Chapter Text
11 Months Into Julie’s and Luke’s relationship.
“RunningFromThePast69 wants to know why we are in a car,” Alex read off the Instagram Live chat.
“Because we got Ice Cream,” Reggie beamed, licking his ice cream cone.
“And apparently it’s ‘rude’,” Julie used finger quotes, “to go live on Instagram at the ice cream place.”
“There’s your answer. Any more questions?” Alex asked. He was in the driver’s seat, seeing as it was his car, while Reggie was in the front passenger seat and Julie was in the back.
“Ugh, they just all want to know where Luke is,” Reggie whined, reading off Alex’s phone that was sitting on the phone holder that was attached to the vent.
Julie rolled her eyes, “We kicked him out of the band. I’m playing guitar now.”
Alex turned back towards Julie and grinned, “We did? Fucking finally.”
“Perfect Harmony is now a duet between Alex and me,” Reggie added. Julie pointed at Reggie and nodded in agreement.
Alex got his face really close to the camera and giggled, “We are just playing, he’s at the gym getting swoll.”
“Like a loser,” Julie teased.
“Yeah. Why would someone go to the gym when you can just get Ice Cream,” Reggie agreed.
“Julie, have you ever gone to the gym with Luke? I can’t imagine you getting within a twenty-mile radius of a gym,” Alex questioned.
“I did once,” Julie held up her pointer finger, “I did once and he told me that I wasn’t allowed to go with him anymore. Apparently I ‘complain too much'. I just think he’s threatened by these muscles.” Julie flexed her arms to ‘prove her point’.
“Speaking of Lucas, didn’t he send you something for you to show us and the fans?” Alex winked at the camera.
Julie sat up a little straighter, “Why yes he did Alexander,” Julie held up her phone. “Right here I have a bunch of voice memos and early drafts of our new single Midnight Thoughts that was released last Friday. We are going to share some of our Midnight Thoughts for Midnight Thoughts ”
“So exciting,” Reggie smiled. Julie clicked on a folder that had all of the MP4 Files that Luke had sent her. She selected the options so that the files would each play one after another. Once she was ready, she handed the phone to Alex who plugged it into the AUX. He clicked play on the phone and let the first file start to play.
The first file was Luke rattling off lyric ideas. His voice was tired, indicating that he probably recorded it late at night.
The next few files were more song lyrics. It then started to move on to everyone in the band throwing out ideas for instrumentation and melodies. Reggie, Alex, and Julie gave their running commentary and laughed at some of the incoherent things they were saying on the recordings.
Julie probably should have caught onto the fact that the file that was playing next wasn’t supposed to be playing. To be fair, the first 15 seconds of it was just guitar, so in her head, she just registered it as another voice memo of Luke playing an idea for a guitar part that he had for the song. The thing is though, this guitar part sounded nothing like the guitar part for Midnight Thoughts.
And then she heard Luke’s voice
I breathe in slow to compose myself
But the bleeding heart I left on the shelf
Started speeding round, beating half to death
'Cause you're here and you're all mine
This wasn’t fucking happening.
There is no way.
Julie probably should have just hit pause and pretended like it didn’t happen. Instead, she launched forward, about took out Alex in the process, and ripped the AUX cord out of her phone.
And she can’t even be mad at what Reggie and Alex asked next because they honestly had no idea.
“What was that Julie?” Alex's face morphed into confusion.
“Yeah, the file said Incomplete?” Reggie looked back at her. Yeah, the file that just played was Incomplete. Incomplete as in the song that Luke had written about her that made her finally kiss him for real and restart their relationship. The song that was so personal and meant so much to the two of them that they would never release it. The song that they hadn’t even told Reggie and Alex about because it was just for them and they had no reason to know about it. The song that Luke had secretly gone to a studio and recorded for her as a present for her 24th birthday last month.
Julie had to think fast. They were on a Live Stream for fuck sake. “Sorry guys, that file is an unreleased song that uh, that Luke and I are working on. It’s very early in the works and is uh, Incomplete. Who knows if it will ever get released. It must have gotten mixed in with the other files that Luke sent me,” Julie rambled.
Looking back, Julie technically didn’t lie.
She just manipulated the truth. A lot.
“Ah, that makes sense. Anyways, are there any files left for Midnight Memories?” Alex replied, trying to change the subject. Alex and Reggie weren’t oblivious, they had caught onto the fact real fast that this song was a personal one. Julie and Luke never hid the fact that they were writing songs from the guys that were for the band. In fact, they had been trying to increase Alex’s and Reggie’s participation in the songwriting process, not just the producing part.
“I think that’s it,” Julie faked a smile. She figured that there were no more left, the reason why the other song started to play, but she wasn’t going to check. She desperately wanted to get off this promotional live stream as quickly as possible.
“Alright, then that’s it friends. We are out of ice cream and are out of files. Stream Midnight Thoughts and we’ll catch you next time,” Alex signed off. Once they had double-checked that they ended the live stream, both boys turned back to face Julie.
“Julie, what was that?” Reggie asked.
Julie bit her lip, “You remember how I told you guys that we got together after I found something in his songbook?” Both boys nodded. “That was the song. He recorded it for me for my birthday and we had no plans to share it with the world.”
Alex reached his hand out awkwardly to grab Julie’s. “Shit, Jules I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah, sorry Julies that fucking sucks,” Reggie added.
“It’s not your guy's fault, don’t be sorry. I should have paid better attention before just letting everything auto-play. It was only the first half of the first verse. I don’t think that it will be a problem.”
It ended up being a problem.
Because it’s the internet and everyone has to overanalyze everything.
It didn’t help that Julie visibly freaked out.
Luke wasn’t too upset when Julie got home that night and explained what happened. He was more worried about her. It was a total accident and it sucked that a small part of what the two of them wanted to keep private got revealed. But it was only a small part and they still had the rest of the song to themselves.
And they just let the fan theories go. Because this happened all of the time and if they address them it just causes more issues. A lot of the theories were kind of right. They got the past that it was written by Luke for Julie was correct, although they would never admit it. The part that it would be on their next album was wrong though. They had no plans on ever releasing it on an album. But they weren’t going to tell the fans that. Instead, it would just be a tough lesson on how artists write many songs that never get released.
It hadn’t even been that bad until the next afternoon when a major bomb hit.
Julie’s screensaver was leaked.
Well actually, a fan had slowed down the video of Julie pulling her phone away so much that there was a very small frame where you could see a blurry image of Julie’s background. Despite the fact that the photo had to be zoomed in a lot, it was still pretty clear through all the pixels.
The photo was of Luke.
More specifically, the photo was of Luke standing in the studio sticking his tongue out in a goofy manner.
They both had their quirks. Luke liked to use photos of Julie flipping him off and Julie liked to use photos of Luke sticking his tongue out at her. (It’s called being a fucking cute couple).
And it amplified things so much more. Julie and Luke had spent the afternoon freaking out. Julie even changed her background on her phone as if it would change anything.
Julie knew that making that her background was a bad idea. She knew that by doing so she needed to be extra careful. But it was so hard, her boyfriend was fucking hot and she wanted to look at a picture of him.
Luke wasn’t mad at her or even the littlest bit upset. He had been the most supportive boyfriend and blamed everyone but her. Julie kind of wished that he would because she felt so guilty and was mad at herself and yet no one was mad at her. Deep down she knew that it was an accident and that sometimes shit happens, but right now she wanted to throw her phone at the wall.
Julie couldn’t dwell any longer on the situation. Flynn and she had plans for the night, dinner and a movie. Despite texting and calling almost every day, it had been hard for the two of them to find time between the band and Flynn’s new PR job to hang out. Julie wasn’t going to skip out on time with her best friend because of her fucking phone background.
Julie was actually up at a decent time the next day. And by a decent time, that meant 10 am. Now, she hadn’t gotten out of bed yet, let’s not get too crazy here. Instead, she had spent the past 20 minutes reading the news, and by reading the news, that meant Twitter and Tik Tok. By keeping her mind busy and off certain hashtags, she could almost forget about all of the drama that happened yesterday.
Flynn and she had a great time last night and Flynn had banned her from looking at her phone or talking about the current social media frenzy going on right now. She had engaged in full operation distract Julie.
Julie was contemplating exiting out of the Tik Tok app when she heard the front door open and slam shut. There was some rustling in the hallway before a zombie, who looked like her boyfriend, appeared in the doorway.
Alright, he wasn’t a zombie, but he sure looked like it. His hair was a mess, bags under his eyes, and his clothes were a bit dirty. He stumbled into the room and fell onto the bed. He spread his upper body across Julie’s upper body, burying his face into her chest, and promptly passed right the fuck out.
Okay then. Luke had spent the night at Willie’s and Alex’s house. The three of them, plus Reggie, had all hung out last night and she knew that he was spending the night. She should probably push him off her, but he looked so dead before and he seemed so peaceful, which is something neither of them had experienced over the past few days.
Julie to Julie and the 🥵Phat Ones 🥵
Julie: Anyone want to explain why my boyfriend looks dead and just crashed on me without a word.
Alex: Lol he got fucking wasted last night
Reggie: Yeah check our Instagram stories.
Alex: He woke up this morning and just said Julie
Reggie: It was adorable
Alex: it was nauseating.
Alex: Anyways Willie gave him a ride home on his way to work
Julie: What the fuck did you guys do last night?
Alex: Mamma Mia drinking game
Reggie: Honestly it’s your fault Jules, you wrote the rules
Being trapped under Luke didn’t leave her with much to do except scroll on her phone. She jumped onto Instagram, an app that she had been avoiding the past few days, and started clicking through the guy's stories.
Alex’s was first. There were multiple videos of him, Reggie, and Luke singing a terrible rendition of Honey, Honey. The next few videos were of him thirsting over Colin Firth (which really Alex? With Pierce Brosnan right there).
Reggie’s first story wasn’t until a few hours after Alex’s. Most of his were just asking fans to vote on which of the younger versions of Sophie’s potential dads was the hottest in Mamma Mia 2 (how could one pick?). But the last one was of Luke drunkenly dancing to Dancing Queen. Julie just giggled at the video and sent a quick text to Reggie to send her a copy of it. She made a mental note to put it in the correct folder.
Luke’s story was a mess. He would be terribly singing in one video and then the next one would be a blurry video of what was assumed to be him dancing. It seemed like he didn’t realize that people couldn’t see him. His next stories were of him ranting about how Sam was the father because obviously Donna and Sam fucked the most so it was the higher percentages and how genetics don’t matter because in the original musical there are no specific hair color or eye color requirements.
Julie just shook her head and ran her fingers through her boyfriend’s hair. Luke didn’t get drunk very often, but when he did he was a riot. She kind of wished that she could have been there to see him in full form. She loved cuddly Luke, but fully uncensored Luke was an experience. She also liked seeing relaxed Luke, especially after the past few days. He had been so stressed and tensed because she had been so stressed and tensed.
Julie spent the next hour scrolling through Tik Tok with one hand and moving her fingers through Luke’s hair with the other. Luckily, her headphones were on the nightstand next to her, so she was able to listen without waking him up.
“Can I help you?” Julie rolled her eyes when her literal idiot of a boyfriend chopped on her chin like a dog to let her know that he was awake.
“Hi,” Luke smiled and then buried his head into her shoulder, squeezing the life out of her in the process.
“Heard you had quite the night,” Julie teased, setting her phone and headphones onto the nightstand.
“I missed you,” Luke mumbled into her hair. “And I also have a terrible hangover.”
“You want me to get you some water and Ibuprofen?” Julie asked.
“No,” Luke groaned, “Cuddles are the cure.”
“Oh, are they now?” Julie raised an eyebrow despite the fact that Luke couldn’t see her face.
“Yeah science proved it,” Luke moved his hands down her body and grabbed onto her waist. He placed a kiss on her neck. “I know another cure too.”
“I’m going to stop your right there. You need to shower and brush your teeth first.”
“But Julie, we are just going to get sweaty anyway.” Julie felt him pouting against her neck.
“It’s a different kind of sweat Luke. You reek of alcohol and I really can’t stand it anymore,” Julie sighed.
“Ugh fine.” Luke flopped next to her onto his back dramatically. “I’ll be back in ten.”
Julie got up and got her life together a little bit while Luke went to go take a shower. He said that it would be ten minutes, but Luke liked his showers and he was definitely going to take longer.
She had just got done changing into a t-shirt and leggings when she got a Facetime call from Alex. Julie was a little surprised by the call, knowing that he and Reggie had just been live on Instagram a few minutes ago. She hadn’t clicked to watch the live but was planning on watching it later when she had time. Watching things live right now was making her super anxious.
Julie jumped onto the bed and hit accept. “What’s up Alex?” Both he and Reggie were visible to the camera, sitting on Alex’s couch. The band had sold the house a few months ago with Luke and Julie moving into their own small house in a private neighborhood. Reggie was still looking for his own house and was currently staying in Alex’s and Willie’s guest room.
Reggie, Julie, and Luke had finally decided that it was time for them to all move-out. Reggie didn’t actually mind living with his sister and her boyfriend, but they were all getting to the point where they could all easily afford to live on their own and maybe didn’t want to spend every waking moment together. They were also all approaching their mid-twenties, and all craved a little bit of privacy (not that kind of privacy… well yeah that too).
“We have some good news to share but we want to tell both of you. Where’s Luke?” Alex answered, noting the absence of their fourth member.
“He’s in the shower. He should be out in a moment.” Julie moved the phone away from her so that she could yell, “Hey Luke, can you hurry up and come in here!”
“Yeah one second,” Luke replied, barely audible over the sound of the water. Julie heard the shower turn off and the curtain move. A few moments later Luke appeared in the doorway of the master bathroom that was connected to the room. He had just a towel tied around his waist and his hair was dripping all over the carpet.
“Didn’t realize you needed me that badly Jules. Should I drop the towel or-,” Luke cut himself off once he realized that she was on the phone. “Please tell me that’s not your dad.”
“It’s Alex and Reggie.”
“That’s not much better. Give me a second to change.”
“Nothing we haven’t seen Luke,” Alex called out through the phone. Luke just shook his head and headed over to the dresser. He threw on a pair of sweatpants and then put wrapped his hair in the towel like Julie had taught him.
“What’s up guys?” Luke asked, plopping down next to Julie on the bed.
“Sometimes Alex and I have a thought,” Reggie started, leaning into the phone.
“Although not a lot, I’d have to say that the one we had was a good one.” Julie rolled her eyes at the two. Of course, they couldn’t just come out and say it and had to make a story about it.
“So, we went live on Instagram because we had this whole plan right. So, I changed my phone background to the same picture that Julie had. And then I subtly flashed it on the stream,” Reggie explained.
“And then I was like ‘oh Reggie, why do you and Julie both have Luke’s ugly mug as your background’,” Alex picked up.
“And so, I said, ‘Well Alex, Luke bet Julie and I that we couldn’t go a whole day without going on Tik Tok and the losers had to set their backgrounds to the winner’s choice. Obviously, the Molina siblings have an addiction’,” Reggie finished.
Julie sighed, “Guys, I really appreciate it, I do. But you how I feel about straight-up lying. I feel super guilty about it.” Luke looked between his girlfriend and his two friends. He looked torn between wanting to agree with Julie and being happy that their problem might have been solved.
“But that’s the beauty about it, Jules, you didn’t lie. We did. You don’t have to say anything about the background and can just act like it wasn’t a thing. Alex and I can bear the guilt of lying,” Reggie told her.
Julie shook her head but then smiled. “Thank you guys, I rather you run it by me next time, but I think that the story is believable enough. At least enough to get them off our backs for a bit. Seriously guys thank you.” And Julie meant it. Sure, she rather no one lied and at the most just tell half-truths, but this could have become a bigger deal and could have potentially revealed their relationship.
Did she feel good about it? No.
But did she think it was worth it to protect herself and the band? One hundred percent.
Alex to Current Braincell Owner: Alex and Reggie
Alex: Guys I think it’s working
Alex: Like I think they are believing the story.
Luke: Yeah social media has calmed down a ton
Luke: Thank you guys
Julie: Thanks guys
Julie: BTW, Luke and I spent the afternoon working on songs
Alex: So that’s what the kids are calling it these days
Luke: Voice Memos coming soon, and Alex fuck off
(Luke changed the group name to ‘Current Braincell Owner: Reggie’)
Luke: I’d thought I’d never see the day
Reggie: haha
Alex: Rude
Julie: Flynn took a gander and from a PR preceptive she thinks that you guys did the right thing
Julie: Apparently it was getting pretty fucking bad
Luke: Just next time please run it by us first
Alex: Will do
Reggie: Yup but hopefully no next time
Alex: Anyways I’ll talk to you guys later. Willie and I have to go work on songs