3 Kitten,
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Luka
I havent coughed all day :)
Fever??
Gone!
??(ˆuˆ? )??
I am going stir crazy. I've been stuck in bed for days
Be home in two hours, I have a few stops after work but I'll make it worth the wait
(? ¬?¬?)
np I'm just painting, enjoying being able to sit upright again
Reno wishedhe could be there already to watch Luka paint.
Luka was a bit private about it, preferring to work the same hoursReno did and to have all his supplies neatly packed away by the time Reno got home. Now and then, though, Reno wouldfind a smudge of dry watercolor on the countertop or one of Luka's favorite pencils for sketching left on the couch. Eraser dust on the table. Balled up paper in the bin that he was sorely tempted to rescue. And even though he wiped the paint off as he cleaned, he felt an indescribable fondness that Luka had left those small traces of his creation behind.
He had not talked to Luka about his meltdown the other day.
Part of him didn’t want to break the peace they’d built over the last few days. Even with Luka sick with a fever, they had found a new footing with each other. It felt quiet, a little timid, and a little excited. It was a nervous and hopeful start to Luka settling into Reno’s flat, tucking his belongings into the dresser and his toothbrush into the holder by Reno’s sink after Reno had gone to the rental and packed up everything before the checkout date.
Hope trembled in Reno, hope that maybe Luka was going to stay. He hadn't asked for another ticket home.
He was both relieved and nervous that Luka didn’t have a fever anymore; he really didn’t want to bother him with everything while he was so sick. He hadn’t asked for Luka’s plans, for his answers. And he hadn’t confessed to the fist of anxiety squeezing around his heart whenever he thought of Joy’s name in Luka’s phone.He had just watched as Luka moved through Reno’s flat like he belonged there.
He trusted Arnaud to handle it; he did. But he didn’t know where the line was. How could he come across to Luka not as a paranoid or jealous lover, but as a person with a legitimate reason to be scared? He didn’t know how to begin to explain the nightmare he’d been through, and how, even now, it rattled him to his core.
It had been almost eleven years since he left Joy, and she could still make him feel so afraid.
Joy’s harassment campaign against Reno after he left her had been brutal and lasted over a year while Reno and Sterling Records fought to get protections in place. Between her reluctance to show up in court and Voltage’s first international tour, every step of the process had been torturously prolonged.
He’d been grateful that Voltage had been small enough at the time that if they’d chosen to drop him, the band would have survived. Instead, his bandmates had chosen to believe that Reno wouldn’t do the things Joy had accused him of, and at the final court hearing, she confessed to making up everything to ruin his reputation.
She pleaded guilty to harassment, defamation of character, and stalking, and was sentenced to two months in jail and a year of community service. Reno gained a restraining order and a stalking protection order against her. Kandi and the label's legal team ensured that it never expired.
It still clung to him, all those posts online saying he’d been abusive, that he was a narcissist who only dated her for her connections, that he’d left her because he’d grown more popular than her and didn’t need her anymore.
Reno had loved her.
He had loved her so deeply that he couldn’t tell himself from her most of the time, and when he left, it felt like he’d left himself behind too.
He’d never even raised his voice at her, and the accusation of physical and mental harmhehad caused still made him sick to think about. If Joy hadn’t folded like she had and admitted to spinning false narratives, the fingers pointed at him would have ended both his career and the person he knew himself to be.
How was he supposed to explain that?
A loud part of him really wanted to wait until Arnaud found out ifJoywas actually Joy or not before he said anything.
If he had confirmation it was her, then maybe he’d have the courage to share the shameful side of himself that still wondered ifhe really had hurt her, somehow, and didn’t know it, if maybe he’d done the things she’d accused him of and no one told him he was doing them. If it really was her, maybe he could confess to being afraid, all the time, of being that person, and that his confidence that he could treat Luka with love and care partially stemmed from that fear.
He knew if he was afraid of treating someone poorly, then he wouldn’t. He would make mistakes, but he’d never treat Luka in a way that would intentionally harm him, because even the thought that he might have done something like that once to someone paralyzed him.
