Finally Free -- JATP Luke x MaleOC

Chapter 31

The next day, Ray had offered to drive Flynn, Julie, and Jay to school. Jay would have readily accepted the offer given that his car was currently still at his house. He never drove to the cemetery, he always walked there. It wasn't what he considered a long walk anyway, only a couple of miles. But either way, his car wasn't readily available to drive at the moment and neither of the girls wanted to take the school bus, so all three of them hopped into Ray's car along with Carlos to head to school that morning.

Jay had expected Julie to bring up the gig at Eat & Beats during the drive. It would be a good time, especially considering she had the support of Flynn and Jay in the car. But she hadn't spoken a word about the show to her father, she only engaged in casual conversation with the others in the car.

The three high schoolers were the first to get dropped off as their classes started earlier than Carlos's.

"You'll need a a ride home too, right?" Ray asked from the car window, making the three of them stop.

"I can walk home from here," Jay said, gesturing down the road in the direction of where his neighborhood was.

"Flynn and I will," Julie said, gesturing to herself and the other girl.

"You're not going to the studio today?" Flynn asked, knowing about tonight's gig.

"I'll probably come by later, but I need to head home first," Jay said, remaining vague as Julie still hadn't told Ray about Eat & Beats. His words were the truth though: considering they had a mega important life-changing gig tonight, he would have little time to get his schoolwork done. Not to mention the time it would take to spiral a story to his aunt and uncle.

"Then I'll come pick you girls up," Ray said with a smile. "Have a good day at school."

The three of them waved at Ray as he drove off, leaving them to go to school. The school day itself was relatively normal: the girls and Jay had gone to their lockers together before heading to their separate classes, the ghost boys had all shown up during Jay's trigonometry class filled with excitement about tonights performance. Luke would particularly not stop talking about how Jay would be singing.

"I sang for 'Bright' and 'Flying Solo' too," Jay had quickly typed out on the notes app on his phone, placing it on his desk so the boys could read it.

"You wouldn't have sung for 'Bright' if Reggie didn't shove a mic in your face and told you to," Luke said, pointing at the bassist.

"And 'Flying Solo' is a different story, that song was made for Flynn," Alex pointed out.

"You're gonna be singing in front of a whole crowd dude!" Luke said excitedly. "You've got a whole verse to yourself!"

"You're too excited for this," Jay typed out, rolling his eyes as Luke read it aloud.

"Yeah, I'm excited! People are gonna hear your voice and get blown away! It's gonna be awesome!"

Jay's eyes were locked onto Reggie, who was staring wordlessly at Jay until the boy had noticed. Now he had found something interesting on the hem of his flannel. Jay had noticed Reggie had been behaving differently since yesterday. He had been more quiet, more observing. As much as he trusted Luke, Jay had wondered just how much he had told the ghost boys about their time in the cemetery.

The boys had disappeared as his class had ended and the rest of the school day continued as normal: lunch with Julie and Flynn was loud while AP government and psychology were quiet and monotonous. Jay had done as he said that morning and walked back to his house, where only his aunt was waiting.

"Hey," Jay called out, walking into the house and closing the door behind. "I need to talk to you."

"Living room," his aunt had responded quickly.