Kitchen Gods Box Set

by Beth Bolden

  “Your words sort of lose their effect when your hand was in my hair and your dick was literally in my mouth,” Miles snarled.

  “Good thing all I have to do with that is remember that email you wrote to me, and I’m as soft as I’ve ever been,” Evan said bitterly.

  “What email?”

  Miles whipped his head towards the doorway and the new voice. Reed Ryan was standing in the entrance to the conference room, arms crossed across his chest, and he looked confused and determined and also definitely a little pissed off.

  “Now look at what you’ve done,” Evan hissed. “Can’t keep your mouth shut for five seconds put together.”

  Miles couldn’t believe Evan was blaming him; after all, Evan had been the one to bring up the email this time.

  “What email?” Reed demanded when neither Miles nor Evan answered the question.

  He turned towards Evan. “I knew things weren’t going well, but I didn’t know you’d reached the point of sending each other nasty emails or yelling at each other in the conference room.”

  “It’s not . . . I mean, it’s sort of . . .” Evan paused, trying to compose himself. “I was handling it.”

  “By not telling me,” Reed said sternly.

  “It’s my fault, sir,” Miles spoke up. He didn’t think he’d called anyone but Bastian Aquino sir in his whole career, but right now, Reed was almost as scary as his ex-boss.

  Reed frowned, his expression morphing between annoyance and overwhelming frustration. “I don’t remember saying it wasn’t your fault.” His gaze fell back on Evan. “What I don’t get is why you would keep it a secret, Evan.”

  Miles could hear Evan grinding his teeth from a few feet away. “I told you, I was handling it. I dealt with it. Was dealing with it.”

  Reed’s expression softened, even as Evan forged ahead, and Miles realized as he listened to one excuse after another that he’d never heard Evan caught up in indecisive rambling before. He’d always known what to say before this moment.

  “I was pretty sure it didn’t mean anything, and we were getting past it—I thought I was getting past it—and I am, I know it didn’t mean anything. I know Miles didn’t mean it. He was drunk and stupid and well, really, really stupid. You know when someone says something mean and you know they aren’t saying it because they believe it, but because they don’t know what else to say? That’s how it felt. It was all there between the lines. And the grammar mistakes. And the spelling errors.”

  Evan only stopped because Reed held up a single hand. “Can I read this email before I decide it was nothing?”

  “No,” Miles and Evan both answered at the same time.

  Reed looked surprised. Miles thought he really shouldn’t have been.

  “It’s private,” Evan said stubbornly.

  “Like Evan said, I was drunk and really stupid. Incurably stupid. And I said some stuff that I’m not proud of, but I also said some stuff . . . it is sort of private,” Miles added, under no delusion that his stupid drunk words could still remain between him and Evan.

  Reed Ryan was going to find out that he really hated Evan’s face, and really loved his ass in the tight khakis he wore. Basically, Miles was going to have to move back to Napa because he was never going to get over the shame of it. Every time he saw Reed—his boss and also, the ex-owner of Garnet and a culinary god—Miles was going to have a nightmare flashback to his stupid drunk words.

  Miles thought he’d explored all the humiliation he possibly could when Evan had read that email. Unfortunately, there were still embarrassing depths to which he could plunge.

  “I want to read it. Now.” Reed’s tone brooked no disagreement, but Evan still opened his mouth to keep arguing. Miles elbowed him hard in the side.

  “Give it up,” he hissed under his breath. “No point.”

  “I deleted it,” Evan said anyway.

  “All this time you were so subtly blackmailing me with it. That god-awful marketing meeting. Compromising! Joan of Arc Julia Child! And you fucking deleted it?” The outraged words leapt out of Miles’ mouth before he could stop them.

  Evan turned towards him, shock written all over his features. “Are you insane?” he hissed.

  Reed only shook his head. In disgust or frustration, it was hard to tell.

  “You.” Reed pointed at Miles. “You still have it. You sent it after all. I want you to forward it to me, and then join me in my office in ten minutes.” He turned and walked out, leaving no room for arguments, and Miles at a loss for words.

  “Go delete it right now. I don’t know how, just do it,” Evan hissed.

  “I really think we’ve made this bed and we have to lie in it,” Miles said, realizing a little too late that he shouldn’t be using phrases that had the word bed in them. At least he hadn’t said they’d made their kitchen counter and now they had to lie on it.

  Evan threw up his hands in frustration. “Do you really want your boss to read that email? Really? I thought you had an ounce of self-preservation. Because I definitely do not want my boss to read that email.”

  “Trust me, I don’t. But I’m not showing up in his office telling him I just deleted it. That would be worse than him reading it.”

  Evan shot him a look. “Are you sure about that?”

  Miles’ resolve crumbled a little. “Not entirely.”

  “Then go delete it. This is your fault. Therefore, it’s your job to fix it.”

  “What if it can’t be fixed?” Miles said, because he couldn’t help but think that. Maybe he’d fucked up this situation beyond solving.

  Evan rounded on him, as fierce and angry as he’d ever been. “Everything can be fixed.”

  Miles didn’t think he could agree, but he also felt sick and every second he and Evan kept fighting over this made him feel worse. It was impossible not to see Evan’s words through the frame of the knowledge he’d just learned about how he’d grown up alone and unwanted.

  The one thing he knew was that he wasn’t going to delete the email. Would it be humiliation heaped upon embarrassment for Reed Ryan to read it? Absolutely. But there was a sort of poetic justice to the automatic cringe that Miles felt every time he thought about it. He shouldn’t have written it, and he definitely shouldn’t have ever sent it. He should have apologized the morning Evan had showed up in Napa to drag his hungover ass home. Everything that came after this was payback for all those mistakes.

  * * *

  Evan knew the moment he walked into Reed’s office that Miles hadn’t done as requested and deleted the email. Reed’s face said it all. Evan knew he should’ve watched Miles delete it, instead of escaping to the bathroom to try to compose himself for the lecture to come.

  Because even if Miles had deleted it, Evan knew they were both in for a lecture the likes of which he’d never seen. Reed had a fierce temper, and even if he’d never seen it, he’d heard terrifying stories about it. Until this clusterfuck of a situation, Evan had been more than a model employee—he could even say he’d been Reed’s best employee. There’d never been a single excuse for Reed to unleash his infamous temper.

  Until now.

  “Evan, sit down.” Reed’s voice was deadly calm, but Evan could also see the awkwardness in his expression. Yeah, he’d definitely read all about how Miles hated his face, and how much he appreciated the tight khakis Evan favored.

  Evan did what he was instructed, because in the bathroom he’d come to mostly the same conclusion as Miles: it was pointless to keep fighting this. It was going to happen.

  “I’ve read this email,” Reed said, still very calm. Too calm, as far as Evan was concerned. “I’m not very happy about it.”

  “I’m sorry, I can’t apologize enough,” Miles cut in, but Reed shot him a single, deadly look and he shut up fast. Evan wished he could recreate that look and get those same kinds of results. But it turned out that Miles had more self-preservation than Evan had ever imagined he did.

  “Do you know why I hired you?” Reed asked
.

  “Because I was good?” Miles said.

  Evan barely held back a bitter chuckle. Miles had no idea how good he was. Or how fucked.

  Reed leaned forward on the desk, his muscular forearms distracting but the look in his dark eyes was intense enough it was tough to even look at his arms. “I hired you because I believed you were a professional. That you’d started Pastry by Miles even though you were working at Terroir because you wanted more. That you were willing to work your ass off and sacrifice whatever it took to make sure you got more. That’s why I promoted Evan specifically to produce your show. Because he’s always, ever since he started here, done exactly that—gone after more. And I thought this drive would unite you, but all it’s done is divide you. And that’s a damn fucking shame.”

  Evan swallowed hard. He’d thought the same thing, once. He still wanted to believe it was possible, that they weren’t doomed to fail, but the further they got down this angry, bitter, vindictive road, the more out of reach success felt.

  Part of this was his own fault. But fault seemed so petty right now, when everything they’d built individually was threatening to fall around them.

  “Apologies don’t seem adequate, but that’s all I have. And a promise to do better. To be better. To work with Evan better.” Miles certainly sounded earnest, and Evan realized that was part of his charm. You genuinely wanted to believe him, even when you knew he would probably fail to deliver. That was definitely Evan’s fault; he kept believing and kept letting himself be seduced into certainty, when nothing was certain.

  “That’s something.” Reed, on the other hand, did not sound particularly convinced. He was a hard guy to win over, though, which was something Evan had always liked about him. And still liked about him, even though that particular trait was probably going to be enough to torpedo Evan’s continued employment at Five Points.

  “Evan?” Reed continued. “Do you have anything to say?”

  What did you even say when you’d been saying too much from the first moment? Evan didn’t know.

  “I’m sorry, I should have told you about it earlier,” Evan said. “But I think we can still make this work.” That was mostly a lie, but Evan had always been a great liar. He didn’t like lying to Reed, because he’d always respected him so much, but some things were more vital than honesty.

  Evan had just clawed his way up to this point. He’d worked his ass off. He wasn’t going to lose everything now over a little dishonesty.

  “What I want to see,” Reed said, “is a test. Proof of you two actually working together towards something. I want evidence. I want something I can watch and I can see how it’s going to work if Five Points moves ahead and buys into this show for a season of episodes. Right now, I can’t see that happening. But if you prove to me that you can, then you’ll get my full support.”

  “You want a screen test?” Evan asked and he couldn’t help but sound dubious. Miles was not ready for a screen test. Evan was not ready for a screen test.

  “I want proof.” Reed sounded solidly convinced. He was probably not going to be convinced by whatever footage they could cobble together.

  Evan felt the death knell of all his hopes. He and Reed had agreed when Miles signed that screen tests wouldn’t be necessary because he already had on-camera experience and his rapport with the camera was fantastic.

  “Okay,” Miles said, and he sounded so sure and so casually okay with the challenge that Reed had presented to them, Evan felt a little sick. Didn’t he know what they were getting themselves into? Didn’t he care about the amount of work he’d just committed himself to? “You’ll get your proof. I promise.”

  Chapter Ten

  “Are you insane?” Evan hissed at Miles as they walked down the hall from Reed’s office. It didn’t even feel like the first time he’d asked this exact same question this exact same way in nearly the same spot.

  And didn’t that just say it all?

  Miles shot him a look like maybe Evan was the crazy one, but there was no way that was the case. “Maybe we shouldn’t do this here,” he said softly.

  He had a good point, but Evan wasn’t feeling magnanimous enough to admit it. Instead, he pointed towards the big double doors that led to the elevator bay. Wordlessly, Miles followed Evan to their cubicles, and they packed up their laptops. Evan also grabbed his big folder of filming notes, and they decamped from the office, walking the few scant blocks to the apartment building they shared.

  Miles unlocked his door, and the first thing he said, when they were finally alone, was, “Are you hungry? I’ve got lots of leftover quiche from last night.”

  Evan decided the question he’d asked earlier applied even in locations that weren’t the hallway outside of Reed’s office.

  “Food? That’s what you want to talk about right now?” Evan’s voice was inching upwards, both in volume and in pitch. It was a testament to how upset he was that he didn’t even try to stop the inevitable.

  They’d been on the cusp of a huge blowout in the conference room, and Reed had merely interrupted them. Maybe if they finished the fight, they could buckle down and finally get some work done.

  But Miles shot Evan an incredulous look, and after setting his laptop on the kitchen counter, walked right over to the fridge and opened the door.

  “Okay,” Evan admitted, which was not easy for him to do. “I guess we do need to talk about food. Not whatever happened in here last night. Not your fuckups. Not my hang-ups. We need to figure out how to convince Reed.”

  Miles flipped the oven on and slid the pie plate, suspiciously full, into the oven.

  Maybe Miles hadn’t been able to eat either, after Evan had left. Evan had ended up with a liquid dinner, comprised of whatever remaining wine he had left in his apartment, followed by a shot of vodka from his freezer, and a restless, mostly sleepless night, punctuated by sudden and annoying bouts of accidentally turning himself on by dwelling on what had nearly happened.

  “It’s not going to be that hard,” Miles said.

  Evan didn’t even know what to say. “You did hear him, right? He wasn’t lying. He will absolutely need to be convinced. And I know Reed; that isn’t going to be easy.”

  “No, it won’t be easy. But he picked me for a reason, and he picked you for a reason. Those reasons haven’t changed. We just need to figure out how to make those reasons work together a little better.” Miles’ gaze slid to the counter. “You know him better than I do. You know how this all works better than I do. So tell me what to do.”

  “You’re really giving me control over this whole thing.” Evan couldn’t believe after all these weeks of fighting and clawing each other, Miles was just going to hand the power over without a single word of argument.

  But Miles shrugged. “I can’t go back to Napa a failure. I can’t go back to restaurants if this doesn’t work out. So it needs to work out.”

  Evan didn’t need another word to convince him. “Okay,” he said, flipping open his big folder stuffed full of notes. “Let’s start.”

  “Food first,” Miles said. “I’ve had too much caffeine followed by too much adrenaline. I’m all shaky.”

  “Fine.” The food smelled good, almost better than it had last night, so Evan wasn’t going to exactly complain if Miles wanted to feed him.

  “Also,” Miles said, fidgeting with the frayed edge of a kitchen towel. “I need to apologize. Really apologize,” he continued when Evan opened his mouth to say that an apology wasn’t necessary. “I was an asshole. I was insensitive. I was thoughtless. And I’m beginning to realize that some of those things aren’t new. For that, I’m sorry. I’m going to be respectful from now on. The professional I promise you I can be.”

  “Apology accepted.” Evan figured if they dealt with this, then maybe they could move on. And maybe he should take advantage of Miles’ sudden contrition to set up some ground rules.

  “But if you’re really serious,” he continued, “let’s write down some ground rules.” He
opened his notebook to a blank page. “Rule number one, I think is pretty self-explanatory. No kissing.”

  Miles opened his mouth and then snapped it shut again. Evan was unpleasantly reminded of everything he could do with that mouth, before he pushed those thoughts right out of his mind. Remembering kissing Miles and Miles kissing him was not going to get them a full season pickup.

  “Rule number two. No sex.”

  Miles didn’t even react to that.

  “Rule number three. No arguments,” Miles added.

  Evan lifted an eyebrow. “No arguing? You must really have had a change of heart in Reed’s office.”

  “Not just Reed’s office,” Miles admitted. “I went to grab coffee with Lucy and when she told me about the circumstances surrounding your internship, I realized just how insensitive I’ve been, when this means everything to you. It means everything to me too. And I can stop arguing if it means we can save everything we’ve worked for.”

  Evan felt everything go hot and then cold inside him. Ice cold. Like an ice floe in Antarctica. It hadn’t come as a surprise that Lucy had told Miles about his past. She had probably been trying to help, because rumors were flying fast and thick in the office that Miles and Evan weren’t getting along. Lucy must have believed that she could assist by cluing Miles in, because normally she didn’t encourage gossip.

  Evan was still monumentally pissed off that she’d opened her big fat mouth, and he was definitely going to tell her that when he saw her next. They’d known each other and worked together for years now, and he expected better from her. Not for her to sell him and his secrets out to Miles.

  “It’s nothing,” Evan said coldly. “It’s less than nothing. Forget what she told you. It’s not important.”

  “It is important,” Miles argued, heat flashing in his eyes, frustration and admiration and galling sympathy. “I think . . .”

  Evan ripped off the notebook page and stomped over to the fridge. He hung it on the fridge with one of the silly magnets Miles must have brought. This one was a brightly colored neon lobster. “Rule number three,” he stated, pointing to the rule he’d written in his neat handwriting.