By the time Jay and Flynn had arrived at the car, Julie had already finished her ice cream.
"Seriously?" Flynn asked as she sat in the backseat next to Julie. "You couldn't wait for us to get back?"
"The ice cream was melting, I had to eat it!" Julie defended.
"Well Flynn and I still need to eat, so we're gonna chill here for a while," Jay said, holding a hand behind him to ask for his car keys.
"They're in the ignition," Julie said.
"Right."
Jay wanted to facepalm but held himself back as he turned on the car's stereo system, connecting the aux cord to his phone.
"Any requests?" he asked, smiling when both girls immediately asked for their favorite songs. He passed his phone back to the girls, letting them choose the songs while they sat still in the car. Jay had quickly finished his ice cream while the girls screamed the lyrics to the songs they put on and Jay was perfectly sure that Flynn's ice cream had turned into soup at this point.
"Ready to go?" he asked after half an hour of singing passed. Both girls gave their yeses and Jay began to drive. "Since you have my phone, mind calling Ray and letting him know you're gonna be over at Flynn's place?"
Jay turned down the volume on his stereo as Julie made the call, which lasted less than two minutes. Flynn's house wasn't that far from their school, but it was far enough that walking all the way wasn't appealing. Of course, they could just take the bus to and from school, and the girls did exactly that in their freshman year until Jay had gotten his license in the midst of his junior year. At that point, Julie and Flynn had tag-teamed to ask Jay to give them daily rides, and Jay had agreed easily to them.
Granted, Flynn's parents and Ray offering to pay a portion of gas fares was an added benefit.
"Flynn, do your parents know Julie's coming over?" Jay asked as he pulled into the driveway.
"No, but I doubt they'll mind," Flynn shrugged.
"You might want to go tell them that she's staying the night," Jay said, giving her a look in the mirror. Flynn quickly understood and hopped out of the car, leaving Julie and Jay by themselves.
"You didn't really mean that, did you?" Jay asked softly when Flynn left.
"Mean what?" Julie asked.
"That the band was a mistake."
Julie sighed.
"I did then," Julie said sincerely. "But I don't now. I'd never regret being in a band with you."
"What about them?" Jay asked carefully.
"They..." Julie huffed, anger showing in her posture. "They're so obsessed with getting payback against Trevor that they forgot about the band. I don't want to be in a band with people like that."
"Julie, you have to understand where they're coming from," Jay said. "Bobby was their bandmate, their friend long before we were even born. Imagine if you died right now and then came back twenty-five years later to see that Flynn had stolen all your songs and published them under her name, giving you no credit."
"She would never do that," Julie dismissed.
"That's what the boys thought about Bobby. About Trevor," Jay said, trying to get her to understand their point of view. "Trevor even recorded a song called 'My Name is Luke.'"
"Look, I know you're trying to get me to feel for them, but it's not going to work," Julie said. "They left us behind for a chance at revenge. They made us look like fools in front of our entire school. Even after everything you were risking to be there, even after they knew how hard it's been for me to play music after Mom-"
Julie's voice broke and Jay dropped his head.
"I know, Jules," he said softly. "But please, can you think about it? This band...it's something magical. And maybe I'm being selfish right now, but we all need this band. There's no Julie and The Phantoms without you Jules, you're the one that brought us all together."
There was a heavy silence in the car, the only noise coming from the running engine.
"Please Julie," he said as Julie sniffled.
"I can't, okay?" Julie said, wiping her tears. "I'm sorry Jay."
Jay said nothing as Julie left from the car and ran into Flynn's house. He eventually turned back to the front and leaned his head back against the seat.
"Shouldn't have done that," he said to himself, resting his bruised hands on the steering wheel. He never did get that first aid kit from Flynn, she must have forgotten in her rush for ice cream. Jay didn't mind it, his hands didn't hurt nearly as much anymore, only when he bent his fingers. It was bearable, at least for the night.
When he had arrived back at his house, both his uncle and aunt were waiting for him. He had assumed that they would go to bed after their dinner time.
"Where were you?" Jay's uncle barked at him as he entered the house.
"Out," Jay answered briefly, closing the door behind him.
"Out with who?" his uncle asked. "Doing what?"
"Michael, he wanted to cram before tomorrow's physics test," Jay lied quickly, making his uncle scoff.
"Michael's mother actually came by earlier," Jay's aunt spoke from the kitchen. "She didn't mention anything about you cramming with her son."
"Must not have known," Jay said, his palms beginning to sweat out of fear. If they caught him in a lie, he would be done for. "It was kind of a last minute thing, he texted me while I was at the gym."
Of course, Jay hadn't been to the gym ever since he started working with the band. His membership would be useless at this point, he should probably cancel that...
"I've already eaten dinner, so I'll go straight to bed," Jay said, wanting to excuse himself from the situation as soon as he could. Luckily for him, neither his uncle nor his aunt said anything more as he walked up the stairs to his room.
Upon arriving, he quickly tossed off his outfit that Julie had put together for the performance that night. The girl had an eye for fashion that he didn't, but it wasn't like Jay cared much about fashion. He almost always settled for a brand shirt and jeans or khakis when he went to school. He typically didn't change out of that when he went around town or hung out in the studio despite the other clothing options in his closet. He had band shirts, sleeveless tops, muscle shirts, even a couple of crop tops that he bought to experiment with. But his philosophy with clothing was to not stick out as much as he could, and that meant keeping things simple.
Jay changed into a comfortable pair of shorts, not bothering to put on any type of shirt as he launched himself onto his bed, groaning when his head landed on the pillow. The events of the entire day began to replay themselves in his head, from the girls telling him about his obvious crush on Luke, to the boys showing up in his class, to rehearsing his song with the band, to Trevor's bewildered and anxiety ridden face, to the school dance.
The amount of things that had happened in the past twenty-four hours alone was crazy.
"Hey!" Alex's voice rang out. "Woah."
Jay lifted his head from the pillow and turned it at an awkward angle to see Alex looking at him with concern.
"I really wish you guys had a warning system so I'd know when you were gonna pop in," Jay said.
"Yeah, but where's the fun in that?" Alex asked, a smirk on his face. Jay rolled his eyes and burried his face in his pillow again. "Right. So I guess didn't go great with Julie?"
"I'm working on it," Jay answered, turning his head so that his voice was actually audible to the drummeer. "You can't expect results so soon, this night was really important to her."
"It was to both of you."
"More her than me."
The two remained in silence as Jay got up moving past the ghost to grab a shirt from his closet.
"Like what you see?" Jay teased as his grabbed a solid tank top from his closet, pulling it on quickly while Alex stuttered from his staring.
"What, no, I-"
"I'm joking," Jay said. "You look like you have something you want to ask."
Alex fiddled with his fingers while he said a quick 'yeah,' a sign of anxiety from him.
"Ask whatever you want Alex," Jay said reassuringly. "I won't judge."
Alex nodded and took a breath.
"When we first met, you mentioned a ghost that skateboarded through you," he began. "Do you remember his name?"
"Yeah, Willie," Jay answered. "Why, you know him?"
"Yeah, he's the one who brought us to the club," Alex said, tapping his foot in nervousness. A habit they shared, although they did it for different reasons.
"If you're thinking he did it to try and get you away from the band, he didn't," Jay said confidently. "Willie's a nice guy, he helped me out a lot. He would never do something like that."
"That's what we thought about Bobby too," Alex said, his voice bitter at the mention of his former bandmate.
"Willie isn't Bobby," Jay said firmly. "He's a far better man than Trevor is. Whatever happened at that club, Willie didn't want to hurt you. I can assure you of that."
Alex looked as if a weight had been lifted off his shoulders and Jay smiled. Willie had been Jay's first ghost friend, back when he was twelve.
"You wanna hear about how we met?" Jay asked as he turned his desk chair to face Alex, attempting to distract the blonde from his anxiety.
"Sure," Alex said, taking a seat on Jay's bed.