by Beth Bolden
He’d been at Terroir a year now, and there was a part of him that had fiercely believed that after all this time, something would have happened to shift the status quo, even though they both believed that it was better that nothing ever happened between them.
But Bastian’s determination to keep his hands off was forged from steel, and Kian couldn’t deny the selflessness attracted him even more.
It grew harder, every day, every week, every month, and still neither of them flinched.
Maybe they never would. That possibility had seemed completely impossible a year ago, but maybe he’d been wrong. After all, it couldn’t get much harder than this, could it?
“I’m sorry,” Bastian said, so quietly that Kian nearly missed it.
Kian reached out again, and it was perilous, but he covered Bastian’s big scarred hand with his own, smaller one. “Don’t apologize,” he insisted in a hard tone. “Don’t you dare apologize.”
Bastian’s smile was wry. “Even for losing my temper?”
Kian’s mom had told him once that when he fell in love, he needed to accept everything about the object of his affection. “You don’t have to love everything,” she’d said with a laugh, “you don’t even have to like everything, but you need to accept who they are because you can’t change them.”
Kian couldn’t believe it had taken him so long to realize, but of course he was in love with Bastian. Maybe it was because he’d been trying to keep those feelings locked away, covered with the convenient, much less serious, “hormones” label. But now that he’d realized, it was impossible to deny it was true.
And Bastian—who still shot him yearning looks, who was teaching him every single thing he knew, who seemed to delight in Kian stretching his culinary wings, who denied them the very thing they wanted because it would be better for Kian’s future—he must love him too.
It should have been a joyous realization, but all it did was fill Kian with frustration.
What was he supposed to do about something he couldn’t do anything about?
Nothing, he thought darkly, I’m going to do nothing. Nothing has changed.
Chapter Five
Nothing, Bastian reminded himself as he pulled into the valet parking station at the downtown San Francisco hotel, you will do nothing.
Kian was next to him, eyes wide as he took in the huge buildings and the crowds of people on the streets around them. He absorbed sights and sounds and flavors like a sponge, regurgitating them in the most unusual ways. Bastian had been sure that with time, his desire would fade, and they could settle into a more normal mentor-student relationship, but he discovered that he was more drawn to Kian than ever. Not just his body or his physical attributes, but his mind—and his heart. He was incomprehensibly loyal, and believed, even after being let down enough times to turn other people bitter, in the best of everyone.
There had been part of him who believed it was a mistake to take Kian on this short trip to the city for the culinary demonstration, but he needed an assistant, and Kian had become essential to him. So he’d booked them two separate rooms, even though the temptation burned in him.
Nobody at Terroir would know what happened this weekend. Nobody would ever know if they didn’t use the second room—the only witnesses would be the two of them. But Bastian knew, just as he’d known a year and a half ago, that it still couldn’t happen. He was still Kian’s mentor, and what a student he was turning out to be.
He could comfortably sub at any station on the line, even somehow, inconceivably, pastry, and he had made Bastian’s life both easier and fuller, more complete. When he came home, he didn’t feel as alone as he had. Technically he still ate alone, showered alone, went to bed alone, but Kian was a ghost next to him, his faithful shadow, the memory of who he was keeping Bastian company always.
It was still hard, to work together every day, and keep the feelings in the tightly-lidded box. But other than a handful of slips when he’d admitted to Kian just how tough it was, he’d done it because it needed to be done. He’d known at the very beginning that Kian was going to be a special kind of chef, and in the last eighteen months, he’d fulfilled all that promise and more.
Bastian shouldn’t feel dissatisfied—he’d accomplished exactly what he’d set out to do, which was keep his hands off Kian, and make sure he learned everything Bastian could teach—but the feeling followed him around anyway.
It reminded him, far too often, that he didn’t need to be alone when he ate, when he showered, when he slept. That as gratifying as the shadow of Kian was, real flesh and blood would be exponentially more satisfying.
Shaking the thoughts away, Bastian got out of the car, tossing the keys to the approaching valet, and grabbed their bags from the trunk. Kian trailed a few steps behind as they walked into the lobby, eyes wide and growing wider, at the spectacularly massive Dale Chihuly glass chandelier, executed in metallic gold and a progression of bloody reds.
On the drive down, Kian had asked him if he did these sorts of demonstrations often. Bastian had nearly told him that he should already know this, because he’d been working for him for eighteen months already, and he hadn’t left the restaurant once. Not a day off in eighteen months.
That’s what the old Bastian would have said anyway—with a bark and a bite in his voice. But even though his employees ignored it, he knew he’d grown softer. Less frustrated with things like social niceties. More apt to answer questions about himself, especially when posed to him by Kian.
“No,” he’d answered simply. “I hate doing them.”
“Then why are you doing this one?” Kian had asked.
“A favor,” was all Bastian had said, but he had a feeling that the favor would show himself soon enough and all Kian’s questions would be answered.
It turned out the favor was hovering near the enormous carved mahogany desk that doubled as the hotel concierge.
“It is so good to see you, mon cher,” Luc said, approaching Bastian with open arms.
“This is a surprise,” Bastian muttered, managing to duck a little and avoid his embrace full-on, relegating him to a sort of half hug. He deliberately set the bags on the floor, also avoiding Luc attempting any cheek kisses.
He wasn’t going to do that. Definitely not with Luc. And somehow, surprisingly, the thought of Kian witnessing it wrenched his stomach.
“They said you wouldn’t come but I told them otherwise,” Luc announced cheerfully. “Even the great Bastian Aquino can leave the enclave of Napa for a weekend.”
There were many times Bastian had been tempted to punch Luc in the face, but none more than right now.
“I gave my word,” Bastian ground out, “so naturally, I am here.”
“Of course, of course,” Luc said. “Shall I show you the setup now or . . .”
Bastian had known Luc would be here. He had fully expected that Luc would want to avoid him as much as Bastian wanted to avoid Luc. However that did not seem to be the case.
“We just arrived. Can we not check in to our rooms first?”
“We?” Luc pointedly looked around Bastian and then saw Kian, who was still transfixed by the Chihuly.
“My assistant and I,” Bastian said stiffly.
“Your assistant?” Luc said slyly, looking Kian over from top to bottom.
Bastian had been wrong; this was the moment he wanted to punch Luc more than any other.
“My assistant,” Bastian repeated, stressing the assistant part. But the knowing look in Luc’s eyes was unmistakable.
It was evidence of how pathetic Bastian had become that he almost wished that Luc’s sly insinuation was true.
“Well, I’ll see you two in the ballroom in a little while. I want to make sure I remembered how you like your mise at your station.”
When they were finally in the elevator, heading upstairs, Kian turned to Bastian. “Who was that?”
“An old friend,” Bastian said, hoping that the closed-book tone of his voice would strongly sugge
st to Kian to leave it at that.
But one of the things he adored most about the man next to him was his insatiable curiosity. He didn’t want to just try one thing with an ingredient, he wanted to cook it a hundred different ways, until he’d discovered the best possible way to prepare it.
He wasn’t ever going to leave that tantalizing glimpse into Bastian’s past alone.
“Someone you worked with?” Kian asked as Bastian handed him the keycard to his room. “He looked pretty young.”
Not as young as you, Bastian thought to himself.
“Someone I mentored a few years back,” Bastian said, “when I first opened Terroir.”
“Oh,” Kian said. “Someone like me.”
Someone who is nothing like you.
But Bastian was stupid and said, “Sure.” It wasn’t accurate, not in any way that mattered, but he believed it might stop the questions, and that was really what he was after.
He never wanted to talk about Luc, and he definitely didn’t want to talk about Luc with Kian.
“Oh,” Kian said, and the slightly wounded edge in his voice made him immediately want to take it back, but he didn’t, because what was he supposed to say? I don’t want to hurt your feelings? Nobody is really like you? Nobody ever, not for me? Those were things a boyfriend would say, and Bastian wasn’t Kian’s boyfriend.
Saying them would only make everything worse, and their relationship already felt constantly fraught with the tension of doing absolutely fucking nothing.
“We’ll go downstairs in an hour,” Bastian said. “So get changed. We’ll have to make sure my mise is how I like it.” It was unspoken that Kian would have to fix it if it was wrong.
Kian nodded, and they both disappeared behind their respective doors. Bastian leaned back against his, head tipped back, eyes closed, wishing that he’d refused to repay Luc’s favor by showing up today.
He should have brought Xander, not Kian, though he knew if he had, Xander’s semi-abrasive self would have scared away everyone and Kian’s wounded puppy dog eyes would have followed him around for a month.
He hadn’t really been able to refuse Luc calling in his favor and taking Xander, or another one of the less experienced chefs had never been an option. It was fate that he was stuck here, only one wall away from what he desperately wanted, and he couldn’t stop putting his own damn foot in his mouth.
For a moment, he nearly called his mother, but he’d tried very hard not to tell her anything else about Kian. Certainly, she knew something was going on with him, and almost certainly she had guessed it was Bastian’s intern shadow, but somehow she’d refrained from pushing him.
Probably because she knew he was too much like his father in ways he didn’t like, and as a result, didn’t react well to being pushed.
He’d just showered this morning, but he took another one, because the idea of flipping on the television was abhorrent and he was not ready to work—his focus was far too fractured. But the long hot shower quieted his concerns, and he dressed meticulously in his chef whites, like a general donning his armor for battle.
He exited the hotel room, and found Kian waiting for him patiently in the hallway.
“Ready?” Bastian asked, and Kian nodded again, uncharacteristically quiet. Bastian recognized the mood though—before taking shifts at some of the newer-to-him stations on the line, he would often grow silent and introspective, as he prepared for the difficult task at hand. It was a technique that Bastian admired, so he let the silence draw out as they took the elevator downstairs.
The ballroom was filled with chairs, hundreds of them in neat, tidy rows, with a large stage at the front. Luc was standing on the raised platform, directing traffic. Other chefs would be giving demonstrations today, but everyone melted out of the way as Bastian and Kian approached.
“Ah, the illustrious Chef Aquino,” Luc said, his voice grating on Bastian in ways that it never had before. Either he’d been protected by a healthy helping of hormones, or Luc had gotten more annoying in the intervening years since he’d left Terroir.
“Where is my mise?” Bastian demanded. Kian appeared next to him, no longer the subservient half a step back.
“Right here, Chef,” Luc said, gesturing towards the setup in front of them.
Kian got to work immediately, and Bastian suddenly wished that he hadn’t brought someone who was so meticulous, that it left nothing for him to do except be engaged in conversation by Luc.
“He is very thorough,” Luc said.
Bastian shot him an incredulous look. “Did you forget the way I like things?”
“Oh no,” Luc said, shooting Kian another head to toe, scorching look, “I couldn’t forget what you like. Especially not when you keep reminding us all.”
Bastian wasn’t blind; he saw the way Kian’s back tensed. He knew what all this talk was about.
“This is not the place, or the time.”
He lowered his voice and with the hope Kian wouldn’t hear, forced himself to step closer to Luc. His old protégé, his old lover. Someone he’d never really expected to see again. Someone he hadn’t cared to see again. Because when he’d told Kian that his future was more important than a few fleeting moments of pleasure, he hadn’t been speaking from a place of inexperience.
He’d already done this once, and he’d fucked it all up. He wasn’t going to let Kian become another Luc—jaded, bitter, downright nasty with disappointment. It didn’t matter that Luc didn’t have a shred of the loyalty that Kian held dear.
It didn’t matter because Bastian could never stand here and have Kian sneer at him the way Luc was. He could stand a lot of things—uncomfortably hot kitchens, cramped spaces, cooking with not enough prep and not enough help, sixteen-hour days, six days a week—but he couldn’t stand that.
“If you brought me here,” Bastian continued, in a low, brutal voice, “only to insult me, then I’d be happy to leave and have you perform the demonstration.”
Luc gave a sharp nod and turned to check up on some other important task, leaving Bastian to stew.
“An old friend?” Bastian looked up to see that Kian had finished the double check of his mise and his eyes were burning with injustice. “You were friends with him?”
There was the undeniable question in his words. Friends? Kian was silently asking. Or more?
But Bastian was still not prepared to get into it, not right now, not when he was about to give a demonstration for approximately five hundred members of the culinary media.
“Friends,” he replied shortly. He couldn’t miss the way Kian’s expression shuttered, but what else could he say? I fucked up with him, a way I’m never going to fuck up with you?
* * *
The demonstration was thankfully a rather easy dish, actually one of Kian’s inventions, the langoustine with dill butter sauce. With ease, despite being in front of five hundred members of a press that would joyfully rip him to pieces, he removed the shell, and carefully sautéed the langoustine. Blanched the beans. Prepared the sauce. Did all of the above with as much grace and skill as he could. Answered questions. Tried to even make a joke or two, which mostly didn’t go over, as he wasn’t renowned for his humor.
But that was okay, because he caught Kian’s expression, where he stood at the side of the dais, and he was smiling. Luc was not, but Luc seemed to have developed a permanent scowl on his handsome face.
He finished the demonstration to generous applause, and even took a handful of questions, something he normally would not have done.
When it was finally over, he was incredibly relieved and had a headache probably induced from being too nice for too long. Definitely from tolerating Luc’s sly looks and endless supply of semi-rude remarks.
Luc had always been too clever for his own good.
Bastian and Kian rode the elevator back upstairs in silence. Luc had extended an invitation to dinner, same as he had with all the other chefs that were in town, but he wouldn’t have expected that Bastian would a
ccept.
Instead, he really wanted to take another hot shower, and order in some mediocre room service he could complain to Kian about.
But Kian was young and vibrant and worked too hard, for too many long hours.
He turned to him. “You should go to dinner here. I’m tired. I’m going to order in and probably fall asleep early.”
Kian frowned. “You want me to go to dinner with Luc?”
That was the very last thing Bastian wanted. “No, I meant, we’re in a beautiful, vibrant city. You should see some of it. Expand your palate.”
Maybe if Bastian wasn’t feeling quite so stung over all of Luc’s insinuations, he might have taken Kian himself, damn the headache. But there were too many people—let’s face it, Bastian thought to himself, all the people—who would assume they were a couple. A much-older gentleman taking his young, delectable boyfriend out for a fancy dinner, all to spoil him.
Maybe another time their opinions might not matter, but they mattered tonight.
“You’re not going?” Kian asked flatly.
He shook his head. “Headache.”
They reached their floor, and in short order, their rooms. Kian pulled out his key but hesitated, looking at Bastian.
He’d just performed in front of a whole score of media, all willing to rip his head off, but it was the questions in Kian’s eyes that terrified the fuck out of him. Bastian whipped out his keycard and escaped into the room before he could ask any of them.
The second shower didn’t help nearly as much, as an uncharacteristic ball of guilt settled into the base of his stomach. What made it feel even worse was that he knew, if Kian texted one of his friends, Xander maybe, and accused him of being an unfeeling, abrupt asshole, they would all tell him that he shouldn’t expect anything less. He was the Bastard, after all.
The guilt gnawed at him through his room service dinner, which ended up even more mediocre than he’d imagined, and that he just pushed halfheartedly around the plate.
