Now or Never | Luke Patterson

chapter one

Chapter One

☾

Luke

Present Day, 2020

"Shall we try this again?" Julie turned to look at us, when Flynn left the garage with Carlos.

"Yes, please," I popped up from the chair with my guitar, while Julie took her place behind her keyboard. "But remind us later. There's some Sunset Curve songs we want to show you."

"Ooh!" she pushed her mic away, and smiled at me. "Show me now!"

"Yeah, okay," I nodded, and turned around to retrieve my song book from beside the chair. "Home is where my horse is?" I picked up my journal, and furrowed my brows at the piece of paper sticking out of it. "Reggie, stop putting your country songs in my journal," I took it out and set it down, as he walked towards me.

"That was a gift," he said, pointing down at the piece of paper.

"Thanks, buddy," I chuckled and lightly hit him with my journal, before walking towards Julie to hand it to her. "I dog-eared the ones I think you would slay."

She opened it up, and began flipping through the pages, before stopping on one. She looked up at me with a smile. "When You Fall In Love?"

"That one's not dog-eared," I attempted to take my journal back from her, but she held it away, and began reading the lyrics out loud.

"When you find the one, you hold on tight. You weather every storm till the sun shines," she said, letting out a small chuckle as she looked at me. "Wow, Luke, I didn't know you were such a romantic."

I glanced down, while Reggie walked up beside me. "Oh, he totally is, but only for Ce-"

"No one," I tapped his arm to stop him from saying anything else, and we exchanged glances. He simply looked back at Alex who just looked down, and walked away, while I turned my attention back to Julie. "Uh, that's just something that I tried," I told her. "But... it didn't really work out."

I wasn't actually talking about the song when I said that, but she didn't have to know that.

When I feel too many more emotions than I can fully process, I write songs. I've been like that for as long as I can remember. Twenty five years ago, after I walked away from the only girl I truly loved—not that I ever expressed those words to her out loud—I wrote a song about how it felt to fall in love with her. She never got to hear it, but that's on me. I treated her like shit the last two weeks we ever spent together, and I've regretted it every day since. I shouldn't have walked away, and I shouldn't have let her let me.

☾

June 25, 1995

"Knock, knock!" I said, knocking on the wooden door of the treehouse.

"No boys allowed!" her voice came from inside, and I chuckled softly at our inside joke. Maybe I hadn't completely lost her. "Unless your name is Lucas Patterson," her voice came again, this time in a much quieter tone.

I slowly cracked open the door of the treehouse to poke my head in, and found her sitting inside, writing in her journal. "Hey," I said.

She looked up at me with a smile that was a little less than happy. "Hi," she replied softly, closing her journal and setting it aside.

I let out a deep breath, as I stepped inside and took a seat in front of her. "I think I owe you an apology."

"You think?" she asked, glancing down at the ground.