."
"Maybe... Maybe I don't want to go back to normal," Jo muttered.
Lina's perfect, painted eyebrows drew together. "What do you mean? Normal is perfect. Normal is skating around all day and dancing all night."
"Normal is being tethered to this place. Normal is having my freedom ripped from me on a daily basis."
"Normal is you and me and Willie!"
Jo bit her lip. "Normal is watching Caleb drag more people into his clutches. Luke, Alex, and Reggie don't deserve this. Caleb has plenty of people just because they're-"
"So you'll have more friends! The club will get even better with the guys!"
"He is slowly manipulating them into selling him their souls! That's your father, Lina! Don't you feel any sort of empathy for these people- these real people that he is trapping here!"
"Does it look like we're trapped? We're all over the streets of Hollywood all day long. We come here and do our jobs and then we repeat the next day. That's not entrapment. That is freedom."
"And what exactly is our payment? I'll give it to you, this is the job we come to each night, but we're not paid, are we?"
"Shelter! Food! Community! That's our payment!"
"Community can be done without enslavement. And, in case you forgot, Lina, we're not alive. We don't need food. And shelter can be found anywhere. I could be haunting the shit out of any awesome mansion and spend my days chasing away unsuspecting families, but instead, I'm here. If this place was the real comforting working environment that you claim, it would be a choice to join the staff. He wouldn't be conning the guys into joining him because they have the same level of power as him and he can't stand it."
Lina stared at Jo for a moment before her face hardened. "I don't know where this sudden loyalty for these random boys has come from. But if you hate it so much, I'm sure my father can take care of that." Jo filled in the rest of that implication: if she doesn't belong to them, she won't belong to anyone. She can be gone with the snap of Caleb's fingers.
Lina was called onto the stage for the show and she brushed past Jo with concern still in her eyes. Willie soon came up beside her where she still stood. "I caught the end of that. I think a lot of us did... You okay?"
Jo tapped her foot anxiously as she looked over at him. "Julie and the guys have a gig tonight. I can't stand being here, watching this anymore. Not tonight... I'm gonna go see their show. Can you-"
"Cover for you?" Willie and Jo held eye contact meaningfully, both knowing what a possibly dangerous ask this was. "You always were better at lying than me. But you know the answer. It's the same you gave me. Anything for you."
Jo squeezed his shoulder thankfully and ran back to her dressing room to change for the show.
>author's note
happy friday <3