by Jerry Cole
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
Vance chewed on his lip. “Uh, so… what now?”
“I don’t know.” Kenton’s mind was still fuzzy from the kiss that they had shared.
“I don’t either.” Vance shook his head. The man looked concerned.
“I’m sorry,” Vance said it again.
“Don’t be sorry.” Kenton shook his head. “I didn’t mind.”
“Are you sure?” Vance looked so unsure of himself.
Kenton made a mental note about how cute Vance looked when he was so unsure. And how much he wanted to make it all better for the man. “Don’t be sorry. You’re fine. It was fine.”
Vance nodded. “Yeah.”
“I don’t regret it.” It just seemed like the right thing to say at that moment. “I don’t regret it at all.”
Vance blushed again. It was a good look on the man, but it wasn’t something he had ever expected from the hard-working guy. A sweet surprise. “Y-yeah, thanks.”
“So, uh, what now?” That question Kenton asked had many meanings. It could go any way. That’s why he asked it.
“We were…” Vance let his words trail off. It was almost as if he didn’t want to answer the question.
“Yeah.” Kenton felt a bit dazed.
“Uh, we were working on things.” Vance turned back to the legal pad and the list that they needed to deal with.
“Right, let’s get back to work on that.” Kenton turned away from Vance.
And just like that, the awkwardness flooded in. There wasn’t a moment that felt quite the same as they continued to plan the party between the strained pauses.
Neither of them spoke of what had happened, but Kenton assumed it was because the man he was with couldn’t figure out what to say.
Kenton couldn’t blame him for that. It was just the way things were after a moment of lost control. It was awkward and strange. And Kenton felt it too. The conversation meandered awkwardly around them as they made the plans, finalizing everything that night and then sharing phone numbers and social media in case any more plans needed to be made or finalized before the party.
Then Kenton left. They hadn’t talked about the kiss. They hadn’t said the words or acknowledged the attraction between them. Kenton felt frustrated. He should have said something. But there was a fear: the fear of being turned away from a guy he had a thing for.
Kenton frowned as he pulled away from the house, not very happy with what he had done in there. He had promised Brandon he wouldn’t get involved with the man. So, leaving the kiss as just a kiss was probably for the best.
But he also knew that this man would haunt his dreams as one of those ‘what if’ scenarios, at least until Kenton got the man out of his system. He groaned and rubbed his head at the first stoplight on the way home and then focused back on the road.
By the time he pulled the old car next to the brand new sports car he rarely ever drove into the garage and climbed onto the elevator to his painfully empty mansion, he had managed to remind himself of all the reasons a relationship with the chef wouldn’t work out.
There were so many thoughts that ran through his mind about him. They were an uncontrollable rage of desire and need. But he knew it was a terrible idea. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t take that risk.
Chapter Five
Vance glanced around. It had been a quiet night. That was probably a good thing. He had a lot on his mind. The thoughts kept raging, like a rolling flood of frustration and desire. Something he hadn’t felt in a long time. He hadn’t felt any sort of attraction to anyone since his fiancé had passed away. Feeling it now was confusing. It felt wrong and strange to like someone even after all this time. Grief was something that had accompanied him instead.
Kenton had been on his mind for a while now. There was a part of him that wanted to find a reason to speak to the man, another way to talk to him face to face. But he knew that was probably a terrible idea. He barely knew Kenton, and the man was his brother-in-law’s best friend. There was no way he could feel this strongly about him. This was just a crush. A crush. That’s all it was.
But there was a tiny part of him that was looking forward to the party that was scheduled for that night. Kenton would be there. His heart started to race every time the thought crossed his mind. But he started to feel more and more like something was going on with this guy. Maybe even something about this guy that reminded him of his fiancé. That had to be it. Vance had never really been interested in anyone since his wedding had been interrupted by the untimely death of the man that Vance was supposed to marry. He said the name. “Eric.”
He frowned heavily. That was his fiancé. But now there was Kenton. And the man seemed to bring out feelings of attraction in him. He hated it. He hated himself for feeling something about someone else. It felt wrong like he was cheating on him. That was ridiculous. He couldn’t cheat on Eric. Eric was dead. But it didn’t change the way he felt about it.
He sighed. It would be yet another thing to speak to his counselor about, finding out what the right thing to do in this situation.
Instead, he focused on getting his work done. There was a lot of prep work to be done before they closed for a dinnertime party. It was planned for a slow day so they wouldn’t lose much business. They would still be able to do carry out and delivery orders, but there would be no sit-down service that night. That meant he could give the whole staff the time off, only getting up to do carry out and delivery orders.
Kenton showed up right at the start of the party. He was just before the torrent of friends and family that came into the place.
Vance walked over to Kenton. “How did you convince Brandon to come?”
“I told him we were going out to dinner.” Kenton smiled awkwardly. “Then I just drove him here.”
“Oh, that makes sense.”
“He doesn’t know why we’re here yet.” Kenton nodded.
Everyone was milling around a bit Vance quickly was pulled away from the man that he had planned all of this with.
Vanessa was in shock. “Did you do this?” She confronted her brother.
“Kenton helped out with it.” Vance shrugged. “It was all his idea. He wanted to throw a surprise party.”
“Party? This is a full-fledged reception. And you two put all of this together and tricked me.” She was grinning. “It was a damn good trick.”
He smirked at her. The man felt proud of himself. “That’s what brothers are for. But I can’t take all the credit. Kenton came up with the idea. Came in the day after the wedding and we started planning it. The hard part was keeping it a secret while we invited people.”
Vanessa chuckled. “I should have known that you would be a part of this.”
“And we paid for it all out of pocket. All the staff is getting paid for the entire event.”
“That’s amazing.” She nodded. “I can’t believe you put this all together in secret.”
“We knew you guys wouldn’t agree to it if we brought you in on the plan.”
She was beaming with excitement as she looked over at the man that she married.
The look on her face brought some comfort to Vance. His sister was happy, despite the confusion that he felt about his partner in crime he knew that it was all worth it. This was his sister and her happiness was everything to him.
This seemed to please her greatly and she bounced off to enjoy the rest of the party.
Vance just sat back and watched her greet the people there to celebrate her and Brandon. The employees were all enjoying themselves, only preparing take out if it was ordered, which meant it was going to be a slow night.
He wasn’t in much of a mood to party however, so he slipped into the kitchen to start on the cleaning. If he managed to get the employees out of there sooner, they would be happier, another surprise.
He was working on cleaning out one of the ovens when he heard a voice calling his name.
Vance pulled his head out, b
umping it on the top of the oven on the way. “Ouch.”
The person moved further into the kitchen, stepping up right behind Vance. “You alright?”
Vance recognized the voice. It was Kenton. He wondered what the man was doing back in the kitchen. “I’m fine. Just doing some clean up to save some time when we close up for the night.”
“Alright. I wanted to check on you.” Kenton nodded.
“Why?”
“Because you’re missing the party.” The man shrugged.
“Is everyone having fun out there?” Vance offered Kenton a smile as he got to his feet.
“They seem to be, yeah. Everyone is spoiling the couple of honor.” Kenton laughed.
“That’s good. I was trying to do a favor for the staff, trying to get the cleanup done early so that we can leave early.”
“And you’re still going to pay them for their regular shift?”
“Mhm.” The chef nodded. “That’s what the plan was.”
“Good.” Kenton smiled.
For a moment there was silence again, a moment shared that stretched between them. Awkwardly there wasn’t much that felt like it needed to be said so there wasn’t anything said. But the awkwardness slowly faded away into the quiet of the moment, letting them start to fall into the same attraction that had brought them together the last time they had found themselves alone together.
Vance felt the urge to lean in, moving closer to Kenton. His heart skipped a beat as he followed the urge. Kenton leaned in too. They were so close. Close enough to be able to feel the heat coming off of him. It was almost like he could smell their shared desire for each other, but that couldn’t be the truth, right?
They were close. Vance could feel the heat coming off of the other man. The guy was extremely attractive. That was an undeniable fact. Vance shivered as he gazed into the man’s eyes.
Kenton pushed his hair back out of his face.
Vance mimicked the motion, feeling a strong draw to the other man. His breath caught in his throat. He didn’t know what to say or what to do, but he knew what he wanted. He wanted Kenton. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something wrong with that. He still felt like it was betraying a dead man. That wasn’t right, but it was still guilt that he couldn’t deny.
He sighed. “We can’t do this again.”
“It’s wrong.” Kenton agreed. “I know that I want you, but there’s just too much other stuff in the way.”
“You too?”
“Yeah.” Kenton nodded and left it at that.
Vance didn’t ask any other questions. He wanted to know, but he had his issues in his life. He couldn’t blame Kenton for having his issues too. Issues seemed to just be a way of everyone’s life. The man was entitled to his privacy. “Thanks.” He exhaled as he spoke.
Kenton nodded. “Yeah, Brandon told me that you’ve had some recent issues.”
Vance frowned. “It wasn’t that recent, but I’ve been having some issues dealing with it, I guess.”
Kenton nodded. “I can’t blame you for that, I guess.”
“I think that Vanessa worries about me a lot, though.”
“She’s your sister. Of course, she worries. It’s what happens when someone loves you.”
Vance smiled. Kenton’s words brought him comfort. “Yeah, I know she does.”
“You should go out and enjoy the party with her.”
“I can’t say that I’m much in a party mood.”
“Why not?”
“I haven’t felt like much of a partier in a long time.” Vance shrugged. “Not since he died.”
“I guess I can’t blame you for that.” Kenton shook his head. “You’ve had a tough time of it.”
Vance frowned. “You sound like you know something about that kind of thing.”
Kenton shrugged, then let his shoulders slump. “I’ve had some issues in my life before. Nothing worth talking about.”
“You sure that you don’t want to talk about it?”
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure.” The secretive man didn’t seem that comfortable talking about this.
Vance decided to just drop it. It wasn’t any of his business anyway. And pushing it wasn’t going to do either of them any favors. Instead, he sighed and ran his fingers through his hair again. “Maybe we should just go back out to the party.”
“I thought you were cleaning up in here.”
“I was hoping to get it done so my guys can go as soon as they can after this party is over. They’re kind of getting paid to clean up after it.”
“Let me help.”
“You want to help?”
Kenton shrugged. “Yeah, tell me what to do. We’ll get this done.”
Vance looked around the kitchen, trying to find a job that someone with no training could do. “Uh, what about the dishes? There aren’t many, but it would be better to get them all caught up. I’ll get the counters and burners on the stove. I just finished all of the ovens.”
“Sure, sounds good.” Kenton nodded and walked over to the sink. It was such an easy motion for the man to slip off his jacket and roll up his shirt sleeves.
“Let me get you an apron. It’ll keep your shirt from getting dirty.”
“I appreciate that. I have to give Brandon a ride after this anyway.”
“I figure he’s going to go home with Vanessa.” Vance laughed. “They may want to take the celebration home after all of this is over.”
“You really think so?”
“If it’s anything like when they were dating, they had trouble keeping their hands off each other when they were riding high on emotions. It was kind of weird to see when you grew up with her.”
Kenton chuckled. “Wow, that bad?”
“You didn’t see them?”
“They tended to behave more around me I guess.” The man shrugged.
“I wish I was that lucky.” Vance laughed as he started to get the counters that wouldn’t be used for small orders sterilized. It was unlikely that they would have more than one or two more orders for the rest of the night since they were only doing takeout and delivery orders at that moment. They never had a lot of those orders, so it wasn’t an issue because there were so few people that ordered delivery from this restaurant. People liked to show up in person.
That meant the restaurant had turned people away that night, but it was fine to do that. The customers were generally understanding of the signs that they were hosting a party that night and could only take to-go orders. It meant several customers turned away and decided to eat somewhere else, but Vance wasn’t that worried about the business. The customers would be back another day. He was confident of that.
They worked in silence. Vance let his thoughts wander as he went through the routine cleaning of areas that weren’t going to be used. After he was done, he walked over to the sink where Kenton was fiddling with the industrial dishwasher.
“Having some problems over here?”
Kenton jumped. “Oh!” A plate clattered to the floor. Thankfully, it didn’t break.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.” Vance offered a smile as he reached down to pick up the plate.
Kenton smiled and laughed at him. “I guess I deserved that for the oven incident.”
“Is that what we’re calling it now?”
“It’s what all the kids call it.” Kenton had a smirk that could charm the pants off of just about everyone he wanted to.
Vance knew that because it was charming him. He knew it was wrong. This was not something that they had an option to follow through with. It would never go anywhere. That had already been made clear. They were connected to two different sides of a couple. If his sister and her husband got in a fight it was likely that they would be dragged into it.
And Kenton had hired him. It was wrong to feel attracted to a client. It just didn’t make any sense for him to stand that close to the other man. But Vance couldn’t help it. He wanted to be close to the guy.
Kenton glan
ced over at him.
For a moment, the entire world stopped.
Vance forced his eyes away, going back to what he was doing, carefully pulling the dishes out and stowing them where they belonged.
It was just better that way. At least that’s what he told himself.
Chapter Six
Kenton sat in his living room, leaning back on the couch. He sighed heavily and sipped something hard out of the glass in his hand. The chink of ice cubes didn’t exactly soothe him. It usually did, but there were other things on his mind. Well, only one thing on his mind.
Since the party, he had found himself with nothing but Vance on his mind. The distraction had been so extreme that he hadn’t even paid much attention to his investments. Usually, he at least glanced at them every day. But for the past week, he hadn’t done anything like that, letting the financial planners do what was best for them. He hadn’t taken a single call.
Instead, he had glowered there in the natural light of the windows of his living room. The sun was shining, but it felt a lot darker where he was like a pallid twilight had fallen over him.
It was the same twilight that he felt most times when he was alone. It had been this way since he had won that windfall in the lottery. He had changed his name and moved to a new town, met new friends. He had met Brandon. Brandon was the only one that knew who he was. Brandon who never asked for a dime. Brandon who never tried to kill him or con him out of the money.
It wasn’t like Kenton hadn’t been kind to his family, even the cousins that appeared out of nowhere to ask him for loans that would never be paid back. He had been warned about that, but he didn’t believe it at the time.
But then it had gotten to be too much. He had become everything to everyone. And his financial planner had suggested he get away, take a vacation, leave the state for a couple of months. The most important part was to not tell anyone where he was.
He had taken her up on that idea but took it a step further. Divesting himself of his previous identity to make it easier to hide from the people that were suddenly his best friends. He couldn’t trust anyone. He couldn’t trust Vance. Vance would only invite people to get close to him again. He sighed and rubbed his head. He just had to get Vance out of his head. He had tried everything that he could think of. Every little way to get over a crush. But there was something about that guy that he couldn’t get out of his mind.