#jorenee

It’s been several months since the world’s final goodbye to the man called Yago De La Cova. Though Johanna has been distant, processing (to put it loosely) in her own way, Renee has been doing his best to be there for her when he can be. There is one night that’s different from most nights since Yago had gone. At the end of a workday, Renee makes an offer, subtle as always, to keep her company and maintain proximity between them that they both craved deep down. However, as the luck of the draw would have it for that day, Johanna turns him down. Renee sighs and nearly walks out the door, unable to hold her eyes or even smile placatingly to her on his way out. 

He opens the shop door, rattling its bells into the quiet night, takes a half a step out but pivots sharply back inside. Emboldened gaze on her, Renee tells her, “I love you, so much, Jo. But your dad told me to do right by you- to really take care of you if I decided to do it. So please, please just let me. Let me keep the promise that I made to him instead of having one foot out the door with you all the time.” 

His breath is shaking by the end of his words because this is it, this is Renee Diederich’s breaking point. “He knew I could be what you needed and I know it too. So let me, Jo.”

Jo can feel the pain in the “so” from Renee’s  “I love you, so much.” She can’t figure what to do with her expression, she just looks up and they stare at one another. Her face feels hot, and her lips nearly drop open. And then he mentions her father, and in that moment, Jo too reaches her breaking point. Her eyebrows knit together and she suddenly looks confused, almost angry. Her eyes start to dampen but there are no proper.

Jo walks to Renee very slowly, simply staring at him because honestly, she doesn't know if she’s about to punch him or fall into him. She draws close to him, barely leaving space between their chests- she hasn’t stopped looking into his eyes the entire time. And then her little fist hits his chest. She doesn’t strike him, rather her hand falls to his bones with a thump, as though she had all this energy but when she raises her hand to touch him or reach out to him, the energy falls limply in the form of her hand on him. 

In a hoarse breath, she just says, “He said that?” 

Renee’s breath catches when she starts coming to him because he genuinely can’t read what kind of approach it is. He holds his ground with her though, lets her process the way she needs to, stays quiet the entire time through. He doesn’t answer her question because somebody taught him the value of letting some words simply be said. He’s sure she knows that he wouldn’t have said the words if they weren’t real, if they weren’t important.

Her hand moves up to fiddle at the fabric around his chest before her fingers move to touch his face, thumb moving slowly on up his chin before it grazes over his lips. It’s as though she’s touching him like this for the first time, really taking him in, while trying to process the going ons of her head. 

She’s allowing herself to touch him so closely and intimately because she desperately wants more but doesn't know how. It’s slow and quiet like that for a moment, her eyes on his face and his nose and his mouth, but then she blinks and a tear rolls down her cheek before her energy comes back into her toes and she pushes upward to reach his height and her lips touch his shyly. She lingers there for a moment after kissing him, her hand on his face and their lips still touching. The heat of their breath dances together and he can finally feel her softly let out a breath she had been holding.

Renee’s breath is stuck in his throat for every moment she touches him but when she finally kisses him, he finds himself again. His arms slide around her lower back and hold her the way he’s wanted to since they spent the night on the couch together. She may kiss him slowly and gently but his “I love you so much” translates into the way he kisses her back. He savors the slow and sweet development and his eyes stay closed for a few moments even after their lips part. He doesn’t move his arms and he doesn’t want her to think for a second that he doesn’t want to just stay this close. He saves her the trouble of asking because eventually his nose nudges hers and he whispers again, “I love you.” He doesn’t say it again as a nudge, he doesn’t want or expect her to say it back because of how ready he is. He just wants her to know. He’s been acting casual this whole time and it’s not casual. Nothing is causal, he would drop everything in his life to just sit with her, forget everything else.

Jo grabs his hand softly and simply looks at him for a few beats before she slowly leads him upstairs. Once they’re inside her apartment she kisses Renee again, still soft but with more passion this time. She pulls away and to just stare at him as she had several times over the course of the night. She commits to taking off her shirt but still glances at him, almost checking in with him. She’s overwhelmed and nervous but Renee can read her anxieties almost too clearly. 

There’s a part of Renee which thinks, don’t do this, don’t sleep with her on an emotional note because she might not feel this heightened in a few hours. But the majority of him thinks, fuck it. Fuck it, fuck it, fuck it.

She is small and Renee loves her. He picks her up into his arms to ease her tension and he just knows there’s no saving him now.

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Johanna sleeps in the next morning she needed that. Renee sleeps like a rock with his arms around her the entire time. By the time it’s morning, Renee’s realized his favorite thing is to literally just hold her.

Once Jo is awake though, she is in a little panic; it would be so easy to just be together but Jo hasn't been with someone seriously in a long time. She hardly knows how to go about it anymore.

Renee on the other hand only really wakes up when she shifts in his arms and he just slowly moves to give her a little space. He smiles at her as if to tell her he’s glad she’s there- he’s glad he’s there.

When she finally sits up in bed, she looks at him softly for a moment, fighting a smile. But it creeps up on her and she rolls her eyes, looking away from him. 

He sees her smile and it widens his own and he loves the way she’s trying to hide it. “Made you smile,” he whispers to her, grinning dropping a kiss to the back of her shoulder.

She’s holding the blanket to her chest to cover herself and she forces her face to straighten out because clearly, this is serious, no time for giggles, no time for the way his smile makes her feel. She finds her way off the bed and slides her underwear on, picks up his shirt, and throws it over herself before moving to the kitchen, needing her morning coffee to process all this.

It makes his chest warm to see her just about swimming in his shirt, but while she goes for her coffee he goes to her bathroom to take a shower. He knows her well enough to know when she needs space. He also wouldn’t mind freshening up and being able to think in peace himself.

When Renee comes out of the shower, Jo is at the kitchen table reading the paper- she’s good at pretending to be doing something. Once she notices his silence though, Jo does tell him, “I know you want to talk about things.” She gives him a soft, comforting smile and finishes, “I don’t know if I’m ready yet. I hope that’s okay.”

Jo knows she isn't ready, but she also knows that he deserves her acknowledgment of his needs and that she’s not trying to push him away

“That’s okay,” he’ll tell her lightly as he gets dressed. He looks at her because he wants her to know he means it. “I just want to be close by while you think about it. Is that okay?”

“I don’t think I’d be able to think straight with you close,” she shrugs casually, playfully. 

Renee rolls his eyes at the dismissal but there’s a smile on his lips. He isn’t surprised by this course of events at all.

Eventually, they head downstairs to the shop together. It’s his day off, which is part of what pushed him to really lose it the night before, knowing he just wouldn’t see Jo for a while and that was how they were gonna leave things. In any case, when Renee sees Paula at the shop he tells her he’ll see her later and to call if anything comes up that they need help with because he doesn’t mind coming in anyway. 

And then turns to Jo. His touches to her are always so quick when they’re not alone, stealing the moment the way he’s seen his whole life. His index finger curls under her chin, thumb bracing the hold so he can tip her chin up in the slightest and lean in to give her a little kiss between her cheek and the side of her mouth. He’s smiling as he pulls away but his exit is always quick after these little things. 

He waves belated back to Paula as he’s halfway out the door and Paula definitely waves back, utterly grinning. And that expression does not fade as she turns to fix it on Jo.