Impermanent Perfection - jatp/luke

1.12

after the band had finished rehearsing, julie and jade made their way back inside the house to get ready for the show. they had also decided that tonight might be a good time to tell ray about their band. this was their first real gig and they felt like he should know about it.

as they walked through the back door, both girls still singing the song quietly together. they both paused, seeing carlos with his ipad spinning around and taking pictures.

"what are you doing?" julie asks him and her turns to face them.

"i'm looking for those, orb, things." he explains, and the girls look at each other for a moment. "i'm telling you, this place is haunted." he says confidently and the two let out soft chuckles. "every time i open my laptop, it's on some rock music site. and that ain't me, you know i'm all about the rap."

"reggie." julie mutters with a small laugh.

"i'm just trying to protect you." he shrugs.

"thanks, kid." jade says with a small laugh, her and julie nodding sarcastically as they began to walk past him towards the den.

"oh, i'd be careful in there!" carlos jumps in front of them. "dad has that look on his face, like when google maps tells him to turn on the wrong street." he says softly and the girls eyes widen.

they had only taken two steps in to the room when ray landed firmly in front of them, arms crossed and an angry look on his face.

"care to tell me why you missed your first three classes today?" he asks his daughter quickly.

"we overslept at flynn's house after the dance." julie explains with a sigh, and ray raises his eye brows slightly, turning to jade.

"we?" he repeats and jade cringed slightly.

the one good thing about being unable to change her information, is that if she did get in trouble, the message went to her parents instead of ray. she still did her best to stay out of trouble. she was sure that if they got enough calls about her, her parents would come searching and she didn't want that.

"there was nothing going on in those classes anyways." jade tells him quickly.

"it won't happen again." julie adds and ray's face softened slightly. "we promise."

"okay." he says finally with a sigh, as the girls take a seat on the couch. "but if i know you missed class, it's only a matter of time before-"

"i came as fast as i could!" the front door swung open as tía quickly walked up to the girls.

"exactly." ray mumbles.

"julie, jade, i will not let you two fall into the gutter of life!" she announced, tossing her purse on the couch beside julie.

"tía, we're fine." julie assures her and tía scoffs slightly.

"and how do you know i even missed class?" jade asks defensively, though she knew tía would never buy it. she knew the girls too well. the other three in the room stared at jade for a moment and she sighed slightly. "yeah, okay." she adds in a mumble.

"we just overslept." julie says, finally turning away from jade to look back at her tía. "and dad and us have already talked about it."

"you are far from fine, girls!" she speaks quickly. "i called your teachers. she said you missed a calculus test!" she looks between the girls. the two looked at each other with guilt before slowly turning to ray.

"nothing going on, huh?" he questions, knowing the girls had the same math class.

"dad, we're so sorry." julie speaks quickly. ray just nodded in annoyance at the girls.