It was a sexy nun outfit. What a fantastic start to his journey.
Bag after bag, Luka unzipped and zipped them back up to not disturb anything. It was a marvel. Reno had a bit ofeverything.There were sexy costumes, his stage outfits, suits that looked much too expensive for Luka to even think of touching, gowns and lolita coordinates, club wear, and then rows of shirts and hoodies. Luka thumbed through the shirts, and his eyes widened at the sheer amount of tour shirts, some from bands he knew no longer existed, some he knew were highly sought after, and of course, Voltage merch that Luka had only dreamed of getting his hands on.
Behind the band shirts was a stack of framed posters and Luka went through a few of them before realizing he was looking at Voltage’s tour posters, the oldest one dating back to 2002 for a London show.Voltagewas in small print at the bottom, squeezed in beside two other bands under the headliner. Luka quickly put it back in place with his hands trembling, fearing that somehow he’d do something stupid like drop it and break the glass and tear it, and tried to forget that he’d just held Voltage’s first-ever show poster.
The amount of organized accessories was staggering. There was even a rotating stand like the ones found in department stores, holding glasses and sunglasses, and Luka realized he had no idea if Reno had poor eyesight or not. But the mental image of him wearing glasses nearly had him sitting on the closet floor with a brand new crisis.
He pulled himself together, picked out an outfit that looked like it would fit and was nicer—if somewhat subdued for Reno’s tastes— than anything he’d brought, and took it with him.
He spent less time searching through the rest of the flat, having already seen most of it the first day he’d come over. He didn’t dare peek into Reno’s office in case there were personal documents in there, and after admiring the impressive amountof kitchen utensils and tools in matching baby blue, he felt satisfied.
He couldn’t bring himself to use anything in the kitchen, though still feeling way too much like a guest in Reno’s home. So, he decided to seek out the coffee shop on Reno’s hand-drawn map.
It was thankfully only a few blocks down, and soon Luka was through the front door of Corner Café, which Luka found ironic since it had the same name as the dive bar he regularly went to with his friends. He figured life was just strange like that sometimes.
The bell chimed as the door closed behind him and he nearly jumped out of his skin when he was greeted by name.
“Luka! Hey!” Sage was wearing an apron and waving from behind the register. She had her red hair tamed and pulled into a braid over her shoulder. Her apron was littered with pins, marking her pronounsshe/her, next to a bisexual flag, two rabbits, and several other miscellaneous characters Luka didn’t recognize.
There was no line, so Luka walked right up to the register to say, “I didn’t know you worked here.”
“This is my domain," she replied, crossing her arms on the counter. “I’m co-owner here, actually. Sounds impressive, but really it just means I have a ton of overhead and undiagnosed mental teens to order around.”
“Rough.” Luka didn’t want to imagine managing young employees like that while running a business.
“Want a coffee? On the house, love.”
“Oh.” Luka didn’t expect that. He looked at the menu and said, “Sure, an iced latte would be cool. No sweetener.”
“Ah, finally a clear difference.” Sage smiled warmly and turned to start preparing his drink. “Reno had me worried when he showed me your picture. You both, with your pink hair andyour black clothes. I never thought Reno was narcissistic enough to date himself, but you never know. Thank god when you two come in here together in the future, I’ll only have to makeonehorrible blended sugar-monstrosity.”
Luka balked at the concept of so much sugar in the morning. “You definitely won’t have to make me one of those. Aren’t they a lot more work to make, too?”
Sage slid his iced coffee over to him. “Yup, but it’s worth it for Reno. You know, when he’s on tour, he’s not allowed sweets? Kandi, their manager, keeps a close eye on his diet so he doesn’t gain weight. I think it’s really fucked up, so I like to feed them horrible, gross foods when he’s home.”
“Thank you for that.”
Sage smiled at him and Luka's reservations about her started to fall away. She continued, “I love to take care of him. He spends all his time fretting about his job and his mates and forgets to love on himself. Oh, hold on.” She left to take someone's order but passed the drink off to one of her employees so she and Luka could keep chatting.
“It’s nice that you’re around for him to spoil since he loves doing that,” she continued, “but don’t let him forget to turn that attention on himself too, sometimes. If he goes unchecked, he’ll live his whole life serving others and one day he’ll be old and tired and realize he didn’t stop to enjoy any of it.”
“I think he enjoys serving and helping, though,” Luka said.
Sage shrugged. “Yeah, that is extremely true. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t deserve me bringing him coffee for his flat or buying him five cheeseburgers and a milkshake when he gets back from the road.”
Luka’s eyes widened. “I can’t picture them eating that much at once.”
“Oh, darling. They starve him.”
Luka’s gut dropped. “What?”
“Okay, notliterally. But I don’t know, I got a bone to pick with his managers. They do it to all the boys, but Reno gets it the worst because he’s kind of like, their golden goose, or whatever. Sure, Reno loves his job, he loves doing all his extra stuff too, like the modeling and meet and greets. But, if he had it his way he’d eat pancakes every morning and only go to dance classes and never do any other workouts and let himself get so squishy. They just want to make music, the rest they just happen to beextremelygood at.”
Luka could feel his hands shaking. “Has he?" he started to ask, then wasn’t sure if he should. “I’m sorry.”
“Why?” Sage tilted her head in the exact same way Reno did, and Luka wondered who’d caught the habit from whom. “You’ve not done anything wrong.”
“I know.” Luka stirred his coffee and decided that if Sage was being this open with him, he could return the favor. “Has he played violin for you before?”
