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He lifted the towel and wrapped it around Oliver’s back, dragging it up his hair and giving it a gentle scrub. Oliver’s eyes never left his face, and his lips parted on a soft breath. His lips were tinged sort of a white blue, but he wasn’t shivering.
“Warming up?” Victor asked.
Oliver nodded. “Um. My feet are weirdly hot.”
Victor looked down to see that at some point, Oliver had kicked his shoes off. It took him a second to realize why, and then he laughed. “Heated floors.”
“Rich people,” Oliver scoffed.
“If it helps, I don’t have heated floors in my home,” Victor said. “It never even occurred to me.”
“I don’t want to know what it says about the person who owns this place,” Oliver murmured. Victor used the corner of the towel to rub his cheeks, and Oliver leaned into the touch. He hummed softly. “It’s been so long.”
“Hmm?”
Oliver blinked in surprise. “I…did not mean to say that out loud. Please ignore me.”
Victor dropped the edges of the towel around Oliver’s shoulders and took a step back before he did something he regretted. He wanted—so badly his jaw hurt and his chest was tight. And he was pretty sure he wasn’t going to let Oliver leave without at least saying something because it didn’t seem fair.
He’d never navigated a situation like this before. He was paying Oliver for company, but he’d taken sex off the table. It was clear Oliver liked him, but their lives were complicated and so damn different. And no matter what they felt, there was an ocean separating them when real life factored in.
“Let me get you something to change into,” he eventually said, his voice a little rough from the cold. “Sit here for a second and finish drying off.”
“You need to get out of those wet clothes too,” Oliver pointed out.
Victor nodded, then turned and made his way out of the bathroom. For the first time in a damn long time, he wished he could walk faster.
He made it to the bed, where his suitcase was still lying open, and he found a pair of jogging pants and a pair of sleep pants. He pulled them out, then began to undo the button on his trousers. He was glad he didn’t have an audience for the way he had to lie down on his back and wriggle out of the fabric like a beached fish, and he tossed them to the side before leaning over his thighs to undo the straps on his orthotics.
His legs were aching like he’d attempted a marathon, and his toes refused to flex no matter how hard he tried. He was going to need a long soak and a day of rest at this rate, which pissed him off because there was no reason for Oliver to see him if he had nowhere to go.
“Hey, do you—” Oliver stopped abruptly in the bathroom doorway, his eyes fixed on Victor’s naked half. “Sorry. Sorry. Shit.”
Victor cleared his throat, then held the jogging pants out. “I think these should fit. And I have a T-shirt. I don’t… My sweater options are kind of…ridiculous.”
“Oh, honey.” Oliver giggled, the sound a little tense as he walked forward, and Victor could see his jeans were unbuttoned and the zipper was down far enough that he got a peek at something very pink.
Panties.
He went hot all over.
“Thank you,” Oliver whispered. He attempted to pull them from Victor’s grasp, but Victor couldn’t bring himself to let go.
“Allow me,” he murmured.
Oliver’s breath caught as he looked down. “You want to dress me?”
Victor’s answer was either going to send Oliver running, or it was going to complicate things even further. But he had lost any ability to lie. “Yes.”
Silence settled between them—thick and almost tangible. Then Oliver released his grip on the pants and shuffled back a few inches.
“Okay.”
Victor’s hands started to shake. He set the joggers over his thighs, and then his stiff fingertips curled in the waistband of Oliver’s jeans. He gave them a tug, but they were so tight they only slipped down a few inches before catching on the curve of Oliver’s ass.
Oliver stumbled a little, laughing as he set his hands on Victor’s shoulders. “Sorry.”
“Did you paint them on?”
