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It starts the moment they meet. This feeling inside of him that only grows stronger the longer he knows her. This insatiable thirst that Luke suddenly acquires— a desire to know everything there is to know about one, Julie Molina.
She’s talented in a way that leaves him feeling wonderstruck, and quick witted in a way that leaves him feeling stunned, and guarded in a way that makes him want to prove himself— just enough so that maybe, just maybe, she’ll let him see what lies beneath the tough exterior she presents to the rest of the world.
Luke should have known that none of his tricks would work on her from the moment he and Alex and Reggie crash-landed into her life. From the moment Juile had whirled around at the doors of the studio and told them all to get out and go hang out in an old mansion somewhere in Pasadena instead.
But it still takes him aback. They way she so effortlessly brushes off the lethal combination of a gentle smile and soft eyes that he’d so often used when he’d been alive to get out of trouble.
It’s the same look he’s shooting at Julie now as he finds himself draped across her bed, looking up at her through his lashes, hoping she’ll cave. That she’ll tell him where the kitchen is and then, maybe, if he plays his cards right, kill his curiosity to know what she keeps inside that tiny wooden box she’s taken such care in setting high up on the bookshelf in her room.
“Maybe you should lay off a bit,” Alex says after Julie kicks them out of her bedroom.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Luke replies innocently.
“Really? Because I’m pretty sure he’s talking about that thing you do with the eyes and the mouth,” Reggie says, pointing at his face before he screws it up in a poor impression of Luke’s own.
“That’s not what I look like,” Luke scoffs.
“So you do know what you’re doing,” Alex accuses. “I’m serious, Luke. I know you like her—“
“I don’t!” Luke says a little too quickly. “I mean, I do— but not like that,” he adds lamely.
“Whatever you say, man, but either way, maybe you shouldn’t push Julie’s buttons so much?” Alex says, wringing his hands. “What if she tries to kick us out again?”
“Alex’s got a point,” Reggie adds. “She might not be a witch, but I dunno, did you two see the size of that cross she brought out? What if she’s an expert on exorcisms? Hey, d’you guys think we could actually get exorcised?”
“Nobody’s getting exorcised, Reg,” Luke says, clapping a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “You both need to chill. I’ve got this— Julie doesn’t know it yet, but we’re going to be great friends.”
“Yeah, friends,” Alex says.
“Yeah. Friends,” Luke echoes. “What else are we gonna be? Well, maybe bandmates soon if we can get her to join Sunset Curve…”
Alex drops it, but Luke doesn’t miss the pointed look he exchanges with Reggie. Luke chooses to ignore the silent conversation his two best friends are having at his expense. Just like he choses to ignore the small voice inside his head quietly pointing out that, despite the fact that he’s only known Julie for a day, whatever strange little relationship that’s already being forged between them, feels nothing like the one he shares with Alex and Reggie. And the feeling grows within him the more time passes. Multiplying at a rate that leaves Luke feeling as though he’s struggling to catch his breath.
The incessant curiosity to know everything about Juile does’t wane. Instead it comes coupled with a constant desire to exist in her orbit. Like Juile’s the sun and he’s merely a planet that can’t help but revolve around her.
Luke can’t resist the urge to keep trying no matter how many times Julie brushes him off. No matter how many times she effectively reminds him that any semblance of charm he possesses won’t work on her. Instead, he finds himself spurred on by every good-natured roll of Julie’s eyes. By every shake of her head, and every amused smile that pulls across her lips despite her best attempt to stifle the grin itching to split across her face.
Sometimes Luke turns up the charm, purposefully lays it on thick. He tells himself that it’s just to see if he’ll succeed in leaving Julie as visibly flustered as she makes him feel on the inside. But he knows that deep down, it’s because he secretly likes the fact that Julie makes everyone in her life earn their keep.
If Luke’s being honest with himself, he knows that he’s been a little bit in love with Julie since the moment they met.
But it’s different now. It’s different after his heart decides that it belongs to her and only her. It’s different when the love he has for Juile becomes impossible to ignore. It’s like the knowledge of his love magnifies everything. Every small smile, every stamp of approval from Juile makes the warmth that blooms in his chest feel ten times greater. And even though he tries to hide it with his uncanny ability to bounce back, it stings just a little bit more every time she shoots him down.
—-
It wasn’t wasn’t hard at first. Shooting Luke down whenever Julie knew he was turning up the charm in an effort to get her to cave. But it’s harder now when sometimes it feels as though she’s got to remind herself to keep breathing whenever he shoots her a particularly blinding grin.
It’s even harder still when it becomes impossible to deny the fact that she’s in love with him. Sometimes Julie wonders if she’s imagining things, or if Luke knows exactly what he’s doing. If he somehow knows that it feels like her heart is about to burst right out of her chest whenever he says things like “I can’t do this without you,” or “anything for you,” with such intention.
Julie reasons that it’s easier if she carries on pretending like she’s unaffected by his perfect smile, and his dizzying hazel eyes, and the way his voice sometimes has a tendency to go soft and gentle whenever they’re talking alone. But pretending and lying seem to go hand in hand in this case, and Juile’s never been good at the latter.
There are moments where pretending is impossible. Like right now, when she’s standing at the doors to the studio, watching Luke play a song she’s never heard before on his acoustic guitar.
She lets the mask slip for just a moment, leaning against the doorframe as she lets the music wash over her, coaxing an adoring smile across her face.
Julie hardly ever gets to watch Luke play when he’s unaware he’s got an audience, so she lets herself enjoy it. She lets her eyes rove lazily over his face, taking in the way his eyebrows knit together in concentration. She takes in the way his body sways with the slow tempo of the song, and the way his teeth absentmindedly play with the pick he holds between them.
Luke must sense he’s being watched because suddenly, his fingers miss a note, sliding off of the steel strings when he notices Julie at the door.
“Hey!” Luke says, his voice high pitched, his body half way to getting up off the couch. He's quick to drop back down into his seat, as though thinking better of it at the last second. And Julie can’t help but smile over how endearing it is to see him look so visibly flustered over realizing he was being watched.
“Sorry,” she says, biting back a chuckle. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“You didn’t, “ he lies. “I was just…fiddling around with something.”
“Well, don’t let me stop you,” she says.
Luke’s fingers begin to pluck at the steel strings again, but his eyes stay trained firmly on hers as she leaves her spot by the door and heads over to the old worn pullout couch. He doesn’t dip his head back down to look at the instrument in his hands until she’s sitting right next to him. And Julie’s breath catches in her throat when he eases into a strum that somehow sounds just as achingly sweet as the gentle picking the song had started out with.
It always feels like magic, the way Luke seems to create music out of thin air— like it’s bottled up inside of him and he just can’t help but let it out. It takes her breath away on a good day, but there’s something different about whatever it is he’s playing for her now. Something in the deliberate way he pairs the notes together, in the way his fingertips makes the guitar in his hands sing a song that feels as though it’s tugging at her heart in all of the best and worst ways.
She closes her eyes and lets Luke’s music carry her away, her mind racing to find a word that seems worthy enough to describe the melody he’s pulling from the strings. In the end, the only word Julie can come up with is “beautiful”— but even that doesn’t feel like enough.
“You think so?” Luke murmurs.
He's already got his eyes trained on her when she slides her own eyes open again, and a faint heat rushes to her cheeks over the realization that she must have uttered the word “beautiful” aloud.
“I do,” she whispers back.
“That’s good,” Luke replies, his fingers still dancing across the steel strings. “Because I wrote it about you.”
His eyes flit down almost bashfully when he says it, but after a beat, they’re back on hers, coupled with that same soft smile he likes to shoot her way whenever he’s trying especially hard to be charming.
“And I used only the good notes,” he adds.
“Yeah, okay,” she says through a disbelieving chuckle.
“Don’t believe me?” Luke asks, nodding toward his songbook on the coffee table.
And Julie wants to laugh while telling Luke that no, she doesn’t believe him. She wants to shove at his shoulder and assure him that she’s not falling for it. To chalk up Luke’s casual declaration as yet another instance in which he’s jokingly used his naturally charming demeanor to rile her up and leave her feeling flustered. But she can’t. Because his tone might give off the same air of gentle playfulness it always does— but his eyes are anything but playful. They’re unwaveringly intense in the way she often sees them when he gets that look. The same one that lights up among the green, and grey, and brown flecks of his irises when they lock eyes on stage. The one that makes it seem as though everything from the music they’re making, to the crowd they’re commanding has melted away. Until it feels as though all that’s left holding them both afloat is their voices and the way they meet in the middle, twisting and twirling around around each other until it’s impossible to tell where his ends and hers begins.
Her hands are reaching for the song book before she can help herself, trembling fingers grasping at the front and back cover as she pulls it onto her lap.
“Last page, Boss,” he whispers.
Julie’s not sure what she expects to find when she follows his simple instruction, but it’s definitely not the sight of her own name printed boldly atop the last page in his own hand. Luke hasn’t written any words on the page, so much as scrawled down a series of notes and chord progressions on some hastily drawn guitar tabs. And Julie doesn’t play the guitar herself, but she knows how to read music, and once she’s got the notes in front of her eyes, it’s easy to recognize that they belong to the same achingly sweet guitar melody Luke’s been playing since before she’d walked in on him.
“I…” she starts, heart racing, her fingers tracing over the indents on the page in front of her. “I don’t know what to say.”
She chances a glance up at him when Luke stops playing.
“You don’t have to say anything, Jules,” he whispers meaningfully.
“Yes, I do,” she whispers back.
And she means it. Not because she feels obligated to say anything, but because they’ve spent so long skirting around talking about what it is they mean to each other. Because keeping secrets about how they really feel for one another just doesn't seem right now that she knows what it’s like to almost lose him before she’s ready to say goodbye. Because if Luke Patterson is going to sit there and pour his heart out to her in the best way he knows how, then far be it for Juile Molina to be outdone.
She takes one of his hands in hers, marveling over the warm weight of his palm against her own.
The boys have been solid to the touch for a few weeks now, but the warmth is new. And even now, Julie’s still not sure if the way it feels whenever Luke touches her has more to do with the fact that these days, their bodies seem to be more alive than dead. Or if it’s simply the fact that Luke is touching her that makes her feel as though she’s burning from the inside out.
The sound of her name tumbling from his lips is enough to draw her attention away from their entwined fingers. Instead of saying anything, Julie simply stands and tugs until Luke gets off the couch. She leads them over to the piano, pulling him down to sit on the bench next to her, relishing in the way he stays close, his shoulder pressed against hers.
“Jules?” Luke asks again.
“I used only the good notes too,” she says in response.
Julie doesn’t elaborate, choosing instead to let her fingers fly across the keys. And then, the only sound filling the studio is that of the song she’d written for Luke months ago, but that she’d been keeping tucked safely away in her dream box ever since.
She doesn’t speak again until after the last note rings out and fades into nothing.
“It’s called ‘Perfect Harmony,’” Julie says. “And I wrote it for you. I wrote it about us.”
She drops her hands in her lap, her fingers fiddling with the edge of one of the various friendship bracelets that adorn her wrists.
“Jules, I…” Luke starts, staring at her in wonder.
“You don’t have to say anything,” she says through a nervous laugh, echoing his own words from earlier.
And he doesn’t. Instead, Julie finds her breath catching in her throat when Luke reaches out and cups her cheek, brushing the pad of his thumb carefully across the curve of it.
Julie vividly remembers what it was like the last time Luke had sat so close to her on this very bench. It was the night they’d performed “Edge of Great” so her dad and his work buddies could film it for the band’s YouTube page.
She remembers how she hadn’t expected him to slip in beside her behind the piano. How she’d felt like she’d been drowning in the heated gaze of his eyes as they sang the last few lines of the song together. She remembers how Luke had inched so close, she thought for sure he’d slip right through her. But that was back when he’d been a phantom. Neither of them are quite sure of what he is now. The only thing Julie does know is that he’s as real and as solid as he’s ever been.
She lets out a soft sigh at the first brush of his lips against hers, already lamenting the loss of contact when Luke pulls back in a silent gesture that offers her a choice as to whether or not she wants to continue. But Juile’s waited too long to feel the curve of his lips against her lips, and she’s tired of wracking her brain for the right words to string together in an effort to tell him what he means to her. So she chases his mouth with her own and pours everything she can into a kiss that leaves Luke digging the fingers of one hand into her hair, while wrapping the other around her waist in an effort to draw her as close as he possibly can. Julie giggles against his mouth when she winds up in Luke’s lap, her back pressed against the piano, the tinkling of random keys ringing out in the studio whenever he accidentally pushes her against it. And her giggles give way to a sharp gasp when Luke trails his lips down her jaw, teeth scraping deliciously against her pulse point.
And they’re both so wrapped up in the feel of each other, that neither hear the telltale sound of two other ghosts poofing into the studio.
“My eyes!” Alex screeches, causing Luke and Juile to jump apart.
Julie only catches a flash of pink before Alex disappears just as fast as he’d poofed in. And then there’s just Reggie, staring at both of them with his arms crossed over his chest and an amused smirk plastered across his face.
“We were just…” Julie tries, a furious blush creeping across her face.
“About to make sweet, sweet—“
“Reginald, I swear to god—“
The bassist is gone, before Luke can even finish whatever thinly veiled threat he’d been about to make, but Julie swears she can still hear Reggie cackling off in the distance.
Luke drops his head to the crook of her neck and lets out a groan of disbelief, muttering something about how he can’t believe they got caught so early on by Alex and Reggie.
“They’re never going to let us live this down, are they?” Julie asks through a laugh, her fingers playing with the ends of the hair at the back of Luke’s head.
“Never," Luke affirms, lifting his head up from its spot on her shoulder and pulling back so he can look her in the eyes. "We’re going to be hearing about this for the rest of our lives."
“It’s probably for the best,” Julie adds. “Now we don’t have to tell them because they know, and I can finally stop pretending that I’m not stupidly in love with you.”
“You’re in love with me?” Luke asks, tipping his forehead until it’s touching hers.
“Yeah,” she sighs, a swarm of butterflies fluttering furiously away in her stomach. “Is that okay?”
“Yeah,” Luke whispers through a smile, his nose brushing against hers. “Hey, Jules?”
“Hmm?”
“I love you too.”