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Victor paled. “Is someone forcing you to—”
“No, God,” Oliver groaned. He slapped a hand over his face and dragged it down. He should have known the question was coming. Everyone always fucking asked him that. “I wasn’t human trafficked. I promise. I came from basically nothing, and I’m about a semester away from finishing grad school, and the last thing I wanted was to have my whole future defined by student loans I couldn’t pay off all because I want to be a goddamn teacher and it pays dick.” He paused to calm himself. “I like sex, and I’m amazing at being able to turn into someone else’s fantasy, so I decided to make money off my weird talent.”
Victor swallowed heavily. “I understand.”
Oliver let out a bitter laugh. “Do you?”
“I actually do,” Victor told him. “I’m not saying I’ve been there, but I know how to draw a line from point A to point B, Oliver. I’m not judging you.”
Oliver scoffed. “Yes, you are. Whether or not you want to admit it, you are. You’re thinking about how you just spent the whole night—this whole, amazing night—with a hooker.”
“I—” Victor stopped, then shrugged. “Thatwasmy first thought.”
“I know. It’s always everyone’s first thought. Even my friends when we’re just hanging out.” Oliver licked his lips, his tongue painfully dry. “And most of the men who hire me have that thought too. They always want to pretend it’s real because in their everyday lives, they’re pretending to be straight. And they pay me a wad of cash and leave, still horny as fuck and unable to be fully satisfied, and they always, always email me again because they think at some point, I’ll cure them. And when they realize I can’t fix whatever’s wrong with them, they spit in my face and call me a whore.”
Victor sat with that for a while, and Oliver let him.
After a minute, when Victor still said nothing, Oliver sighed and felt guilty. “I’m not sayingyou’reone of those guys.”
Victor scoffed quietly in the back of his throat. “Aren’t you?”
A small pulse of rage took over, and Oliver fought the urge to hit the steering wheel out of frustration. “No! That’s…Jesus, I’m trying to tell you that tonight has been the opposite of everything I’m used to.” He rubbed at his eye tiredly. “You want the truth?”
“I don’t know,” Victor replied honestly. “But why not. What’s the truth?”
“I don’t hate my job,” Oliver told him, spreading his hands in a shrug. “This isn’t my chosen career, but it’s not the worst way to graduate without debt, and I don’t think I’ll ever regret it. I didn’t keep it a secret tonight because I’m ashamed of myself.”
“I truly didn’t think you were,” Victor replied softly, and Oliver actually believed him.
Oliver bowed his head and took a slow breath. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the truth. I thought I was doing a good thing, and it turned out to be an entirely selfish thing because even after seeing that look of hurt on your face, I can’t regret the time we had together.”
Victor glanced away, his head bowed, shoulders hunched. After a second, he nodded. “I don’t regret it either. And I probably would have walked away and gone home if you’d told me the truth before we got to the arena.”
“Or,” Oliver said, daring a tiny smirk, “you would have gone with your hired ride and flirted with the world’s hottest hockey team owner—whodefinitelyseemed into you.”
Victor laughed sharply and shook his head. “Wrong. It turns out my ride canceled on me before I got into your car, and I missed the message. And Gabriel had the nerve to ask me to pass along his number to you if our date didn’t work out.”
Oliver flushed hard. “I—oh.”
“Do you want it?”
Oliver shook his head before he could really think about it. Was it a terrible idea? Probably. But Gabriel didn’t seem like the kind of guy who wanted to settle down with a nerdy history professor. He was the type of guy who wanted to parade around a svelte little sugar baby to rich-guy parties, and that was not how Oliver wanted to see his future.
He picked at a jagged bit of leather on the steering wheel that had been torn since before he bought the car and tried to bring himself to look over at Victor, but he failed. “I’m sorry your ride canceled on you.”
Victor scoffed again, sounding a little tired. “It happens more than I care to think about. I should have just called for a cab.”
At that, Oliver frowned. “What do you mean it happens all the time. Why did they cancel?”
“The driver didn’t know I had this until he got the details of the reservation.” Victor pulled open the side of his coat and reached in, dragging out a familiar blue tag with a white wheelchair image Oliver had seen a thousand times in mall parking lots. “While you were in the bathroom, I finally looked at the text, and the driver said he wasn’t interested in the liability of a disabled client.”
“Hold the fucking phone. Isn’t that against the law?”
“The law’s tricky,” Victor said, putting the tag back in his jacket. “And it’s not worth the fight. All they have to do is say they don’t have a car that can accommodate my needs.”
Oliver frowned deeper. “But…we didn’t even use it. And you don’t, like, have extra needs? Do you?”
Victor laughed, his eyes all crinkly and sweet again, and he shrugged. “Sometimes I do, but it doesn’t matter. They didn’t even ask what I required tonight. Like I said, a cab would have been easier.”
