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Victor shrugged as he took his own bite, and though he managed not to sound like he was making love to his meal, it was a near thing. It was amazing. He chewed and swallowed, savoring the taste before he answered. “I’m older than you. I’m not sure you’d even get my references.”
Oliver smiled sweetly at him. “Try me.”
Victor hummed, then smiled as he chewed a second bite. “Elisabeth Shue.”
Oliver grinned back and began to hum “Then He Kissed Me.” Victor laughed as Oliver preened. “Trust me, I’m not uncultured, even for a foster kid who spent half his time sleeping on cots and eating the free lunch option at school.”
Victor did his best not to wince, mostly because he knew Oliver wasn’t saying that to rub their differences in his face. He let out a small sigh as he considered his second answer. “Would it make me a stereotype if I said David Bowie?”
“LikeLabyrinth, long mullet David Bowie or the Ziggy Stardust red one?”
Victor wanted to kiss him. God, he wanted to kiss him just for that. “Either. Both. It was something I kept quietly to myself for so long.”
Oliver polished off the last few bites, then crumpled the foil in his hands and smiled. “If you ever want to wax poetic about twinky eighties musicians, I’m your man. Trust me.” He stood up after that, the long line of his body a stark silhouette against the backdrop of the ocean horizon. The sun wasn’t set, but it was low enough in the sky, and rain clouds were rolling in thick enough to cast shadows. “How stable is this little hill? I want to go touch the water.”
Victor shrugged. “I don’t know. But I can’t dive in and save you if you fall.”
Oliver took a deep breath, then jumped along with Victor when a crack of thunder boomed so loud, he could feel it in his chest. “We’re gonna get—”
Rained onwas probably what he’d been about to say. Or soaked. Drenched.
Ruined.
The sky opened up, and Victor couldn’t scramble to his feet fast enough, and he was too startled to do anything except start laughing. Oliver joined him a second later with an extended hand, and he went easily when Victor tugged him close.
He felt like he was standing at the edge of a cliff in more ways than one, and he was unable to stop himself from reaching up and brushing platinum waves off Oliver’s forehead. “You should definitely come inside.”
Oliver’s eyes were a bright spark as they locked onto Victor’s. “You sure?”
“I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if I let you leave like this.” His gaze tracked Oliver’s pink tongue as it licked raindrops from his lips. “At least to get warm.”
“Okay,” Oliver whispered. Victor couldn’t hear it, but he watched his full lips curl around the word, and it felt like a promise. One he wanted to curl around and protect.
* * *
The trek to the house was slow, and Oliver insisted on gathering everything into his arms before offering his elbow to help keep Victor steady on the softening ground. The steps felt like climbing a mountain now that the cold had sunk into Victor’s joints, but eventually, they made it to the top, and Victor punched in the code with stiff fingers.
The second painful moment was stepping inside the foyer, where they were both hit with a blast of AC since Victor had left it on after he couldn’t figure out how the damn thing worked. Oliver yelped, wrapping his arms around his waist, and he jumped up and down.
“God, are you a Yeti?”
Victor laughed. “I don’t know how to adjust it.”
Oliver let out a loudbrrrand shook his head. “Get me something warm, and then I’ll fix it for you.”
Victor had a thousand ideas crashing through his head all at once, but instead of acting on any of them, he took Oliver by his wrist and tugged him down the hall and into the bedroom. He felt a quick pulse of shame at how messy it all was, but he didn’t stop to let the other man look around. He pulled him through the door to the en suite and bossed him onto the toilet seat.
“Sit.”
Oliver spread his hands as if to say,You didn’t give me a choice.
Victor grinned to himself as he opened the linen cabinet and pulled out a fluffy white towel. He shook it out, then used his elbow to flip on the switch for the heated floors before walking over to stand in front of him. “Do you mind if I—?”
“No,” Oliver said, breathy and soft. In spite of Victor’s order, he stood, then stepped forward until their bodies were almost touching. “Whatever you want to do with me is fine.”
Victor shuddered and closed his eyes in a long blink.
It was rare that Victor was taller than anyone. His doctor had once implied that he was lucky to hit five eight, but he felt like he was towering over Oliver, who was less than an inch shorter. Maybe it was the feeling of control, or the way Oliver was looking at him, or the line Victor knew he was going to cross.
