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Oliver’s eyes widened, and his mouth formed a small o. “Damn. You called her?”
“She called me,” Victor said. He served himself a portion of chicken and stared down at it, his appetite disappearing. “Charlie came clean.”
“Did she want to revenge bang you?”
Victor, who had started to take a sip of wine, choked on his swallow. “Revenge bang me?”
Oliver speared a bit of carrot without looking up, and Victor could see he was trying to keep the conversation light, but he was bothered. “Yeah. I mean, you’re hot, and I bet she’s hot.”
“She’s very beautiful,” Victor confirmed.
Oliver swallowed heavily, then looked up with a smile so fake it made Victor’s jaw hurt. “So, it would be the perfect revenge, right? I mean, she lives close to you, and…”
“I’m not interested in revenge,” Victor said quietly. He set his glass down, then reached over the short distance between them and took Oliver’s hand into his own. “Even if I hadn’t met you, the thought wouldn’t cross my mind. The best revenge I can serve is living happily while they spend the rest of their lives miserable and unable to trust each other.”
Oliver bit his lip, then looked up. “You do know you deserve to be happy with someone else, right? I mean, if you want to be.”
“I know,” Victor said. But no one would compare to Oliver, and he wasn’t sure anyone else ever would. So there was no real point in entertaining the idea. And, in all honesty, Victor wasn’t actually afraid to be alone. He just needed a reminder that alone was better than with someone he never loved.
* * *
They’d both done a damn good job pretending like the clock was almost at zero, but Victor woke up the next morning with a heavy weight in his gut and an almost desperate need to make his last day with Oliver mean something. Oliver was still deep asleep, so Victor pulled up his phone and opened his account, transferring the rest of the money before turning it off, determined to leave it that way until he said his last goodbye.
Stretching out as best as he could, Victor rolled onto his side and swung his legs over the bed. He attempted to stand, but before he could brace himself on the wall, he toppled to the ground. He saw it rushing at him seconds before he remembered to brace himself, and he hit the floor.
Hard.
His ears rang, but just behind that, he could hear Oliver sit up with a gasp. “Babe!”
Victor rolled onto his back and covered his face with both hands. “Pretend that didn’t happen?”
“Depends on if you’re seriously hurt,” Oliver told him, his voice tinged with caution.
Victor did a quick self-assessment. He was sore. He was definitely going to have a bruise on his elbow where he took the brunt of his weight, and his feet didn’t seem overly inclined to move, which meant he wasn’t going to be walking well even with his orthotics.
“Not hurt,” he said. “Just humiliated.”
Oliver made a soft noise of comfort. “How can I help?”
“Crutches?” Victor asked, though he was desperately wishing for his wheelchair. He should have known better this close to his Botox treatment that all the exertion from the vacation and all the stress from the split was going to fuck him up.
But he’d always been kind of a fool about his pride.
Oliver was at his side a second later, leaning the crutches against the bed before his warm, sleep-soft hands took Victor by the shoulders and helped him sit. His legs were still violently jumping, and it was going to be a miracle if he made it to the bathroom before pissing himself.
Fantastic.
“Okay, please don’t take this the wrong way,” Oliver begged, “but you look like you’re about to cry.”
Victor attempted to swallow, but it was prevented by the thick burn in the back of his throat because Oliver was right. He was about to cry. “Any chance you’ll leave me here with the last of my dignity?”
“Every chance,” Oliver said. “But only if you understand that you’re not going to lose anything if you need my help.”
Victor pressed his hands to his knees hard, begging them to just stop. But his body wasn’t about to listen. Because of course not. Why would it be kind on their last day? “Please,” he whispered.
Oliver nodded and got up, leaving the room and closing the door firmly behind him. It was just a momentary relief before Victor surveyed the stretch of floor in front of him. It was feet, but it looked like miles, and he managed to drag himself with his weak arms all the way to the door of the bathroom before his bladder gave up.
It wasn’t the first time Victor’s body had betrayed him like that. It was just the first time it had done it in front of someone else. He’d managed to hide all those difficult parts for years and years. The last person to clean him up was his nanny, and he was sixteen and he had the flu.
