Chapter Text
Everyone was sitting around the Molina living room, excitedly talking about how great the band's performance was that night, after they had eaten a celebratory dinner. Luke was particularly bouncy, complimenting everyone and everything, but he was focusing the energy onto Julie right now. He was basically showering the girl in well deserved praise before her dad walked into the room.
Ray threw the towel over his shoulder, “As much as I love this energy, guys, it’s almost Carlos' bedtime, so if you could take it to the studio that would be great.”
There was a yell from Carlos upstairs, “Dad, stop embarrassing me!”
Ray smiled sheepishly while Julie loudly stated, hoping Carlos could hear her, “He gets grumpy when he doesn’t sleep at his bedtime, so we better get going.”
Before the gang could start filtering out, Ray stopped, “Wait before you go, anyone want to help out with the dishes? It’ll be fun, I promise!”
“Ooo! I love helping with dishes!” Reggie said, smiling, before his friends all gave him a confused look, “What? Any activity where I get to sit on the counter by default is an insta favorite.”
Everyone shrugged, with a ‘valid’ from Willie, before they started to filter out of the living room. Luke ruffled Reggie’s hair, making him smile, before bounding out with Julie in hand. The pair was practically giggling as they left for the studio Ray watched this, a fond smile growing on his face.
When Ray headed back into the kitchen, Reggie following him like duckling, he handed the boy a towel before sighing, "Young love sure isn't something, isn't it?"
"Yea, I guess so, Mr. Molina," he replied while hopping onto the counter.
"I just wish Julie would talk to me about it," Ray paused for a second, shaking his head as he handed over a plate to dry, "Sorry, you probably don't want to talk about your friends relationships."
Reggie really should have taken the out of the conversation, but instead he just looked at Ray confused, "Julie's relationship? With who?"
"Julie and Luke."
"Oh," Reggie laughed, "They're not dating, Mr. Molina.”
Ray squinted his eyes at that, "I don't like assuming things, but.."
Reggie shrugged, "I totally get it, though, Luke is a pretty affectionate guy! I would know, he kisses me all the time."
"He what?" Ray looked up from the dish he was washing, eyebrows raising.
"No, wait, I meant that, you know, he kisses my cheek all the time! Like, you know," he laughed nervously, "As you do."
"Oh," Ray laughed, giving Reggie a knowing smile, "I see now! You and Luke are the couple of the band, huh?"
"Wait, what?" Reggie could feel himself go pink, "No, no, you've got it all wrong, Mr. Molina."
"Oh, sorry, it's a secret. I get it," Ray said, taking the towel from Reggie, "Don't worry, I'll keep it to myself, Reggie. Young love is a beautiful thing after all!"
"But, no, wa-"
Ray didn't let Reggie finish before he patted his shoulder with a bright smile, "Thanks for your help, kiddo! You can head out to the studio now. I'll take the dishes over from here."
In his shock, Reggie walked towards the door before he turned around, "Uh, Ray?"
He almost, almost corrected Ray. He was going to tell him that him and Luke weren't dating, but, damn it, the man looked so happy that he had been let in on the secret. The man was even beginning to hum L-O-V-E under his breath as he turned on the water to wash the dishes. What was Reggie supposed to do? Correct him? That was like if he stole an old man's soup, and he couldn't do that!
"Thanks for being such a cool dude!" Reggie said before he walked outside. So, now he was here. Standing outside, wondering how in the hell he was going to explain that Ray was under the impression that him and Luke were in some sort of secret relationship. Reggie ran a hand through his hair and sighed. He’d gotten himself into all kinds of weird situations, but this one took the cake.
Taking a deep breath, Reggie headed to the studio where the rest of his friends were. Most importantly, it’s where Luke was. When he got into the studio, he locked his sights on a certain orange beanie. Luke was sitting on the couch in what looked like some sort of heated argument with Flynn, who gestured passionately with her hand that wasn’t interlocked with Julies.
Reggie, for a second, seriously considered if he should even bring it up to Luke, but decided that if he didn’t then it would somehow still reach Luke. He didn’t want there to be a day in the future where Luke asked him why he told Ray that they were dating. He could barely handle the thought of that, let alone have it be reality.
When Reggie walked up to the three, Flynn immediately looked at him and said, “Reggie! Opinion on mint oreos now!”
“Oh, um, um, they’re cool! I like them,” Reggie responded, slightly thrown off.
Luke’s mouth dropped, “How could you fucking say that, dude! Mint oreos taste like dirt and toothpaste!”
Reggie put his hands up in surrender as Flynn shoved Luke, “Ha! See, that’s one more person who likes mint oreos. Looks like you’re the odd one out, you weirdo.”
“I’m not a weirdo! You guys are the weirdos! Me and Alex just happen to be the only people who have working taste buds in this friends group.”
Reggie laughed nervously, bouncing on his feet before saying, “Right, uh, Luke! I need to talk to you about something, uh, outside. If you don’t mind.”
Before Luke could even respond, Reggie turned on his heels and out of the studio. When Luke walked outside with a confused expression, Reggie pulled him over to where he was sure his friends couldn’t hear them. He didn’t exactly think he was ready to handle the amount of teasing he would face when they heard the news.
“Uh, Reg, what’s going on?” Luke asked, concerned, “You’re making that face you make when you feel bad about something.”
“I’m not-what? What face?” Reggie crossed his arms, furrowing his brows.
“This face,” Luke frowned exaggeratedly while crossing his arms to mimic Reggie.
“I don’t make th-whatever, man. I sort of did a thing that I didn’t mean to do,” Reggie said, frowning even more than before.
“Gonna need more than that, dude.”
Reggie took a deep breath, and he pushed out the words all at once, “So, when I was helping Ray with the dishes he asked if you and Julie were dating, and I said no, right, cause you aren’t, but then he didn't believe me. So, I told him that you kiss my cheek all the time, and now he thinks we’re, like, secret lovers!”
Luke blinked at him as he processed what Reggie had just spilled to him, “He what now?”
“Man, he thinks we’re dating!”
There was a few seconds of silence before Luke started laughing with his whole body. Laughing. Reggie punched his shoulder, “This is not funny, dude! What are we going to do?”
Luke barely calmed down from laughing as he said, “Reg, how did that even fucking happen? He thinks we’re boyfriends? How?”
Reggie looked down at his boot, his face heating up from embarrassment, “I might have messed up, and said that you kissed me all the time when what I meant to say is that you kiss my cheek all the time. And he thought I was just being shy or something when I tried to correct myself, man.”
“Dude,” Luke flicked his head, “Why didn’t you just tell him we weren’t dating?”
“I-I don’t,” Reggie looked at his friend desperately, “He just looked so happy about it and I couldn’t rip that happiness away from him like some kind of monster!”
“I don’t think it could be that bad, Reg,” Luke replied, shrugging.
“Alright, then you tell him we’re not dating!”
“I think I will,” Luke poked Reggie’s nose, and Reggie stuck his tongue out at him, “This should be easy.”
Luke walked towards the house, rolled his eyes and headed in. Reggie sighed and leaned against the stone wall of the stairs. It didn't take long for Luke to come bounding out of the house with slightly wide eyes, "Yea, no, you were right, dude, he was humming Hopelessly Devoted To You and he looked so...happy. I just pretended like I was there for a soda. I-I couldn't do it."
Reggie pulled the soda out of Luke’s hands before he mocked him, "'This should be easy.' he said."
Luke pouted, "Shut up, dude! It felt like I was about to kick a puppy."
Nervously drumming his fingers against the soda can, Reggie asked, "What do we do now? Neither of us have the heart to tell Ray we aren't dating, and I don't know about you, but I'm not going to ask Julie to do it for us."
"Oh, absolutely not. Julie can’t know about this," Luke paused, "We don't spend that much time with Ray, dude, we should be fine, right? As long as Ray doesn't ask Julie about us then she won't find out. And if Ray is around just hold my hand or something."
Reggie nodded slowly, "So...game plan is to act like a couple around Ray and hope Julie doesn't find out?"
"Unless you have any better ideas, dude," Luke hoped that Reggie had a better idea.
He didn't.
"Yea, I mean how often do we see Ray long enough where we have to act like a couple?"
"Almost never."
"And Ray said he would keep my 'secret' relationship with you to himself, so Julie won't find out,” Reggie added thus solidifying their master plan of ‘hold hands around Ray, ignore it and hope it goes away’.
[line break]
The pair managed to ignore it for about two days until Julie walked into the studio, arms crossed and eyes squinting at them suspiciously. She didn’t look angry exactly, more like she was trying to solve one confusing jigsaw puzzle.
“Hey,” Julie started rather casually as she walked up to the pair, “My dad wants to throw a movie night for Valentine's day, you know, for all of us.”
Reggie looked up from the sheet music that Luke was showing him, smiling, “Oh! That sounds so cool. What movie?”
“He said we could choose whatever movie we wanted, and he’ll set up the projector,” Julie paused, before saying her next words slowly, “He kept asking if you two had other plans for Valentines day....uh, mind telling me why that might be?”
Fuck. So much for Julie not finding out.
Luke and Reggie shared a look, which wasn’t suspicious at all, before the guitarist replied, “Me and Reg are totally free on Valentines day, so I really don’t know why Ray would think otherwise.”
Julie nodded, pursing her lips, “Right, right. So, you guys have nothing to say about my dad kept talking about you guys like he does Alex and Willie? You know, like you were a couple. Absolutely nothing to say about that?”
“That’s so weird, man, I don’t know why he would do that,” Reggie proceeded to very nervously laugh, “Do you know why he would do that, Luke?”
“No, I really have no clue, Reg. That’s just so weird! I really can’t imagine what would make him do that,” Luke glared at Reggie for a second, before he smiled back at Julie.
Usually, the two of them were pretty good at coming up with lies to cover each other, but Julie’s suspicious gaze was too hard to fight against. They hated lying to her. She could see right through any of their lies like glass.
She only had to raise a disbelieving eyebrow at their responses to get them to give up the act.
Luke hit Reggie in the back of the head, “Tell her, dork.”
In all honesty, Reggie would have preferred to be swallowed by a hole in the ground then explain to Julie how her father ended up believing that they were dating. He still told Julie the whole embarrassing story, but that didn’t mean he didn’t want to disappear off the face of the Earth as he did so.
When Reggie was done, Julie stood there, her lip quivering from trying to hold back laughter before she let out what could be best described as a cackle.
“Oh my god,” Julie said in between her laughs as she doubled over, “This is too good.”
Reggie pouted, “This isn’t funny!”
“It’s a little funny, Reg,” Luke commented, biting back a smile, which only made Reggie pout more. And Julie was nowhere near calm, still laughing.
“Aw, come on, dude, it’s not that bad,” Luke placed an arm over his friend's shoulder, “Because Julie will help out her best friends in the whole world and tell her dad that we aren’t dating, right?”
Julie wiped a tear from her eye, taking in a shuttering breathe, “Absolutely not. You guys are on your own for this one, oh my god.”
“What? Why not? Come on, Jules, tell him for us!” Luke looked desperately at Julie, but the girl just smiled at him devilishly.
“You think I’m going to rip the happiness of being a hopeless romantic away from my own dad? Near Valentine's day? No way. You either tell him yourself, or you keep pretending to date. I’m not getting involved, thank you very much.” Julie didn’t even try to hide how amused she was at this entire situation.
Reggie, at this point, was hiding his face into Luke’s side, thankful that this was one of his jacket wearing days. Luke continued to try and negotiate with Julie, but Reggie knew that it would get them nowhere.
Julie’s mind was made up, and much to Reggie’s embarrassment, this definitely meant he was going to be Luke’s pretend boyfriend for a Ray Molina Valentines day. Great.