Finally Free -- JATP Luke x MaleOC

Chapter 40

Jay wasn't amazing at cooking. The dishes he made were perfectly average, not that he minded that. An average dish is still worth eating.

Whilst he was cooking the shrimp, Jay heard the familiar poof of one of his ghostly friends arriving at his house. He glanced up briefly, catching the pink hoodie and blonde hair in his peripherals.

"Hey Alex," Jay greeted, attention returning to his cooking.

"Hey," Alex greeted cheerily. "What'cha making?"

"Snack kabobs. Found a recipe on Google and I have all the ingredients."

"So you've never had it before?"

"Nope." Jay finishes the shrimp before he speaks to Alex again, this time actually looking at the blonde drummer. "Might as well try something new. I am gonna be stuck here from now on, so..."

Jay trails off and the room is filled with a heavy silence. Alex clearly had come with no intents to talk about the band and Jay's implications didn't help.

"You said you could eat at that ghost club, right?" Jay asked suddenly, steering the conversation away from the topic looming over their heads.

"Yeah, yeah," Alex nodded, following Jay's lead. "I don't know if we still can though, Caleb had some weird magic going on."

"Well, you can at least help me out while you're here," Jay said, gesturing to the refrigerator. "You mind grabbing some cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, and bell peppers?"

Alex nodded and went to do as Jay instructed. Jay had moved on to cutting up fruits into small pieces that he could stick onto the cocktail toothpicks: a pineapple, an apple, and a pear. He grabbed a small handful of strawberries as well and put them with the somewhat cubical-shaped fruit slices while Alex brought the vegetables.

"Y'know, Reggie's sister used to do a lot of cooking," Alex said slowly. "She always made us something to eat whenever we hung out before she left."

"Left for what?" Jay asked, his hands still busy with the vegetables. "College?"

"Yeah. She was a few years older than Reggie so she went off ahead of him."

Jay hummed as he gathered all of his prepared ingredients. The recipe had called for more than he had, but Jay was going to be eating by himself. If Alex could eat, he would have made more. Jay's stomach gave a low grumble as the smell of shrimp and pickled vegetables flooded his nostrils.

"My mom used to do all the cooking," Jay said, skewering combinations of fruit, vegetables, and shrimp on the cocktail toothpicks. "My dad made me help her out, but it was fun."

Jay smiled as a fuzzy image of his young, child self helping his mother in the kitchen flashed in his mind. His memories of his childhood weren't clear, many of the details were blurry. But as a seventeen-year-old, he could still remember the good times he had with his parents more than the bad.

"Do you miss them?" Alex asked, his knowing look quickly turning into one of sympathy.

"Of course I do," Jay said, taking a bite of one of his kabobs. The vegetables were prepared well, he could be proud of that. He took another bite, this time of the fresh fruit that took no preparation besides the slicing. Then another, of the hot shrimp that he had cooked well earlier. He was always a fan of seafood.

"Do you think they'd be ghosts?" Alex asked carefully. "Maybe they're wandering around the city."

Jay shook his head, setting down his empty toothpick and reaching for another that had food.

"They're not around anymore."

"How do you know?"

"I saw them, Willie and I did," Jay said with a sad smile. "Well, more like he brought them to me. But they did what they needed to and disappeared. I have no clue where they are now."