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Luke doesn’t quite know how he’d ended up there in the middle of the night, staring at the door of Julie’s mom’s studio wondering whether or not to seek refuge within.
He hadn’t really been thinking of anything after the last biting words he’d traded with his mother. Had no real destination in mind as he’d pedaled away from his own home, his mom’s cries echoing through the night, begging him to come back and see reason.
The shrill of her voice chases him down the street, until he outruns it and lets the darkness swallow it up. And then all Luke’s left with is the sharp sound of his own labored breathing— a byproduct that’s less from exertion, and more from the fury and heartache threatening to split his chest open. It’s the only sound he’s left with apart from a voice within him that’s urging him to put as much distance as he can between himself and what just happened back in his living room.
Wiping angrily at the tear stains that have long since dried on his cheeks, Luke squares his jaw, gritting his teeth as he wills himself to quit thinking about his parents. Instead, he shifts his focus on stashing his bike, tucking it into the bushes to one side of the studio, and making sure it can’t be seen from the driveway. Once the task is complete, he caves and slips inside the double doors, careful to pull them shut behind him as quietly as he can.
He should have known he’d end up here-- in the very place that’s quickly come to feel like more of a home to him than his own house does these days. But as he drops a backpack full of clothes near the coffee table and gently props his guitar up against the far wall, Luke notes with a sinking feeling that even the safety of the studio doesn’t quite fill him with the same sense of warmth that it usually does.
Ray and Rose Molina have been supportive of their band from the start, but even they have their limits and Luke can count on one hand how many times Julie’s parents have let them practice past sundown on a school night. As he flops down on the couch with a sigh, he comes to the conclusion that it must be the lack of sunshine— that he’d likely grown too accustomed to the way the daylight has a tendency to flood in through the large windows that take up most of the space behind the baby grand piano just across from him.
Turning on a light or two seems risky, but he’s just about worked up the nerve to do it anyway when suddenly, the cafe lights strung up overhead come to life. He jumps at the sound of a gasp, rolling unceremoniously off the couch, attention drawn toward the double doors.
“Take it easy, Boss,” Luke says when his eyes locate the source of the noise. “It’s just me.”
Julie swears and Luke bites back a grin as he takes in the sight of her standing by the door. Reggie likes to joke that "hell hath no fury like a Julie scorned," and nobody knows that better than Luke does, so he does his best to fight off the laughter threatening to bubble out of his throat. Despite the fact that she looks ready to chuck the drumstick she’s holding over her head like some sort of makeshift sword straight at him, he’s finding it hard to fear for his life when she looks so utterly adorable standing there in her fuzzy monster slippers.
“Jeeze, Luke!” Julie says harshly. The hand wielding the drumstick falls limply to her side. “You scared the shit out of me!”
She’s careful to be quiet as she closes the heavy doors of the studio behind her before shuffling further into the room.
“Sorry,” Luke replies sheepishly once she comes to a stop right in front of him. “I didn’t think I’d run into anyone in here.”
“Neither did I,” Julie says, cocking her head to the side, eyes searching his face. “What are you doing here anyway?”
“Oh um…I just…” he waves his hand in the air, floundering for a good cover story.
“Couldn’t sleep?” She fills in.
His response comes in the form of a shake of his head and a smile that must come out more like a grimace.
“Yeah,” he breathes out, before adding. “Mom stuff.”
“Me too,” she breathes back. “Mom stuff.”
He hadn’t meant to say it— even alluding to it still feels like too much. Not because Luke doesn’t trust her, or because he thinks she wouldn’t understand, but because Julie’s got enough to worry about as it is these days without him adding on his own feeble excuse for parental baggage. And this thing with his mom? The tension that’s been slowly reaching a tipping point over the course of the last few years that the band has really started taking off? Luke knows Julie wouldn’t ever see it that way, but it all feels so much smaller in comparison to the way they’ve all just had to sit back and watch Julie grapple with the fact that her mom’s sick and there’s no hope of her ever getting better.
He settles back down and into the comfort of the worn couch before casting his eyes back up at Julie.
“You wanna talk about it?” He offers.
“Do you?” Julie asks.
Neither of them bother to answer each other. Instead, they let the silence speak for itself, allowing it to stretch out between them and settle with the weight of unspoken understanding.
For a moment Luke thinks Julie might be brave enough to break it. Or at least, she looks like she might be mustering up the courage to do so now. She’s doing that thing she often does when they lock themselves up in the comfort of this very studio for a long weekend of writing songs together: tracing her fingers gently along the pattern of a dahlia that adorns one of the throw cushions. Luke’s never asked but he thinks it’s an absentminded habit— something she does when she’s grasping for words, or holding them back. Deliberating over the right way to string them together before she lets them find their way out.
He doesn’t push, though the part of him that wants to know what she’s thinking all the time desperately wants to. Instead, Luke simply shifts over, the movement drawing her attention back on to him. He tilts his head in invitation, the corners of his mouth quirking up into a small smile, hoping Julie takes the gesture for what it is: an offer of proximity— of comfort— without the pressure of having to explain anything at all. And Julie takes it with a small answering smile of her own, settling in next to Luke, who simply pulls out a laptop from his backpack, props his legs up next to hers on the coffee table, and balances the computer between them. The screen before them glows to life and he spends a few moments scrolling through the endless titles on Netflix before finally settling on one.
“I love this one,” Julie says, eyes already trained on the screen.
“I know,” Luke says, letting his own gaze linger for a moment on the way her profile glows in the lowlight of the studio. “Me too.”
Neither are quite sure of when they’d done away with the distance between them, but at some point Luke had relaxed enough to sink into the old couch cushions, and Julie had ended up tucked into his side. From there, it’d been all too easy for him to sling an arm around her shoulder and for Julie to burrow further into his chest.
The sound of a laugh track floating from the show he’d put on hours ago is the only sound that filters through the studio, but Luke’s stopped paying attention to what’s happening on the screen before them long ago, content to lose himself in the feel of the girl curled against him. Everything from the comforting scent of Julie’s coconut shampoo to the steady feel of each breath and exhale she takes fills him with that same sense of warmth he’d found lacking in the empty studio when he’d turned up earlier that night.
“Did I fall asleep on you?” Julie mumbles, stirring from her spot and stirring Luke from his thoughts.
“S’okay. I don’t mind,” he yawns.
“Still though,” she stretches. “I should probably get back up to bed before we both doze off again.”
“Probably…”
Julie makes to get up but she doesn’t get very far before Luke catches her hand in his.
“But you’re here…” he says quietly, thumb brushing over her knuckles before he stitches their fingers together. “So stay.”
He keeps his eyes trained on their hands when he says it. Thinking for sure Julie’s only given his request pause for thought in an effort to let him down easy. But then she’s settling back into her previous position, giving the hand twined in hers a squeeze.
“Okay,” she whispers back.
It seems to be a magic all on its own— the way that despite all that brought him to the sanctuary of the studio tonight, it’s Julie, and not the space or the echo of the music they've created in it, that somehow makes Luke feel safe from the weight of the world for the first time in weeks.
He knows they’ll both be forced to address their own baggage later. But for now, he’s content to hang onto this feeling of hope blooming in his chest. A small ember that somehow seems to grow brighter the more he grasps onto the notion that him and Julie? They'll be okay no matter what they'll have to face in the future so long as they face it side by side.