𝐑𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐬 | 𝐉𝐮𝐥𝐢𝐞 𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐨𝐦𝐬

𝟐𝟎 | 𝐋𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐛𝐢𝐫𝐝𝐬

Silence loomed over the rooftop as I tried to squeeze a confession out of Luke. The look of contemplation on his face from before did not match the light-hearted joke he made about me blushing.

"Well," Luke began. "The thing is - "

Luke was cut off by whirring noises from either side of us.

"Evening, lovebirds," Alex teased from beside me.

"What are you two doing up here all alone?" Reggie wiggled his eyebrows at Luke.

Luke gave Reggie a playful shove. "Nothing, man."

"Then c'mon," Alex stood up. "We have some songs to write!"

"We?"

"Okay, fine," Alex shrugged. "You, Luke Patterson, have some songs to write."

"But we'll be sure to jam along," Reggie beamed.

Reggie and Luke stood up with Alex and disappeared into the night. I began to count the seconds, and just as soon as they disappeared, they came back.

"Ruth, will you set up our equipment?" Luke asked.

"Pretty please?" Alex begged.

"With a cherry on top?" Reggie added. "No - wait - Two cherries!"

I rolled my eyes and headed down to the garage.

———

The guys spent the whole night coming up with melodies and playing around on their instruments. Every now and then, Luke set aside his guitar and wrote down some lyrics. There were a few times I caught myself staring as he passionately scribbled on the page. The one time he caught me, I made fun of his handwriting.

"Yeah, my handwriting sucks," He admitted.

"You mean your scribbling sucks?" I teased.

"Leave me alone," He smiled bashfully.

I noticed his cheeks went just as red as mine felt.

"Sorry to interrupt, lovebirds," Reggie made his way over to us. "But we've been working on a melody we thought you'd like to hear."

"Okay, dude," Luke stood up. "But stop calling us that."

"Okay, lovebirds," Reggie caught himself. "Sorry, force of habit."

I rolled my eyes and sat back onto the sofa.

As I watched the guys play along to the melody, I realised something ;

Maybe Luke and I being called 'lovebirds' wasn't the worst thing in the world.

———

The weekend took it's sweet time getting by. Luke and Julie spent their days writing songs and I couldn't find anything to do with my time. After I set up the equipment, there really wasn't much for me to do. I spent most of that time on the roof, getting lost inside my head - and not in a fun way. I was trying to figure out why I became a ghost and I may or may not have realised that I liked Luke. Just a tiny bit.

It wasn't my fault, okay? Whenever he finished writing songs with Julie, he joined me up on the roof and told me all about them. When he talked about music he just lit up in a way I'd never seen anyone else light up before. I just really admired his passion. And his eyes. Those deep brown eyes filled with kindness and serotonin.

I spent some of that time on the roof wondering if I would ever tell him I liked him, but that time was always cut short. No. I would not. Sure, there was the small part of me that thought he wouldn't like me back but also it just didn't make sense. None of it made sense. We were ghosts. We were fully deceased and had no idea how long we had left. At what point in that timeline do you start a relationship with a fellow ghost? You don't, that's when.