by Beth Bolden
He did drink the wine that accompanied the meal though, and settled back in the bed, television on low, and tried not to think at all.
A firm knock on the door knocked him right out of his unthinking reverie.
His first horrible thought was that it was Luc, here to gloat some more.
His second horrible thought was that it was Kian, here to ask all the questions he hadn’t let him earlier.
A glimpse into the peephole confirmed that it was option number two. Kian stood there, nervously shifting from one foot to the other, with a very determined look on his face.
Bastian sighed. They could either do this now, or he was sure he’d be interrogated on the way home and might actually end up crashing and killing them in the process. This way, tonight, seemed marginally safer.
The alcohol he’d drunk burned in his veins as he opened the door, tempting him unbearably. This was just as he’d imagined it happening, wasn’t it? The dim light of the hotel room. Kian coming over late at night. Sometimes it felt like there could only be one end to this story.
“Yes?” Bastian asked as Kian let the door close behind him.
“I asked you if Luc had been like me and you said sure.”
Bastian propped a hip against the credenza. He crossed his arms across his t-shirt-clad chest and wished he was wearing something more substantial than a pair of striped pajama pants that his mother had bought him. “That’s not a question.”
Kian frowned. “You said we were the same, but that isn’t true, is it?”
There was an unbearable temptation to tell the whole truth, but that felt incredibly dangerous. Too dangerous, especially in this room, with nobody the wiser to what actually happened in it.
“It’s true,” Bastian claimed. “He was my protégé. I didn’t have an intern then, but he assisted me, when Terroir first opened.”
Kian took a step closer, then another, and Bastian nearly stumbled backwards. He hadn’t expected Kian to be this aggressive, but there’d been flashes of it lately. Kian touching him. Kian approaching him. And Bastian knew, with a flash of insight, that this status quo couldn’t continue forever, because Kian was changing. He was growing up. He was finding his feet in this world. Sooner or later, he would demand more, and Bastian was not ready for that confrontation. Not even close.
“He wasn’t only your protégé,” Kian said, putting a hand on Bastian’s chest. “You slept with him.”
For a moment, Bastian considered denying it, but it was useless. Kian already knew the truth. “I did.”
A very hard look crossed across Kian’s face. “So all that . . . crap was because you’d done this before and it hadn’t worked out very well for you.”
“No . . .” Bastian tried to insert but Kian had been saving up this speech and he intended to unleash it—not even Bastian was going to be able to stop him.
“You pretended like it was so hard for you, like it didn’t matter that I was dying for you,” Kian ranted, fingers curling tightly into the fabric of his t-shirt, right above where his heart beat in double time. “You let me think, you let me believe, it was only me. But it wasn’t. This is what you do. You do this.”
“No,” Bastian uselessly argued. There’s nobody like you. Definitely not Luc, that fucking disloyal asshole.
“Why did you even do it? To prove you could? To make yourself feel better about Luc? Because I don’t see that working out very well for you,” Kian continued, voice growing higher and more hysterical. “I’m not his substitute, I’m not his stand-in, don’t you understand? I won’t be, I’m not.”
Later, Bastian would think back to this moment and envy the solitary certainness of his brain function. He’d only wanted to do one thing—prove Kian wrong—no matter what the cost, and that made him do something incredibly stupid and incredibly dangerous.
And probably, Bastian would later think, incredibly inevitable.
He grabbed Kian’s wrist and dragged him even closer, until they were hip to hip, chest to chest, and Kian was panting, wordless as they stared into each other’s eyes.
This was more than inevitable. It had probably been foretold at the beginning of time—Bastian Aquino was going to meet someone who made him question every ounce of his determination, his resolve, his ego, and who was eventually going to tear his self-control to shreds.
He kissed Kian.
Kian instantaneously melted under him, leaning against his chest and pouring everything into the kiss, even as Bastian selfishly took it all back out. Mine, he gloated inwardly, this is all for me.
Bastian’s hands slid up to his shoulders, to his head and he cradled it in his palms as he did the thing he’d told himself from the first moment that he would not do.
The kiss ended in a breathless whimper as Kian pulled back, his eyes as wide and shocked as Bastian had ever seen them. Like he’d just blown every circuit in Kian’s body. And he probably had; personally, Bastian felt just as decimated. Like everything he knew about love and attraction and those fucking hormones he liked to blame everything on, was wrong.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Kian said, harsh pants against Bastian’s cheek.
“I know,” Bastian said, and his voice was a surprisingly honest caress. “But I couldn’t help it. You . . . you’re not like him. You’ve never been like him. In the most rudimentary ways, yes, you have some similarity. But he is so different, and I was different than I am now, I was selfish and egotistical, and I took whatever I wanted, damn the cost.”
Bastian removed his hands carefully and Kian took an unsteady step back. Hesitant, like he wasn’t quite ready to let go yet.
Still, Kian was able to crack a little smile, and Bastian thanked God for that. “Selfish and egotistical . . . back then?”
Waving an impatient hand, Bastian had to hold back his own laughter. “You are . . . god damn . . . you’re my downfall. You know that.”
Kian didn’t say anything, those blue eyes boring right into Bastian’s soul. Like he could read him, and every single thing that was written there, good and bad, and somehow he accepted them all.
Nobody had ever done that for him before. Even his own mother sometimes despaired of all his less-than-stellar qualities.
“We’re not doing this,” Kian said very quietly, and very certainly. “Not like this.”
Bastian was afraid to ask what that meant. But secretly, he was afraid he knew.
Not like this, maybe, but some other way, some other day. And Bastian wasn’t sure he could turn him down, not after the taste he’d just had.
Chapter Six
The kiss. The Kiss, as Kian liked to think of it, should have changed something. Before, if you’d asked him what kissing Bastian would change—he unequivocally would have said, “everything.”
Of course, he hadn’t anticipated what Chef would do on their first day back from San Francisco. He’d called Xander into his office, and Kian had stared frustratingly at the closed blinds and wondered what was happening. There was very little that happened at Terroir anymore that he wasn’t intimately familiar with, and Bastian doing this today, after The Kiss, and deliberately not telling him, hurt.
Ten minutes later, Chef announced to the kitchen that they finally had a sous chef, and that sous chef was Xander.
Kian, who did not typically feel Bastian’s need to throw things, wanted to pelt his friend with every eggplant at his prep station, which was a very large pile.
It wasn’t that Xander wouldn’t make a fantastic sous or that he didn’t deserve the position, because he definitely would and he definitely did. But the timing of the promotion was infuriating, and Kian knew exactly what he was meant to take away from it: that Bastian was in charge, and that Kian was still an intern or his assistant, or whatever they were calling his position these days.
He wasn’t sous, and nothing was happening between them, as far as Bastian was concerned.
In spite of The Kiss. Maybe even because of The Kiss? Kian didn’t know anymore.
The worst was that he couldn’t tell any of his friends about what had happened. Xander took his promotion in stride—more like he’d finally gotten what should have been his forever ago, rather than any sort of exuberant celebration at being promoted. How was Kian supposed to tell him, “by the way, I think Chef promoted you to sous because we kissed and he wanted to remind me that nothing else was ever going to happen between us”?
He couldn’t. Not ever. At least not while keeping Xander’s friendship, which had come to mean more and more to him since first Miles, and then Wyatt, had departed for the brighter lights of Los Angeles.
But as the days passed into weeks and then into months, Xander’s promotion didn’t change much in the Terroir kitchen. Chef only spent slightly less time on the line, and Xander, who wasn’t exactly the greatest leader of men either, didn’t seem particularly bothered by this.
Kian continued to sub in at various stations. He continued to be the sole assistant to Bastian during their test kitchen Sundays. He was afraid to ask if Bastian had offered the spot to Xander, and he’d just declined it—but he wanted to believe Chef hadn’t wanted to give away his spot to anyone else. Besides, their collaborations were good, sometimes even great. They almost always ended up on the menu, at least as a seasonal special. And they were collaborations. They came up with the concepts and recipes together, always, and Bastian had even stopped asking Kian what he thought; he naturally assumed that Kian would offer his opinion when the right moment arrived.
Kian decided Xander not knowing about certain job perks was perfectly fine. He enjoyed them more than Xander ever would. Xander would see being stuck in the kitchen with Bastian on a day he’d normally have the morning and afternoon off, as hell on earth.
Of course, Xander wasn’t in love with Bastian.
After they returned to Terroir from San Francisco, and Bastian promoted Xander to sous, the moments that made Kian’s heart beat feaster and his breath catch happened further and further apart.
Kian knew his own feelings hadn’t changed. Suspected that Bastian’s hadn’t either, but after being confronted with Luc, and almost making a monumental mistake, it made sense for him to pull back.
It sucked, and it frustrated the hell out of Kian, but he still wasn’t sure pursuing a relationship between them would even be the right thing to do. So he let Bastian pull away, let him redefine their relationship more professionally, and tried very hard to be satisfied with that.
* * *
Everything hit the fan when Xander announced to Kian that he’d been offered a new job. Even though he saw evidence of Xander’s resentment all the time—and it wasn’t like he hadn’t ever been angry at Bastian himself—Kian couldn’t believe Xander was actually leaving Terroir.
“You’re going to take that job, aren’t you?” His voice sounded flat, resigned. Maybe three months ago, he would have still believed that with Xander out of the way, Kian might be promoted to sous. But lately, Kian had begun to realize that was never going to happen.
Kian was in the spot Bastian wanted him to be in—closest to him, yet so far away, at the very same time.
“Of course I’m going to take it.” Xander slammed his knife down on the board. “We’re not all like you, in thrall to the Bastard. You wouldn’t take another job even if the French Laundry came calling.”
First off, Thomas Keller would never try to poach him from Bastian. Second off, Kian couldn’t imagine a life where he didn’t see Bastian for at least twelve hours a day. It was unthinkable.
The annoying voice in his head, the one he’d been trying to ignore but that kept growing louder and louder during these last few months, told him, if you left, you could finally figure out how to fall out of love with him.
Kian didn’t really want to fall out of love. There was a somewhat masochistic side of him that enjoyed loving Bastian, despite all the pain that came with it. Moving on would undoubtedly hurt even more, but maybe he’d feel less stagnant. Less like he was running and standing still simultaneously.
“I don’t want to work for Thomas Keller,” Kian insisted.
“That’s exactly the point I’m trying to make,” Xander retorted. His temper had cooled, and he just sounded regretful now. Still trying to save Kian, even when Kian didn’t want to be saved.
The thing was, Kian hadn’t come to Terroir looking for a knight in shining armor. He was capable of making his own decisions—good and bad—and even though Xander hated that he’d fallen in love with Bastian, that had been his choice. When Xander had opened the door that day, Kian had walked in wanting a teacher, which he’d gotten in Bastian, and maybe a friend, too. For a long time, Kian had believed he and Xander were friends, but now he suddenly wasn’t so sure. Weren’t friends supposed to be supportive, even when they believed you were making a mistake? But Xander, no matter what happened, or what Kian did or didn’t say, couldn’t leave this thing with Bastian alone. Even worse, he didn’t know the half of it. He didn’t even know about The Kiss.
“You’re pissed off that I won’t listen to your fucking advice,” Kian spit out. He’d been chopping carrots for the vegetable medley. It was meaningless prep, especially for him, but he’d been assigned the task because that was what he did. He did the stuff there was nobody else for, and he was damn sick of Xander pretending that didn’t mean anything.
He continued, barely taking a breath. “Not everyone is you, Xander, and you don’t know what’s right for everyone. Maybe if you did, you could tell yourself and you wouldn’t be so god damned bitter all the time.”
Instead of saying anything, Xander just reached over and turned the gas off on the stove where he was currently prepping sauces for the night’s service.
“What are you doing?” Kian demanded.
Xander pulled the rug out from under him. “Leaving,” he said. “You can tell the Bastard I’m done.”
With that single sentence, Xander packed up his knives, pulled his coat from his locker, and despite Kian’s incredulous expression, walked out.
He didn’t know what he was supposed to tell Chef; how he was supposed to tell Chef. Xander and he had plenty of differences—it was difficult to not have differences considering how they both liked having the final word on everything—but he’d promoted Xander to sous. He’d trusted Xander to have his back.
Kian stood in the doorway of Bastian’s office and couldn’t help but remember the first time he’d ever stood here, terrified and unsure. That time, Xander had had his back, but he didn’t anymore. And probably not ever again.
Anger and determination coalesced into a hard, knotty ball inside his stomach.
“What’s going on?” Bastian asked absently, sorting through the stack of papers on his desk that Kian had left for him earlier. “Don’t tell me Steve’s come back to throw a fit.”
Steve, one of the brand-new kitchen assistants, had walked out an hour into prep because he didn’t feel like he was being treated with respect.
Kian had thought this was ridiculous because as a newly hired kitchen assistant, he didn’t deserve any respect because he had yet to earn any. Bastian had grumbled, but because Steve’s worth had been so minuscule, there hadn’t been any tantrums. Kian had been assigned his prep work and that was that.
Xander’s departure was going to be a whole different kettle of fish.
“Xander just left.” Since coming to work for Bastian, Kian had done some reading on the side about how to deal with difficult personalities in the workplace. Most, if not all, espoused the technique of being direct, but never dramatic.
Bastian still hadn’t looked up. “Is he sick? You can make the sauces for tonight. Did he at least finish the soup before he left?”
Kian walked further into the office and shut the door behind him, which mostly got his attention. “He’s not sick.”
&n
bsp; “Not sick?” Bastian looked slightly pained, white lines bracketing his mouth, and that terrifying combination of fear and anger simmering in his eyes. “He quit, didn’t he?” he asked flatly.
Kian could only nod.
“God damnit,” Bastian bellowed. “Without even a fucking word to me. Did he think he could just walk out and it wouldn’t haunt him forever?”
Kian considered telling him to not even bother. If the Hess family had decided on Xander, even Bastian Aquino wasn’t going to get them to change their mind and give him back.
“I don’t know what he was thinking,” Kian said, and that was at least honest.
“How much of Steve’s prep do you have left?” Bastian asked. “Maybe I should handle the sauces tonight.”
“I’ve got about half my prep left and then I can finish the soup,” Kian offered.
“We’ll at least get a temp in to cover the prep tomorrow,” Bastian said, rising from his chair and buttoning up his collar. Walking around his desk, he paused next to Kian. “You keep giving me strange looks.”
“I keep expecting to have to clean your desk off the floor,” Kian said, and he was only half joking.
Bastian sighed. “I saw orange, okay? I saw it, and I’m pissed. But I also think we can get him back.”
There was no way Xander was going to come back to Terroir, no matter what Bastian enticed him with, but conceptualizing a plan was at least temporarily delaying Bastian’s temper, and Kian wasn’t going to spoil that.
“Where is he going?”
For a brief moment, Kian considered telling Bastian he didn’t know. Maybe a month after The Kiss, he might have. Maybe even two months after. He’d been pissed for a long time, but now he was just resigned. “Hess. They’re opening a farm-to-table restaurant.”
“Huh, that’s a surprise, I would have expected to hear rumblings,” Bastian said, and started to walk past Kian, but at the last moment he stopped. He glanced around, like he was confirming nobody was watching, and then he lifted his hand to Kian’s cheek briefly, the fingers brushing against it.
