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Closing his eyes, Victor let himself bask in the feeling of Oliver pressed against his chest, and he took a long, slow breath before speaking again. “I’m not just here. I want a way forward, angel. I don’t care what we have to do or where we have to go to get it.”
“Well, I—” Oliver was interrupted by his buzzer, and he groaned, dropping his forehead to Victor’s shoulder. “Uhg. Hang on. I promised the pizza guy a cash tip.”
Victor felt empty and oddly bereft when Oliver’s weight lifted off him. It was absurd, considering he was just a few feet away, but Victor wanted no space for a good, long while. It was probably unhealthy, but he was struggling to give a shit.
He stared at the bedroom door, listening to Oliver thank the pizza guy, and then he reappeared with the box balanced on his hand the way he had months back.
“What did I say about your fingers?” Victor demanded as Oliver set the box on the edge of the bed.
“Um.” Oliver frowned at him, so Victor seized him by the wrist and tugged until Oliver was straddling his thighs again.
Taking his wrist, Victor positioned his warm hand and kissed each finger, then his palm. “Never again.”
Oliver went bright pink from the apples of his cheeks to the tips of his ears. “It’s just a pizza box, darling,” he whispered.
“Never,” Victor said against Oliver’s warm skin, flushing hard at the name he’d been longing to hear. “Again.”
Oliver let out a trembling breath before surging in and taking a slow, deep, wet, messy kiss. Victor groaned, hard as a rock, and he thrust his hips up as best he could with his exhausted legs.
“Pretty boy, you really know how to make me blush.”
Victor had forgotten just how fucking good it felt to be called that. He let his eyes drift shut, and he breathed in deeply. “You need to eat, angel.”
Oliver groaned, but his stomach punctuated the sound with a grumble of its own, and Oliver laughed before twisting sideways, keeping his legs draped over Victor’s thighs as he reached for the food. “Is this comfy?”
“Wouldn’t care if it wasn’t. I’m feeling a little vulnerable, and I want to be touching you,” Victor answered honestly. He reached out a finger and traced the line of Oliver’s jaw.
Oliver swallowed heavily as he got a piece of pizza, and Victor could feel the tension between them as he chewed and swallowed until he was down to crust. When he reached for a second piece, he glanced at Victor from his periphery and said, “So…I got accepted into a PhD program.”
Victor’s eyes widened. “That’s amazing.”
“Is it?” Oliver pressed.
Victor lifted a confused brow. “I don’t know. Do you need money? I could always—”
“No. No, Jesus,” Oliver said, dragging a hand down his face. “I have a plan. I don’t need you to pay me.”
Victor rolled his eyes, but he felt a little bit of relief, though perhaps that wasn’t fair since he would have loved Oliver through any job he worked. “I wasn’t going to offer that. I was going to offerhelp. The way any loving partner would offer help.”
Oliver’s lips softened into a smile, and he shrugged. “Well, it’s fine. I got funding. And a job. I can work at the community college. They want to start offering more humanities classes, but they’re short on teachers right now, so they’ve given me twelve credit hours a month.”
“That’s…decent, right?”
Oliver laughed. “It’s amazing. Even if I have to write another fucking thesis.”
“You say that like it’s not the highlight of your academic career,” Victor pointed out. When Oliver’s eyes widened with shock, Victor scoffed. “You forget I had you for almost a whole week, angel. I saw what you looked like when you were buried in research. I know what contentment looks like, even if I haven’t felt it all that often myself.”
Oliver’s smile went very small and very sweet. “I almost forgot the way you pay attention.” His fingers twitched on his thigh, and he set the untouched pizza down to free his other hand so he could take Victor’s. Their fingers twisted together, warm and perfect, like they’d always belonged that way. “It’s far.”
Victor frowned in confusion. “What is?”
“The job. The school. It’s across the country. Uh…in Rhode Island. And I mean, I’d never ask you to pack up your life and move there with me, but—”
Victor’s tense noise of surprise interrupted Oliver’s sentence, and it took him a second to compose himself. “Emil asked me to move there.”
Oliver stared at him for a beat. “Who? Jesus, please tell me that’s not, like, your boyfriend or something.”
Victor reared back. “No. No. He’s a friend. He used to run the company with me, but he ended up wanting out as much as I did.” Victor took a slow breath, then said, “There hasn’t been anyone since you. I’m not sure there could be.”
