Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Amazing as always,” Flynn was saying as Julie quickly walked over to her and down the hallway back to the green room.

“Was it? Because I feel like I’m gonna throw up,” she said, still trying to shake off some of the nerves.

“I could totally not tell,” Flynn reassured her like all of this was just fine and not making Julie hyperventilate.

She should be happy. People were starting to recognize her name more and more, she was getting booked for interviews to promote her music, these were all good things. She was definitely not complaining. 

But at the same time more and more people were starting to recognize her name and she was getting booked for interviews and sometimes all the good things were also overwhelming. Getting a chance to connect with fans and get her music out there was incredible, she was living the dream, there was no doubt about that, but she was also not really used to people asking questions about more than that. She was suddenly aware that every little piece of information she ever mentioned would be out there for good for everyone to know and that ‘everyone’ was not the handful of Instagram followers she used to have up until a few months ago.

It wasn’t like she’d revealed anything insane, most things were information people could find out about her just from a quick google search anyway. She was still trying to keep her personal life personal however and it’d been going well so far. Nobody was harassing her for information she didn’t want to share or running after her on the streets to get a picture. It was a nice in between state she was hoping to stay in for a while.

Flynn’s phone suddenly went off, effectively getting her attention back from her minor spiral just outside the room. Flynn looked down at the screen and smiled. “Ooh, it’s Andi! Hello!” she answered, still beaming. “She killed it, one hundred percent.”

“I’m gonna go get ready to leave, okay?” Julie said quietly before slipping through the door. She just needed a moment alone before going right back to everything.

She gathered her things, taking a second more to look at her phone. She had a good luck text from her dad she hadn’t seen before going on and too many Instagram notifications. She replied to her dad, reassuring him about the whole experience even if she wasn’t quite there herself yet. She would get used to this at some point, she knew she would.

Grabbing her bag, she went back outside to find Flynn and go get something to eat, only to nearly bump into someone right as she opened the door.

“Shit, sorry-”

“I’m sorry-” Julie started saying when she actually saw whom she was talking to and nearly choked on her words.

“You’re Julie Molina, aren’t you?” he suddenly said, not really bothered by the way she’d cut herself off.

“You know me?” Julie blurted out before she could stop herself.

“Of course! You’ve got an EP out, right? It was insanely good,” he said. “I’m Luke by the way.”

Luke Patterson. She was well aware, she just never really expected this to be a conversation she was going to have in the near future. Especially Luke complimenting her own music.

“Sunset Curve, I know,” she managed to say without embarrassing herself and honestly, good for her.

“You do?” Luke said and for a second sounded just as surprised as Julie had a second ago. Against everything she just smiled.

“You’re kind of famous,” she said. She guessed they both were. Sunset Curve hadn’t really hit the spotlight until about a year ago, a few months before Julie herself. She had however heard them live eighteen months ago, she would be able to pinpoint the exact date and time if you asked, in a gig they’d held back before many people knew who these four boys were. Julie’s relationship with their music had been complicated to say the least, but she’d been happy to see them make it. She knew they would. But she couldn’t say all that right now without sounding weird.

“Yeah, I guess so,” he said, letting his own awe shine through for a second. Like it was still hard to believe sometimes. Julie could understand the feeling. “They wouldn’t have called us for an interview if no one cared about us, right?” he added with a smirk.

“The whole band is here?” Julie asked, still trying to reconcile with the fact that she was actually talking to Luke right now like this was a normal thing that could happen. He had no idea what his music meant for her.

“Nope, just me,” he said, rocking on his heels a bit. “I mean they asked for one person and we all very unanimously agreed that I should come.”

“That sounds very real,” she said with a nod.

“Yeah, making decisions is not really what we’re good at, but I can talk about our music for hours, I’ve got this,” he said. “Alex thinks I’ll somehow reveal all our future plans and get our label to drop us, but I told him he’s an idiot before I left, so it’s fine.”

Julie couldn’t help but laugh. She didn’t know much about the guys, but she definitely knew they made good music together. And they definitely had some kind of magnetic force, pulling people in from the very first note. Julie would know, she’d seen them perform in person.

Her phone started ringing, Flynn’s name showing up on the screen. She probably had to go, she already knew she had to be in the studio later that day.

“I have to go,” she said, the regret in her voice pretty evident, she wasn’t afraid to hide as much. She actually had a lot to say, but she didn’t really know the guy, she didn’t want to come off too eager. “It was nice meeting you,” she added, a voice screaming in her head for her to say more.

“You too,” Luke told her with a smile. Luke fucking Patterson was smiling at her. She needed to go scream for a second.

Flynn had been waiting for her outside and before she could say anything more, Julie intervened, “I just met Luke Patterson.”

“What?”

Julie was not a hundred percent sure she hadn’t hallucinated the whole thing.

Luke had liked her story a couple of days later. She’d liked his post. And things had kept going like this and it had been exciting, but mostly normal. And then in a sudden surge of self confidence she’d commented on one of his stories. Luke had replied. And they'd just… started talking.

And they kept talking. And talking.

And Julie waited for the penny to drop, for her brain to actually realize what was going on and freak out, but it just… never really came. They were two people in very similar situations with very similar interests and she supposed they just kind of… clicked.

You know, I actually saw you guys live once

WHAT
WHEN?

March 2023 - Eats and Beats
Reggie nearly electrocuted himself with an amp

Oh my God…
Why didn’t you say anything?
Wait- that was before we got signed
How long have you been a superfan?

Am I just feeding your ego at this point?

I can tell you that I once listened to Wake Up in a loop for an hour if that helps balance things out

And yeah, it was things like this that kind of made Julie feel all warm inside. They’d known each other for a couple of months and yet Luke was the biggest hype man she could ask for. They would talk about music and exchange ideas and Julie was getting so used to this whole routine, it was kind of insane actually.

Alex asks if you know Carrie Wilson

How would I know Carrie Wilson?

He said you both follow her

I am not Carrie Wilson level famous

Yet
We all started from somewhere

Well, when I get to meet her I’ll make sure to mention Alex

He says you’re his favorite
We’re all trying not to be insulted

Maybe you should have just known Carrie Wilson and you wouldn’t have lost your drummer

They were both semi popular and their fanbases must have overlapped in certain places because suddenly people started noticing. Flynn was the best manager Julie could have asked for and she kept an eye out for Julie’s name popping up online. She’d been the first to spot it, how the fans were commenting on Julie and Luke knowing each other.

Julie wasn’t exactly sure why anyone would care. She came to regret those words only a couple of days later when more and more tweets started coming in about how cute the two of them would be together. She didn't engage with any of it.

And then they’d actually met again for lunch, planned this time. Their schedules were chaotic to say the least, but they’d known each other for months, they wanted to discuss a song, it was a thing they did now. Somehow a blurry picture had ended up on the Internet and people had gone wild. She was trending for three days.

They were more careful after that. They definitely weren’t dating and if Julie maybe had a crush on him long ago that was her own business and buried under a hundred other things she had to go through first, but they definitely weren’t dating.

It was a thing that happened. They were neither the first nor the last famous people who were ever going to be shipped together by the fans and Julie was just going with it because there wasn’t much else she could do. At least Luke was cool about it too.

We should do an Instagram live together or something

People will assume we’re married

I’ll make sure to buy a ring first 🫡

Julie was doing just fine.

sunsetcurves
So uhm… Does the new Sunset Curve song sound like it was written for someone? A very specific someone? It was written by Luke is all I’m saying
#sunset curve #luke patterson #bright #julie molina #juke

revolutionintherain, comeonreginald and 64 others liked your post

curved-sunset reblogged your post
#I THOUGHT I WAS THE ONLY ONE #together I think that we can make it?? please #juke

onelife-noregrets replied to your post
Not to ruin anyone’s fun, but you remember Sunset Curve is a band right? Together? As in the band?

molinasdahlias replied to your post
@onelife-noregrets ‘You and I will stand together’ - he’s clearly talking about two people here, yes they are a band, there’s no reason to separate himself from them

mynameisnotluke reblogged your post
#goddd I want to believe it so bad #julie liked every post about Bright btw #juke

alexshoodies replied to your post
I thought they broke up?

mynameisnotluke
@alexshoodies Allegedly! No one had seen them together again after that one time, but they still follow each other and interact in posts!

horseiswheremyhomeis replied to your post
Just want to remind everyone that their relationship is also very much alleged

“Did Luke write a song about you?” Flynn said instead of greeting her as soon as Julie opened her front door.

“How many conspiracy theories did you go through?” Julie asked as she let her in, closing the door behind her.

“Yeah, whatever, I have the added context of knowing both of you. Luke is into you,” she said.

“You don’t know that,” Julie said, walking past her into the living room where she could hopefully hide from this whole situation.

“I know that, his friends know that and the fans apparently do too. If you post a photo just in the near vicinity of each other the world might explode,” she said.

“Well, I wouldn’t want to destroy the world, would I?” Julie said, the picture of nonchalance as she fell back on her couch.

“Is that what’s keeping you back? You shouldn’t put your life on hold just because people will talk about it.”

Julie sighed. She knew she wouldn’t really have a say on that and maybe it was part of it, but there was also the very real fact that she didn’t want to lose Luke. He’d become part of her life - his music had been a very significant part of her life before they’d even met, she couldn’t bear the possibility of losing everything just because they tried to go for something more and it just didn’t end up working out. Maybe it was better to preserve what they had. It was good.

"Have you talked to him about that concert?" Flynn asked as she came to sit next to her.

Julie had been meaning to. About the concert, about what followed after, she just... hadn't yet. It wasn't the best subject to ease into and she didn't really think she should do it over text. She had a lot of things she wanted to say, she just also needed the right moment to do so. All Luke knew was that she'd seen them play live once. "Not yet." She would eventually.

“What did he say about the song?” Flynn changed the subject when she didn't elaborate.

“He definitely didn’t say I wrote this about you,” Julie said, relieved that she didn't have to go any more into it. “They are putting an album out soon, this was probably written before we even met.” And it was true, they’d known each other for about six months now. Songs took time to write and if they’d chosen Bright as one of their singles it had definitely not been written within a day or something. You needed to work on it, try it out, make sure it worked for the whole band, rehearse and then choose which ones were going to be the singles long before they actually came out.

People were just reading into things. 

Even if it did remind her of a conversation they’d once had.

She was just reading into things.

“I cannot believe this actually worked out,” Bobby said as he handed Reggie a twenty dollar bill.

“I should have bet more money,” Reggie said wistfully. “We broke every previous streaming record.”

“How was I supposed to know he would write a hit in one night?” Bobby said, gesturing at Luke on the couch who had a satisfied smile as he went through his phone.

Until it was suddenly ripped out of his grasp.

“Hey!” he said, looking up to find Alex holding his phone on the other side of the couch.

“This is not healthy,” Alex said, still keeping his phone away.

“Seeing people’s reaction to our song?” Luke retorted though he knew he couldn’t play dumb for long.

“You’re not looking at posts about the song, you’re looking at posts about people speculating about the song,” Alex said.

“And that’s bad because?”

“Are you really gonna make me say it?”

Listen, Luke had not started out with the intention to write Bright. And even if he had a few ideas floating here and there, they were better left for the future, they were getting ready to launch a new album in a few months, they had to focus on that.

And then he’d been talking to Julie one night and they were saying how they’d pretty much rose in fame at the same time and how it was still weird sometimes and how you constantly had to fight to shine even for a little bit and well- She probably didn't really remember it.

The guys teased him about having a crush on Julie. He had never once denied it and he was pretty sure even if he did, the fact that he was constantly talking about her would probably betray him. But also how could he not?

Luke was always on the lookout for new people in the industry. He liked to know what was going on, listen to different sounds, ideas and just new creations from people who loved and lived through music the same way he did. And then he’d come across Julie Molina.

She was good. No actually, she was incredible. Luke had been mesmerized by her voice, he’d been listening to her songs for days. He wasn’t even the only one to say so, the guys agreed she was amazing and the way she had risen to fame in only a few months spoke for itself.

He hadn’t expected to run into her, but he was definitely glad he had. They’d started talking and suddenly they were talking almost every day, about music, about how their lives had changed so drastically so soon, about what they were currently working on - well, as much as they were allowed to - and it just felt so right. Luke had gotten so used to having her in his life.

Apparently so had the fans. Because the amount of people who wanted Luke and Julie to get together or who already thought they were together or who thought they'd been together and had broken up and then gotten back together, was overwhelming. Luke didn’t really care about rumors, they came with the territory, but it was also not the worst thing anyone could say about him.

So he’d written Bright. And maybe it was a little bit about Julie, not that he would ever publicly admit as much. Definitely not before he told Julie and telling Julie was not an option right at this second. Not before he was sure there was a chance this could go somewhere. He didn’t want to risk losing her.

He’d begged the guys to put it on the nearly finished album and he’d also suggested maybe putting it out there as the final single instead of Long Weekend. Reggie had been supportive, Alex had been hesitant and Bobby had been certain putting a song they’d barely rehearsed and worked on out there so soon was going to be a disaster. Well, the song had done undeniably well and Reggie was twenty bucks richer right now, so who was the winner here?

So yeah, maybe Alex was right and going through the fans' comments and theories about how the song was about Julie was not the best thing he could do when he hadn’t even talked to Julie about it, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to admit that to him.

Your streaming numbers keep going up

Ooh have you been listening to our songs?

Well, it’s all everyone’s been talking about, how can I not?
It’s really good, Luke

And that little thing was worth more to him than every single stream and article. 

Luke was doing just fine.

Chapter Text

molinasdahlias
OFFICIALLY BACK IN MY DELULU ERA - as if I ever left - Julie’s new song is so clearly about Luke, right? We all agree on that?

sunsetsandbutterflies, julieemolinaa and 23 others liked your post

sunsetsandbutterflies reblogged your post
#a hundred percent #i will go down with this ship #risk #juke #julie molina #luke patterson #sunset curve

curved-sunset reblogged your post
#do i have any actual evidence to support this? no #but do i know it in my soul? fuck yes #girl is down bad #juke

revolutionintherain reblogged your post
#PREV SO TRUE #as if he’s any better! #i wouldn’t be surprised if he has a julie molina stan account somewhere #juke

julieemolinaa reblogged your post
#are we clowning again?? #I am so here for it let’s gooo #juke

juke-supremacy reblogged your post
JUKE NATION RISE
#juke

“The fans clocked you in a millisecond,” Flynn said as she scrolled down her phone on Julie’s couch.

“I could write a song about how much I like purple and people would still think it was about Luke,” Julie said with a snort, continuing to fold her laundry, not even bothered by the chaos that was probably going on behind Flynn’s screen.

“Sure, but also like, I’m currently looking at a lyric analysis and it is insanely spot on,” Flynn continued. “Do you have a secret Twitter account?”

“Yes, specifically for exposing my secrets,” Julie deadpanned. “The fans will believe what they want to believe.”

“Which in this case is the truth?” Flynn glanced over at her with a raised eyebrow.

Julie sighed. “You write one song about one guy one time and suddenly it’s a whole thing…”

“The fandom is already planning your wedding,” she said. “I mean he did kind of start it, who can blame you?”

“Not the whole Bright discourse again…” Julie sighed, trying to fold a cardigan and failing. She threw it back inside the basket and just came to sit next to her friend.

“Well, I actually do have a secret Twitter account so I did my research,” she said. “What did your Internet boyfriend say about the song?”

“Luke’s not my boyfriend, he’s a friend,” Julie couldn’t help but say. As if she didn’t write an entire song about him. “This whole thing would be wrong anyway.”

“Classic,” Flynn said.

Julie snorted as she fell back on the couch. “Don’t quote me,” she said, hugging one of the pillows. It wasn’t like she didn’t know exactly what was going to happen the second the song was out, but God she really wanted to put the song out there. A small part of her had thought Bright came out six months ago, maybe people had moved on. “No, actually you know what? This is good,” she said as she sat up so abruptly she felt a bit light headed. “The fans are going to run with it and we can just laugh about this whole thing because it’s so far-fetched, it couldn’t possibly be true.”

Another stupid thought since Julie hung out with Luke and the rest of Sunset Curve regularly now. Rumors had been flying around, Julie and Luke never commented on anything and their friendship was good and it was solid and Julie was fine and fuck, okay, maybe she was actually into him, oh my God she wrote a song about him-

She hadn’t told him anything about the song before it’d dropped. Just referencing NDAs and label gibberish that actually made sense to work her way around it. She couldn’t help but feel that if he was there for the whole process he’d be able to tell that something more was going on. She was also terrified that he was still going to figure it out now, but the whole thing was about taking risks, right?

It was supposed to be subtle, it wasn’t supposed to stir up anything. Then again whatever song she wrote that could even remotely be classified as a love song people would immediately assume it was about Luke. And maybe this time they were right, but it wasn’t like Julie would ever admit to it.

Julie was perfectly fine with them just being friends and burying her crush somewhere deep inside of the confines of her old dream box. Full of remnants of an older life that tended to be more relevant than she thought they would be sometimes.

She’d seen Sunset Curve perform live two and a half years ago and she’d fallen in love with their music. She wasn’t going to deny Luke was cute, she had eyes, but he was a guy she was probably never gonna see again. Just a stupid little crush that would go away. Julie just liked daydreaming a bit too much.

But then things had changed and listening to their music became a bit more painful than it should have been. And then things had changed again and they’d kind of helped her change her life. And she still hadn’t found the guts to tell Luke as much.

But she had found the guts to write the song. And record it. And put it out into the world. And now the fans were running with it.

“Juke is trending on Tumblr and Twitter, nice,” Flynn said as she kept looking at her phone.

“Of course it is,” Julie said, glancing at her own phone on the coffee table. Luke had congratulated her on the song, raved about how good it was and had gone into a detailed analysis of the music. He was always the best hype man she could ask for, there was no doubt about that. She didn’t know if he’d seen the chaos going on right now, but soon enough he would. They were pretty used to it by now, it was just another thing that kind of happened and they went along with it. People would be tagging them both in stuff. They’d never commented on anything. 

“Speculation about the lyrics, speculation about your relationship, edit to the song with the two of you, edit to the guys’ song with the two of you, enemies to lovers fic, friends to lovers fic, discourse about shipping real people, gif with the lyrics from the song, supernatural AU where Luke’s a ghost and only you can see him-” Flynn kept saying as she scrolled through the tag.

“Okay, I get it,” Julie said with a groan, falling on her side, leaning against the back of the couch as she stared at Flynn, still hugging one of the cushions close to her. “I just wanted to write a song, but no… Let’s make this about Luke.”

“Just to be clear, we’re talking about the song you wrote about Luke, right?” Flynn piped up.

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“I love you too, babe,” Flynn said. “Maybe you should take your own advice and take the risk? Both your advice actually! What was it he said? Life is a risk, but I will take it? ”

“Do not quote Bright to me,” Julie said. As if she didn’t know that song by heart and had it as her ringtone for a month.

Flynn raised her hands in surrender. “I’m just saying, the two of you would be happy, all of your friends would be happy, the fans would probably die-”

“And the Internet would explode, yes, I know,” Julie said with a sigh.

Flynn sat up on the other side, coming up to face her. “I don’t care about the Internet, I care about you. You’re okay?”

“I just…” she tried to sort through the chaos in her head. “I’ve done relationships before. In my own personal bubble when no one really cared for it, you know?” It was easy and her relationships were hers to have. When they were going well and when they weren’t. And now… “Now it feels like if I don’t get everything right from the beginning, I’m gonna be judged for it. No one knows what they’re doing in a new relationship!”

Flynn gave her a sympathetic look. It’d been two years and Julie had mostly learned how to navigate things, but this was still her life. She did not have everything figured out. 

“I know,” Flynn said, reaching for her hand to give it a squeeze. “But people will always have something to say. About everything. You can’t live the rest of your life in fear of not being the absolute best at everything from the start.”

“I don’t want to,” Julie was quick to say. Because she really didn’t want to. She wanted to take a leap of faith, she wanted to take the risk and try and make this work, she wanted to write songs that meant something to her and put them out there and yes maybe she wanted to write one song about Luke and not have it be a huge deal, was that too much to ask? “It’s just one more issue to add to the pile,” she added with a sigh.

“Hm, but is that pile maybe not as high as you say it is though?” Flynn said, her eyes scrunching up a bit.

“Bright wasn’t-”

“Did you ever ask him?” Flynn cut her off.

“I can’t just ask the guy if his song is about me!” Julie called out.

“Worst case scenario he says no,” Flynn said with a shrug.

“No, worst case scenario he says no it was actually about someone else,” she corrected her. “And then never talks to me again because I’ve made things awkward as hell.”

“The chances of that happening are about zero,” Flynn deadpanned. “Also he’s bound to notice what is going on right now. He might ask you.”

“He won’t,” she said without putting much thought into it. They joked about it, they didn’t entertain the actual idea. Sure, the fans would talk about it for a while and Julie’s name would trend as would Luke’s and the whole juke business, but people would eventually calm down. Not to mention it was the first single she’d released from her upcoming album so a large number of people were also screaming - in a very positive way - about that too.

The original shock would die down and the fans would forget. Luke would never even have to wonder in the first place.

“Uh… Luke, you’re trending,” Reggie said as he walked into the living room from the kitchen, staring down at his phone.

“Oh my God, what did you do?” Bobby asked, the last chord he was playing coming out harsh and wrong from the other side of the couch where he was tuning a guitar. Luke had to wonder the same thing actually. They hadn’t put out any new music, he’d barely been active on socials and if he was being honest, he’d spent a couple of days doing absolutely nothing because he’d been kind of exhausted. But he was not going to let Bobby have the last word. 

“Uhm be in a popular band? Write amazing music? Be a charming guy overall?” he said because also honestly, yeah, there were times when they were all trending for no reason. Sometimes they all tended to forget that they weren’t just four guys, scrambling for every random gig they could get to make a name for themselves. They had made a name for themselves. And some days people seemed to repeat that name over and over again enough times to make them stand out.

“Didn’t you go viral once for uploading all the song titles from the unreleased album on Instagram?” Alex called out from the kitchen as if he didn’t know the answer.

“That was one time!” Luke called back. He’d taken the photo for Reggie and he’d ended up accidentally making it his story too. He'd deleted it a second later, but God, some people were just really fast. A few titles were leaked, but it wasn’t the end of the world. Luke didn’t go back on Instagram for two weeks.

“Oh,” Reggie said with a chuckle as he scrolled down on his phone, leaning against the door frame. “It’s because of Julie.” Luke wasn’t exactly shocked, he’d been kind of used to it after so long. Ignoring the issue and joking about it instead of actually coming right out and telling Julie the truth did kind of make him want to scream into a pillow, but this was his life right now. “They’re saying her new song is about you-”

“What?” he cut Reggie off before he could even finish his sentence. He’d heard the song, he’d told Julie how much he liked the song, he’d analyzed the music of the song. He hadn’t dared to veer into any other territory.

“Of course,” Bobby said just as Luke practically leaped over the couch to come next to Reggie and look at his phone.

“Wait, what?” he heard Alex coming up behind them even though his focus was on going through the thousands of posts varying from detailed analysis to keyboard smashes. And Luke really wanted to go down the rabbit hole and believe it all, but there was also the very real fact that- “That can’t be right, the lyrics wouldn’t make sense.”

Yeah. That.

“22.6k tweets disagree with you,” Reggie said. “Lyrics are always up for interpretation, you don’t know what she was thinking.”

“You can ask her,” Bobby said.

“Yeah, because that makes sense,” Luke said with a snort, still looking down at the phone.

“Oh my God, you’re just going back and forth writing songs about each other at this point until someone catches on,” he half sighed, half groaned. It was an oddly supportive sentiment.

“And when you do, ask her what the whole ‘haven’t even met him’ thing is about,” Alex added as if Luke hadn’t said anything.

“I thought you said that this can’t be right,” he said, finally turning to glance at him.

“I also think that you and Julie are in love with each other, but you never listen to me when I say that,” he said with a little shrug, taking a bite of a cookie Luke hadn’t realized he was holding. They essentially had a couple of weeks off before they had to go back to work, so for once they weren’t running around. Reggie had declared he was bored at some point and started baking cookies, Alex had slipped in after him to get first pick and Bobby had also shown up at their place at some point because even though he always complained about spending too much time with them he also kind of loved them.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if he has a Julie Molina stan account somewhere,” Reggie read with a laugh. “That is so true, I’m still not convinced and I see you every day.” Luke would proudly make all the fan pages if he wasn’t convinced that he’d somehow reveal it was him in the process.

But he needed to do something. Say something. Maybe he couldn’t outright ask Julie because that would open a whole other can of worms he wasn’t ready for yet, but Bobby was also kind of right. He had written Bright for Julie. And maybe part of him had figured the feelings would go away when nothing happened, but they hadn’t and Luke didn’t know how many more months would have to go by before he admitted to himself that this wasn’t just a crush.

He wasn’t a shy guy, not by a long shot, but whatever confidence he usually had, seemed to evaporate when it came to telling Julie how he felt without any songs or metaphors in between. They were friends and it was good, it was great, but there were so many other things in between to consider. 

God, he was just not good with words. Which was also the biggest irony of his life, he was well aware. It wasn’t his fault, singing had always come easier to him than talking, but it wasn’t going to bail him out again this time. 

Probably.

Well-

He could try?

Julie blinked her eyes open with a heavy sigh, groaning a bit with her face smushed into her pillow. She had no idea what time it was, but definitely too early if the way her body was protesting was anything to go by. However, the continuous chimes coming from her phone on the nightstand were enough to leave her a little concerned.

She reached over blindly, grabbing her phone to find… a mess. Notifications from Instagram and Twitter, unread messages and twelve missed calls from Flynn. Right. Something had probably happened while she was asleep.

Her phone started ringing again before she could look through anything. Well, Flynn would be gentler than the Internet, right? “Should I be worried?” she answered her phone.

“Finally, you’re awake!” Flynn nearly shouted on the other end. “Did you see it?”

“See what?” Julie asked.

“Oh shit, okay, I’m sending you the link,” she said and Julie heard her putting the phone on speaker. “He’s insane for this. But I also kind of admire him.”

“Who?” Julie asked, trying to make sense of the situation when she still had no context.

“Check what I sent and call me back,” she said. “Actually I’m on my way there, I’ll bring you coffee.”

“I thought we were meeting at the studio today,” Julie tried to say. There were still a few things she had to take care of before they could declare the album ready for release.

“I think we should meet a bit earlier. Watch the video,” Flynn added in the end before hanging up.

Julie opened up Flynn’s message, not sure if she should be freaking out yet or not. The video popped up and she was met with a pretty familiar face and guitar. She’d seen enough of Luke’s stories and videos in general where he was singing either Sunset Curve songs or random covers. He was good and whatever twist he would pull always seemed to work.

She clicked on the video expecting to hear a song. And the thing was, Julie had just woken up - way earlier than she was planning to at that, she’d been working on a new album, she was exhausted, her brain wasn’t working right. Because if it had, she would have put two and two together by now.

Luke started playing the guitar and Julie nearly dropped the phone on her face. She sat up so fast a few black spots appeared in her vision, but she was still extremely focused. Because she knew that song, she would recognize that melody anywhere.

She fucking wrote it.

Luke was just sitting there without a care in the world, playing Risk like that was just another Tuesday. Julie’s version was on the piano, but it sounded good on the guitar too. And Luke had a nice voice, she couldn’t deny that. This was good. It was a good cover. Yes. She should just focus on that and nothing else. Tell Luke she was flattered or something. She shouldn’t mention how the whole world thought the song was written about him and then he just went along and covered it which begged the question, was this a coincidence?

It couldn’t be. His name had been trending alongside hers, he must have seen it. This couldn’t be random. And Julie couldn’t just pretend she hadn’t seen it.

You are insane

I’ve been called worse :D

You know what’s gonna happen now, don’t you?

Did you like the cover, Julie?

Julie shook her head with a little smile. Of course Luke always had his priorities straight.

I liked the cover, Luke

Luke started writing something, but the little bubbles disappeared as soon as they’d shown up. And then her phone started ringing.

“You know, you’re not helping the situation here,” she said as she answered.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Luke said, sounding like he knew exactly what he was talking about.

“Hm, haven’t been online much lately?” she said, falling right back on her pillow.

“Why? Did something happen?”

Julie snorted. “You know, the usual… I woke up to a million notifications on my phone… I’m blaming you.”

“Oh I started this?” Luke asked back, letting out an amused little chuckle. “Because all I had planned for yesterday was eating the cookies Reggie made.”

“Reggie made cookies?”

“Yeah, he was bored.”

“And apparently not the only one,” Julie couldn’t help but say.

“I wasn’t bored, I was inspired,” Luke corrected her.

“Ah, sorry, my mistake,” she said, still not able to wipe the grin off her face. Sometimes she felt like she and Luke could tell more to each other through song than they were ever able to with words. It was weird, but also very on brand for them. And maybe the beginning to say something even more important. “Do you-”

“I was-” Luke started saying at the same time she did. “Sorry, what was that?”

“No, no, you go ahead,” Julie was quick to say, hoping to stall for a few minutes longer. She tried to ignore how her heart was suddenly beating wildly inside her chest. How there was a very real possibility she knew where this conversation was heading.

“I was thinking,” Luke started again and Julie could practically envision him in his room, just pacing around, hand nervously rubbing the back of his neck as he tried to get the words out. God, she’d really gotten to know him well during this past year, hadn’t she? “If you-”

“Luke!” someone shouted on the other end of the line so loud, Julie nearly winced at it.

“What the hell,” she heard Luke’s voice jump at the sudden interruption. “I’m on the phone!” he called back.

There were more voices in a friendlier volume this time. “Yeah, well, hang up, this is huge!”

“I swear to God, if it’s something stupid-”

“Will you listen to me for once? Come on!” the voice - who Julie was pretty sure had been Bobby - faded out as he presumably left the room.

“Is everything okay?” Julie asked over the phone.

“I honestly have no idea, but I think something good might have happened, can I call you back in a second?” Luke said. “I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s fine, don’t worry about it,” Julie answered, trying not to let her disappointment show.

“I’ll call you right back, I promise,” he said again. “Don’t fall asleep.”

Julie chuckled. “Okay, I’ll wait for you. Go make sure everything’s okay.”

“I’ll be right back,” he said before hanging up.

Julie dropped the phone next to her on the bed, taking a deep breath. Okay, he was going to call back. The real question was what exactly was he going to say?

Before she could just stay there a few seconds longer, holding her breath, someone started knocking on her own door. Well, more like pounding. Then again she had a pretty good idea who that was.

She got up, taking her phone with her and went over to the living room. The pounding didn’t stop until she actually opened the door and was met with none other than her best friend.

“Did you see it? Are you okay? I got you coffee,” she said without even pausing in between and handed Julie a cup.

“I saw it,” Julie said, pushing the door closed as she took a sip. “I didn’t go online, but I’m not sure I want to right now, my phone might explode.”

“He knew exactly what he was doing, he might as well have said, yes, I am also in love with you,” Flynn kept saying.

“Okay, I never said-” Julie tried to say.

“Jules, sweetie, have you heard the song you wrote and recorded?” Flynn cut her off. “It’s okay that you’re into him, we all get it. We pray that you’ll actually talk about it one day.”

“Well, he kind of called me and wanted to say something, but then something else happened and now he’s gonna call me again,” Julie said in one breath.

Flynn stared back at her for a second longer. “The guys owe me twenty bucks,” she eventually said.

“You bet on us?” Julie asked, wanting to be exasperated, but also not surprised.

“What were we supposed to do?” Flynn said. “Wait, what exactly did he tell you on the phone? What happened?”

“I don’t know, something big, they were shouting,” Julie said, glancing at her phone that still hadn’t rung.

Flynn’s cell beat her to it though. “Hello?” she answered. “Yes, this is she,” she slipped into a more professional voice Julie had gotten used to hearing after so long. “Oh, hi, how are you?” Her words were cheerful enough, but she still grabbed Julie’s wrist in anticipation, making Julie stop and stare. “Really? That’s incredible to hear, thank you so much!” she said, shaking Julie’s hand in excitement. “We will be in touch, definitely. Have a great day!” she added and hung up the phone before fully turning to Julie, nearly jumping up and down.

“What happened?” Julie asked.

“Guess who’s in the lineup for the Orpheum festival,” Flynn said.

Julie must have stopped breathing for a second. “Shut up,” she said.

“Nope. You’re in.”

“Oh my God!” Julie called out before pulling Flynn in for a hug. This was great. No actually this was fucking amazing!

“Okay, okay, I need to call Andi before we get to the studio,” Flynn said.

“And I have a hundred more things I need to do,” Julie added.

“Well, you have a few months to get ready, don’t worry about that,” Flynn reassured her. “Don’t think I’m forgetting about our previous conversation. I’m betting the Sunset Curve boys are in too.”

And well, that made sense. Which also meant that it would be the first time she and Luke would be in the same place at the same time officially. Julie still hadn’t really looked through her phone to see what people were saying. The lineup would soon be released too, people were bound to notice.

It’d be fine, Julie could just throw her phone out the window.

juke-supremacy
Both Julie and Sunset Curve are doing the Orpheum festival, this is fine, I am fine, this is not making me hyperventilate at all actually
#juke #julie molina #luke patterson #sunset curve #orpheum

life-is-a-risk, sunsetsandbutterflies and 106 others liked your post

life-is-a-risk reblogged your post
So just to summarize here we have
•Luke writing Bright
•Julie writing Risk
•Luke covering Risk
•Luke and Julie performing at the same place together for the first time ever
HOW MUCH MORE CAN WE TAKE?
#juke

purpledahlias
I feel like we moved on from Luke’s cover way too fast. They might as well have said we’re in love and we need everyone to know it.
#i can’t believe it’s been a month #juke #julie molina #luke patterson #risk

julieemolinaa, curved-sunset and 121 more liked your post

dirtycandies
Dirty Candy, Julie Molina and Sunset Curve in the same place? Oh my God Christmas came early this year

candycarrie, alexshoodies and 348 more liked your post

Chapter Text

Julie finished her sound check with a grin on her face. It’d been two incredibly hectic months where she barely had time for her own life with getting her album ready to release and rehearsing for the festival, but today was finally the day and she didn’t have a care in the world. She’d met so many people these past couple of weeks, other artists, the crew - a few of which had also turned out to be fans - and she’d treasured every interaction.

The sudden applause startled her as she turned to her right to find Luke looking over at her from backstage. They had been stealing moments here and there to watch each other perform whenever they had time, but he definitely hadn’t been there when she’d started singing.

She smiled, giving a short bow before getting the okay from the sound crew and walking over to him. Sunset Curve was already done with their preparations and now they all had a few hours before they had to start getting ready.

“Do you just go around hyping other artists up?” she asked as she grabbed her water bottle and took a sip.

“Well, maybe not everyone,” he said and Julie hoped she wasn’t blushing.

“I’ll consider myself special then,” she said.

They’d started a conversation a couple of months ago that they still hadn’t finished. Luke had called back and they were in the festival and Julie was also in the festival and for the next two months it was all they could really talk about. 

But then again for these two months they were suddenly spending a lot more time together. Sure their schedules were hectic, but now they both didn’t have enough time, together which was oddly sweet. Not to mention that the rehearsals were pretty cut off from the outside world for obvious reasons which meant they didn’t really have to worry about someone watching them talk to each other and suddenly broadcasting it to the whole world.

She wasn’t sure if it was the sudden privacy they’d been given or just the fact that they’d started something they hadn’t finished, but everything felt so much easier now. They were both in their element and they were calm and for once Julie felt free and confident and she was flirting with the boy she liked and the boy she liked was flirting with her and she just wanted to stay in that bubble forever. Maybe she could. Maybe they could take this to the next level and just keep it out there for themselves.

Not to mention that the more she was spending time with Luke, the more she was getting convinced that Luke had written Bright about her. Flynn had told her that she was officially the last one to know, but Julie couldn’t afford to make a mistake here. The thing was though, she had written Risk about him and he had gone ahead and covered it even when he knew what everyone was saying. Luke wasn’t oblivious and if anything when it came to communicating he’d always choose music. He knew the song was about him. All that was left was for one of them to do something about it before their bubble bursted with the end of the festival tonight.

They left the staging heading for one of the green rooms. Well, it was more of a tent to be honest. Julie really liked the set up they were working with. There was food, drinks, merch and most importantly really good weather. They might as well be on vacation.

There were a few other artists there, just chatting and grabbing something to eat. Even some of the bigger names had mingled though there were a few Julie hadn’t managed to spot yet. She wasn’t sure how certain people had time for everything, but she wasn’t complaining. 

“Hey! You’re done?” Reggie came over to them, Bobby following him.

“Yep, ready for tonight,” she said.

“Where’s Alex?” Luke asked, looking behind them but Julie couldn’t really find him in the crowd either.

“Carrie let him sit in on their dance rehearsal,” Bobby said.

“Yeah, his exact words were ‘if I don’t come back, I’ve joined Dirty Candy’, so you know,” Reggie added, “we might be missing a drummer.”

Julie hadn’t really gotten a chance to meet Carrie Wilson other than in passing. Their times didn’t really align and it wasn’t like she always hung out long enough for Julie to show. The guys however were two acts ahead of Dirty Candy in the lineup and Julie was pretty sure Alex would murder them if they didn’t so much as introduce themselves.

She wasn’t sure what she’d expected. She didn’t know that many super famous people and experiences varied across the board. Carrie had been nice enough to say hi to her, but she didn’t really seem to care for her in general. The rest of the girls seemed a bit more approachable. Then again the guys had actually hung out with them a couple of times and Alex was in love with their everything, that probably meant something. 

It was always a coin toss, meeting people you'd admired for a while. Because there was no denying that Julie knew Dirty Candy, they were there long before her, Carrie especially more so. Her dad was a famous musician after all, it’d always seemed like her future was written out before her. Julie wasn’t sure whether that was a good thing, but seeing Carrie perform was always enough to confirm that she’d found her calling. That girl belonged on a stage.

“He’s not allowed to leave the band for at least another decade,” Luke said, almost like a reminder, like they’d talked about this before.

“Do you have a break up schedule?” Julie asked.

“Yes, if anyone abandons the band, I’m never gonna talk to him again,” Luke said, Reggie nodding along with him, probably having heard the speech multiple times by now.

“That does sound very mature,” Julie said.

“It does get tempting sometimes,” Bobby added with a sigh.

“Bobby acts like he hates me, but I think I’m his favorite,” he stage whispered, making Julie chuckle.

“Those are just the delusions talking,” Bobby said.

Julie had known the guys for long enough now to be used to their banter. She loved it and she’d even go far enough to say she envied it sometimes too. They’d all been thrown into the same world at relatively the same time, but at least they had each other. Every time someone left a mean comment or review, every time someone started a rumor or tried to dig too deep into their personal lives, they were in it together. Julie was jealous.

Her life had changed drastically and whenever someone came for her, they came for her alone. She had Flynn and she was thankful for her best friend every single day of her life, but it wasn’t the same. When she was out there she was a solo act and she had to do it alone. She loved music and she loved singing, she just… She wished she wasn’t always standing out there alone.

The place was packed. People were screaming, singing and just having a great time altogether. Julie had been watching the other artists from the sidelines, having fun herself and singing along with any song she knew.

They weren’t really mingling with the crowd, but she’d come face to face with a few fans here and there. She’d signed papers, photos, notebooks, CDs, had gotten so many compliments on her music and had taken a selfie or two. It was exhilarating, but nothing compared to the feeling of being on stage, the crowd singing alongside her, knowing the lyrics to songs that only months ago existed in the confines of Julie’s home.

It didn’t mean that all the nerves had disappeared though. Sure, Julie felt at home up there, but there was always some kind of anticipation building before, the inability to stay still and think clearly. For a while it’d been enough to keep her back too, especially after her mom had passed away, until she’d put her foot down and decided to push through and not surrender to the nerves anymore. She hadn’t started like this anyway, had she? Julie was taking back her life, she deserved as much.

Dirty Candy got a huge applause. She’d seen people walking around in multicolored wigs in the crowd, she wasn’t exactly surprised. As if Julie and Flynn didn’t know their songs too, quietly singing in their own little corner all while waiting for Julie’s turn. A few years ago they would be in the audience, now they were backstage, it was a bit surreal. Julie was pretty sure no matter how many years went by she would always be a bit starstruck by everything.

Sunset Curve also had people screaming. Julie shared the sentiment and for once didn’t really care if people could tell. They were still in their bubble, still in an environment where no one would ask too many questions, no one would judge and they could just be for a second more. Julie liked a band, she liked their songs and she happened to be friends with them. Nothing wrong about that. If she was flirting with the lead guitarist too at her free time that was her own business to attend to.

Julie had heard their set during rehearsals, she knew what to expect, yet the atmosphere was so different tonight she couldn’t help but stand and stare for a second longer. How the fans were singing along, screaming the lyrics, how Luke and the guys played off the audience’s reactions, how they connected with every single person out there. It was electric.

Of course they sang Bright. Of course the people sang back. The thought that Luke might have written this song about her and now was out there performing in front of so many people was definitely a thought Julie was having. As if she wasn’t about to go up there and sing Risk herself. Were they even being subtle at this point?

Soon enough - and maybe sooner than Julie had expected - she was being ushered to get ready and go up on stage. There was really no time for her to be nervous, she had to be quick if they wanted everything to keep running smoothly. She preferred it that way. Less time to think about everything, just walking out there and doing what she did best. Sing her heart out.

Julie was met with an equally deafening applause. It was wild to think about sometimes. She’d actually made it. She was standing up there with thousands of people waiting to hear her songs, her voice, see her performance as a whole. Her family was there, her best friend, people who had believed in her every step of the way. She wasn’t planning to disappoint.

She sang Wake Up first, that had always been a given. Her mom was the one who’d gotten her there, Julie owed it to her to open up with a song they’d written together. It always made her feel a bit less alone up there, like her mom was still with her in a way. The same way she always was whenever Julie played music. Having everyone sing along was just another reason for her to get emotional over everything. Rose Molina hadn’t written a bad song her entire life.

She’d been practical when choosing what to sing. It wasn’t her concert, she didn’t have all the time in the world, she had to go with songs people would recognize. Maybe teasing the new album in between that was coming out in a month. So after a few fan favorites and new releases how could she not close her own set with Risk?

It wasn’t brand new anymore, but people still went wild when she started playing the intro. And Julie… well, the song was a bit more personal to her, she couldn’t not grin through the whole thing.

The intro was a bit softer, but she wasn’t planning on sitting in place for the whole thing. She had the chance to dance around the stage, she wasn’t going to waste it.

“God, I'm actually invested
Haven't even met him
Watch this be the wrong thing
Classic
God, I'm jumping in the deep end
It's more fun to swim in
Heard the risk is drownin', but I'm gonna take it”

Hearing the audience singing back to her was an adrenaline rush. For those few minutes it was just her and fans, the music echoing all around them along with Julie’s voice. It was a good song, wasn’t it? And the reason she’d even written it in the first place was good, wasn’t it? She liked a boy. And she was pretty sure that very same boy liked her back. Getting to spend some time away from everything had done wonders for her self confidence actually. Why couldn’t they make it work?

“I'm gonna bend 'til I break and
You'll be my favorite mistake
I wish you could hold me here, shakin'
You're the risk, I'm gonna take it
Why aren't you here in my bedroom?
Hopelessly boring without you
Too soon to tell you I love you” 

Julie sang, the weight of her very own words starting to hit her a bit more than usual. She’d written this song. She’d written this song with Luke in mind about an old crush that had actually turned out to be much more than just that. And Luke had gone ahead and covered it, knowing full well what that meant and followed it with a call that had been left unfinished due to everything else going on. They really had been dancing around each other for over a year now, they needed to make a decision.

“Too soon to tell you I love you,” Julie went higher in the end. There was clapping and screaming in the few notes that followed and Julie was looking around until her eye caught something backstage. A familiar face. At the same place he’d always found himself during rehearsals. Julie was pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to even be there. But when had Luke ever followed the rules to start now?

He was looking at her like he’d never heard her sing before. Like he was listening to that song for the first time. Well, he should get in line, Julie had sung it so many times already and yet there was something different about it tonight. Maybe the lyrics finally made sense in a way she’d only thought about all this time. Μaybe this was a first for everyone.

She brought the mic close again, all while still staring at Luke.

“God, I'm actually invested
Think I really want this
I'm not even kidding…” she sang softly with a smile, giving a little shrug in the end.

Luke hadn’t looked away. She wasn’t sure if he could. He smiled back. It only made Julie grin wider if that was even possible before turning right back to the crowd.

“No, I'm actually invested
Haven't even met yet
Wish that I was kidding
I'm not, and I hate it”

Nothing had really changed. Except for everything. Everything had changed.

“No, I'm actually invested
Haven't even met yet
Watch this be the wrong thing”

Julie jumped around like she had way back then, during her first performances. Giddy, excited to finally be able to do this, now turning the mic towards the crowd and having them shout back “Classic”.

“God, I'm jumping in the deep end
It's more fun to swim in
Heard the risk is drownin', but I'm gonna take it”

What was it Flynn had said? Maybe she should take her own advice. Hers and Luke’s.

“Too soon to tell you I love you
Too soon to tell you I love you
Too soon to tell you I love you
You're the risk, I'm gonna take it”

More applause, more screaming. Julie took a bow. Waved at her family at the VIP section. And then headed right for Luke backstage.

Maybe he wanted to congratulate her, maybe he wanted to comment on the song or her performance- Julie wouldn’t know. She grabbed his face and kissed him before he could really say anything. Any residual worries she might have had about Luke’s feelings disappeared in an instant when he didn’t waste a second and kissed her right back, his arms wrapping around her waist to bring her closer.

Julie relaxed into the kiss, still not able to wipe the grin off her face. God, she really was invested. She was aware, Luke was aware, the world was kind of aware too. If only they knew what was happening behind the scenes right now.

They pulled back and Julie was distantly aware that they shouldn’t be there because someone else was supposed to sing after her and they were kind of in the way. They could wait a few seconds though because this was kind of big right now.

“Was that okay?” she asked softly, smiling up at him.

Luke startled a bit, nodding like Julie’s words had brought him out of a daze. “Probably the most okay thing you’ve ever done,” he said, making her laugh before leaning back in to kiss her again. Well, maybe he was invested too. Julie wasn’t even kidding.

“Did you write Risk about me?” he said with a little smirk when they pulled back again.

“I don’t know, did you write Bright about me?” she asked him instead.

“You never asked, I could have told you as much,” he said

“Oh would you?” she said, still not able to keep the giddiness from her voice.

“You know Flynn owes the guys 20 bucks,” he said instead.

“That’s on you, if you’d asked me out two months ago she would be rich now,” she said.

“Do you think we should start worrying about our friends betting on our lives?” he asked, pushing a curl away from Julie’s face and behind her ear. She didn’t blush.

“I think we should… go somewhere else before they kick us out,” she said when more and more voices and people started appearing.

They slipped away, looking for a place that would not be crawling with people. It wasn’t exactly easy considering where they were, but Julie just pulled him along to where her stuff was, knowing they would at least have some privacy. She didn’t know how much time they had before Flynn and the guys came looking for them but most other artists performing wouldn’t really think the two of them talking was newsworthy.

Luke kissed her once again, away from prying eyes just the two of them. And it was good, it was perfect actually and Julie loved every second of it, but they had to talk. Before this turned into anything more she had to tell him a few things.

She was the first one to pull back this time. “I kind of need to talk to you,” she said.

“You’re breaking up with me before we even get together?” Luke asked, making her chuckle.

“It’s not a bad thing,” she reassured him. “There are just some things you don’t know and I’ve been meaning to tell you for a while now.”

“Okay,” Luke said, still looking a bit wary as he leaned back to sit on the vanity table.

“Okay,” Julie echoed. “So, I told you I saw you guys live once. Back before you were signed.”

“Hard to forget about that,” Luke said with a smile she returned.

“My mom was actually the one who found out about you, she was always on the lookout for promising new artists,” she continued. “She was obviously right because you were amazing, it was definitely a memorable night.” It was a great night, Julie would be the first one to admit. “It was also the last concert I ever went to with her before she passed away.”

She had told Luke about her mom. She’d told her how music had been her life, how she was basically the reason why Julie loved music so much, how talented she’d been. She’d also told him how she’d gotten sick and passed away. How Julie had kind of given up on music for months after that and how she’d eventually found her way back. She had left some details out though.

“Julie, I-” Luke started to say, standing back on his feet but Julie raised a hand to stop him. She didn’t need him to be sorry for anything, this was not what she was trying to do here.

“I really liked your music, but I stopped listening to it for a while. I wasn’t doing well and all I could think about was my mom, it was just too hard. So I packed everything up and put it in a box and I stopped thinking about it,” she said. Lyrics and thoughts safely stored in her dream box that hadn’t been touched in years. Well, not until recently. She’d used them to write a song. “It was a few months later that I had a playlist on shuffle and Now or Never came on, I don’t even know how, and I kind of let it play. After months of grief it was actually kind of cathartic. I only have good memories of that night and it was nice to think about the good stuff for a change.”

Luke hadn’t tried to say anything else, instead paying his full attention to her. Julie didn’t have much left to say, she just hoped it hadn’t been a bit too much. “One thing led to another, I listened to more songs because they reminded me of that night and it was the most I’d felt connected to my mom after months of silence. It didn’t hurt that you were actually really good,” she added with a small smile. “Getting into music was always the plan, but I’d hit pause on everything indefinitely until then. I started singing and playing again and I eventually shot my shot. It worked.” 

She gave a little shrug, as if she hadn’t taken down every single wall in seconds. And she wasn’t even done yet. “I eventually bumped into you after an interview and freaked out just a tiny bit, but then we became friends and I’d say it worked out well in the end,” she tried to make it a bit more lighthearted even though the whole conversation was anything but. “What I wanted to say was thank you. I don’t know how long it would have taken me to get back to myself if it hadn’t been for you. You’re pretty good at this whole music thing.”

Luke still wasn’t saying anything. Julie was starting to get nervous, but she was determined to not let it show. It was a lot, but he needed to know. She couldn’t jump into a relationship without disclosing what kind of history she had with his band.

“I think,” he finally started saying, though he seemed like he was still trying to figure out how to phrase everything, “you are giving me too much credit for something you accomplished on your own.”

It wasn’t what Julie had expected to hear. But she wasn’t exactly surprised by his reaction either. “I think you underestimate how much music can actually help people.”

“Now that’s just plain hurtful,” he said, half joking, making Julie smile as he took a step closer to her. “I had no idea that concert actually meant so much to you. Why didn’t you say anything all this time?”

“It’s a lot, Luke,” she said. “I didn’t want you to freak out. I still don’t want you to freak out.”

“Would it help to say that I am not freaking out?” Luke said.

“Yeah, actually."

“Well, I’m not,” he said again, making her laugh slightly. “This is why we do what we do, right? We want people to feel something when they listen to our songs. I’m glad I was able to help, even if we didn’t know each other. I mean you know how that feels.”

Julie stared back at him, confused. “What do you mean?”

“You co-wrote Wake Up with your mom, didn’t you? You play it at every gig,” he said.

“What does that have to do with this?”

“It’s an emotional song, especially if you add the context. People listen to it and gain some hope about the future.”

“I mean,” Julie hesitated. “That’s the goal, yeah.” It’d been her hope for the future. Her mom had started writing it and Julie had finished it. It was almost like a duet, it still made her emotional at times. She hoped it had actually helped people, but she’d never had anyone come up to her and say as much.

“Julie,” he said with a little laugh. “You remember that one time I told you I listened to that song in a loop for an hour? Did you think it was because everything was going according to plan?”

“I thought you were exaggerating!” Of course she remembered, but she’d pretty much dismissed it because Luke always got overexcited. She didn’t even really know him back then, she hadn’t realized he was actually that interested in her music.

“No, I was just really sad,” he said though he was still smiling. “My relationship with my mom is rocky at best, I told you that. Sometimes you’re just sad for a while and someone told me that music can actually help? Insane.”

Julie breathed a laugh, but didn’t look away. He’d told her about his mom, about how she’d never really been on board with the whole band thing, about how they still fought about certain things sometimes. “I’m glad I was able to help then,” she said.

“I’m glad I ran into you before that interview,” Luke said. “Less glad that we waited over a year to kiss each other, but I feel like we’ve amended that.”

Julie ducked her head a bit, falling into Luke who wrapped his arms around her. “It’s a bit more complicated when the whole world is staring at you, waiting for something to happen.”

“I don’t care what the world wants,” Luke said. “But also this was exactly what the world wanted. We put out songs and juke is immediately trending everywhere.”

“In their defense, we keep writing songs about each other,” Julie said as she raised her head to look at him.

“Yeah, but it was subtle,” he said. “Also I have so many questions about you because I don’t get how the lyrics make sense.”

Julie stared back at him. “Are you gonna make me say it?” she said.

“Say what?” Luke asked and had the nerve to look genuinely confused.

"You're gonna make me say it," she said and took a deep breath, looking anywhere else but at him. “I might have had… like- a tiny, dare I say miniscule crush on you back then after that concert,” she said, wanting to somehow disappear off the face of the Earth.

“What?” Luke sounded delighted because of course he did.

“I shouldn’t have said that,” she sighed and tried to break free, but Luke still had his arms around her and there wasn’t anywhere for her to go. She didn’t really want to leave.

“No, no, please say more,” Luke insisted, still smiling. “Was I your celebrity crush?”

“You weren’t even a celebrity back then!”

“But you were smitten?”

“Who says ‘smitten’?” Julie couldn’t help but say. “Luke, you’re pretty. This is not news, I’m sure you’ve heard it before.”

“First time it actually matters.”

Julie thought she was talking herself out of this, but she just gaped at him. “You can’t say things like that.”

“I can’t?”

“What am I supposed to say to that?”

“I think you’re pretty too if that changes anything,” he said.

“Oh my God,” she said, slapping a hand over his mouth, blushing furiously. “You have to stop talking. Or talk about something else.”

Luke chuckled behind her hand, but moved his head back to talk. “So ‘watch this be the wrong thing’?”

“I didn’t know you back then. I didn’t think I’d ever see you again, so what’s the point in even daydreaming,” she said. “Also I haven’t really had any memorable relationships in my lifetime and being pessimistic about it helped with the fact that it was never going to amount to anything.” She'd written a song half about the past, half about the present and yet some fans had still managed to connect the dots, it was insane actually.

“And now?”

“I am actually invested,” Julie said, staring right back at him. “I’m not even kidding.”

Luke smiled before leaning in, kissing her softly. God, she would be happy just staying there for the rest of the night. She knew they couldn’t, but they were both done with the singing, they should be allowed to do whatever they wanted.

It was Julie’s phone that interrupted them, ringing somewhere in the background. Flynn was probably looking for her. They were lucky enough no one had bursted in to find them like this.

“I’m gonna miss the festival,” Julie said with a sigh. “It was a nice little bubble, no one taking random pictures, no one demanding anything…”

“Yeah, I know,” Luke agreed. “But it doesn’t change anything, you know that, right? I mean yes, the bubble is nice and it gives you a chance to finally feel free, but there’s no reason why we can’t be free to do whatever we want in the real world too.”

“I know,” she said. “But we better not be trending the second we step out of here.”

“Of course we will, you basically serenaded me in the middle of three thousand people,” he said. “You looked me in the eye.”

“No one knew you were there!” she tried to defend herself.

“What does that have to do with anything?” he said with a snort. “I could have been a chair, people would still say it was me.”

“Maybe we should just stop writing songs about each other altogether,” she said as if that would fix everything.

“You wrote Risk.”

“You wrote Bright.”

“That’s a tie.”

“It’s not a race, Luke,” she couldn’t help but say. As if she didn’t love the fact that they were actually writing songs about each other. Like that wasn’t a huge deal to her.

It wasn’t really something she wanted to sacrifice.

lukessleeves
okay, it’s not even funny at this point - do we think Luke and Julie are ever gonna stop writing songs about each other or is this how life is gonna be from now on?
#juke #luke patterson #julie molina #sunset curve #finally free

julieemolinaa, mynameisnotluke and 288 others liked your post

julieemolinaa reblogged your post
BEEN SO LONG AND NOW WE’RE FINALLY FREE???? WHAT DOES THAT MEAN LUKE??
#if that’s a relationship confirmation i’m gonna die #i’m gonna actually die #someone needs to stop this man #what is the rest of sunset curve doing? how are they allowing this? #juke

molinasdahlias reblogged your post
#something happened at the Orpheum festival #I’ve been saying it for a month now #juke

brightandfree
Luke and Julie could write literally any song and we will clown hard enough no matter what - the delulu is strong with this one
#juke #luke patterson #julie molina #sunset curve #finally free

shinetogether, horseiswheremyhomeis and 54 others liked your post

shinetogether reblogged your post
#it’s not delulu if it’s the truth #juke

candiesandcanes
I know juke is THE ship, but are we just ignoring all the carrie/luke sightings that have been happening lately? Like it’s been a month since the festival and they still hang out all the time? I think they’re kinda cute?
#carrie wilson #luke patterson #do they have a ship name?

carrieswilsonn, candycarrie and 96 others liked your post

carrieswilsonn reblogged your post
#RIGHT??? #not to mention julie was jamming to sunset curve #and when she performed luke was nowhere to be found #i know people want them to be a thing #but maybe move on?

mynameisnotluke replied to your post
@carrieswilsonn luke has literally only been hanging with dirty candy because of alex though?

carrieswilsonn
@mynameisnotluke then why are they alone in every single photo?

saywow
IS CARRIE WEARING A SUNSET CURVE T-SHIRT IN HER LAST POST?
#HAS THE LUKECARRIE SHIP SAILED? #I AM SCREAMING #lukecarrie #carrie wilson #luke patterson #dirty candy #sunset curve

candiesandcanes, dirtycandies and 451 others liked your post

molinasdahlias
Not the Dirty Candy fandom trying to make luke/carrie a thing…
#not gonna tag this for obvious reasons

horseiswheremyhomeis, mynameisnotluke and 398 others liked your post

carrieandthecandies
Not the juke fandom acting like they suddenly can’t see when all the proof is right in front of them…
#lukecarrie #carrie wilson #luke patterson

saywow, carrieswilsonn and 512 others liked your post

Chapter Text

carrieswilsonn
anyone else starting to get the feeling that finally free is not about Julie?👀
#lukecarrie #carrie wilson #luke patterson

sunsetcandy, saywow and 124 others liked your post

sunsetcandy reblogged your post
not to get parasocial on main, but I need them to confirm this like yesterday
#lukecarrie

dirtycandies
Listen, all I’m saying is that Carrie and Luke had never interacted with each other and now we keep seeing them together and we’ve barely seen Julie and Luke together in public in like- forever. Maybe it’s not so crazy?
#carrie wilson #luke patterson #lukecarrie

purplecandykayla, sunsetcandy and 179 others liked your post

sunsetsandbutterflies
Luke didn’t cover Risk days after it came out for all of you to seriously say that finally free is not about Julie. Be serious.
#julie molina #luke patterson #juke

revolutionintherain, juke-supremacy and 211 others liked your post

Julie sighed as she scrolled down her phone. She’d been awake for half an hour and in trying to clear some notifications from her phone, she’d ended up falling down a rabbit hole she couldn’t get out of.

She was fine. Really. It was fine, it was just that… Some things were a bit weird. And it wasn’t like Julie looked through every social media post, but she was getting tagged in stuff which made avoiding everything just a bit harder. Flynn had offered to take her accounts off her hands, but Julie had refused. She could navigate this, she was an adult.

Even if it was starting to get out of hand.

The soft rustling on the sheets caught her attention somewhere in the back of her mind, but not enough for her to put the phone away. She didn’t want to go through the hundreds of comments and she hadn’t been planning to, but there were so many of them and if you accidentally saw one, then they were all right there in your face and Julie needed to stop, but-

A little kiss on her shoulder sobered her up a bit. She turned her phone off with a sigh just as Luke snuggled even closer to her, his arm coming to wrap around her waist.

“Good morning,” he whispered, his words getting lost a bit from where his head was buried in her neck as he tried to wake up.

“Good morning,” she echoed, her voice more tense than it was warranted for not even an hour in her day as she stared at the ceiling.

She didn’t see him, but she felt Luke raising his head to look at her. He was silent until he reached over for her phone and took it out of her hands. Julie didn’t really complain, letting him drop it on his night stand.

Luke turned back to face her and she tore her gaze from the ceiling for a moment to look at him.

“Hi,” he said, giving her a little smile.

Julie couldn’t help the way her lips twitched up even after her deep dive in her socials. “Hi,” she said back.

“Anything new?” he asked.

“More of the same,” she said.

“Julie,” he started out.

“I know,” she said with a groan rolling over next to him on the bed with her face in her pillow. “It’s not my fault,” she added, her words coming out muffled. She turned to the side again. “People keep on tagging me in stuff for some reason and sometimes something will open accidentally.”

“Maybe we should just delete everything and drop off the face of the Earth,” he told her with a smile.

“It’s tempting,” she said, making him chuckle. She didn’t want to let random comments and theories dictate her life and she wasn’t going to. But sometimes… It wasn’t exactly easy.

“What if,” he started out, his hand coming out of the covers to interlace his fingers with Julie’s, “we start by having breakfast first and contemplate any nuclear options later.”

Julie stared at their hands a second longer. They’d officially been together for almost two months. Officially as far as their friends and families were concerned. And it was good. It was really good and Julie was really happy especially after waiting so long to finally do something about it. She wasn’t sure what had possessed her up on that stage to grab Luke and kiss him, but they were both thankful for it. So were their friends who were still teasing them but didn’t have a reason to place bets this time.

Julie was happy with Luke and she was in love. But lately there was also an uneasy feeling creeping up and settling like a weight on her chest every time she saw her name online. People had been talking for so long about how she and Luke should get together or were probably already together that she’d figured the comments would stop bothering her after she’d actually gotten together with him. Maybe this time they could actually laugh about it. Only something had changed at the exact wrong moment and what used to be a group of people saying that they were cute together had turned into two groups of people fighting each other.

Julie wasn’t even really sure how it’d started. Some photos had appeared and the Internet was running with them. It wasn’t even something incriminating, there wasn’t any real reason for people to believe there was anything between Luke and Carrie. Then again there hadn’t been any reason for anyone to believe there was anything between her and Luke in the beginning, not really. If enough fans thought they looked cute together the concept was born and then it was shared and then it got a name and suddenly it existed without even being real in the first place.

She didn’t want to care about what other people were saying. She knew exactly what was happening in her relationship. She knew Alex was hanging out with Dirty Candy and Luke had joined them sometimes. She knew he wasn’t cheating on her or would ever even think about doing anything to hurt her in the first place and most importantly she knew that things were going well between them. There was no reason to care about what some people thought was a cute couple. And she didn’t.

But she did a little. Just a little bit. Having a bunch of people telling you that your boyfriend should really be dating someone else wasn’t amazing. God, maybe she really should delete her socials.

Luke was up before her though Julie really made an effort to get up. She got dressed and followed him inside, side stepping a pile of boxes in the living room that had started taking over the space.

“You are running out of living room,” she said as she entered the kitchen.

“I don’t wanna talk about it,” Alex said, taking a sip of his coffee from where he was leaning against the counter.

“No, maybe you should talk about it because we can’t currently get to the couch,” Luke said as he opened the fridge and grabbed a carton of milk.

“Do you want to get rid of me that much?” Alex shot back.

Luke just stared back at him, raising an eyebrow. “Do you think guilt tripping is gonna get you out of clearing a path to the couch?”

Alex smiled as he looked back down at his coffee. “I thought it would take longer for me to pack,” he said. “Willie will be back on Friday, I will be out of your hair by the weekend. Until then I’m sure Julie’s couch is not obstructed by anything,” he added. “No shade to you, Jules, you are always welcomed here, Luke is the weird one.”

Julie breathed a laugh, grabbing a bowl to pour some cereal inside. She’d already started hanging out with the guys before she and Luke started dating, but these past couple of months she’d gotten closer with all of them, especially Alex and Reggie since she spent so much time at their place. She really liked them, Bobby too. They had their very own way of communicating, not really making sense to outsiders, yet perfectly clear to them. Julie had seen them perform multiple times by now and it was hard to beat the chemistry and flow they had on stage.

“These are the kind of comments I’m not gonna miss,” Luke said, taking one of the mugs out to pour some coffee in.

“As if you won’t be seeing each other every day?” Julie couldn’t help but say.

“Yeah, this whole band thing was probably ill advised…” Alex said with a sigh.

“Do not even joke about that,” Luke said, pointing a finger at him.

Alex rolled his eyes, turning his attention back to Julie. “How is the new album going?”

Julie’s new album had come out a couple of weeks ago and her face was officially everywhere. Articles and online interviews, tv segments, trending in socials all around, the fans were still screaming. People were listening to her songs on all platforms, the numbers just going up and up and the fans were theorizing and analyzing and that was all amazing and it made Julie want to interact with all of them as much as possible.

But at the same time she was the latest trend and that meant people were talking more about her and with that came everything else that usually did. The public had decided there was a possible love triangle between her, Luke and Carrie and they were running with it. Nevermind that it was all based on a few photos and the fact that they’d all taken part in the same festival. Julie had gotten better at navigating fame and everything that came with it, but sometimes it was just a bit too overwhelming.

“Really well,” she settled on. It wasn’t like she was lying, she was doing great career wise. Dreams she’d had since she was eight years old were coming true, that was no small feat. “Risk is still number one, but the rest of them are working their way up to it.”

“It’s a great song,” Luke said with a smirk, taking a sip from his own coffee as he sat down opposite Julie.

“I don’t like that you’re so cocky about it,” Julie said, only making him smile more.

“He doesn’t have a leg to stand on, he’s written like- a hundred songs about you,” Alex piped up.

“I thought it was just the two,” Julie said.

“That we recorded and released,” Alex said with a nod. “Go look through his journals and we can talk ag- Hey!” he called out, getting cut off when Luke grabbed a piece of cereal from the box and threw it at his face.

“You talk too much,” Luke said.

“He’s making some interesting points,” Julie said, now smirking at him.

“I don’t like that you two are friends,” Luke said with a sigh.

“Nobody asked you,” Alex shot back just as Reggie joined them, looking down at his phone, his expression scrunched up.

“Hey, have you seen this?” he said, looking back up and only then noticing Julie. “Oh! Julie, hi!”

“Hey,” she said, though was still hung up on his solemn entrance.

“What happened?” Luke asked.

“Uh…” Reggie suddenly trailed off, glancing over at Julie for a second. “It’s nothing,” he said, his voice going just a little higher. He really wasn’t a good liar.

Julie sighed, holding her head up with her hand as she leaned on the table. “What are they saying this time?”

“Nothing important,” Reggie said, looking over at his phone before turning back to them.

“Naturally,” Luke added.

“But uhm,” he started out again, still hesitating and Julie had seen and read a lot of things, she didn’t think it could really be that bad, could it? “There’s an article about the drama.”

“What drama?” Julie asked, dumbfounded for a second.

“The you two and Carrie drama,” Reggie said, now starting to sway a bit on his feet, obviously not keen on continuing. “There’s a timeline and everything.”

“A timeline of what? There is no drama,” Luke said, getting up to stand next to Reggie as he stared down at his phone.

“Well, they’re not saying it's confirmed, it’s just a lot of speculation and a lot of tweets,” Reggie amended, “but it seems like it’s mostly to avoid getting sued.”

“They’re trying to cash in on Julie’s popularity right now,” Alex said. “You’re everywhere, just putting your name on a title it’s gonna give them clicks, especially if it’s about any kind of drama.”

“But-” Julie tried to find the right words. She didn’t know what she wanted to say. No, actually that’s a lie, she knew exactly what she wanted to say, but did it matter? Certain people had set up a narrative for her and as far as they were concerned she might as well be living in it. Did it matter that it was so far from the truth? Did it matter that she knew what was actually going on? “They’re feeding into the rumors.”

“‘Patterson’s budding friendship with Carrie Wilson is rumored to have turned into much more than that’,” Luke read and raised his head back up to look at all of them. “I’m not even sure that Carrie likes me! Am I not allowed to talk to people anymore?”

“What if you never talk to her again?” Reggie said.

“That’s not a solution either,” Luke said. “Was I supposed to stop talking to Julie when everyone thought we were dating so they would stop? They can’t control my life.”

“But they are controlling the narrative,” Julie said. “As long as we’re not commenting on anything, this is the only thing that’s true.”

“We shouldn’t have to comment on anything just so they would leave us alone,” Luke said.

And sure, Julie agreed with that one hundred percent, she’d said so in the past. But it was also times like this that she felt compelled to say something just so the speculations would stop. People would be happy, wouldn’t they? Well, at least some of them.

It was just one stupid article that wanted to take advantage of her name being everywhere right now. It would go away.

It didn’t go away.

The week after that article came out, more and more started popping up, almost like they were piggybacking off of each other. There wasn’t anything new to say or even photos to add, but somehow new articles were still being written about this alleged love triangle. About how Luke and Julie may have written songs about each other. Or maybe one of them was about Carrie. Or maybe one of Julie’s new songs might have been about this whole situation. Julie couldn’t even see the correlation.

She had tried to ignore it. It would go away, once the craze over the album died down, it would go away and she wouldn’t have to worry about what new thing they’d have to say. Maybe she and Luke could be more careful about it. But what more was there to do? They couldn’t stop living their lives because someone might misunderstand situations and relationships. Julie was tempted to sometimes. Turn herself into a prisoner of the narrative more and more.

Until one day it hit her straight across the face.

“There’s been a lot of speculation lately about certain of your songs and who or what kind of situations might have inspired them. Would you say there’s any truth to any of them?”

The interviewer smiled like they were in on it together. Like it was a fun little question where if Julie’s media training suddenly failed they would have the biggest exclusive that would rock the Internet and get them promoted.

It was at that moment, live on air watched by who knows how many people that Julie realized just how much this thing had broken containment. Away from the fans, away from silly little posts and headcanons. It was out in the open for everyone to see. She kind of wanted to cry.

But she couldn’t and she didn’t.

She smiled and laughed and answered without really saying anything. And the interview continued.

“I’m gonna chew them out, I promise,” Flynn was saying on the way back to her place. “This was supposed to be about the album and they tried to turn it around on you for a rumor I bet you they know is not true.”

“It’s fine,” Julie said on autopilot, staring out her window.

“It’s not fine, Jules. You wrote and recorded an entire album and they wanted to gossip about imaginary drama,” she insisted. Julie was just determined to make it back home and deal with it once the door was closed. Away from the rest of the world.

Flynn dropped her off and Julie dragged herself upstairs. Was this how it was going to be from now on? Caught up in a made up thing until someone said something? Being blackmailed into saying something just so she could get everyone off her back? Throwing her relationship and herself out there for everyone to see and hope they’d be happy enough with the truth to stop making things up? What if they weren’t?

She got in, closing the door behind her as she took a shaky breath.

What if they weren’t?

“Julie?”

She turned around to find Luke rushing to her. Like something bad had happened. He’d stayed over last night and they’d agreed he would wait for her to finish the interview. He’d probably seen it. He looked like something bad had happened. Maybe it had.

He pulled her into a hug and Julie just went with it, not saying anything more. She didn’t have to. She fell into him, her eyes tearing up as she did. Maybe she started crying. Because maybe something bad had actually happened.

“I’m so sorry,” Luke whispered into her hair.

What was she supposed to say? She was sorry too. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. She wanted to be happy. She’d been happy. And for those few fleeting moments during the festival everything had been perfect. And now she was suddenly living two different lives. Her own and the one the public had created for her. She’d been able to keep them separate, just random things some people would say that didn’t have to affect her. But now it was bleeding into her reality and Julie was just there. Trying to live her life and keep it to herself at the same time. She didn’t have the bubble anymore, it was long gone by now. She had to share if she wanted to exist, to keep everyone happy.

But what if they still weren’t?

One week later they tried to ambush Luke too. Sunset Curve didn’t have a reason to have interviews lined up, so he’d been able to avoid it for the most part. Some people didn’t exactly have boundaries though and he’d ended up with a microphone in front of him in the middle of the street. He’d told Julie about it but even if he hadn’t the articles seemed to pop up every time she went online. He hadn’t answered, but he’d definitely been less diplomatic than Julie. In an aggressively polite way.

Julie had started getting hate mail. It wasn’t enough to overpower the positive responses, but it was there. And social media was a whole other thing entirely. Most of the replies to her stories nowadays were questions about Luke and about Carrie and so were the comments in recent posts and photos and there were also the people who really didn’t want her to be with Luke whether that meant he was with Carrie or sometimes not even that and felt the need to say so in her account.

As far as she was aware, Luke was also getting hated on for certain things. Whether it was for dumping Julie for Carrie or stringing Julie along while he wanted to be with Carrie or still being friends with Julie while he was dating Carrie- well, Julie had lost count. She didn’t want to know anything anymore. They hadn’t even done anything wrong. That was apparently not enough.

She was tired and she was overwhelmed and the fact that she’d released a brand new album and instead of being excited and ready to perform she was being interrogated about her love life was not fair. The fact that she’d finally gotten together with the boy she liked after so long and instead of being happy and in love she was being hated on wasn’t fair.

It shouldn’t have been a random comment that broke her, not after all the others. Maybe it was just the culmination of everything. She hadn’t really had a second to breathe, had she?

So yeah, maybe she should have developed some thicker skin, but she hadn’t and when she’d seen just another reply to her story that had been something along the lines of ‘you’d better not be with Luke right now’ something inside her just broke.

She tossed her phone on the coffee table so hard it fell down, startling Luke as he was coming back from the kitchen.

“What happened?” he asked.

“What more can happen?” Julie muttered as she got up and started gathering her things, throwing everything inside her bag.

“Wait, wait, Julie, what are you doing?” he tried to stop her, coming closer to stand on her other side. “Where are you going?”

“Home,” she said, picking up her phone from the floor and stuffing it in with everything else.

“Jul- wait a second,” he said, grabbing her wrist, effectively making her stop. “What happened?” he asked again.

“I don’t know, Luke, how about everything that’s been going on these past couple of weeks?” she snapped.

“Julie,” he said, his voice softer as his hand slid down to take her own instead.

“I-” she started to say, feeling her voice wobble. She took a deep breath instead, taking her hand back. “I can’t keep doing this. I- It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I don’t even know how it got this out of hand.”

“That’s not our fault, we never did anything wrong,” he said.

“Does it matter? Some people believe we did. And some believe we just don’t know what we want. And some people really just don’t like us,” she said with a shrug, feeling her eyes tear up. She’d been crying a lot these past few days. “It doesn't matter. The result is the same.”

“Of course it matters, Julie! Nobody gets to tell us how to live our lives,” he said, ready to forsake everything and everyone.

Julie’s lips twitched up, but there was nothing happy about it. “Kind of hard to ignore when it’s everywhere.” She just wanted to go home. She wasn’t sure why they were having this conversation. “I’m tired, Luke. I’m so tired of everyone demanding an explanation. And knowing they probably won’t be happy with the answer either. There are so many people who hate me. Like actually hate me. Not my music, me as a person. Just for being or not being in a relationship. This was not how it was supposed to happen.”

“I know, Julie, I know, but what is the alternative?” he said, his tone becoming more and more desperate as they talked. Julie kind of hated that. But she also didn’t know what else to do. “You can’t make everyone happy no matter what you do! I know it fucking sucks, but it’s gonna die down, we just need to give it a second.”

Julie felt like she was running out of time. “Maybe we should give ourselves a second.”

It wasn’t what she’d started out to say, it wasn’t even what she wanted, but there they were. Luke was staring back at her like she’d slapped him, like she’d told him she hated him. How was she supposed to explain that this wasn't what she wanted but it was still too much for her?

“You don’t mean that,” he eventually said into the silence that followed.

“Luke-”

“What would it change?” he cut her off. “Say we break up right now, what would change? Nobody would know. Nobody even knows we’re together! Why do we have to be miserable at the same time?”

“Are you happy?” Julie asked, keeping her voice level.

“I’m happy with you!” he said

“But are you happy in general?” she pushed on. “With the constant hate and scrutinizing and invasive questions, are you happy with all of that?”

Luke stared back at her without saying anything. It wasn’t like Julie didn’t believe he made sense, but he couldn’t deny she was right too. They weren’t happy. Maybe they were happy with each other, maybe they lo-

But they weren’t happy in general. And maybe Julie couldn’t stop people from talking about her, but she could take a step away from the whole situation. What was a bit more pain on top of everything else?

“The festival was nice because it was ours,” she said. “There is no bubble out here. And it’s only gotten worse these past few weeks.” She took another shaky breath. She didn’t want to cry, not right now, not when she was still trying to process what she was doing. “I am happy with you, but I’m drowning the rest of the time." The tears she’d been trying to hold back were already falling down her face. So much for trying to hold back. "I’m sorry.”

Luke reached out for her, his hand hovering mid air between them, hesitating. Julie hated every second of it. He pushed past it, wiping a few tears away with his thumb as he cupped her face. Julie relished at the feeling. Wished she could stay there forever. Wished there wasn’t a whole other world outside waiting for her, watching and commenting on her every move.

She put her own hand over his, moving it away softly. Before she lost the nerve and broke down on Luke’s floor instead. “I’m sorry,” she said again, grabbing her bag and leaving the apartment before they could say anything more. There was nothing more to be said. At least nothing more that would fix this. They hadn’t done anything wrong, it was just… The world. The expectations. The overwhelming feeling of… Everything.

She spent a few hours crying, another few hours staring at the ceiling and at some point she called Flynn.

“Hey,” Flynn said, pulling her into a hug as soon as she walked through the door. Julie went with it, though she didn’t exactly move as much.

“You still want to take over my accounts?” she said instead, her voice coming out flat.

Flynn pulled back to look at her. “I can."

“Okay,” Julie said with a nod. “Just change the passwords, I don’t need to know how to log in,” she added. She didn’t know why she’d be tempted to check if more people were hating on her, but she wanted to cover her bases.

“Is there- Do you wanna talk about it?” Flynn asked her. “We might be able to figure something out.”

“No- Not right now,” Julie said, pushing her hair away from her face. “But I want to do something else first.”

molinasdahlias
Anyone else feel like shit today?✋
#julie molina

julieemolinaa, candiesandcanes and 174 others liked your post

comeonreginald replied to your post
what did I miss?

molinasdahlias
@comeonreginald oh you know, just the most heartbreaking mashup I’ve ever heard from two songs that weren’t supposed to be sad

life-is-a-risk reblogged your post
No, but the hate comments she’d been getting lately? Kind of insane if you think this whole thing started because people had a couple headcanons
#julie molina

sunsetsandbutterflies reblogged your post
No, this whole thing started when people started tagging all of them in inappropriate and invasive stuff because they forget their favorite artists are also real people with private lives. Do I think Julie and Luke are cute together? Sure. Am I gonna keep asking them both if they actually are together in every single platform they’re on? Hell no.
#julie molina #luke patterson #juke #carrie wilson

alleyesonme reblogged your post
#I don’t even really listen to either of them and I still kind of teared up #I don’t know what’s going on but that girl is in pain #julie molina

julieemolinaa reblogged your post
I know she turned the comments off on that post, but if I see literally anyone else say anything bad on the other ones I’m gonna bite someone’s head off. She turned two upbeat songs into a heartbreaking ballad and some people are still going on and on about ship wars. Who the fuck cares? And yes this is coming from someone who has been on board the juke train for a while now. I promise you if there’s any truth to any of this no one is inviting you to the wedding either way. Grow up and start treating people with respect.

dirtycandies reblogged your post
This one hundred percent. So many lines were crossed by certain people whether they were fans or the media. Why bring the actual people into this? They don’t need to know I exist! All this to say, I don’t know if there was ever a relationship in there, but we fucked it up and now we have a Risk x Bright mashup that literally said 

I felt like I needed some help
Stuck in my head
With nothing left
I wake up
In the middle of the night
With the light on
And you're not here

Hope you’re happy because that doesn’t sound like fun.
#julie molina #luke patterson #carrie wilson

Julie stared at the wall under her covers in the dark. There, it was done. One last love letter out for the public to see so she could bow out of this whole thing.

They’d won. Now no one was happy.

Chapter Text

lukessleeves
Every time I think we’re done with the pain something new happens
#luke patterson

sunsetsandbutterflies, mynameisnotluke and 354 others liked your post

mynameisnotluke reblogged your post
#why do I feel like we’re going through a break up era #we never even knew whether they were dating #but the lyrics are killing me #luke patterson #juke

juke-supremacy
“haunted by the moments of what we used to be” this is fine, I am fine, this is fine-
#juke #luke patterson

horseiswheremyhomeis, comeonreginald and 397 others liked your post

curved-sunset reblogged your post
#how many times have you watched that video? #I kinda need this song officially released like yesterday #luke patterson

comeonreginald reblogged your post
I don’t know what has happened, I don’t know if they were dating, but I need some kind of miracle right about now to put them back together okay? No more sad songs for a few months, please
#luke patterson #julie molina #juke

“How long has he been like this?”

“About two days.”

“So what, he just posted the video and didn’t get up again?”

“Pretty much.”

“You know I can hear you, right?” Luke called out, but didn’t make a move to acknowledge them in any other way.

“That is kind of the point,” Bobby said. Luke wasn’t sure why they weren’t leaving him be, he was perfectly happy just becoming one with his bed while life continued for everyone else.

He was aware enough to know he was a mess. Julie had broken up with him a week and a half ago, ten days to be precise, and now life just sucked. Maybe if they didn't work out together or they just didn’t like each other all that much, then maybe it would have been fine. Maybe it would have hurt, but it would make sense and it’d be better for both of them.

But this? Nothing about this was right. Luke didn’t want to break up. Not even Julie wanted to break up! And maybe if they were two random people on Earth they would still be together because they’d been happy together, right? That much they could both admit.

The fact remained though, they weren’t two random people. They were two very specific people that were well known enough for the public to have opinions about their lives. Well known enough for the media to push whatever narratives they wanted to in order to stand out.

Luke wasn’t even sure how the whole ‘drama’ had come to be. One day he was dating Julie and then suddenly the next he was allegedly dating Carrie but maybe not, and maybe he was dating Julie, but maybe not, and maybe he’d broken up with one of them to get together with the other one, but also maybe not. That was his life right now. A series of maybes, theories and adding allegedly in front of everything so none of them could sue.

He was tired.

And sad.

Mostly sad.

He’d seen Julie’s video. It’d felt final. Like she’d closed the door on them forever. Luke was nothing if not stubborn, but he didn’t know how he was supposed to fix this. How do you fix a situation where neither of you really did something wrong? He couldn’t tell the media to shut up or somehow convince people not to hate them for arbitrary reasons. At the end of the day people were going to do whatever they wanted to do. And Julie wanted to break up. It would have been easier if she actually did want to break up.

“Okay, come on,” he heard Bobby’s voice again. “Time to get up.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Luke mumbled into his pillow.

“How is this helping anything, Luke?” Bobby asked with a sigh.

“How is anything going to help anything?” Luke called out, genuinely irritated, sitting up faster than he’d expected. He was actually expecting an answer. Anything would do, really, he just needed to find a way out of this, there had to be one. He refused to live in a world where he and Julie wanted to be together but weren’t. They did that already, he preferred the alternative.

His three best friends stared back at him, but before anyone could say anything else an alarm went off on someone’s phone.

“Shit, the brownies,” Reggie said and went running back outside and presumably in the kitchen. Luke hadn’t really been paying attention but the smell of chocolate in the air was definitely more intense now.

“May we bribe you with a brownie?” Alex said, nodding towards the living room. 

They were not as codependent as everyone was making them out to be. Okay, maybe just a little bit, but they really didn’t spend every single second of their time together. The fact that both Bobby and Alex chose to come by was a pretty clear sign that they meant business, Luke knew that. When one of them was going through something, the others tried to get him through, it was what they always did. Especially ever since they started becoming more and more popular and suddenly more and more people were coming for them and their personal lives.

He didn’t really want to, but he dragged himself inside, falling straight into the couch instead. Maybe a brownie would heal him. It probably wouldn’t.

“It was a nice song,” Alex tried to be supportive.

“It’s half a song,” Luke sighed. He just had so many things going through his head, he needed to get them out and music had always been his way. Then the song started getting depressing and he started getting sadder, so he’d just left it unfinished. He’d mostly uploaded the video for Julie, hoping that she would see it and maybe say something, reach out. That had been two days ago. A little voice in the back of his head was telling him to accept the reality of the situation, but an even louder voice refused to do so. “She didn’t even say anything.”

“She probably didn’t see it,” Reggie said, coming back in with no brownies. At everyone’s looks, he hurried to add as he sat down next to Luke on the couch, “I mean she’s not online anymore. Flynn said that she took over everything.”

Just to be clear, when Luke had said that they should delete everything and disappear, he’d been joking. But he’d also seen how affected Julie had been from what was going on. It had escalated in such a short amount of time. People had been mostly quietly shipping them together and when they actually did get together it was like everyone decided they wanted drama instead. 

Luke was so fucking sure they could have made it work if the public hadn’t suddenly thrown Carrie in the mix. He wasn’t even sure if she was aware of what had been going on. She must have been, right? She was a bigger name than both of them, people must have been reaching out to her too. Luke didn’t really know her well enough to say anything. And that was part of the irony of the situation. Maybe he could have asked Alex to say something, but what would that even be? Hey, can you tell everyone to shut up for a second?

“Probably a good idea for now,” Bobby mused.

“To disappear?” Luke asked.

“To step away from this mess for a second,” he said.

“Is this supposed to make me feel better?” Luke retorted, his tone rather dry. Was the mess their relationship? The reactions? The media? Was everything just all tangled up together?

“So many people are trying to tear her down, Luke, that’s not fun for anyone,” Bobby insisted, not stepping down. Yes, Luke knew that and he knew what was going on, but he just wanted to know that she was okay. Maybe if he knew she was okay, that this had been the right step for her, maybe then he could find a way to move on and be okay with it. Probably not. But he knew Julie wasn’t okay either, so what was he supposed to do with that?

“So what? Do we just leave it like that?” he said. “Let the public define whatever we are? Should I start dating Carrie to make everyone happy?”

“I don’t think Carrie would be up for that,” Alex piped up. Luke just groaned, falling back on the couch and letting himself slide down a bit.

“Have you thought about coming clean?” Reggie said. Luke turned his head a little to look at him, though he didn’t really move. “Just say that none of it is true and end it there. What are they gonna say after that?”

Of course Luke had thought about it, but what if he tried to stop the rumors and somehow made them worse? What if someone called it damage control, what if he said it was all a lie and then got back together with Julie and people were even worse than before? He didn’t know what the right move here was. God, he hadn’t talked to Julie in ten days and he didn’t know what to do with himself.

“I don’t wanna end up making things worse for her,” he said instead. “She has a few public appearances lined up because of the album, she doesn’t need to answer more questions about anything I might say.”

He still remembered that interview she’d done when they realized that people were about to start asking them directly to comment on the whole situation. It wasn’t just a silly post here and there anymore, it was articles and videos and gossip and people trying to connect the dots and Julie had been the first to be asked to clarify what was going on. And she’d done great as far as everyone was aware, but Luke had had a first row seat to the reality of the situation, he couldn’t put her through that again.

She’d mentioned she was jealous of them sometimes. Luke could never even begin to think why Julie could be jealous of anything, but it was times like this that he kind of got it. Luke wasn’t as easily hounded because most of his public appearances weren’t alone. It was easier to navigate certain questions when you were out there with your best friends, harder to be cornered and pressured into answers he didn’t want to give.

Luke would really just go out there right now and tell the world he loved Julie. Scream it from the rooftops even. But that wasn’t the point, was it? He didn’t owe that to anyone and definitely not because he’d basically been blackmailed into it. Not to mention that if anyone was going to hear it first that would be Julie and not the public. 

And wasn’t that just another thing that was killing him inside? He didn’t even get to tell her he loved her. And now he didn’t know if he would ever get a chance to.

“I think this was meant for you.”

Julie felt somewhat disconnected. It was weird. Sure, the constant onslaught of messages was overwhelming, but she suddenly had no idea what was going on. Were people still fighting? Did they hate her and Luke and Carrie? Had they caught on after her video?

The media had found exactly what they’d been looking for though and that was harder to avoid. Julie still had a phone and her phone knew who she was, so it reacted accordingly, showing her things she was supposed to be interested in every time she was in the near vicinity of the Internet.

Still when she took the phone from Flynn’s hands to see what she was talking about she didn’t expect that. She knew music wasn’t just her thing and if Luke was going to process this somehow, he would turn to singing too. She hadn’t expected a whole new song though. Unfinished. Clearly.

“This came out two days ago,” she said, still staring down at the phone. She was pretty sure there were a few tears going down her face. She hadn’t really seen or talked to Luke in ten days, she didn’t know what to do with herself.

“I wasn’t sure if you’d want to see it, but I thought you should,” Flynn said on the other side of the couch. “Neither of you is happy, Jules.”

As if Julie wasn’t aware. She knew there would be no good outcome, but she had no idea where she was going from here. She couldn’t live in the dark forever. She’d have to go back to the real world soon enough. She had a new album, she was supposed to keep going out there and smile and laugh and sing. Hiding was easy, but she would eventually have to face the issue.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do here,” she said, finally looking back up. “I either sacrifice my life or I sacrifice my privacy, I don’t get both.”

“Julie, you’re not gonna stay alone forever just because someone might say something at some point, that’s insane,” Flynn said. “This was sudden and it was overwhelming, but it’s also gonna go away. It’s the circle of life. People go insane until they find something new to be angry about.”

“Yeah the concentrated expressions of hate weren’t fun,” Julie said, her voice coming out monotone. She’d never really thought there was anything she could do to get that many people to hate her that much. Apparently it didn’t take a lot.

“I know,” Flynn said with a sigh and Julie just fell into her, with her head on her lap, hiding just a tiny bit more from the world for a second. She just needed to think. “I did get at least ten accounts shut down, you have no idea how many times they got reported.”

Julie snorted. Of course she had.

God, she just… She needed to get her life back together. She needed to start functioning like a normal person again. She’d been dragging herself around for the past ten days, pretending the outside world didn’t exist, pretending everything was normal. Well, except for the very real fact that she’d broken up with her boyfriend. She just… She didn’t know what to do.

She didn’t know what she was supposed to tell Luke. She didn’t even know if Luke would jump right back into a relationship with her after the way she’d ended things. And if they did pick it up right where they’d left off? Did everything else disappear? Did they announce it to the world? Would that make people hate them less or more? And did Julie even want to tell the world she loved Luke? She hadn’t even told Luke himself.

She’d said as much hadn’t she? Too soon to tell you I love you. Too late actually, she’d gotten that part wrong. How was she even supposed to perform that song right now? The one song she’d be asked about the most because it was still miles away from everything else in the album. Would she just go up there and sing about a crush that had turned into so much more while in reality it’d crashed and burn?

Watch this be the wrong thing, classic. She’d gotten that part right. One way or the other it hadn’t worked out. And now Julie had to live with that.

She found herself alone a few minutes later, staring at the ceiling. Thinking. Flynn had left to go bring them some food and Julie was just trying to untangle the mess that was her head lately. She couldn’t stay in there forever. She couldn’t not talk to people forever.

And she really couldn’t just cut Luke out of her life. She had no idea what that meant right now, but it was the truth. She’d been so scared of getting in a relationship with him and what that could potentially do to their friendship because he was too important to her. The possibility of never speaking to him again? She couldn’t even imagine that. They hadn’t talked to each other in ten days and it was already weird.

But what would she even begin to say right now? Hey, nothing has really changed, what’s up with you? Oh, he wrote a song. That’s right. About her. Again. She didn’t need anyone to confirm it this time. She’d been in pain when she'd made that mashup. She was still in pain now. So was Luke, she could hear as much. She hated herself for that too a little. Just a bit more hate to add to the pile, it was fine, she was no one’s favorite right now.

There was a knock on the door and she pretty much had to drag herself from the couch to go open it.

“What did you forge-” the question died on her lips. Because it was very much not her best friend staring back at her.

“Hi.”

Because on the other side of the door, looking nonchalant as ever in a hoodie and sunglasses, staring back at Julie like it made perfect sense for her to be right there because why wouldn’t she, was Carrie Wilson.

In her apartment.

Saying hi.

What the fuck?

“You’re with me?” she said when Julie didn’t say anything.

“I- yeah, uh, hi,” Julie stumbled a bit over her words, still not sure what was going on here. She had Carrie Wilson standing in her doorway.

“Are we gonna stand here?” Carrie said, once again like Julie had actually invited her over.

She moved to the side to let her in, mostly out of shock than anything else. “How did you find my address?” she said, closing the door behind her without taking her eyes off of Carrie.

“I wanted to talk to you,” Carrie said, taking her glasses and hood off now that there was no one else around. Yeah, the media would have a field day with this one.

“You wanted to talk to me,” Julie repeated. Did that make sense? It didn’t even answer her question. Did things just happen when you were that big of a name?

“Yeah, I figured I should,” Carrie nodded along slowly like Julie was the weird one for not getting it. To be honest, Julie still didn’t know if she liked Carrie or not. She hadn’t been the most welcoming person in the festival, but she'd actually been hanging out with Alex and maybe the rest of the guys, she couldn’t be that bad, right? She was just another victim in this whole drama situation.

“We don’t… know each other,” Julie managed to say, following her further into the living room where she just fell on the couch, settling there like she owned the place. Julie took a seat on the armchair on her other side. She was about to have a conversation with Carrie Wilson in her living room. Okay, sure.

“We met at the Orpheum festival, didn’t we?” Carrie said. “Not to mention that we’re in the same love triangle, that brings people closer together,” she added with a smirk. “You haven’t done this before, have you?”

“Have my life dissected like that? Not really, no,” Julie answered, some irritation starting to creep in. Above anything else she was pissed. From the second this whole thing had started she’d been so angry she felt she had no agency.

“Well, it’s my third time, so I figured we could talk,” Carrie said, her tone never wavering.

“This is your third love triangle?” Julie said. She’d listen to Carrie’s music before she’d even gotten in the industry, but she’d never really followed her that close to know any details about her personal life.

“Yeah, people love that for me,” she said, turning a bit more sarcastic. “Not a single one of them was actually real. You know there’s nothing between Luke and I, right?”

“Yeah,” Julie answered. She’d never questioned that.

“Good, we can skip that part,” she said. “You broke up with him, didn’t you?”

“Uh…” She doubted anyone had told her they were even together to begin with. “Did Alex-”

“No, I just have eyes,” Carrie cut her off. “Actually ears. I’ve met Luke five times and all he does is talk about music and you, it’s not that hard to make the connection. And I saw your videos. Neither of you seemed happy."

“I’m sorry, are you here to get us back together?” Julie couldn’t help but ask. It just seemed a bit excessive that one of the biggest names in the music industry right now was interested in her relationship. Or lack thereof.

“Not really, you can do whatever you want,” she said, repositioning herself to lean closer to the edge. “I’m here because we got stuck in the same shit show.”

“So?”

“You don’t seem to be handling it well,” Carrie stated like it was obvious. Which it probably was, but Julie wanted to pretend it wasn’t.

“I’m fine, I just got a new album out,” she tried to defend herself even though she doubted it sounded believable after everything that’d gone down.

“Yes and people took advantage of that to talk about us three,” Carrie retorted. “I also see what happens, I’m not blind.”

“You haven’t said anything,” Julie was quick to say.

“If I addressed every single rumor they say about me I’d never actually make any music,” Carrie said with a chuckle. “There’s always something new to keep things interesting. A few months ago they thought I was dating Kayla, now they think I’m dating Luke. I’m sure next month they’re gonna find someone else. What am I supposed to do? Answer every comment?”

“So you’re just fine with people hating you for no reason?”

“People have been hating me for no reason ever since I was ten,” Carrie stated as a matter of factly. “You think there’s anything I could have possibly done back then to cause that? They take a peek into one aspect of your life, they think they know everything about you and when they realize they don't, they get angry and some people will be assholes about it. This month they decided we’re in a love triangle because I talked to Luke once. You know, I’m not even sure I like the guy, no offense.”

“You’re making it harder not to be,” Julie couldn’t help but say. In a weird way she was pretty sure Carrie was there to help her. In an ever weirder way she didn’t understand why. “You still haven’t exactly told me why you’re here.”

“Is it that hard to believe I might just be a nice person?” Carrie said.

“No, but you also just kinda flat out told me you don’t really care about my boyfriend so you know.”

“I thought he was your ex?” Carrie asked with a little smirk, tilting her head a bit.

Yeah, that… had slipped out. Julie honestly didn’t know where they stood. It was a break up, it had felt like a break up, they hadn’t talked since then, they were essentially broken up, free to do whatever they wanted. But still- “It’s complicated,” she said.

“Right,” Carrie said, still looking a bit smug, but her expression started softening out eventually. “The first time I went through this I was nineteen. There was a guy from my school, we’d dated on and off for a couple of years, but neither of us was really feeling it anymore. We stayed friends, he was trying to make it into music too. And then one day I woke up and apparently we’d been dating all along, but he’d left me for his drummer and she hated me. I’m sure someone somewhere started that whole thing, people will speculate about whatever they want, but it wasn’t until that morning-”

“That it actually felt real,” Julie finished for her. She’d learned to deal with the fact that more and more people would be talking about her and she’d never even know. She was actually fine about that. It was the things they made sure to tell her just to make sure she knew they didn’t like her that hurt.

“Yeah,” she said. “It wasn’t fun. And it did kind of ruin my actual relationship at the time because we were young and inexperienced and we didn’t know how to handle this.”

“You broke up?”

“Eventually,” Carrie said with a little nod. “When you’re famous people expect to learn certain things about you. There is a fine line between acceptable and invasive. And after a while you stop caring about certain things.”

“You stopped caring about people invading your privacy?” Julie asked.

“I never really had privacy until I realized I needed it,” she said. “My dad is Trevor Wilson, I am his daughter, I lived with him until I was eighteen, I was pretty much born into this. Sometimes it was fun and sometimes it made me a spoiled brat, but the world has been aware of my existence since forever. People actually decided I was gonna go into music before I did. Imagine if I hadn’t.” Her lips twitched up, her tone remaining casual though Julie couldn’t overlook the actual meaning of her words. “I know we’re not friends and maybe we’ll never talk again after today, but I’ve been where you are and it’s not fun. What I came here to ask is, are you okay?”

If you’d told Julie that one day she’d have Carrie Wilson in her living room asking her if she was okay, she would have probably laughed. Then again if you told her she’d be in an imaginary love triangle with her and Luke she wouldn’t have believed it either. But the truth of the situation was she wasn’t the same person she'd been a few years ago. Weirder things have happened.

“I don’t know,” she answered honestly. “It’s not like I never expected anyone to hate me, but I always thought it’d be my music not me. And especially not for things they don’t even know whether they’re true.”

Carrie snorted. “That barely matters sometimes.”

“Yeah, what the fuck?” Julie said. She’d started out sad, sure, but now she was pissed, that much was true and it was not going away. “I wrote an entire album, I released it and I have so much to say about that and yet some interviewers are still trying to push the whole conversation to the drama,” she said, over exaggerating just a bit in the end. “And all of it for no reason. Because what? You were near each other a couple of times and Alex gave you a Sunset Curve t-shirt?” She groaned. “I wanna do a normal interview. I wanna go play with puppies and answer stupid questions, Carrie. I don’t hate you! I barely know you actually. And I don’t think Luke was cheating on me, I kind of love him. Like so much. And I can’t believe I’m sitting right here saying that to you and not him.”

Carrie was staring back at her at the end of her rant, but she didn’t seem taken aback. “Cool,” she said. “Just an fyi, be careful with the puppy interview, I adopted two of those dogs and I already had another one at home.”

Julie sighed, a hand going through her hair. “I don’t want a dog right now, I want my life back.”

“Even better,” Carrie said. “You know, I-”

She was cut off when the front door opened, Flynn coming inside with a bag of takeout. “I was thinking, we call Carrie, hope she’s not a stuck-up b-”

“I’m gonna stop you right there,” Julie said before she could continue.

Flynn turned around to face them just as she closed the door and to her credit, she didn’t freeze. No, if anything she mostly looked confused, not really bothered by her previous comment. “Huh,” was all she said.

“I try not to be a stuck-up bitch most days,” Carrie said.

“Well, we can work with that,” Flynn said, coming over and dropping the food on the coffee table. “What did I miss?” she asked, taking a seat on the other side of the couch.

“I broke up with Luke,” Julie said, still a bit preoccupied on her previous spiral.

Flynn stared back at her. “Yes,” she said slowly, “a while ago. What did you do to her?” She turned to ask Carrie.

“She was fine five seconds ago,” Carrie retorted. “Well, spiraling about the world a bit, but who hasn't? A good breakdown leads to catharsis.”

“I’m sorry, what are you doing here again?” Flynn asked, still trying to make sense of everything. “Are you two friends now?”

“Carrie’s been through some stuff,” Julie said.

“I broke up with my girlfriend because they got us mixed up in a love triangle with a friend of mine years ago,” Carrie explained.

“Ye- wait, you were dating his drummer?” Julie broke out of her own haze for a second.

“Yeah, they really got that whole situation wrong,” she said with a huff. “It didn’t end well. Unfortunately some things you learn the hard way.”

“Yeah,” Julie echoed. She’d regretted her decision the moment she’d done it, but there were just so many things going on, she couldn’t handle it. There was a constant buzzing and she was afraid it was never going to stop, but ever since she’d left Luke’s apartment that day there was no noise at all. Julie had never liked the quiet. Quiet was all she’d had after her mom had died and she’d lost herself in it. She couldn’t allow that again.

“What exactly were you going to ask me if I wasn’t a stuck-up bitch?” Carrie asked Flynn.

“Well, first I would drag Julie out of bed, but she seems determined right now and I love that,” Flynn said, looking over at her. Julie had started feeling determined. Julie had started feeling a lot of things. “Take a selfie or something. Let me post it and we can break the Internet. Again. People will see that you’re friends, there’s no bad blood between anyone and this whole insanity can come to an end.”

“You thought I would say no to a selfie?” Carrie said.

“Up until five minutes ago I had never talked to you before,” Flynn said.

“And now?”

“I think I can get away with an actual video too,” Flynn said. Carrie didn’t say anything, just breathed a little laugh.

“No,” Julie said, a different idea forming in her head. Something she should have honestly done days ago.

“No?” Flynn repeated. “You have another plan?”

“I have something,” Julie said because it was definitely not a carefully thought out plan. If anything it was her barging back in with no care about the aftermath.

“Sounds unhinged, tell me more,” Flynn said.

“Not unhinged,” Julie said. Though that would probably come later. First she was taking back her life, then she was mending what was broken. She’d really stayed quiet for too long.

“So, I haven’t been here in a few days because I thought that would fix things, but that was apparently wrong because avoiding the whole situation didn’t really make it stop, did it? The hate comments didn’t stop and all the hate messages didn’t stop and honestly the onslaught of questions on random posts didn’t stop either. 

“I’d never had so many people interested in my life before, it’s actually still jarring at times. I never had so many people caring about whether I was in a relationship, who I was in a relationship with, really wanting me to be in a relationship with someone or really not and I definitely didn’t have so many people randomly hating me out of the blue for something that doesn’t affect them in the least. It’s certainly been an experience.

“So, to hopefully move on to literally anything else in my comment sections and upcoming interviews let me be clear. Maybe I’m dating someone. Maybe I’m not. And maybe it’s the exact person you want it to be or maybe it's not and maybe you want them to be with someone else- It doesn’t matter. I’m not gonna be blackmailed into revealing anything I don’t want to, I do not owe anyone details about my personal life and if that’s a deal breaker I will gladly lose the followers.

“What I do know is that this can’t keep going on as is. If you don’t like me that’s fine, find someone else you do and say something nice. If you’re here because you’re just waiting for a relationship confirmation I’m sorry to disappoint you but that’s not going to happen just because you really want it. I’m not perfect by any means, but I’m also not gonna go public with something just to get people to stop screaming at me about my love life. I would appreciate it if you stopped asking me. There’s no right comment that will make me reveal everything, honestly. I hope this is clear enough to avoid misunderstandings in the future. 

“I am done being sad about things that don’t even really have to do with me, I am done trying to fit in whatever new narrative we have going on each day and most importantly I am done putting my life on hold because of it. So, if you want to talk about my music, you are welcomed to stay, there are a lot of things coming now that the album is out. I know I could make an hour long video and I will still keep getting the same questions again, I can’t stop anyone from saying whatever they want. I just… Let’s say I hope. Hope this little reel is enough to remind you I’m an actual person too and I deserve some privacy like the rest of you.

“I’ll talk to you again soon. Hopefully about something more pleasant. I’ll just go put my life back together really quick.”

Ten days was hardly a huge amount of time, yet Julie felt like it’d been way too long. She’d been staring at her phone for the past half hour, thinking of what to say. What was she supposed to say? Hey? What’s up? Nothing felt adequate enough and it was infuriating. If she could count on anything between her and Luke it was the easy flow of conversation they seemed to have from the beginning. Someone would start and the rest was history. 

It was easy. It’d always been easy. And now she had no idea what to say.

Flynn hadn’t been subtle when she’d said that it didn’t really matter what she said, Luke would definitely answer. She was still in contact with the guys, there was no doubting her words.

But Julie didn’t just want to say something. Julie had said so much to the world, meant every single word and she’d barely rehearsed any of it. She wasn’t going to keep going like that. Plain and simple. Luke though, he wasn’t just one more person. It couldn’t be just plain and simple. Not when what she had to say was everything but.

Her phone hadn’t stopped going off ever since uploading that video. She hadn’t looked at any of the notifications, she’d said all she had to say. Last time it’d been a song, a mashup to say you’ve won to everyone who had harassed her one way or the other. 

Music had always helped her talk when she didn’t know what to say. Luke must be watching, right?

She grabbed her phone, taking it with her as she got up. Maybe she didn’t need to talk. When had they ever confined themselves to just talking about what they wanted? Luke had written Bright about her because they’d bonded over music and the way their lives had drastically changed and because he’d started liking her even before Julie had realized where this whole thing was going. And Julie had written Risk about him because years ago she had a crush on a boy she’d never see again and then against all odds they’d bumped into each other and they were friends and they were so much more than that, but pretending they weren’t was easier.

And then she’d sung it in front of so many people and yet the only one that mattered was watching her from the sidelines. She’d told him exactly what she wanted that night without ever saying a word. Luke had written Finally Free about her because they were. In that moment they had been free, it had been perfect, it had been everything and it was beautiful. God, she missed him so much.

His song now wasn’t even finished, didn’t even have a title. Julie didn’t need any context, she had it all. He missed her too. Talking to a memory. She didn’t want to become one. She couldn’t let the time go by while they lost more and more of what they had. When she’d put those two songs together she’d sung about futility. About risks that didn’t really work out because that was always a possibility, wasn’t it? But sometimes they did. And sometimes it was better than doing nothing. Maybe together they actually could make it. And really, Julie had been invested for a while now, she couldn’t just let all of this go.

Julie had fallen in love with the piano ever since her mom had taught her how to play. But Rose Molina was nothing if not multitalented and so her guitar rested in Julie’s apartment, in her music room. Julie knew how to play even though she wouldn’t usually go for it. This time she had a plan though. Actually, no, it wasn’t really a plan. She was just going with what felt right. It would make sense in the end. She hadn’t really planned for the mashup last time and yet she’d found her way to it. Taking two optimistic upbeat songs and turning them into her own personal ballad to express her pain.

Luke had covered her own song once on the guitar. It’d sounded good. Julie might have watched that video a few too many times already. Enough to be able to follow his own execution of the melody. She’d already mixed those two songs together to talk about sorrow, about being overwhelmed. She could try it one more time and stay true to what they’d originally been. Optimistic to their core.

She hadn't really prepared anything, but she found she didn’t really have to. She knew both songs well enough, putting the melodies together, changing the lyrics was all such a natural thing to her. She started uploading the video while getting ready to leave. Keeping it to close friends only this time. This message wasn’t meant for the public anyway.

She hoped the timing would actually work for her. Luke’s place was about twenty minutes away. Half an hour if there was traffic. Enough time for him to actually see the story, providing he was looking at his phone. She could have probably waited until she knew for sure he’d seen it, but she also kind of didn’t want to. They’d already wasted enough time.

There wasn’t any traffic on the road and Julie managed to get there in record time. No idea what she was gonna say really, no clue if Luke had even seen the video and not really able to just sit and wait any longer. She got out of the car, careful as she always was to not really draw people’s attention.

She hit the buzzer and nervously waited for someone to let her into the building. This was fine, it’d be fine, it would work out, she-

The door swung open, making Julie curse and try to quickly move out of the way when she actually noticed who was standing on the other side. “Oh. Hi,” she said.

Luke stared back at her for a second longer, frozen at his spot. Julie was about to start talking when something seemed to click for him and he grabbed her hand, pulling her inside the lobby and closing the door behind them. Probably a wise thought, they didn’t want random photos of them to end up everywhere tomorrow.

“Hi,” he said back, but didn’t elaborate. This is why Julie should have made a plan. “You’re here,” he added after a few seconds. Not really surprised, if anything he sounded… confused?

“Yes,” she said. Maybe he hadn’t watched the video? “Were you going somewhere?” she asked and cringed a bit at her words. Of course he was about to leave.

“Yes.” Luke nodded, still staring at her, trying to process her showing up there.

“Oh,” Julie said for lack of better words. No, she actually needed to find better words if they were going to have any kind of conversation. “I-”

“To you,” Luke cut her off.

It was Julie’s turn to be confused this time. “What?”

“I was coming to you,” Luke said, his brain finally catching up with what was going on.

“Oh,” Julie said right back on board with the whole thing. “You did see the video.”

“I saw multiple videos,” Luke said with a nod, still not taking his eyes off of her.

“Yeah, there were a few things I wanted to say…”

“Right.”

Okay, there was a right thing to say here. There had to be something Julie could say to bring them right back on track, she just had to figure out what. “I wanted to-”

“Julie, I-”

They both stopped. Okay, this was not working out how she’d imagined it.

“I’m sorry,” she finally said.

“No, Julie, there’s nothing to be sorry about,” he said, the tension finally bleeding out of him. “It wasn’t a good situation.”

“I know,” she sighed. “But I also kind of hate not talking to you. And not having you in my life.”

“Good, we’re on the same page,” Luke said and before Julie could even think to say anything else, he moved in, his lips crushing into hers. Julie’s surprise lasted maybe for a second before she was kissing him back with the same intensity. God, she really had missed him so much.

The subtle ding of the elevator broke them apart, Luke taking her hand, both of them running over to the stairs.

“Always the worst possible places,” Luke muttered, making her chuckle as they made their way upstairs, trying to remain quiet. He unlocked his front door, walking into the apartment with Julie in tow who pushed it closed again. “You play the guitar,” he suddenly said.

“Yes,” she answered. “I told you that.”

“No, you said you know how to play,” he insisted.

Julie stared back at him. “Yes,” she said again, nodding her head slowly.

“Jules, I saw the video, you don’t just know the chords,” he said, coming in closer. “You changed things up.”

“Yeah, I saw that cover once and thought it was pretty cool,” she said with a smile.

“Hm, did you?” he said, wrapping his arms around her waist.

“Thought maybe it would catch the attention of this guy I like…”

“A two second video would catch my attention.”

“Because I’ve also been meaning to tell him that I love him and I really just wanted to make that clear,” she said, causing him to stop and stare once more. “Yeah, turns out some lyrics don’t make as much sense anymore.”

A grin spread on Luke’s face that made her smile wider too. “I love you too,” he said.

“Good, we’re on the same page,” she said, standing up on her tiptoes to kiss him again. She hadn’t felt that settled in a while. Not caring about the rest of the world and what they had to say. Just her and Luke.

“I saw your other video too,” he said after a while. “A lot of people did actually.”

“Good,” she said. “It took me a while but I think it came out pretty good.”

“You were amazing,” he said.

“I was tired,” she said with a little shrug. “It was either going to be the rest of my life or I could say something. I know it won’t stop everything, but if anything changes for the better… It’ll be good. But I really needed to say it all out loud before I lost my mind.”

“We don’t have to tell anyone anything,” Luke said. “But we don’t need to stay far away from each other every time we’re outside. I know people are gonna say something-”

“But they will no matter what,” Julie said with a nod. “I don’t want us to spend this whole relationship locked inside forever either. And it’s not like we’ve been subtle, we keep writing songs about each other, this needs to stop,” she added though she was smiling.

From the way Luke was nodding along, she was pretty sure he wasn’t taking it seriously either. “Yes, absolutely, I’ll get right on that. I just need to record what I already have first.”

“Don’t the guys get a say in this band too?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Yeah, Reggie wants us to go country so he’s forbidden from making any other suggestions for the next six months,” Luke answered seriously.

“That sounds very generous of you,” Julie said and couldn’t help but burst out laughing. “What’s wrong with country music?”

“We are not a country band,” Luke insisted.

“Right,” she said. “Maybe I’ll get Reggie to break off and we can form a country duo. I’ll learn how to fiddle.”

“I’m sorry, I’m afraid this band doesn’t get to break up. You can join if you want, but we don’t lose people,” he said so casually Julie almost missed it. Nevertheless she didn’t comment on it. They were obviously joking around. 

For once, ever since uploading that video, Julie didn’t feel as nervous going up there alone. She’d made herself clear and if someone had something to say to her they could go ahead and deal with the consequences. Now if she’d thought multiple times about actually singing with Luke up on stage… Well, that was a whole different thing. An idea kept in her dream box for the time being. They would get around to it. They had time.

It’d been a while since she’d been able to just relax and be. And there was no other place she’d rather be right now.

julieemolinaa
I love her. Seriously. Miss Molina I don’t know if you’re actually dating anyone after all but I’m single🙋‍♀️
#julie molina

sunsetsandbutterflies, mynameisnotluke and 165 others liked your post

purpledahlias
“I am done being sad about things that don’t even really have to do with me, I am done trying to fit in whatever new narrative we have going on each day and most importantly I am done putting my life on hold because of it” OUR GIRL ATE
#julie molina

julieemolinaa, molinasdahlias and 447 others liked your post

dirtycandies reblogged your post
Carrie liked her video - I LOVE EVERYTHING THAT’S HAPPENING RIGHT NOW
#julie molina #carrie wilson

molinasdahlias reblogged your post
“I’ll just go put my life back together really quick” - an icon
#julie molina

comeonreginald reblogged your post
Introducing Julie Molina to every single person I know because I’ll be damned if we let her lose followers just because she set boundaries
#julie molina

alleyesonme
Carrie and Julie duet that will put every single hater to shame when??
#julie molina #carrie wilson

candiesandcanes, sunsetsandbutterflies and 948 others liked your post

Chapter Text

“Okay, I need someone to say something.”

“It’s so crazy to think life will never be the same again after today.”

“Not that!” Julie turned to give Reggie an incredulous look. Though he was right and pretending he wasn’t wouldn’t change anything.

“Okay, you need to chill a bit,” Luke told him as he came into the living room and jumped on the couch next to her.

“Am I wrong?” Reggie insisted, putting his bass back down next to him on the chair. “Look me in the eye and tell me I’m wrong.”

Luke stared back at him. “You’re wrong.”

“Lying to yourself isn’t gonna help you either,” Alex piped up.

“I’m not lying to myself,” Luke insisted.

“Babe, you’re lying to yourself, it’s okay,” Julie said with a nod, still staring at everyone’s phones on the coffee table in front of her. Her knee was bouncing just a tiny bit. Maybe she was a little nervous, who was to say?

Reggie’s phone went off first, making everyone - including Luke who was trying to play it cool - jump up. Reggie grabbed it to turn it off, looking at them sheepishly. “Timer,” he said, before getting up and running to the kitchen.

“What was that about being so cool with everything?” Alex asked Luke, smirking at him.

“I don’t like you,” Luke retorted with a straight face.

“Aha,” Alex said just as the doorbell rang and he got up to go get the door. Julie couldn’t help but smile. Sure this was insane, but they were ready, they knew what to expect. And it was kinda nice that they were all waiting together.

“You’re okay with this, right?” Luke suddenly asked her.

“A little late to ask me that, isn’t it?” Julie answered with a laugh. They’d written the song, they’d recorded it, they’d set up a date and everything. This was happening today, but it’d been planned for at least this past month.

“No, I know we agreed to it, but it’s actually happening now,” Luke insisted, turning on the couch to face her better. “You’re still okay with it?”

Julie smiled. They’d been together for seven months and things had been… ever changing. Not so much between them, more about what everyone else had to say about it. The chaos had mostly died down after Julie’s video, though the occasional comments here and there still slipped through. A huge part of the fanbase was convinced that she and Luke were together but most of them weren’t really pressuring them about it.

They hadn’t exactly started out with any kind of plan. Their thing was their own and if it was ever going to officially be out in the world was a whole other thing they hadn’t put into action yet. What they had started doing more and more without even realizing it was writing songs together. Sometimes they would help each other with their own stuff, but the ever growing pile of songs was staring back at them, begging for some kind of acknowledgement. 

Julie wasn’t exactly sure how that could come to be. Luke had a band, she was a solo artist, they could do a collab or two, but they couldn’t exactly make an album out of it, could they?

They’d written Perfect Harmony together. And it was a good song and they really liked it and suddenly the idea of hey, why don’t we release that? was floating in the air, a very tangible suggestion from both of them with clear implications. They were basically telling the world they were together. Because they wanted to, because they had decided as much. Julie had always loved how they wrote songs about each other without making a big deal out of it, what was one more?

Maybe it was the beginning of something. Julie couldn’t be sure. They’d played the song for the guys and they’d been surprised Julie and Luke were willing to put it out in the world as a duet, but fully on board with doing so. So they’d recorded it all together and Julie had gotten to perform with Sunset Curve for the first time in her life. It was exhilarating.

The world was aware that Julie had a new song coming out. They were also aware the boys had a new song coming out. Any relation completely coincidental. Julie kind of wanted to see what would happen when the song was actually released.

They’d both decided together that they were doing this and so they were. Maybe it was scary and maybe Reggie was right and their lives were about to change - at least as far as the public was concerned - but Julie felt good about it. This time it was on their own terms, in their own way and when has anything been more fitting for them than music?

“It’s scary,” she admitted. “But I’m also kind of looking forward to it.” Not to mention the song was pretty good too, what were they supposed to do? Bury it in a notebook and never look at it again?

Luke smiled back at her, leaning in to peck her lips and making her smile too. It’d been a while, but Julie still got the same butterflies she used to get at first. 

“Did I miss it?” a new voice joined them and she looked up to find Bobby coming inside, followed by Alex.

“Not for five more minutes,” Alex said, bringing them back to reality. Five more minutes. Julie had been patiently waiting for so long and now she could feel every second going by. “We are doing a countdown.”

“We are not doing a countdown,” Luke said.

“We could do a countdown,” Reggie said as he came over from the kitchen. Julie could smell the chocolate now and was actually glad no one had tried to talk Reggie out of baking a celebratory cake for the occasion.

“Do I just not exist?” Luke wondered out loud.

“It’s a miracle you’ve actually recorded so many songs,” Julie said with a smirk.

“See what I have to deal with?” Luke said.

“What you have to deal with?” Bobby repeated, staring back at him. “How many times have you blacked out and written songs and then begged us to record them in the last possible second?”

“And how many times have these songs dominated the charts?” Luke asked back.

“That is not the point,” Bobby said, taking off his coat as he did. “Not everyone goes into musical comas instead of sleeping every other night.”

“That sounds like a you problem,” Luke said. “There are too many songs to write, sometimes sleep is overrated.”

“How come you keep shooting my suggestions down then?” Reggie piped up.

“Only the country stuff!” Luke defended himself.

“You are not giving this band room to grow,” Reggie said, shaking his head regretfully.

“See what I have to deal with?” Alex said with a sigh as he fell on the couch on Julie’s other side, making her chuckle.

“Don’t worry, Reg, I’ll join you if you decide to break off,” she called out.

“Thank you, Julie,” he said with a grin. “You’re the only one who gets cake.”

Luke turned to her, giving her a betrayed look that was far too dramatic to be real. “Whose side are you on?”

“Reggie’s? I thought I made that clear,” she said, tilting her head a bit, but she couldn’t help the smile spreading on her face.

“Okay, no one here understands-” Luke was saying when every single phone in the room started going off. 

Julie was thrown back into reality once again, leaping to grab her phone from the coffee table. After a few failed attempts at putting her password in due to the torrent of new notifications popping up, she finally managed to unlock her phone though it didn’t make much of a difference.

“Is it possible that we actually did break the Internet?” Reggie said, swiping at his phone in an effort to actually open any app.

Julie had finally managed to keep her screen relatively clear when her phone started ringing instead.

“Did you see?” Flynn shouted over the other end as soon as she picked up.

“I am trying, but my phone is making it hard,” Julie said, peering over Luke’s shoulder to see if he was doing any better.

“I need a reaction video, send me a video,” Flynn said.

“I thought you were supposed to be on vacation?”

“Yes and the timing could have been better, but we’re working with what we have here,” Flynn insisted.

“My tour was planned before they decided to release yet another love song about each other,” Julie heard Carrie’s voice somewhere in the background.

“Carrie says hi,” Flynn said.

“There are already 1.2k tweets tagged sunset curve,” Alex suddenly said, looking at his phone.

“It’s a three minute song, they’ve barely had time to finish it,” Julie said.

“I see 1.5,” Bobby added.

“Ha! Juke’s got 3.6,” Reggie said with a grin. “This is gonna be fun, I like this. This is where I shine,” he said, typing on his own phone. Julie and Luke had given them free rein to comment on anything and everything within reason and Reggie for one was excited to do so.

“You’ve killed the fanbase,” Alex said.

“We didn’t-” Luke started to say when Alex just turned his phone around and showed them all the different tweets that were variations of I’m screaming, what the fuck, I’m dying, I’m dead as he scrolled down. “Okay, maybe we did.”

Julie was afraid the dread would hit her. Any second now the realization of what they’d done would sink in and she would freak out. Yet things were oddly calm. As calm as they could be right now. They were satisfied, happy with their choice and they were all just sitting there, joking around. None of this was news to them, Julie and Luke had been together for months, they’d known each other for longer than that. This was just another Thursday. Only now the world was in on it too.

“Oh hey, people liked the song!” Luke called out.

Bobby raised his head to stare at him. “That cannot be a serious statement,” he deadpanned. “Sunset curve is up to 4.1k tweets, Julie is at 4.3. What did you think that was about?”

“Most of them are keyboard smashes, it’s nice to see some coherent sentences,” Julie said, still reading over Luke’s shoulder, Flynn on the phone in her ear, being a part of the whole thing even miles away.

“Exactly! It’s nice to see people appreciate the song too and not just the relationship reveal,” Luke agreed with her. “It’s our first song together, if they don’t like it I’m gonna take it personally.”

“The next one won’t have the added pressure of confirming everyone’s suspicions,” Alex said. 

Julie tried to ignore the multiple mentions of this becoming a thing. They hadn’t talked about it. Not officially, not even unofficially. As far as she was concerned this had started as a one off. Not that anyone stood in their way. They could do whatever they wanted. Only Julie wasn’t exactly sure what that meant.

julieemolinaa
I HAVE BEEN SCREAMING FOR THE PAST HOUR WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT
#juke #julie molina #luke patterson #sunset curve

horseiswheremyhomeis, lukessleeves and 986 others liked your post

sunsetcurves
THEY DID NOT JUST DO THAT
#juke #julie molina #luke patterson #sunset curve

comeonreginald, juke-supremacy and 1.5k others liked your post

sunsetsandbutterflies reblogged your post
#i love that the post has no context #but we all know what this is about #juke

reggiepeters reblogged your post
I know, right?
#juke

mynameisnotluke, horseiswheremyhomeis and 2.6k others reblogged your post

purpledahlias
why is this the most perfect way they could have done this? like they never really said anything, but they kind of said everything? the first time we can actually be certain the song is about each other?
#juke #julie molina #luke patterson #sunset curve

brightandfree, revolutionintherain and 745 others liked your post

mynameisnotluke
Can we also talk about the actual song because it’s so fucking good?? I expected nothing less from these two
#juke #julie molina #luke patterson #sunset curve

life-is-a-risk, curved-sunset and 899 others liked your post

curved-sunset, reggiepeters and 912 others reblogged your post

horseiswheremyhomeis
HAVE WE ALL NOTICED REGGIE GOING AROUND LIKING AND REBLOGGING EVERYTHING?
#reggie peters #sunset curve #juke

Julie stared out the window. It was late and too cold to sit outside. She couldn’t be bothered to wear a coat, but she was happy just looking out from the warmth of her own living room. Her place had a nice view.

It looked the same. In a way it didn’t make sense to her. They’d dropped a bomb on everyone in the form of a song, but nothing had really changed. Only so many things had. And Julie couldn’t help but think about the future. Where did they go from here?

“Hey,” she heard Luke, but before she could turn around there were arms wrapping around her waist, Luke’s head on her shoulder.

“Hi,” she said with a little contented sigh as she leaned into him. Nobody talked for a few seconds and in a way it was kind of nice. Just standing there, in the dark, the lights of the city enough to help them see. It was peaceful. For a long time she didn’t think she was entitled to moments like this. “It’s a little weird, isn’t it?”

“What is?” Luke asked her.

“How peaceful everything is right now,” she said. “After everything that happened today.”

“We can just not look at our phones for a while and I’ll give you a peaceful week,” he said, making her laugh. It was true, the screaming hadn’t died down in general. Julie could go looking for it, but she wouldn’t.

“You think we’ll ever get to perform it live?” she wondered out loud.

“What do you mean?” Luke asked, raising his head a bit to look at her, confused. “Of course. That’s what you’re supposed to do with songs.”

Julie smiled slightly. Of course that was what Luke was going to say and that was what she wanted to hear, but she didn’t know how to get into that conversation.

“I just meant,” she tried to explain, but eventually just sighed. “I don’t know. It’s one song.”

“Give us a few months, we can make a setlist,” he said, once again sending Julie’s mind wandering.

“Do you think about that?” she asked, finally turning around to face him. “Like… Where do we go from here?”

Luke stared back at her. She knew he must have been thinking about it. They’d been writing songs together for a while and that had been exciting, but now they’d actually recorded one and they’d released it and one way or the other they would perform it live at some point and that was a bit more addictive. She wanted to perform with Luke on stage.

“I don’t want this to be a one time thing,” Luke said.

“Me neither.”

“Okay,” he said. “I mean we do have a bunch of more songs waiting, it’d be a shame to let them go to waste.”

“No, I know, but we can’t just do whatever we want,” she insisted. There were so many things to think about first.

“Hm, you lost me,” he said, making her snort.

“We can’t just decide to start releasing songs together. You have a band for starters, in case you forgot.”

“Yeah and a week ago they were discussing throwing me out of said band and replacing me with you, what’s your point?” he said, like that was a very normal discussion to be had. Then again knowing them, it probably was.

“I’m serious,” she insisted.

“So am I,” Luke said with a laugh. “Look, Jules, the guys didn’t record Perfect Harmony because we asked nicely. They like you. And I like you. I don’t know how exactly we’ll go about it, but if you’re up for more collabs, the answer is yes. Unanimously.”

She’d thought about it. Of course she had.

“This was kind of fun…” she said with a little smile.

Luke was grinning back at her, probably already making a setlist in his head. “It was a lot of fun.”

“We can see where it goes.”

“We have the songs. If they don’t work, we don’t have to go ahead with them, we can just go back to doing our thing,” he reassured her. “Also I think our chemistry is off the charts and whatever we record will be amazing.”

Julie nodded her head, her smile turning into a giddy grin as well. “It’s important that you’re not putting any pressure on it.”

“Yeah, I don’t know how to tell you this, but you kind of fit into the band and my friends like you more than me so if anyone should be worried, it’s not you,” he said, wrapping his arms around her again to bring her closer.

Julie chuckled. “I would never steal your friends.”

“I thought you and Reggie were about to start your own country band,” he said with a raised eyebrow.

“That’s on you for having no appreciation for country music,” she said.

“I’m not getting into that argument again,” he stated, making her laugh as she stood on her tiptoes and kissed him. It was quiet, peaceful. Julie could stay there all night.

“Let’s try this,” she said and promptly squealed when Luke picked her up.

They didn’t really know where they were going with it, but they could try, see what happened. Julie couldn’t deny that they sounded good together. All of them. A few more collabs wouldn’t hurt anyone. They could go back to their own things after that. This sounded like fun.

molinasdahlias
I came here to scream, but I don’t think I’ve processed this yet? Like we all heard the same announcement right? They formed a band? I might cry, this cannot be real, I’m pretty sure I’ve read fanfics about this and now it’s actually real?? Are we just winning in life?
#julie and the phantoms #IT’S SO WEIRD TAGGING THEM LIKE THIS

mynameisnotluke, alexshoodie and 887 others liked your post

comeonreginald
I’VE BEEN SAYING IT FOR MONTHS - You’re telling me they started putting all those collabs out and they weren’t going to make it official??? IT TOOK THEM LONG ENOUGH
#julie and the phantoms #julie molina #sunset curve

juliesphantoms, brightandfree and 1.2k others liked your post

juliesphantoms reblogged your post
#literally changed my url five minutes ago #i am still reeling #julie and the phantoms

sunsetsandbutterflies
Still trying to process this, but oh my god, just imagine the songs we’re gonna get, I can’t-
#julie and the phantoms

life-is-a-risk, curved-sunset and 1.6 others liked your post

lukessleeves reblogged your post
Also every single interaction they’ve had until now has been everything to me. Their interviews are so good, their lives are so chaotic, what more can we ask for?
#julie and the phantoms

alexthephantom reblogged your post
We’re working on appearing more professional

comeonreginald reblogged your post
Please don’t, we love you!

lukethephantom reblogged your post
Oh wow, is that alex mercer of jatp? can I have an autograph?

alexthephantom reblogged your post
no

thejuliemolina reblogged your post
we clearly have a long way to go

mynameisnotluke reblogged your post
IS THIS POST REAL?

bobbythephantom reblogged your post
you learn to live with it after a while, welcome to the band

shinetogether reblogged your post
I am not losing my mind
Julie and the Phantoms, everybody
#julie and the phantoms

reggiethephantom reblogged your post
Tell your friends

sunsetsandbutterflies, julieemolinaa and 7.4k others liked your post