by Beth Bolden
The kiss drew out, endlessly sweet with just an edge of spice, and then Kian drew away. “We’re not supposed to do this here,” he said, eyes sparkling.
“It’s our wedding day,” Bastian said. “I think we can do as we damn well please.”
Kian reached and gave him one last peck. “Then, I guess I’ll see you a little later,” he teased.
“You’d better,” Bastian faux-threatened as Kian sauntered off.
* * *
It wasn’t like Bastian genuinely expected anybody in the crowd of four hundred friends and family and professional acquaintances to object to him marrying the kindest, hardest-working guy that any of them knew.
They’d probably be smart to do it, but Bastian intended to fight anyone who made even the tiniest movement when the officiant asked, “Is there anybody here who objects to these two men being joined in committed matrimony?”
It was lucky, then, that nobody said a word. Like they all knew what would happen if they protested, nobody even moved. There wasn’t a single flinch in the entire audience.
There’d been a time when Bastian might have counted himself on the side that didn’t believe he and Kian could—or should—last. But the person in front of him, holding his hands as tightly as he held him every single night, had proven every single day that the place beside him was his and his alone.
It couldn’t possibly belong to anyone else.
“Kian and Bastian have prepared their own vows,” the officiant said, and then looked at Kian.
Everything inside Bastian trembled as Kian let go of one of his hands to pull a small folded square of paper from his pocket.
“Bastian Aquino, you changed my life,” Kian said, and his voice was so clear, so confident, so sure, that Bastian wanted to cry right then. Reputation, he reminded himself. If you cry now, you will never, ever live this down. Someone, somewhere is recording this, and they’ll put it up on that video site and then nobody will ever take you seriously in a kitchen ever again. “The first time I met you, I understood who you were, and what drove you to be the best version of yourself. And for the first time, who I was, and what I wanted, and everything I worked for finally made sense. All those hopes and ambitions I’d held inside for so long made sense because you made them make sense. You gave me a drive and a purpose, and somehow, impossibly, you wanted me to succeed even more than I wanted to succeed myself. You made me a better chef, but more importantly you made me a better man. I became who I was meant to be, only because you were next to me, supporting and loving me exactly the way I needed.”
In the end, Bastian supposed it was inevitable that the world would see the complete and utter sap that Kian had made of him. And it felt particularly appropriate that they would see it on this day, the day Kian agreed to be his husband. A tear trickled down Bastian’s cheek and he swallowed hard. He’d always tried so hard to be what Kian needed, even if it wasn’t always what Kian thought he wanted, and most of all, what he always wanted most of all was to love Kian the way he deserved to be loved.
And if Kian felt that, felt that strongly enough to say so in their wedding vows, then he must be doing a pretty damn good job of it. That was the thought that pushed him over the edge and then caused the tears to fall. He’d done that, and he’d done it after nearly everyone believed that he couldn’t. It was, Bastian knew, the crowning achievement of his life. Terroir had officially taken a backseat.
“Because you’re always there for me, this is what I can promise you,” Kian continued. “I will promise to love and cherish you through every good time and each bad one. I will be there for you, right next to you, for as long as you need me to be. I intend to love you and cook with you every single day for the rest of our lives.”
Bastian squeezed Kian’s hands hard, and wished, fervently, that this vow part was already done and they could be kissing already. Because the next time they kissed, they’d be married, and he’d be one of those guys, head over heels for his own husband and not caring who knew it.
“And now, Bastian,” the officiant gently prodded, likely because Bastian was too busy gazing sappily into Kian’s blue eyes to say his own vows.
He’d written these before he’d even proposed—properly, anyway—and then rewritten them so many times he didn’t even need notes, because he knew exactly what he wanted to say to Kian.
The rest of the world? They just happened to be there, witnessing the greatest moment of his life.
“Before you came to work at Terroir, I thought I had the perfect life,” Bastian said. “I had achieved everything I wanted for myself in my restaurant. I poured everything I had into it, and I thought there was nothing left—I didn’t even want there to be anything left. But then you arrived, and you were so persistent, so stubborn, so determined to show me that there could be a different path for me. And it wasn’t until we started down it that I realized that I had so much more I could give. So much hiding inside of me, that I had ignored for a very long time, but now I had someone to give it to. Love and companionship and friendship and trust. I know now that those things were waiting, laying dormant inside. They were waiting; they were waiting for you.”
Kian brushed a tear off his own cheek, and laughed wetly, a little self-consciously.
“I vow to never forget that as much as I give to my work, and to Terroir, I will always have something left over, that is yours and yours alone.”
“I pronounce you husband and husband,” the officiant said, but already her words were fading away as he and Kian came together, and as amazing as all their other thousands of kisses had been—this one left them all in the dust.
“Always,” Kian murmured under his breath, when the kiss finally ended.
“Always,” Bastian agreed.
* * *
Everyone always told Bastian that weddings were a constant, frenetic experiment in chaos. There was never enough time to talk to everyone, to accept all the well-wishes, to even eat the food or sample the wine they’d selected. And even though Bastian had promised himself that they had plenty of time, he found himself wrapped up with Kian, lost in that feverish pace, bouncing from one table to the next.
At almost every single table, they complimented the food. Bastian grudgingly acknowledged more than once that Xander had been in charge of catering, and he rested easy that not only had the entire event been a complete success, Xander hadn’t managed to fuck it up with his bizarre turkey after all.
Much, much later, after the guests had departed for the dance floor, thousands of lights twinkling above them in the darkened night sky, Bastian found Kian finally tucking into some of Xander’s turkey dinner away from the crowd.
Except—it wasn’t the beautiful sage and honey roasted turkey that everyone else had eaten.
“Is that?” Bastian asked with a shudder. “You didn’t.”
“I didn’t want it to go to waste, and I wanted to try it, even if it was only supposed to give you a heart attack,” Kian protested as his fork scooped up a whole puddle of congealed, Cheetos-dotted fake cheese.
“It was uncommonly successful at that,” Bastian said, sitting down next to his husband and wrapping an arm around his shoulders.
“Besides, aren’t you always the one telling me I can’t judge something that I haven’t tasted?”
Bastian flinched as Kian gamely stuck the forkful into his mouth. “I didn’t mean that quite so literally.”
Kian just shrugged. “It’s not half-bad.”
“You’re lying,” Bastian insisted.
Laughing, Kian shoved a forkful at Bastian’s face. “Well, try it then, and see.”
But even if Kian was willing to eat it, he had to know that Bastian, who would even be willing to bare his surprisingly tender heart for a crowd, wouldn’t ever capitulate to eating Flaming Hot Cheetos Turkey. “Never change,” Bastian said softly, pulling Kian in even closer. “Promise me.”
Kian smiled back, his eyes luminous. “Only if you swear to me that you’ll never change eithe
r. I love you exactly how you are. You might be a Bastard, but you’re my Bastard.”
a DRIVE ME CRAZY Excerpt
Food Truck Warriors #1
It was absolutely, without a doubt in Tony Blake’s mind, a setup.
Now, he might not normally mind a setup, but there was no question this was his brother’s doing, and instead of Tony being mildly intrigued, he was a little pissed off. Was it not enough for Wyatt to end up married to a hot, funny, professional baseball player while Tony got his heart smashed into a thousand tiny little shards? Admittedly, it was usually Tony who did the leaving, and maybe this time he deserved to find out how much being dumped sucked, but Wyatt taking pity on him by finding some random guy for Tony to settle for felt like a step too far.
“Tony,” Wyatt said jovially, a touch too friendly even for him, which was the thousandth reason Tony needed to believe this was not only a setup, it was a bad setup, “meet Lucas.”
At least he could give his brother credit for finding someone cute. Lucas smiled, the skin around his eyes crinkling. He was short, much shorter than either Wyatt or Tony, and had a clearly very athletic build. An athletic build, complete with pecs and abs and biceps and quads that Tony might’ve been interested in exploring further, if Wyatt hadn’t been the one responsible for all this.
“Hi,” Lucas said, extending his hand. “It’s great to meet you, finally.”
“It is?” Tony questioned. People usually liked meeting him. He knew he was attractive, that he’d been hot with the short buzzcut he’d had back when he’d first moved to LA, to help Wyatt start his food truck, What a Catch, and that he was even hotter now that his hair had finally grown out, nearly to his shoulders. He had great hair; if the food truck business failed, he could always go on Instagram and become a fucking hair model or something.
“Wyatt’s told me a lot about you.”
It could probably have been scripted by the Setup God, that’s how fucking transparent it was.
“I’m sure he has.” Tony crossed his arms over his chest, and glared, because he did not want anyone’s fucking pity, okay? Nobody’s leftovers, nobody’s scraps, nobody’s galling sympathy. He was just fine. He could be single, even though he hadn’t been in many, many years, and yeah, maybe he’d done his share of moping around, when the breakup had happened, but it was his first broken heart! Didn’t you deserve a little wallowing, a little pity party, when the man you thought was the love of your life casually dumped you and said, “someday you’ll understand why we wouldn’t have worked out”?
Yeah.
Tony thought of the dartboard he’d made of Brody’s face, currently tacked up inside the little cottage he lived in, set back from the main house Wyatt and Ryan owned, and felt a tiny bit better. He’d landed a great hit last night, right smack on Brody’s annoyingly perfect nose, the one he was convinced Brody had had fixed. Nobody had a nose that perfect in real life. Nobody.
It was a nose that could’ve launched a thousand ships, and it had fucking launched Tony from the tentative idea that he might like guys into the full-on, no-holds-barred realization that he was absolutely not straight. It had taken some time, but he’d finally landed on the right label. Not that figuring out who he really was had convinced Brody to stick around.
Asshole.
“Tony, why don’t you tell Lucas a little more about the truck?” Wyatt said, his glee evident and really fucking annoying. There were a lot of times that Tony kinda hated his brother, but right now was pretty high up on the list.
“The truck?” Tony asked in disbelief. That’s what Wyatt wanted them to talk about? Geez, you suck at this, Tony wanted to tell his little brother. How did you ever get a guy like Ryan Flores when your game has this much epic suckitude?
Lucas leaned against the edge of the sofa in Wyatt and Ryan’s living room. “Your food truck?” He asked, his own nose crinkling adorably. Damnit, he was pretty cute. And even worse, he was exactly the kind of guy that Tony had always guessed he might like. Brody was nothing like Lucas, of course, he was tall with dark hair, and really dark, intense, penetrating eyes. There’d been more than once that he and Brody had been mistaken for brothers. Which, gross. But yeah, Lucas was definitely cute, and from the way he was eying Tony, the feeling was probably mutual.
What was even worse than a setup? A setup that fucking worked.
“That’s what I invited him here to talk about,” Wyatt said, his voice betraying a hint of frustration, as he called out from the kitchen where he was putting the final touches on dinner. “The food truck.”
When Lucas With the Cute Nose left, Tony was going to have a real heart-to-heart with his brother on what you did during a setup. You didn’t throw two people together and then keep fucking talking. You left. You kept your distance. You hoped, against all odds, magic and fireworks happened.
“Really?” Tony asked. “Well, okay. The truck is called What a Catch, and we serve, well, I guess . . .LA food? California casual? Tacos, the occasional burger, some fresh fish, we’re most famous for our mahi mahi tacos, actually.”
“Sounds pretty good,” Lucas said, and he only sort of sounded like he meant it. Which tracked, Tony supposed. Because everyone knew that Lucas hadn’t come here to talk about their food truck. He’d come here because Wyatt had given him an invitation into Tony’s pants.
“Dinner’s just about ready,” Wyatt called out again, and added, “Ryan should be here soon. Dodgers had an early afternoon game.”
“Have you met him before?” Tony asked, because if Wyatt was going to continually interfere, then he would at least take advantage of the subject change.
“Met who?” Lucas asked idly. From the way he’d not-so-subtly looked Tony up and down, he’d been pretty sure he was interested, but now he just sounded bored. Which was fine, and not at all insulting. Nope. Because Tony had been Not Interested first.
“Ryan Flores, Wyatt’s husband,” Tony said impatiently. “You know, the baseball player. The famous one.” The rich one, Tony mentally tacked on. Maybe that was why Lucas had agreed to any of this in the first place, maybe he needed money. Maybe he really wanted to try to get to Ryan. Well, he was going to have to rethink that whole plan, because Ryan was pretty fucking devoted to his brother. And Tony was even more devoted to the pair of them. Nobody was going to take advantage of his brother’s kindness and his brother-in-law’s natural generosity, not while he was around.
Maybe Lucas stupidly assumed that because Wyatt and Ryan had money, that Tony had money too.
He managed a pretty decent salary from the truck, because Wyatt’s connections and their bomb food kept them pretty solidly in the black, and he could even save a big chunk of it, because living in Wyatt and Ryan’s ADA meant his living expenses, especially for LA, were crazy low. Still, he hadn’t always been the poster child for responsible decisions, and while he had some money saved, it wasn’t exactly a fortune. It wasn’t enough to go along with a setup, that was for fucking sure.
Lucas gave him a weird look. “No?”
“Ah well, you will. He’s . . .”
“Stupendous? Amazing? The game winning player of the century?” Ryan asked as he walked in, tossing his motorcycle helmet on the couch and giving Tony a quick hug, before turning to Lucas. “You must be Lucas.”
They shook hands, and Lucas seemed as vaguely disinterested in Ryan as he did in Tony, so it couldn’t be the money, and he sure wasn’t a fame whore, because Tony had seen plenty of those before, hanging off Ryan like he was God’s gift to the world.
“That was you, then, who hit the winning walk-off today. I caught the end of the game as I was finishing my workout,” Lucas said offhandedly. And Tony wasn’t really surprised—how could anyone be that noticeably ripped and not care about sports—but he’d clearly not been impressed by Ryan in-person. So that wasn’t why he was here, after all.
“It was me,” Ryan said with a face-splitting grin. “I’m going to go say hi to Wyatt, see where we’re at with dinner.”
As he walked into the kitchen, Tony rolled his eyes. “He means, he’s going to go make out with my brother. We might eat . . .sometime this century.”
“You’re not cooking?” Lucas asked, and unlike Ryan and his walk-off hit that won the game, he actually sounded interested. Plain and simple, this guy was weird. Tony couldn’t get a read on him at all.
Tony shrugged. “It’s Wyatt’s kitchen,” he said, and then lowered his voice, “and sometimes my. . .less than conventional methods annoy him. He’s all officially trained, you know?” He didn’t mention that he’d had six months of culinary school under his belt before he’d dropped out. Of course, he’d barely gone to class in those six months, but still. Wyatt had not only graduated, he’d done so with honors, and then worked his way up to the highest echelon of restaurants, Bastian Aquino’s Terroir.
“Unconventional?” Lucas sounded even more intrigued.
“I mean, I’m not formally trained. Not like Wyatt. He likes things . . .just so.”
“How does that work on the food truck, then?” Lucas asked. His grayish eyes had gone soft. Like he genuinely wondered how the two brothers got along when they worked in such close quarters with such different backgrounds.
“It didn’t, at all, at first, but now we figure it out,” Tony said. Then hesitated. “Do you want a beer? I’m gonna grab one, because like I said, we’re gonna be waiting for dinner for a while.”
Lucas smiled again, and it was even warmer than it’d been just a moment ago. “Sure.”
“Any preference?” Tony asked, but Lucas shook his head.
“Whatever you’re having is totally fine.”
Tony went to the small fridge built into the bar at the far end of the room and grabbed two Coronas. “I’d go into the kitchen for lime,” he said apologetically, flipping the caps off with an expert motion, “but . . .I’ve interrupted them way too many times already.”
