Bloodlines (77 page)

“That sounds good,” Randall agreed. His entire experience with Italian was when he tried to make pasta at home, only to have Edwin and Anthony pick out the meatballs and leave the rest. It would be interesting to have something authentic. “How was your day? I hope Edwin didn’t annoy you too much. I think he gets lonely sometimes.”

Victor seemed to hesitate before looking over at Randall, a small smile curling at the edge of his lips, different from the ones he usually wore. This one seemed more content. “Not at all. He finds Jed and Redford far more entertaining than me. I went back home briefly to get some things, but other than that my day was fairly uneventful. Yours?”

“Long,” Randall admitted. He absently rubbed his hands together, watching the traffic out the window. “But not worth speaking about, really.” They were headed back toward the city, and Randall found his gaze increasingly drawn toward Victor, the lights of the vehicles flashing across his face, lighting him in sporadic vision. “I’ve been looking forward to this, though. I, uh—” He briefly smiled. “—honestly didn’t think we would ever be going on a date.”

“Neither did I,” Victor admitted. “Everything was… very confusing for a while. But I’m glad I got my head straightened out.”

A smile touched Randall’s face, and he daringly reached out to lightly brush his fingers along Victor’s knee. “Well, here we are. I think we’ve had enough of talking about the past. I’m much more interested now in just you.”

“Well, we’re nearly at the restaurant,” Victor replied. “Why don’t I save that topic? I’m not actually that interesting, and I should probably save my good lines of conversation for the actual date.”

“This isn’t the date?” Randall asked, eyes crinkling in amusement. “My God, I am out of practice. I forgot the pre-date ritual.”

“I suppose this could be counted as the date.” Victor looked over at him briefly, obviously not wanting to take his eyes off the road for too long. “But driving in Jed’s Jeep is hardly one of my good ideas.”

“It’s kind of bumpy,” Randall acknowledged. “But our car sounds like the muffler is going to drop out. Anthony’s fixed it a thousand times. It’s really amazing it still runs. So this isn’t half bad.”

Victor turned the Jeep around a corner and leaned forward over the steering wheel, peering ahead to look for a place to park. “I hate driving,” he said absently. “I have cars, but I never use them.”

Randall glanced over, eyebrows lifted high.
Cars
. As in multiple. As in, yesterday Randall dug through Edwin’s sock drawer looking for enough change to get a loaf of bread, and Victor was talking about more than one car. “You should hire a driver,” he managed, wondering exactly how rich Victor was. Randall hadn’t actually thought much of that before, but maybe it was relevant.

“Goodness, no, I live close enough to where I need to go that I can just walk. Any driver would be bored stiff for weeks on end.” Victor grimaced as he pulled the Jeep into a parking spot, sitting up to try to see over the hood to make sure he didn’t bump into anything. He looked relieved when he was done. “Right, then. Just in time for our booking.”

The restaurant that Victor directed them toward looked small and tasteful from the outside, the windows glowing with low lamplight, vines crawling over the white stone walls. A waiter, impeccably dressed, greeted them as soon as they walked in the door. The outside, it turned out, belied what was inside. The interior was only just bright enough to see, lending it an intimate air. Every person dining, to Randall, looked like something out of a movie—perfectly made up without being ostentatious, their taste revealed in more subtle smaller diamonds and expensive cufflinks.

It was something he would have loved watching from a distance. Just seeing how people interacted had always been interesting. But walking among them, being led to his table, Randall was suddenly aware that his clothes weren’t nearly that well fitted, that his suit coat was something he’d gotten from a clearance rack. He didn’t fit in here at all. His hair was messy, he was awkward, and this was not a world he knew how to handle.

The waiter took them to a cozy corner table that overlooked a courtyard. Victor pulled Randall’s chair out for him and sat down opposite him. Randall noticed that he unbuttoned his jacket as he did so, a casual motion by the very rich used to not wanting to crease their suits.

Victor looked satisfied with the restaurant, but when he looked over at Randall, that expression faltered slightly. “You’re uncomfortable,” he surmised. “Oh, Randall, I’m sorry, I should have picked better. We can go elsewhere, if you like.”

“No, of course not.” Randall looked down, frowning, fiddling with his tie. “It’s fine. I just haven’t ever been someplace this nice. I, um, I don’t think I’m dressed right.” He felt ridiculous. Worrying about his
clothes
, honestly. “I would just prefer not to embarrass you.” Randall gave Victor a crooked, rueful little smile.

“Nobody minds what you’re wearing, Randall,” Victor said gently. He nodded to the other patrons, who all looked far more interested in their meals or their dining company. “Only the
snooty
rich would look down on you, and I don’t socialize with that lot.”

“Okay, this is going to sound terrible, but when you say
rich
”—Randall glanced over at Victor—“you don’t just mean ‘I have a savings account with more than ten dollars in it,’ do you?”

“It’s family money, mostly.” Victor looked a little uncomfortable talking about it. “Built up over generations. My mother’s family was one of the first settlers in America. My father’s family is well established in Manchester—that was where I spent most of my youth. I’ve added some of my own through stocks, a few book sales, and a couple of properties I own. Let’s just say that if I had children, neither they nor their children would have to work if they were smart with their money.”

Okay, so more than ten dollars. Randall gave that a moment to sink in. He’d honestly never really thought about
money
like that. Not in anything other than the vague acknowledgement that he needed to have more. Especially now. But he honestly didn’t care if Victor had a thousand dollars or a million or ten million.

Although he did wonder what it’d be like.

“So you want children?” Randall asked with a half-hidden smile, changing the subject and ducking his head to glance through the menu.

Victor’s frown seemed unsure. He too was looking at the menu, but he only gave it a cursory glance, as if he’d been here enough to know what was offered. “I’ve never thought seriously about it,” he admitted. “No further than being wary of passing on my genes.”

“I don’t know if that’d be a bad thing.” Randall reached out to take a sip of his water, slowly starting to regain some of his self-confidence. This was better. This was just him and Victor, talking. He’d always enjoyed that. “Beyond the fact that a child having your smile could never be terrible, the part of yourself you’re concerned about seems to diminish by further generations.”

“Flatterer,” Victor said fondly.

“Oh, I don’t flatter,” Randall assured him, a bit of teasing in his expression. “I only speak truths. That’s one of my wolf qualities, didn’t I tell you? Attractive men only get the truth.”

Victor seemed bemused. “Really? Not even only after asking four times, like the Coyote of myth? I’m very lucky, then.”

“You are,” Randall hummed in agreement. They shared a smile, and Randall went back to perusing the menu, searching through the heavy parchment pages for something familiar. “Do you have any recommendations?” he finally asked, glancing upward, careful to keep his eyes below chin level so Victor didn’t accidentally meet his. “I’ve had bad spaghetti before, but that’s about all my experience with Italian food.”

Victor waved the waiter over in response and ordered for them both in fluent Italian. His accent wasn’t the best, but since Randall knew enough to be conversational in the same language, it was obvious to his ears that it was at least occasionally practiced. And there was something incredibly attractive about Victor at that moment, easily taking control of the situation.

“I thought we’d go with a number of smaller dishes,” Victor said to him once the waiter had left. “So we can share, and you can get the full experience of how excellent these chefs are.”

“In this moment, I am extremely glad you can’t look into my eyes,” he said, just barely audible to Victor, head bowed as he carefully arranged his silverware. “Because the expression I was giving you just then was most definitely not decent.”

Victor smirked. “Perhaps I’ll have to take a photograph for later reference.”

It took him a moment to get it, but then Randall sat back, letting out a small huff of realization. “Because you can look into someone’s eyes that way,” he presumed, long fingers playing with the stem of the water glass. “A photograph, a movie, they’re just images, and so you can look without seeing anything. How fascinating.”

“Yes,” Victor muttered, seemingly embarrassed. “I don’t like to ask people for photographs, but… they’re nice to have.”

Randall simply held out his hand. “Let me see your phone.”

Victor’s rapid blinking had a startled twitch to it, but he didn’t hesitate in finding his phone and handing it over. Randall flipped through it, finding the camera application and holding the phone up in front of himself. Normally he would avoid such things, but in this case, he simply looked straight into the camera and took a picture without worrying about how terrible he would look, how his hair was out of place or he had an odd smile. Then he removed his glasses and did the same thing, thinking of the same expression he’d had earlier, wanting Victor to see. When he was done, he handed the phone back to Victor without a word, slipping his glasses back on.

“I hope you ordered that garlic bread I can smell,” he commented, looking around. “I bet it’s fantastic.”

Victor didn’t seem to hear him. He was too busy cradling his phone in both hands, staring down at the first photograph Randall had taken. He switched to the second and stared at that for some time, before flipping back and forth between the two. His smile looked a bit wobbly as he said, “You have stunning eyes, Randall.”

There was a sudden tightness in Randall’s throat, a soft hook in his stomach that seemed to demand he reach out, taking Victor’s hand in his own. “You are the most amazing man.” His smile too was shaky, but he gripped Victor’s fingers tightly. And for a moment, they just sat there, Victor staring down at his phone, Randall holding his hand. The restaurant didn’t exist. The whole world just faded away, until they were the only ones left.

He wanted a thousand days of this. A thousand times a thousand. The realization hit Randall like a punch, inevitable and completely consuming. As if in that moment, he couldn’t imagine a future that didn’t include, in some way, exactly this. Victor holding his hand.

“I suppose it must seem a bit silly, getting overcome at seeing someone’s eyes,” Victor said ruefully. “I could look into my mother’s eyes. Since we were both alike, our abilities cancelled one another out. It made it difficult to understand why, at a young age before I fully grasped the concept, I couldn’t simply look at other people if I could look at her. On the day I was born, my father took a photograph much like you did, so that I could see him.”

For someone who had grown up completely intertwined with family, Randall simply couldn’t imagine. It seemed impossible to grasp growing up so isolated that your only time looking fully into your father’s face was through a picture. He almost couldn’t think of anything to say, the lump in his throat seeming to swallow his words completely. He pulled Victor’s hand up to place a kiss against his palm. “I don’t think it’s silly,” Randall murmured. “You found a way to connect. There’s something lovely about it.” Lovely and incredibly sad.

“They never looked into each other’s eyes,” Victor replied. “It was an agreement they made when they started dating. Father was much like Jed, actually, not in personality but in ignorance of the supernatural community when he met her, but he adjusted quickly enough. When I was still young, about three, I think it was, my mother had shielded me from other people up until then. She’d wanted my first vision experience to be with someone that I loved, so she had me look into my father’s eyes.”

Victor’s slightly queasy expression said enough. “I wasn’t old enough to grasp what I saw,” he continued, “but I was told I wouldn’t stop crying for days on end. I’m pleased I had the opportunity, though. I knew him so fully that I felt like I’d been around him for a lifetime.”

There were tears in Randall’s eyes, he realized at once. But he smiled a little at Victor. He laced their fingers together and brushed another kiss to his knuckles, resting his chin against them, trying to think of anything to say that might sound like more than a platitude.

“I’m sorry,” Victor said hurriedly, before Randall could say anything. “That’s not exactly pleasant date conversation.”

“Thank you for telling me.” Randall found he really didn’t want to let go of Victor. “I just….” Letting out a slow breath, he shook his head. “I can’t imagine.” His thumb made absent circles against the back of Victor’s hand. “What were your parents like?”

Victor seemed relieved for the question. “I take after my mother more, so I’m told. She grew up here in America, taken care of by my grandmother. My grandfather is the one who passed the medusa gene on. He’s been in a nursing home for quite some time now. My father was a tailor. He was a very methodical man, and he didn’t give up his trade even when he married into money. You would have liked them, I think. They certainly would have loved you.” He tightened his grasp around Randall’s hand. “What about your parents?”

“I would have liked to meet your parents.” And he would have. To see if Victor’s laugh came from his mother, if the way he would get so focused on his research made him look like his father, if he had his mother’s strength and his father’s kindness. Yes, Randall very much would have loved to meet them both. “Maybe, someday soon, we can go visit your grandfather. I don’t know much about your family, obviously, or what happens to medusas as they age. But if you wanted to go, I would go with you.”