The newly formed band had spent the whole day rehearsing for the dance. I was happy to observe from the sidelines and be their test guinea pig. Not that they needed one, they knew they rocked regardless of what songs they played.
After an hour or so had passed, Alex had returned from his mysterious morning away. Few details of his day were shared, though, as Flynn had arrived to the scene. Shortly after, Carlos made an appearance and almost disintegrated Alex's soul with salt. The keyword being almost.
Once the dramatics had died down and the visitors left, Luke gave Julie his journal so she could have a look at the songs he was writing. I must admit, I was a little bit jealous. Sure, Luke told me about all of the songs he was writing, but he had never actually shown me any. My jealousy peaked when Julie's eye was caught by one song in particular.
"Who's Emily?" She inquired.
"That one's not dog-eared!" Luke exclaimed as he tried to take back his journal, but failed.
"If you could only know, that I never let you go," Julie chuckled. "Wow, Luke, I didn't know you were such a romantic."
"Neither did I," I tried to play along, but I was never great at hiding my emotions.
"He's not!" Alex jumped in, noticing my discomfort. "That one's actually about - "
"No one," Luke cut him off.
"Clearly," I mumbled to myself before poofing out of there.
———
"Luke said I'd find you up here."
I pulled my eyes away from the beautiful suburban landscape to see Alex standing behind me with his hands in his pockets.
"Yup," I shrugged. "Here I am."
Alex sat down next to me. "Wanna talk about it?"
I scoffed. "Talk about what?"
"I've had my fair share of crushes on straight boys, you know."
I couldn't help but laugh, Alex did the same.
"It's rough out here," I joked.
"I know," Alex sympathised. "Boys are dumb."
"Boys are so very dumb," I agreed.
We sat in comfortable silence for a moment and watched as the traffic built up on the highway in the distance. I liked talking to Alex, he always just got it, you know? I feel like we were the same in a way and that made it really easy for me to talk to him.
"I have an idea," Alex said out of nowhere.
"What is it?"
"It'll either make you feel better or worse," He admitted.
"I'm willing to take that risk."
———
We arrived outside a mansion unlike the ones in the movies. This one was better.
"Are we house hunting?" I asked as we stood on the sidewalk with my hands in my pockets. "This one's not really my style."
"Not quite," Alex grimaced.
When we poofed inside, Luke and Reggie were already there.
"Oh, hey guys!" Reggie beamed.
Luke didn't even acknowledge our presence, his face was overtaken by disgust.
"What's going on here?" I asked as I looked around what appeared to be the lounge.
That was when I was caught up on the fourth band member. No, not Julie. Bobby. You know, the vegetarian guy from before who didn't eat the poisonous hot dogs? Well, it turns out, he led a long and healthy life that involved back-stabbing and straight up robbery.
As we spread out around the mansion to try and find Bobby, we couldn't help but be impressed. It was insane.
"Have you seen these platinum records?" Alex pointed out.
"Platinum?!" Reggie exclaimed.
"He recorded My Name Is Luke," Luke fumed. "My name is Luke!"
It was at that moment a douchey guy wearing sunglasses and a leather jacket walked in the front door.
"It's him!" Reggie exclaimed.
We all joined Reggie at the end of the stairs to observe the traitor in the flesh.
"Hey, Carrie!" Bobby called out. "I'm gonna meditate!"
"He wears sunglasses indoors," Reggie mocked.
"I'm in the den!" Someone responded.
"There's a child here?" I looked around, having taken no notice from before.
"Bobby has a kid?" Alex questioned.
"Cool!" Bobby turned around and jogged up the stairs.
"I can't stand him!" Reggie exclaimed.
"Time for his past to haunt him," Luke smirked.
"Yup!"
As Luke and Reggie made their way upstairs, Alex hesitated.
"Wait!" He exclaimed suddenly, causing the others to turn around. "Let's not rush this. You know, it's my ... it's my first time haunting someone. I wanna make it special."
We all stood there in awkward silence for a moment.
"Okay, Alex," Luke rolled his eyes and headed upstairs.
"That was weird," Alex shrugged.
"That was weird," I agreed as we started making our way upstairs.
"Why'd I say that?"
"I don't know."
"Why'd you let me say that?"
"I wish I could've somehow prevented it, Alex. I really do."
"Wait," Alex came to a halt.
"Don't say it," I threatened.
"Say what?"
"The last time you said 'wait' it was followed by something weird, so I'm stopping you," I shrugged.
"I was gonna suggest we poof ahead of them," Alex said. "It's weird that we're walking up a bunch of stairs for no reason."
"I like the way you think," I linked arms with him. "Let's get haunting!"
———
The haunting was going pretty well until Julie caught us.
"So, did you guys have fun in there?" She asked.
"Um, yes!" I laughed. "You missed it, Julie, you should've seen the look on his - "
Alex cleared his throat, indicating that now was not the time for boasting about our adventures.
"Okay, you'd do the exact same thing if he stole all your songs," Luke told her.
"I don't think she'd moon him," I corrected. "Julie has class."
"You mooned him too, Ruth," Alex stated.
"I never said I had class."
"You have new songs, with me," Julie got us back on track. "The best way to get back at Trevor is for this band to do great. And to do great, we have to play at dances, then clubs ... "
"And tours," Luke continued. "I know."
Luke had already said more words to Julie than he had to me the entire time we were at Bobby's mansion.
"I'll see you guys at the school," Julie said. "We go on at nine. Please don't be late. There's gonna be a lot of people there."
"We got it, alright?" Alex reassured her. "Don't worry."
With that, Julie left and the guys burst into excitement over everything we had just done. Now, I had never haunted anyone before but I would've liked to have seen anyone else do it better. We totally freaked him out.
As Alex talked about his new ghost friend, Willie, a lightbulb appeared over Luke's head.
"You think he has a few more tricks up his sleeves?" Luke asked.
"Let's find out."
Alex and Reggie vanished, and just as I was about to join them, Luke grabbed my arm.
"Hey," He said. "There was something I wanted to show you first."