AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“What’s the plan for tonight?”
“Hockey,” Victor said quietly, his voice rough with emotion. “Food and…hockey. She really loved that fucking game, and going alone feels pathetic, but what else can I do? I’ll look like a coward if I cancel, won’t I?” He almost laughed. There was no way this stranger had any idea what he was talking about.
The man’s eyes took on a dark and determined look. “I’ve watched a couple games before. You want me to go with you?”
Victor’s heart thumped. “That’s not what you were hired for.”
“Nope,” the guy said, popping thePin his word. “Definitely not what I was hired for. But I’ve done a lot of shit weirder than that.” He stood up again and stuck out his hand. His palm was soft and very delicate as Victor shook it. “My name’s Oliver.”
“Victor,” he said, then flushed and looked away. “Apologies. You already knew that.”
“As a matter of fact, I didn’t. It’s nice to meet you, Victor. I’m sorry my car’s a piece of shit, but I don’t want to kill us trying to drive yours, so would you be cool if we took this anyway?”
“It’s not a piece of shit,” Victor said a little sheepishly. “I didn’t mean to imply that.” He wasn’t the kind of person who looked down on others for what they had. He was just so outside of his wheelhouse he felt like he was losing his mind.
Oliver laughed as he took a step back and rubbed the nape of his neck. “That’s really sweet of you, but itisa piece of shit. I just don’t see the need to spend more money when I almost never use it. Also, you might want to get in the front seat. Trust me, you’re basically sitting in my car’s trash can.”
Victor did his best not to pull a face as he grabbed the side of the car and stood. His spasms had stopped, and while his legs felt a little tired, he was steady again as he closed the door and moved to the front.
Oliver was right. It was nicer up there. He could easily ignore the fast-food smell for the warm, well-worn leather seat, and it was clear Oliver was a lot more fussy about the spaces he could see.
“Your company should provide you a better car for the amount they charge,” Victor said when Oliver slid behind the wheel. His breath caught in his chest when Oliver offered him a brilliant, gorgeous smile.
He hadn’t felt like this about a man in…God, he didn’t know how long. He wasn’t really the type of person who got caught up in looks, and it had always been uncomfortable with gay men when he was younger. Just like women, most of them were attracted to him for his money, but too many of them wanted perfection.
And Victor was the furthest thing from perfect.
“I’ll definitely leave them a note about it,” Oliver said and winked as he turned his car back on, then gave the steering wheel an absent little pat. “So. You said you wanted food. Did you have reservations, or…?”
“I’ll take suggestions,” he said, glancing at the driver. “If you have any.”
Oliver raked his gaze up and down Victor’s body, and there was a look there that Victor wasn’t used to seeing. It wasn’t objectifying, but it wasn’tnotobjectifying. He felt strangely seen in ways he never had before.
Or maybe his brain was playing tricks on him because of how beautiful Oliver was.
“I’m gonna go ahead and veto concession stand hot dogs for your sake, but there’s a really good wing place inside the arena if you want to skip going to a whole separate place.”
“You’d eat there?”
Oliver threw his head back and laughed. “Bud, I eat gas station burritos, so you might not want to base your opinion on what I will and won’t eat. But for what it’s worth, I do know good food, and they’re pretty damn great. My only worry is that you will get a little…messy.”
Victor hummed. “Do you think I could handle it?”
Oliver grinned, the look a little wolfish, and Victor suddenly felt a new kind of hunger. “Victor, my darling, not only do I think you can handle messy, I’m pretty sure you need it.”
Chapter4
Don’t do it.Don’t do it. Don’t do it.
His panicked mantra continued with him even as he scrolled through his messages and verified that this was not, in fact, John Bishop, the probably married, thirty-six-year-old man who wanted to get railed in the bathroom of a sports bar downtown.
This poor, oblivious, rich moron thought Oliver was some sort of Uber for fancy guys, and Oliver would have laughed him all the way to the fucking curb if the guy hadn’t been on the verge of a total breakdown. Oliver could be a cold bitch when he wanted to be, but in reality, his heart was usually warm and prone to bleeding and, more often than not, lived on his sleeve.
And there was no bigger wound he wanted to heal than some gorgeously naïve man with big puppy eyes having an emotional breakdown in the back of his piece-of-shit car.
It also helped that Oliver really didn’t want to fuck some closeted married dude in a sports bar bathroom that would no doubt smell overwhelmingly like beer piss and fried mushrooms—the worst combination known to man. Obviously, he wasn’t going to get paid for the night, but he could afford it. No matter how much he worried, he had six figures in his savings account, a savings CD growing interest, his rent was paid, and he had enough for his last tuition check without putting a dent in his expense account.
He was fine.
