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The garage was in a state of chaos when Luke and Julie walked in. Alex was sitting on the floor hyperventilating, and Reggie was running in circles. For a second, Luke and Julie just watched the scene. Reggie stopped his running, put his hands on his knees, and breathed heavily. Then he straightened back up and checked his pulse, before letting out a blinding grin.
“Yep, definitely still there!” He cheered.
“How,” Alex gasped, “Is this even possible?!”
“Why question it, bro?” Luke shrugged, plopping down on Alex’s bed with Julie. “We’ve got another chance at life now.”
“Because it doesn’t make sense!” Alex argued.
“Neither does anything else that’s happened,” Julie countered.
“Yeah, but this really doesn’t. I may not know much about ghosts, but I’m pretty sure they don’t just come back to life like that.”
“Maybe Julie really is a witch!” Reggie yelled.
“I’m not a witch!”
“Even if Julie was a witch, how would she do this?” Luke asked.
“Yeah, I may not know much about witchcraft either, but I’m also pretty sure that in all the movies and stuff, necromancy was like the one thing that wasn’t supposed to happen. We must be breaking so many ghost laws right now.” Alex flung himself back on the bed and groaned.
“We have laws?” Reggie looked concerned. “Would they even apply to us if we aren’t ghosts anymore?”
“I don’t think that’s really the point, Reggie,” Julie smiled. “Maybe it has something to do with your unfinished business! And like, fate! Maybe you have to be human to do what you need to do, and like play your part and all that.”
“I’m pretty sure Willie never mentioned any ghosts coming back to life to accomplish their unfinished business.” Alex wasn’t going for it.
“Wait no, I think Jules is on to something here,” Luke argued. “Think about it, Alex. Why did we go to that dark room for 25 years instead of just being ghosts? Why the wait? It’s like we’re supposed to be here, right now, in this time.”
“So what? We never really died? We were just like… in a supernatural waiting room?” Alex asked.
“I don’t know man,” Luke clapped Alex on the shoulder. “There is one thing I know for sure though.”
“And that is?” Julie asked.
Luke and Reggie grinned at each other, on the same page now like so many other times. “This band is really back now.”
All things considered, when they told Ray the news at breakfast the next day, he took it in stride. At this point, he was pretty used to crazy. What was one more impossible thing?
“So, you guys are actual people now?” Carlos asked.
“That’s the hope, little man,” Reggie said.
“Rad,” Carlos said.
Julie started laughing. “Carlos, who taught you to say rad?”
“Luke says it all the time!” Carlos objected.
“Okay, buddy. Anyways, what do you guys want to do now that you’re human?” Julie asked.
“Well, I know the first thing that you’re doing,” Ray interjected. “ Going to school. ”
“Ah. Right. Sorry guys.”
“Don’t worry Julie. I’ll stop them from doing anything too crazy,” Alex assured.
“Just try not to burn the house down,” Ray sighed before he, Julie, and Carlos all left for the day.
Julie had only been gone for an hour, and the boys were already so antsy they felt like crawling out of their skin. What was the point of being alive if they had to hide inside of a garage all day? Life was pretty boring when you couldn’t just poof anywhere you wanted to, they were starting to remember.
Alex was laying on the couch twirling one of his drumsticks over his head. Reggie was writing what looked suspiciously like a country song on a piece of paper that he definitely planned on sneaking into Luke’s notebook later. And Luke was, as per usual, tiredly strumming on his guitar.
“Ow, crap,” Alex shouted, dropping the drumstick on his face.
“This sucks guys,” Luke complained.
“Well, what do you want to do? It’s not like we have money. Or licenses that didn’t expire in 1995. Or even a car,” Alex pointed out.
“I don’t know, I just feel like we should be doing something . We just came back to life! We should be doing something with that!” Luke said.
“There’s not much we can do until Julie gets home,” Alex countered.
“Ooh, what if we plan what we want to do when Julie gets home!” Reggie suggested.
“That’s just going to make me want to do something now more,” Luke argued.
“Maybe not! We could use it as a distraction! Like, I want to try to find Willie. I want to know if I can still see him,” Alex suggested.
The other boys gave him a sympathetic look. “Okay. Then I want to take Julie on an actual date.”
“What about you Reg? What do you want to do?” Alex asked.
Reggie was quiet for a moment. “I want to try to find our families.”
Alex sat up on the couch, and both he and Luke turned to stare at Reggie. That hadn’t been what they were expecting.
“I don’t know about that, Reg,” Luke said slowly.
“Why not? You can finally actually make up with your parents! Don’t you want them to know we’re alive?” Reggie asked.
“I mean, I guess. I just don’t know how exactly we’d explain this,” Luke said. Alex was silent.
“That’s where Julie can help! She can explain it all! At least with you. I don’t even know where to look for my parents,” Reggie sighed.
“I don’t want to find mine,” Alex said finally.
“What?” Luke and Reggie asked.
“I mean, yeah, Luke’s parents are going to be ecstatic, they can finally make up. And Reggie, your family will be happy. But in case you’ve all forgotten, mine kinda wasn’t super happy with me at the end there. I doubt they’d want to see me again.”
“I don’t think that’s true.” Luke went over and put his arm around Alex. “I’m positive they regret that now.”
Reggie went over and sat on Alex’s other side. “Yeah, I’m sure they’d be happy to see you.”
Alex sighed before looking back and forth between the two. “You guys really want to do this?” He asked.
Luke and Reggie nodded.
“Alright, then I guess it’s time for a reunion.”
“Okay, let me do the talking first,” Julie said. All three of them were standing at the door of the Pattersons’ house. The boys went off and hid in the bushes while Julie knocked on the door. Once again, Mitch Patterson was the one to answer the door.
“Oh, hello Julie. Honey, Julie Molina’s here!” Mitch called back.
Emily joined him at the door. “Hello, Julie! What brings you by today?”
Julie took a breath. “Okay, I don’t really know how to say this, so I’m just going to say this. Do you remember the last time I was here, when you opened the door and I asked if you had a son named Luke?”
Mitch nodded. “Yes, of course.”
“Well, I already knew that the answer was yes. And when I saw that picture in your living room and asked if that was him, I already knew that it was. And I recognized him. Because he was standing right next to me.”
“Sweetie, what are you-” Emily started.
“About three months ago, your son showed up in my garage, along with his bandmates Reggie and Alex. I’d found an old CD of theirs and was listening to it when suddenly, there they were! And we formed a band together, Julie and the Phantoms-”
“Tell your friends,” Reggie muttered.
Alex smacked him. “Shhh!”
“And we’ve been playing together since then. Anyways, they fell in with this really bad ghost by accident, and he like put this spell on them that was going to make them just disappear. And so to fight that, we played at the Orpheum so that they could cross over, but they didn’t cross over. Ever since that night, they’ve been coming back to life. And yesterday, their hearts officially started beating again.” Julie let out a big breath, finally over with the whole story.
“Julie,” Mitch said, his face hard. “I think that you should leave.”
Emily was clinging to his side, and Mitch was starting to close the door. Luke panicked as he saw his opportunity to reconnect with his parents slipping away yet again. He wasn’t going to leave anything unsaid this time, not if he could help it.
“Wait!” Luke shouted, bursting of the bushes, Reggie and Alex trying desperately to hold him back so that Julie could prepare his parents a bit more. “It’s true! She’s telling the truth. I’m here. I’ve been right here for months.”
“Luke!” Emily gasped. Mitch clutched the door for balance, his knuckles turning white.
“Hey mom,” Luke said.
“How is this even-” Mitch started to ask.
“Oh, who cares!” Emily sobbed as she ran over and wrapped Luke in her arms.
Luke sat in between his parents on the sofa in the living room, his arms wrapped around both of them. Luke and Emily hadn’t let each other go since she hugged him. There were no hard conversations or explanations to be given. Luke’s song had said everything that needed to be said, and the 25 years that had passed had nullified any possible apologies that might once have been necessary. Alex and Reggie sat squeezed together on the armchair, and Julie sat in front of Luke, her head leaning against his knee. They had just finished explaining the past few months to his parents and showing them the “trending” Youtube videos that the guys still didn’t fully understand.
“So, you’re fully alive now?” Emily asked again, just to be sure.
“Yep! We have to eat and sleep and everything!” Reggie confirmed.
“And you’ve been sleeping in Julie’s garage this whole time?” Mitch asked.
Luke and Julie shared a look, both paling just a bit. “Mostly,” Luke coughed. Reggie and Alex choked back a laugh.
“Well, what’s next?” Emily asked.
“Actually, that’s something we wanted to ask you about,” Alex said, leaning forward on the chair. Reggie nodded behind him.
“See, we haven’t told Reggie or Alex’s parents about all of this yet,” Luke continued.
“And we were wondering if maybe you knew where to find them?” Reggie asked hopefully.
Mitch and Emily shared a look. “Well,” Emily started slowly. “I do have them on Facebook.”
Luke leaned down to whisper in Julie’s ear. “What’s Facebook?”
Julie giggled. “I’ll show you later.”
“That’s great!” Alex said, having already had a talk about social media with Willie. “Can you help us get in contact with them?”
“Now that might be a bit of a problem,” Mitch said.
“Why?” Luke asked.
“I haven’t exactly been on speaking terms with your moms for… about 25 years now,” Emily explained.
“Why?” Julie and the guys gasped.
“See, you have to understand that we were all terribly heartbroken, and feeling incredibly guilty,” Emily began. “We all knew we’d messed up somewhere on the way-”
“Mom-”
“No, Luke honey, we were all far from perfect as parents. I think, instead of dealing with that, we all started to try to blame each other. Not at first!” Emily assured after seeing the growing looks of hurt on Alex and Reggie’s faces. “But after a time, it all came to a head at the funeral.”
“The funeral?” Luke gulped.
“Your moms thought that it would be a nice idea to have a joint funeral, since you were all so close,” Mitch explained.
“That was… not our best idea.” Emily conceded.
“What happened?” Julie asked, setting her hand on Emily’s knee.
“It started off on a bad note.” Emily began to tell the story that had haunted her for years. “First of all, Reggie’s parents showed up separately, and sat on separate sides of the church.” Reggie winced at that.
“The two oldest kids, Liam and Janie, sat with their father Derek, while Jane held little Abigail throughout the whole service. Poor thing, she was too young to know what was fully happening yet. Cried the whole time though.” Alex put his arm around Reggie.
“Then Alex’s family walked in, looking like they were walking to meet their own deaths,” Mitch continued.
“In a perfect formation too,” Emily added. “Anne and Tim leading the pack, with the kids behind them. First the girls, Stephenie, Willow, and Courtney, arms all locked, followed by Jeremiah and John, refusing to look at each other.”
“Why…” Alex asked.
“Sweetie, they haven’t spoken since their big fight the day after you died. There was a lot of guilt and blame going around in those days, and they both felt like they should have done more to look after you as your older brothers, after Anne and Tim threw you out.”
“I didn’t think they cared,” Alex muttered.
“We all cared a good deal more than we showed,” Mitch said as he squeezed Luke’s hand. Luke smiled at him and squeezed back.
“Well, we were all there, and it was time for the services to start. Derek, Liam, Tim, Jeremiah, John, and Mitch here were the pallbearers. The caskets-” Emily cleared her throat. “The caskets were carried in, and that’s when Anne just lost it and started sobbing. We all wanted to, but Jane and I were trying to hold it together, Jane especially. She was all alone that day, with only a screaming toddler to keep her company.
“We made it through the pastor’s speech alright, but when he asked for anyone who wanted to say a few words to stand up and speak, well, pardon my language, but all hell broke loose. Anne was still howling over in their pew, Tim and the girls trying to comfort her, and Abigail was still crying, and Jane couldn’t take it anymore. She stood up and just lost it on all of us.
“‘Stop crying,’ she shouted. ‘You don’t have any right to cry now. Not after your son, who you now claim to have loved oh so dearly, showed up on my doorstep crying last year. It’s all your own fault that he’s dead, and you know it! The fact is, we were all terrible parents, and everyone here knows it. We let our kids just slip away. You threw yours out,’ she directed at Anne, before turning to me, ‘and you drove yours away! And my poor boy,’ and this is when she started crying, ‘felt more at home with them than he ever did with us,’ this directed at her husband, ‘so of course, he joined them! And look what all our parenting has gotten us. A triple funeral for three boys we hadn’t even managed to teach how to avoid food poisoning !’ And then she stormed out. Liam and Janie followed her, but Derek stayed behind for the rest of the service. That was the final straw of their marriage, and they officially divorced soon after.”
Emily paused for a moment after finishing that part of the story. Reggie was crying, and Alex was comforting him. They didn’t want to hear anymore, but they needed to know what had happened while they were gone, and what state their families would be in when they talked to them again.
“What happened between you and my mom though?” Alex finally asked.
“That falling out was after the funeral. The pastor had managed to get the service back on track. There were a couple of lovely speeches given about you all, and poor Bobby performed a beautiful song,” Luke snorted, “and then it was over. Jane and her kids came back to see the caskets lowered into the ground, and then they all left. They didn’t come to the wake afterward. Your mom and I managed to make it through the wake before one of us mentioned Jane, though I’m sure she was thinking of it the whole time, just as I was. After it was over, Tim and Mitch took the kids home, and Anne and I were putting the leftovers into Tupperware and dividing it between us.
“Suddenly, Anne whispered, ‘She’s right,’ before sitting down in one of the dining room chairs. I thought she was feeling the same as I was, so I sat across from her and grabbed her hand. Before I could say anything, she continued. ‘You did drive your son away, and we all know that the others followed him.’ I wrenched my hand away from hers. I didn’t know what to say, and so I went with the first thing that came into my head. Her comments hurt me, and I wanted to hurt her too. So I said, ‘At least my son knew I loved him.’ I should have known better than to try to fight with her though. She just smiled a bit, and responded ‘At least my son loved me .’ And then she stood up, grabbed her food, and was gone. I haven’t spoken to any of them since.”
Now everybody was crying. The boys couldn’t believe that everyone had fallen apart so terribly since their deaths, and blamed each other for it. They were 17, they made mistakes. It wasn’t anybody’s fault, it was just how it was.
“Mom, you know that’s not true, right? You know I love you. I just, I didn’t know how to say it then.”
Emily smiled. “I know that now. And I forgave both of your moms a long time ago. You boys don’t understand, you can’t understand what it felt like. We were all hurting so much, and we wanted to make sure that everyone else was hurting just as much. I regret quite a bit of what was said then.”
Alex sighed and stood up. “You were right, though.”
“What do you mean dear?” Emily asked.
“I didn’t know my mom loved me,” he explained.
“Alex…” Julie said, getting up and wrapping her arms around him.
“I didn’t know, because she didn’t. Not really. Not for who I was. And now that I have another chance with this second life, I don’t think I really want to know if they’d be different now.”
“It’s your choice, Alex.” Julie was rubbing her hand up and down his back.
“Yeah dude, we support you,” Luke added.
“Thanks. I think I would like to see my siblings again though, if that’s possible.”
Emily stood up and made her way over to their ancient computer. “I don’t think that’ll be too hard to manage.” With that, Emily started drafting some very interesting messages.
Reggie had had a complicated family life. He didn’t really get along with his dad. Reggie had always been a touchy-feely guy and the class clown, and his dad just didn’t get him. His dad rarely showed emotion, barely gave hugs, and followed every rule exactly by the book. Reggie didn’t have much of an interest in seeing his dad. Whenever he thought of it, all he could hear in his mind were all of the arguments between his parents, all of the times Reggie would run up to him so excited to show him something that would end with Derek shaking his head and walking away, all of the comments about how Reggie should be more like his brother. Like Alex, Reggie was starting to decide to be a bit more selective about who he let into this new life. So Reggie didn’t want to see his dad. But he did want to see his mom.
He was nervous though, in a way that he rarely got. He had the guys and Julie with him, but he couldn’t bring himself to knock on the apartment door in front of him. Squeezing his hand, Julie walked up and did it for him.
A young woman opened the door. At first, Reggie almost thought that it was his mom, but she looked much younger than he remembered her looking. Instead of aging up over the last 25 years, it was like she had aged down. It took Reggie a moment to realize who he was seeing.
“Abbie?” He asked.
The girl looked at him suspiciously, half hiding behind the door.
“Do I know you?” She asked. Suddenly, a little boy peaked out the door from around her legs.
“You’re the boy from the pictures!” He shouted.
“Get back in the house,” the girl commanded.
Reggie ignored her and leaned down to be at the same level as the boy.
“Hey, little man!” He grinned. “What’s your name?”
“I’m Reginald!” The little boy announced. Julie looked ready to cry at that.
“That’s super cool,” Reggie, the older, said quietly. “That’s my name too.”
Abbie pulled a pair of glasses out of her shirt pocket and put them on. When she got a better look at the people standing around the door, her eyes widened.
“Mom!” She called back into the apartment. “I think that there’s someone here to see you.”
Julie had officially become the spokesperson for the boys it seemed. Luckily, she had a much better idea of what she wanted to say this time, and Jane had already been warned a bit beforehand by Emily. Reggie sat in an armchair holding little Reggie Junior, who he had already nicknamed RJ, in his lap. Abbie hadn’t been able to stop staring at him since he walked in. Having only been three when he died, most of her memories of him were made up of pictures and stories she’d been told by other people.
All things considered, Jane had been taking the whole situation in stride. She had gotten rather good over the years at hiding her emotions, and she barely reacted when seeing him at the door. She’d simply invited them inside and asked for them to explain what exactly it was that was going on. However, if the way her eyes constantly looked hungrily at her son was any hint, she cared a lot more than she was letting on.
“So what now?” Abbie asked after the story was finished. “You’re just going to keep on playing music and living in a garage?”
“Well, we’re hoping to not really live in a garage forever,” Alex said.
“But that’s pretty much it, Little Abbie!” Reggie smiled.
Abbie snorted. “Dude, I’m like 10 years older than you now.”
Reggie held RJ closer to him. “I can tell.”
Luke and Julie smiled at each other. He was pretty good at hiding it most of the time, but they knew that Reggie was usually the loneliest out of all of them. He had the band as his family, but whenever he watched the Molinas he’d always craved for more. They were just happy that he finally had the opportunity to get it.
“So catch me up! What’s the dish ?” Reggie asked. He remembered the term from Flying Solo, and he figured this was as good a time as any to use it.
Jane smiled. “There’s not much to tell. Liam’s 45 now, and married with two kids. Janie’s 38. She got married about five years ago and has a little daughter now. And Abbie and I just live in this little apartment we’ve been in since you… left.”
“We almost moved when RJ was born five years ago, but we didn’t quite have the money. So now he and I share a room, and mom has the other one.” Abbie added.
Reggie clenched his jaw, and Julie grabbed Luke’s hand. They were all thinking about Bobby, living in his mansion that he got from profiting off of their music, while Reggie’s family were stuck in this little apartment. If he’d just shared … but that was in the past. There was nothing that he could do about that, but he could help now.
“I want to help you out,” Reggie blurted.
“Um, Reg? We don’t have any money,” Alex whispered.
“Oh. Right. But we will! And I want to help.”
Jane got up and wrapped her arms around her son from behind his chair. “Ah, you’re still my sweet little boy. But when you make it big, as I’m sure you will, I want you all to use that money for yourself. Don’t worry about us.”
Abbie snorted. “Yeah, you gotta use it to buy your own crappy apartment.”
“I think I might have to, you know, graduate high school first,” Julie said.
“Good plan,” Jane laughed. “You’re already doing better than these three did, it seems.”
“Hey!” The guys yelled.
Julie glanced at her phone. “Oh, crap guys. We’ve gotta get going. Dad’s expecting us home by dinner.”
Alex looked apprehensive. “What are we having?” He loved the Molinas, but now that he could actually eat food again, he was starting to realize he wasn’t the biggest fan of the leftover diet anymore.
Julie rolled her eyes. “He’s ordering a pizza. He didn’t know how Reggie would be feeling, so he decided to be safe.”
“Yes!” Alex and Luke cheered as Reggie said, “Ray really gets me.”
Jane, Abbie, and RJ walked them to the door, where RJ tugged on the jacket around Reggie’s waist. Reggie lifted him up.
“What’s up?” He asked.
“Will you be back soon?” RJ asked.
“I’m going to be back so much, you’re going to wish I wasn’t,” Reggie grinned.
“Yeah, he’s super annoying,” Luke added. Julie smacked him on the back of the head.
“Ow, what was that for?” Luke asked.
“That was totally a cute moment dude!” Julie chided.
As the group made their way down the hall, arguing the whole way, Reggie’s family watched from the doorway. Jane was happy to see that, even if her son hadn’t been with her, he’d never been alone.
It had been a long day. Ray had allowed them to take a couple of boxes of pizza out to the studio after they said grace, and so Luke, Julie, Reggie, and Alex were now all sitting on the floor chatting. Julie had given up after only three slices and was instead laying on the ground with her head on Luke’s lap. It seemed as though Luke, Alex, and Reggie were trying to make up for lost time, and she was pretty sure they were about to eat an entire pizza each.
“This is so crazy guys,” Luke commented, shaking his head. He continued, looking down at Julie, “I still can’t believe we really get this.”
Julie smiled up at him. “Well believe it! Because we’ve gotta get to work soon. As far as the internet knows, you’re a Swedish hologram band. Flynn is going to want to do some serious rebranding soon.”
“Are we still Julie and the Phantoms ?” Reggie asked.
“Or are we going with Luke’s name of Julie and the Fat Ones ?” Alex teased.
“Keep eating those pizzas and we might be,” Julie shot back.
“ Of course we’re still Julie and the Phantoms. That’s our thing. It makes us look… mysterious.” Luke said.
“Oooh, you’re right. Still phantoms,” Reggie agreed.
“The hologram bit is definitely out now though,” Julie remarked.
“Or we could just learn to use holograms!” Reggie said.
Alex gave him a look. “Yeah, good luck with that.”
As the band continued to bicker over their possible rebranding, there was a knock at the door. Julie stood up to get it, and opened it to find a massive blonde family on the other side, all pushing each other to get to the front of the mob. When they saw Alex standing inside, five of the hoard all ran inside with shouts of “Alex!”
Alex recognized his siblings immediately, despite the gray that had started to encroach on John and Courtney’s hair. When he was alive, they’d been a perfect staircase of ages, all of them two years apart. John the oldest, 23 when Alex died, and Stephanie the youngest, 13 when Alex died. They immediately crushed him in a massive group hug, showing more care and affection than he’d ever remembered from them when he was alive.
“I’m guessing you’re Alex’s family!” Julie laughed.
The people left standing at the doorway smiled at her. They were three teenagers that Julie thought she might recognize from school, two girls and one boy.
“Definitely didn’t think the Phantoms were actual phantoms,” the older looking girl remarked.
“Yeah,” the boy said. “I can’t believe we didn’t recognize our own uncle.”
Julie thought the other girl might have been in her grade. “Well, it’s not we ever met him.”
“Well, now’s your chance! Come on in,” Julie invited.
The kids followed Julie into the studio, where Alex’s family was talking excitedly around him. The guys were trying to explain what all had happened.
“Yeah, so we went to this dark room for like 25 years where Alex cried,” Reggie was explaining.
“Because he’s the emotional one,” Luke added.
“WE HAD JUST DIED!” Alex complained. The oldest looking brother, John, ruffled his hair.
“Of course, of course,” he laughed.
Thankfully, Julie stepped in to give her carefully worded explanation before too much chaos and confusion could ensue. She knew that the boys had pretty contradictory ideas on what was going on, from her being a witch (Reggie) to fate (Luke) to absolutely no idea (Alex). It was easier to just explain what they knew for sure than to dive into all of that, and knowing the guys, they definitely would have dived into all of that.
After their explanations, his siblings introduced Alex to his nieces and nephew.
“We decided to just bring the three oldest with us,” his sister Courtney explained. “This is my daughter Melody, she’s 15.”
Melody stood a bit back from the rest, and Alex noticed her fidgeting.
“Hi Melody,” he greeted. She just waved.
“Aren’t you in my class?” Julie asked her.
“Yeah, but I’m not in the music program. I’m not very… musical…”
“Ha, neither is Alex,” Luke teased. Alex just rolled his eyes.
“And this is my son, Felix. He’s 16,” Jeremiah introduced. Felix just nodded. Alex didn’t quite know how they would get along. Felix was large and… sporty. But as Alex looked closer, he noticed that under his jacket, Felix wore a Rush t-shirt similar to some of Luke’s, and had a bit more hope.
“And this,” the oldest brother, John, said, “is my daughter. Alexis. She’s 18.”
Despite all of the times he swore he wasn’t the emotional one, Alex’s eyes teared up when he heard that. He couldn’t help himself; he walked over and wrapped Alexis in a hug. The most outgoing of all of her cousins, she accepted it immediately.
“Uh, Alex,” Reggie began. “Aren’t you going to introduce us to your niece?” He winked at Alexis.
Alex groaned. “Don’t even think about it, man.”
Everyone laughed and settled around the room on the floor and in various pieces of furniture. The guys and Julie continued to fill them in on little bits of their lives thus far, and Alex’s siblings and nieces and nephews did the same. When Alex brought up Willie, a wide grin spread across everyone’s faces.
“Willie, huh?” His youngest sibling, Stephanie, asked. Everyone laughed as Alex blushed and hid his face, but outside the door of the studio, watching through the windows, were two people who were wishing they could join in on all of the festivities.
“He looks so happy,” Willie commented. The person with him hummed in agreement.
Willie turned to look at his companion. “What do you think he’s going to do when he realizes he can’t see me anymore?”
Rose Molina smiled sadly at him. “Let’s not worry about that just yet. For now, we have to figure out what they’re going to do when they realize they aren’t actually legally alive.”
Willie sighed. “We’re going to have to break a lot of laws, aren’t we?”
“Isn’t that the best part?”