| 𝙿𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚌𝚎𝚜𝚜 | 𝙹.𝙼𝚘𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚊 | 𝙲𝚘𝚖𝚙𝚕𝚎𝚝𝚎𝚍

12 | GET WOKE

     "OKAY, WHAT IF we only have one lead singer and that's Julie. With some of the songs we can switch parts we sing." Hayden said, gently strumming on her guitar while speaking to Luke.

Luke slowly nodded, the pair had been arguing over who would be the second lead singer for the past hour after Luke had went to grab something with Reggie. "Okay, yeah. That's more reasonable."

"Finally." Reggie sighed. "You guys were getting annoying."

Both looked at Reggie and he smiled innocently and the three began to work on some riffs. Hayden played first, smiling as she got int the beat of it. "Guys, what do you think of this riff?"

"Sweet, I'm feeling that." Reggie nodded. "And then I come in with a little-" He began to play and Luke stomped his foot. 

"And then Julie comes in with her killer lyrics." Luke smiled.

"And Sunset Curve is reborn!"

Julie walked into the studio but none of the ghosts had noticed until she spoke. "Guys, you aren't supposed to be out here playing alone."

Reggie turned to her as his back had been facing the door. "But we're not alone, cause we always have each other." Luke smiled and wrapped his arm around the boy.

Julie scoffed and walked around, unplugging all three guitars as Hayden complained. "But we have the volume level on one."

"But we rocked it on volume ten. You want us to play it again?" Reggie said, before getting his arm hit by the ghost girl.

"I really don't think she does." Luke mumbled to his friends before smiling at Julie. "We've actually been waiting for you to get home. Okay, so we have some pretty major news to tell you. We had a band meeting earlier, and..." Reggie began his drum roll. "We wanna invite you to join Sunset Curve. And no, you're not dreaming."

"Oh." The girl replied, Luke's smile instantly fell.

"Oh? Oh, she said oh." Luke said to his band mates. "That's what you say when you get socks on your birthday,not when you're invited to join the most epic band ever."

The girl shrugged. "Sorry. I'm honored, but I can't think about anything but Flynn right now. She's still mad at me for lying. She hasn't even texted me back."

Hayden nodded. "Yeah, you're in a tough spot."

"So you wanna join the band?" Luke asked again. "Ow!"He had once again been hit by Hayden, who noticed the annoyed look on Julie's face.

"Read the room, dude."

Julie turned to leave and Luke followed. "Oh, come on! We need you and you need us because you need music. We found this poem that you wrote, and we added this really cool melody to it. It sounds awesome."

"You told me that was your own song." Hayden said, she was now angry along with the living girl who stopped in her tracks and faced the ghost boy.

"Where'd you find that?" Julie asked.

Luke pushed Reggie in front of him. "Uh, definitely not your dream box."

Reggie jumped out of the way and beside Hayden as Julie began to chase Luke around the studio. "You wen't through my stuff?"

"Yeah, we can do that now!" Reggie smiled as Hayden glared at him.

"No! No, you can't! Boundaries!" Julie shouted at the boy, still chasing Luke around the piano. "Give it back!"

Luke jumped onto the piano stool. "No. Hey, you need to realize how insanely talented you are. Okay? Listen to this. If somebody hurts you..." Julie went to snatch it but Luke pulled away. "If somebody hurts you, I'm gonna get hurt too. And my life, my life would be real low, zero. Flying solo."

"Oh-oh." Reggie added on.

Hayden made her way over to Julie. "It is a killer melody, princess."

Julie sighed. "I wrote that about Flynn when she was helping with all my mom stuff. I gotta go." She headed to the studio doors.

"Hey!" Luke called after her. "What about the band?"

"Oh, I almost forgot. Stay out of my room!" She slammed the doors closed.

Luke ran after her and stuck his head through the doors. "Yeah! We will if you join our band!"

Not long after, the three were back to working on the song and Alex was still out somewhere. Hayden was pretty mad at the boys but this song really had potential. 

"Guess that means I'm buying lunch that day." Hayden sang as Luke hit his hand against the piano to make a beat. "I know all your secrets, you know all my deep dish. Guess that means that some things-"

"Wait, so.." Reggie cut the pair off. "When she says deep dish, is she talking about, like, pizza, or..."

"Why are you always thinking about food, Reggie?" The boy shrugged at the girls words and then Alex poofed in on the piano.

"Oh." Reggie smiled, happy his friend was back. "Hey, man. Where you been?"

"Um, kinda everywhere. I met a new ghost friend." Alex smiled.

Hayden nudged him. "What type of ghost friend?"

Alex rolled his eyes. "He answered a ton of questions."

"Yeah?" Luke spoke. "Like weather Julie was gonna join the band or not?"

"Well, we didn't really get to that, but I think I know why we're here. Okay? All ghosts have, like, unfinished business. So, we need to do our unfinished business so that we can cross over. "

"Why would we do that?" Luke asked, making the three ghosts look at him. "I'm just saying, this is like our second chance. All we need to do is get Julie to play with us."

Reggie nodded. "Yeah. Not only can that girl sing, she can write too. We made a killer melody to one of her lyrics."

Luke showed Alex the song and the drummer pouted a little. "Oh...without your drummer. Cool."

"Drumming is so 90's, okay? We're just gonna...stomp our feet now." Luke spoke.

"Okay. Well, you know what else is so 90's? Being rude. Alright? Get woke. These are sensitive times." He slammed the song back into Luke's chest and smiled proudly before leaning over to Reggie and Hayden. "Learned that from my new ghost friend."

"Woke." Hayden nodded. "That's a cool word. What does it mean?"

"No clue." 

If yall have any ideas for this book and future chapters, I'd love to hear them