“Yup.”
“Then, yes?”
Arnaud smiled at him a moment longer and then said, “Wanna go to Oasis?”
“I—” Luka shook his head. “Okay.”
“Let’s go. Maybe if you get me drunk enough, I’ll tell you.”
Luka tried to reckon with the fact that he was going to an expensive club to get wasted with the lead vocalist of Voltage, and found his life a lot easier to handle when he slotted Arnaud into the ‘my boyfriend’s best friend’ category instead. But, truthfully, that was terrifying too.
He’d be shocked if he got through the night without a shovel talk.
Luka shuddered—a shovel talk fromZana.
He shoved his wallet into his pocket and followed Arnaud out of the flat, down the stairs, and out into the London evening.
It was warming up, and Luka was grateful the wind didn’t chill him as much as before.
“Do you mind walking?”
Luka shook his head. “Non. Ce n'est pas loin?4." He shoved his hands in his pockets, trying to keep pace with Arnaud’s longer stride.
“So why’d you start learning French?” Arnaud asked as they passed several people out and about, running last-minute errands after work. “I can help tutor you if you want.”
“I’ll keep that in mind," Luka replied, knowing he’dneverhave the guts to ask Arnaud for that. “I learned because you’re Hikaru’s closest friend. He doesn’t speak French when we’re alone, but I know you do when you’re together.”
“So you’re nosey.”
“Yes, that too.”
Arnaud barked a laugh. “Incredible. I love that, I am glad you are honest with me.”
“I don’t know why I wouldn’t be.” Luka shrugged. “Why get caught in a lie when the truth is simple?”
“Because people like to suck up, make themselves seem better than they are," Arnaud said. “It’s a problem for us. People are always on their best behavior, and it’s fake as hell. Nice when people are just normal.”
“Hikaru said so, too," Luka agreed. “He said he liked me because I called him a shit head like the second day we were talking.”
“You did?” Arnaud snickered. “Of course, they would like that. They’ve always been a brat, but you should have seen him at eighteen when we met.”
“How did you meet?” Luka asked, trying not to think of Reno being any more obstinate than he already was.
“I cold emailed him, actually," Arnaud replied. “I grew up surrounded by music because of ma mère?5. We would singtogether a lot, and she encouraged me to keep trying to find the right people to make music with. So as a teen, I would sit online and dig around for unknown artists waiting to get discovered. If I found someone whose style and sound I liked, I’d just email them and see if they wanted to be friends.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, why not? I was doing a lot of vocal covers of popular songs and had a bit of an audience on YouTube, so it wasn’t like I couldn’t link back to myself and verify I was a fellow musician and not some creepy fan.”
“I guess that does make a difference.”
“So Hikaru was playing in this little band with his old mates in school, doing the whole visual shock thing. Super over the top, I don’t think he ever wasn't in a dress, and you should have seen his hair. I’ll show you the photos sometime. Some of his classmates had gone to see a show, and a recording ended up online that I was lucky enough to find. My man could shred, even at seventeen.”
Luka huffed a laugh. “That’s not surprising.”
“He played the guitar like it owed him his life. I knew we needed to be together. I sent him an email.”
“What’d he say?”
