phantoms / joshler

2

the next morning proved to be more successful. the first night in the house was eerie, and jenna was claiming the place had to be haunted. but the rain had finally fully stopped, so they were able to start unloading all of tyler's musical equipment to the room he had chosen to be his practicing room. it was one of the three bedrooms upstairs in the east wing, and they had spent all day moving the furniture around and the bed into the basement so there'd be room for tyler's piano, mixing station, and guitars. 

the room was a dark blood colored wallpaper accompanied by the same black walnut floors that ran throughout the rest of the house. there was no attached bathroom and only one small window on the back wall, which let a fair amount of light in, for how small it was. 

tyler was thankful that there was at least modern electricity. the previous owners had decided to upgrade the house a bit, with modern heating, air conditioning, and electricity, as well as a washer and dryer. he had all the amenities he really needed but the house retained all of it's other original features. he was able to plug his mixing station in right away and get his laptop set up to what he needed. 

tyler's main piano stayed downstairs in the living room. it was too heavy to bring up the steps, and especially through a small door, so he only had his electronic piano with him upstairs, neatly unfolded against one of the walls along with the small stool that paired with it. 

jenna had run out to go grab both of them breakfast, so tyler was taking the opportunity to finish up the rest of the boxes designated for the music room. he'd only have to unpack his clothes, toiletries, and his kitchenware later. but he could do that when jenna wasn't around. 

the box before him was just full of miscellaneous decorations, so tyler found himself hanging pictures and little trinkets on the walls to occupy some of the empty wall space. the aesthetic of the room fit nicely with everything he had brought to decorate with - a few pictures in black frames of him and josh, one of those award records for selling so many copies of their last album, some basic skull decor, and a string of fairy lights. it felt homey. 

the photos on the wall tyler found himself staring at until jenna shocked him out of the dissociative state he was in by tapping on his back.

"it looks good in here." she commented, now acknowledging that tyler was just completely in another dimension. she had to have known, but didn't want to bring it up in case it made him upset. tyler loved that about her, she always knew. maybe if he hadn't have fallen in love with josh, he would've been with her. she'd have made a good spouse.

but tyler was gay and jenna was asexual, so it didn't really matter in the end anyways. 

"thanks." tyler said back, giving a warm smile. he was proud of how the room looked, since he didn't want to change anything about the rest of the house. it gave a weird vibe off that he enjoyed, with all of the ancient furniture and decor. spooky, but elegant. something he really loved. 

"i got you some strawberry pancakes," jenna shoved a box into tylers hands, moving to go sit down on the bench that sat against the opposite wall from the piano. "there's some bacon and hashbrowns in there too. there's this cool diner only like thirty minutes from here." 

"thirty minutes?" tyler asked, turning to sit down onto the floor as he opened the box.

"you live in the middle of nowhere." she smiled, opening her own food container. "even the local grocery store is like, twenty minutes away." 

"oh no," tyler groaned out. "will you go out to that with me later today?" 

jenna let out a laugh, and tyler felt a pang of adoration shoot through his stomach. it was an obvious yes, she was laughing at him for even asking.