JATP: When Ghosts Sing

Chapter 1

Julie's POV

I woke up that morning just like any other. Well, until I realized there were three unwanted pairs of eyes watching me. I jumped up to see Luke, Alex and Reggie standing there, smiling.

"What happened to boundaries?" I nearly yelled. My dad and Carlos were both downstairs.

"Sorry, we just couldn't believe what happened last night." Luke smiled sheepishly.

"Yeah, well I tried to tell you she wouldn't want us in her room. But nobody ever listens to me." Alex shook his head and looked at the ground, seemingly ashamed of the two idiots next to him.

"Look, I don't care why you're in my room just please get out." My eyes widened as Reggie walked over to my trunk and started opening it.

"REGGIE!" Oops...

He immediately let go and looked up, startled at the sudden raise in my voice.

"What? I was just curious about what was in here." Reggie said quickly.

"Julie?" Luke asked, opening the trunk fully. He looked at the neatly folded shirt on top of the pile of clothing. When I looked over to what he was questioning, I froze. How do you tell your best ghost-friends you think your dead mom may have been a huge fan of their music or something?

"How did that get in there?" I laughed nervously, but they all looked at me expecting a better answer.

"Julie, why is there a Sunset Curve shirt in here?" Reggie asked, looking at me seriously.

...

"Julie? Is everything okay?" My dad heard.

"Yeah? Everything's great. Why wouldn't things be great?" I needed to work on my lying. Luckily, he seemed to buy it.

"Oh okay. Well I just wanted to tell you, someone's at the door for you." I smiled and my dad closed the door and left.

"Julie, about the shirt." Luke said again. I sighed, knowing I wouldn't be able to keep this up forever.

"That trunk of clothes was full of my mom's old stuff. I guess she liked your music?" Close enough, right?

"Oh okay. We'll leave you alone now." Luke said placing the shirt back in the trunk. In less than a second, they were all gone and I sighed heavily.

Quickly getting changed, I rushed out of my room and down the stairs. I almost forgot my dad said someone was at the door for me, but when I went to see who it was, I saw Nick! Holding flowers? 

"Nick? What are you doing here?"

"Julie, how lovely to see you. I brought you flowers to congratulate you on your exquisite performance last night." Nick said, turning to face me. What caught me off guard was the way he was talking. It was really strange and to be honest, it made me kind of uneasy.

"Thanks. They're beautiful." He handed me the flowers and for a brief moment, I could have sworn he tried to touch my wrist. Maybe I was just tired. We played a long time last night and on top of that, the guys were able to touch people? I guess? We haven't really figured that out yet.

I backed away and closed the door. Maybe I was being a bit rude, but the way Nick was acting freaked me out and I didn't really want to be around the weird energy he seemed to possess.

"Well that was awfully rude." I turned around and almost jumped when I saw Luke sitting on the counter.

"Not now Luke." I said, trying to shake the weird feeling I couldn't seem to get over.

"Wow, such hostility. I'm shocked. One would think you'd be a little nicer considering you just played the Orpheum." Luke hopped off the counter and walked over to me, just then noticing the flowers.

"Who bought you Versailles?"

"I don't know." He looked at me like I was crazy. Which I probably was.

"You didn't see who was there?" Luke furrowed his brow.

"No, well yes, but that's not what I mean. Nick was standing there but it was like it wasn't him. It was like he was a different person entirely."

"Julie, you do realize you sound crazy, right?" Luke chuckled. I pushed past him and into the kitchen.

"So, what are you gonna do?" Luke asked as I grabbed a vase from a closet, filling it with water.

"You believe me?" I asked, turning off the water and bringing the vase to the flowers laying delicately on the counter.

"No, but I know you. You won't give up. That's just who you are." I rolled my eyes at Luke's mockery. I turned my attention towards the flowers as I unwrapped the paper and put the flowers into the vase.

"Yeah yeah. What do you want?" I placed the vase on the table and turned towards Luke, folding my arms.

Luke's POV

We came back to the studio and I let myself fall onto my couch. I heard the shower come on and looked up to see Alex slumped in a chair. Reggie nowhere to be found.

I got up, against my will, and went to go see why Reggie was turning on the shower. He's dead. I saw Reggie standing in the shower fully clothed, messing with the controls.

"Reg, what are you doing?"

"Huh? Oh, I'm just trying to cure my boredom. I was thinking about bringing my bass in here later." Reggie said as though it were nothing.

"You do know what happens when you put a bass under water, right?"

"No, why?"

"Well, when you put a bass underwater, it tends to...start a fire."

"So I shouldn't do it?" Reggie asked confusedly.

"No, you shouldn't." I left, unable to help him understand anymore. I decided to go into Julie's kitchen and wait for her there. Maybe we could figure out what happened last night. When I got there, Julie wasn't there so I hopped on the counter and started thinking. About what? That's a secret, for now.

––––––––––––––––––––––

End of chapter
Word count: 1002