AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Oliver laughed. “But you—corporate rich guy—have spent a ton of time studying stingrays?”
Victor shrugged and toyed with the hem of his trousers. “I had a lot of free time as a kid. I would be out of school for months, sometimes, after surgeries on my legs. We had this massive library in our house that no one ever used. I think my father set it up because he wanted people to think he was more cultured than he was.”
“Like Beauty and the Beast,” Oliver said.
Victor snorted and shook his head. “Maybe if the Beast fucked all his household staff and ignored Beauty so long, she started an affair with the gardener and the pool boy.”
The silence was very pointed and thick, and Victor could feel Oliver staring at him even as he kept his gaze out the window. “That’s, uh…”
“I know,” Victor said softly. His story wasn’t unique amongst the people he knew. His story was everyone’s story, and they all grew up to emulate their parents. For them, money and prestige were the only things that mattered, but Victor’s heart had never hardened. “It’s awful.”
“I just don’t know how you can live like that,” Oliver said softly. He reached over, and Victor sucked in a breath when warm, strong fingers closed over his. “Tell me about your library.”
Victor smiled down at their joined hands and stroked his thumb over Oliver’s. “I don’t know where the books came from. A lot of them were actually blank with the covers of classics.”
“Robinson CrusoeandTreasure Island?” Oliver said.
“Something like that,” Victor answered, leaning his head back and staring at the ocean ahead of them. It was barely visible on the horizon, and it was his view most days, but he never got tired of seeing it. “When I was seven, I had this really invasive surgery on my legs. They were attempting a tendon transfer in my ankles, and I couldn’t bear weight for three months. My nanny was having an affair with my dad at the time, so she’d set me up in the library with a stack of books and leave me there until lunch.”
“Jesus,” Oliver whispered.
Victor shrugged. “It wasn’t the worst way to spend my day. I started out in a deep dive on Ancient Egypt, and somehow, that led to this encyclopedia of extinct ocean animals. It was all over for me after that.”
Oliver chuckled under his breath and twisted his hand so their fingers were linked together. “And you fell in love with stingrays after that?”
“Ah. That happened on a trip I took with my father to Jamacia. I was sixteen and allowed to swim for the first time in almost a year. We were at a sandbar, and I was just floating in the water, and when I stepped down, I got stung.”
“What the fuck?” Oliver demanded. “You got stung?”
“It wasn’t the ray’s fault,” Victor defended, trying to hide his grin. “I was in his home, and he was protecting himself. My foot swelled up to the size of a football, and my father was so pissed, but it was maybe the best summer I’d ever had.”
“You’re so strange,” Oliver said with a huge grin. “I’d have freaked the fuck out just seeing one in person.”
Victor grinned as the car slowed with the traffic. They weren’t far from the aquarium, going slightly faster than a crawl. “Wait. You live here and you’ve never seen skates before?”
Oliver shrugged. “Is that weird?”
He supposed that all depended on someone’s situation, and he realized he and Oliver were on different planets with some things. “It’s just a thing, I suppose. Not everyone cares about the ocean the way I do.”
“It’s not a matter of caring,” Oliver said. “It was a matter of opportunity. Everyone assumes that living here, I grew up wealthy. They don’t like to see the sides of the city where people like me were raised.”
Victor swallowed heavily. He desperately wanted to know more, but that didn’t seem fair. That wasn’t part of the agreement. “Do you like it here?” he asked instead.
Oliver’s laugh was a little sharp. “Fuck no. I mean, it’s not the worst place in the world. Great for making money,” he added, and Victor realized what he was implying. But he knew Oliver wasn’t trying to make him feel uncomfortable. And he most definitely wasn’t trying to be unkind. “The university isn’t bad, and I like that the city’s huge. I’ve done the whole small-town thing, and it was the worst.”
Victor frowned. “With your parents?”
“Foster parents,” Oliver quickly corrected. “I spent some time in a group home after that and then bounced around when foster homes had openings.”
“I…were your parents…” Victor stammered.
Oliver shrugged. “Not addicts or anything like that. I was thrown into the system when my sperm and egg donors found out I was queer. They tossed me out, and when the cops picked me up for stealing food, they refused to take me back in.”
Victor sucked in a breath. “How could they do that to a child they raised?”
With a scoff, Oliver shook his head. “Fuck knows, really. They weren’t great when they thought I was just a girly straight boy either. It was probably for the best.”
“It’s still bullshit,” Victor said, feeling vicious toward those strangers who hurt this angel of a man.
