#phantmbass

said: “Thank you, though, for trying. That was very nice of you to try.”

          Charlie’s posture deflated in slow motion as disappointment washed over her in waves. Her once bright expression now dim with the shadows of dissatisfaction. Only a moment ago she was congratulating herself on her brilliance. The ‘ta-da’ she had uttered when presenting Reggie with her surprise echoed in her mind, taunting her until it faded into a dull hum.

          “Oh . . .” Her arms fell to her side and she finally plopped down into the beach chair behind her. “I guess I really didn’t think that through at all, huh?” She hugged her knees to her chest and pouted, staring at the set up she’d put together on the blanket between them. “I should have known ghosts don’t eat.” In her mind, a pizza picnic on the beach had been like --the best idea ever. But now it just felt like she was taunting him with the luxuries of the living.

“I can't stop myself falling now.”  

     for a dead guy ,    he feels like quite the livewire right now .       if  holding  his  guitar  for  the  first  time  in  twenty  five  years  was  a  spark,     watching  julie’s  face  light  up  as  she  sang  the  chorus  of  one  of   his   songs  was   an  entire  goddamn  bolt  of  lightning   hitting  him  right  where  his  once  -  beating  heart  should  be.      luke’s  already  decided  he’s  gonna  get  her  back  in  her  music  program  if  it’s  the  last  thing  he  ever  does,    but  he  knows  that  to  help  her  truly    NAIL    it  is  to  recruit  his  boys.       he  poofs  into  the  garage  like  a  bat  right  out  of  hell,    his  landing  heavy  enough  to  rattle  a  few  of  the  mason  jars  on  the  windowsill.      still,   luke  isn’t  fazed,   and  looks  around  the  room  frantically  until  his  eyes  lock  on  reggie.       and  once  he  zones  in,    he  makes  a  beeline  across  the  room,    grabbing  his  notebook  from  his  bookbag  in  the  process.  

      ❛    —   yo,  reg,   you  free  right  now  ?   ❜         his  hurricane  pace  gives  the  impression  that  even  if  reggie  is,     he  won’t  be  taking  no  for  an  answer.       luke  stands  tall  before  the  bassist  and  continues  to  talk  more  with  his  hands  than  he  does  his  mouth.       ❛    if  you’re  not,   drop  whatever  you’re  doing,   ‘cause  i  got  a  huge  favor  to  ask.      the  fate  of  the  future  of   MUSIC   is  hanging  in  the  balance.   ❜  

       if she had known that   he   was ro’s special movie night guest  ,    she would’ve planned the last few minutes of her life differently .               kayla  had  been  expecting  literally  anyone  else.       maybe  flynn,    just  because  carrie  couldn’t  make  it.       maybe  ro’s  older  sister,   because  that  would  truly  be  a  special  occasion  to  her  best  friend,  but    . . .   no.       when  kayla  walks  into  the  living  room  in  her  pajamas  and  a  peel  -  off  face  mask  still  stuck  on  her  face,    she’s  faced  with  the  man,    the  myth,    the  legend  himself.       dumbly,    she  stands  by  the  couch,    suddenly  very  aware  that  everyone  else  is  off  doing   what  the  fuck  ever    to  prepare     (  they still needed snacks after all  ,   ),     kayla  gives  a  nod  to  acknowledge  her  misfortune  and  places  a  contemplative  hand  on  her  hip.      

said: He poofs in and, instead of any greeting, looks straight at her, aghast. "D'you know Star Wars? Who the hell is Jar Jar?"

          Her glasses slid down to the tip of her nose for the hundredth time that afternoon. She pushed them back up to her bridge with an automated movement that reflected how immersed she was in the task at hand. A time lapse of the past few hours would have shown a loop of small, repetitive, necessary actions such as this. Quick bursts of typing. The turn of a page. The pop of a highlighter cap being taken of a marker. The peel of a sticky note. The scrawling of a memo. Followed by pauses for thought of varying lengths and more bursts of typing still. The atmosphere, as it usually was in her library and her home overall, had been quite serene.

          Had been.

          Just as she was inspecting a particularly moving few lines of dialogue about an unfortunate little bird from her mother’s paperback copy of a Glaspbell play --- a figure appeared in her peripheral vision, causing her to jump, her laptop to tumble off onto the couch next to her, her glasses to topple off to where her laptop once was, and -- worst of all -- her book to fall from her hand and land closed on the coffee table in front of her.

          After an embarrassingly high pitched yelp, her cheeks flushed pink. “Back off, Swayze!” Her tone was a tangled mess of anger, humility, and ( regrettably ) amusement. She wanted to be mad at him -- she was mad at him! No one had been able to sneak up on her in her own home since Celia moved away. There had been a familiar blanket of silence and privacy that wrapped around her dwelling now that it was just her and her mom -- and Reggie ( of all people ) had just ripped the blanket off like a hurried mother waking up her lethargic daughter during the exposition of a teenage dramedy. She was naturally upset by his disturbance of the version of reality she’d grown accustomed to --- but . . . but she couldn’t find it in herself to reprimand him. Not when the words Jar Jar had just left his pleading lips.