Kitchen Gods Box Set

by Beth Bolden

Evan, even after admitting he wanted Miles and thoroughly acting on this desire, was still skittish. Still unsure. Never really convinced that Miles really wanted him, despite all the words and actions that proved otherwise.

  A younger, more selfish Miles might have gotten frustrated with Evan before this, but Miles took pride in the fact that he wanted the other man because of how difficult he was to convince, not in spite of it. There was a careful hesitancy in Evan that Miles loved—because when he finally felt secure enough to let go, you knew you’d won him over, heart, body and soul.

  And that was the end goal that Miles was really gunning for.

  Now they only had to make it through this screen test and hope that it would be enough to convince Reed, because anything else they could fix later.

  Miles just needed this one thing to fall their way.

  They’d arrived on set to the expected chaos of a show that was just getting underway for the first day of filming. Reed was there, and his boyfriend, Jordan, who wrote the script for Dream Team. Quentin Maxwell and Landon Patton, the talent, were running late, which didn’t seem to surprise anyone.

  “That’s why they told us we could do our screen test today,” Evan murmured into Miles’ ear, and with the hot breath brushing his skin, he had to remind himself that Evan wasn’t going to do that hot little nibbling thing he’d done last night.

  “Because things are already chaotic?” Miles asked.

  “Because they won’t be likely to get much done today at all. Landon and Quen can be . . . tough to wrangle.”

  “So it’s not just me, then?” Miles glanced over at Evan, grinning. Evan was not grinning. That was another thing Miles wanted desperately—for Evan to relax.

  But asking Evan to relax in the middle of chaos, during one of the most important days of his career, was useless. It wasn’t ever going to happen.

  “That was never our problem. Or your problem,” Evan said.

  Maybe another day Miles would have asked Evan to detail exactly what his problem was, but the memories from last night—what could be if they could learn to work together instead of against each other—were too fresh. The last thing he wanted to do was dredge up all the shit from the previous weeks.

  They hadn’t really resolved it, and it still lay there, stagnant and sour, between them. Maybe Evan thought they could move on without dealing with it but Miles knew they couldn’t.

  Even if Miles cared about Evan enough to let it go—and despite how stupid it was, he was edging closer to that place—Evan would never let it go. Miles didn’t think he even wanted to.

  “Are you ready?” Evan asked, jerking Miles out of the melancholy fog that he’d felt from the moment he’d woken up and realized he was alone.

  “I was born ready,” he said, putting on a confident front that he didn’t really feel anymore. Before he’d come here, Pastry by Miles always made him feel freer, an endless opportunity stretched out in front of him. Now thinking of what could happen to his show, all he felt was apprehension.

  It was hard to face that at least half of that was his fault, but he forced himself to.

  Without that email, Reed wouldn’t have demanded a screen test, and he wouldn’t have spent the last two days unsuccessfully recording himself baking peanut butter chocolate cookies.

  The cookies had been fantastic; his performance had been anything but.

  Before, it had only ever been him. Then it had been easy to think it was just him and Evan, for better and worse. And now there was a huge crowd of people, and even though Miles had never cared before, suddenly what they thought mattered.

  He swallowed hard, and unsuccessfully ignored the sudden tightness in his chest.

  “Just remember that it just needs to be good enough,” Evan said.

  The hardest part of the last two days was watching the hopeful light in Evan’s eyes go out as he figured out that Miles couldn’t perform on command. And hearing his words now only proved that even Evan wasn’t sure he could do it.

  “Okay,” Miles said, shoving his suddenly damp hands into his pockets, wondering if anyone would notice if he ran away and hid in the bathroom.

  He didn’t even have a green room because this wasn’t even his show.

  “You’re going to be fine,” Evan said. He placed a reassuring hand on Miles’ back, high enough to be professional. Stupidly, Miles wished that he’d move it lower, make what had happened last night official and public. But that wasn’t Evan’s style. It wasn’t even Miles’ style. At least it hadn’t been before he’d met Evan. Evan made him want all sorts of things he’d always avoided, and the painful irony was that he was the least likely to get them because it was Evan.

  “Fine,” Miles parroted back, tongue thick and uncooperative. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d even been nervous but he was undeniably nervous now.

  Evan checked his smartwatch. “Time for makeup,” he said, and with his hand still on Miles’ back, steered him over to the makeup station.

  Miles had never worn makeup for Pastry by Miles before, and he forced himself to remember that they were trying to up the production quality for the new version.

  It didn’t help.

  He sat down in front of the mirror and watched as the nice lady put a new, strange face on him.

  The bathroom had never looked more appealing. Miles didn’t even think about his little dinky kitchen in Napa because if he did, he wasn’t sure he could keep it together.

  * * *

  Would Miles be better if I had stayed?

  The question echoed through Evan’s brain for the hundredth time since they’d gotten to the Dream Team set.

  Miles had been nervous and tense from the moment Evan had met him at the set, and instead of relaxing with Evan’s hand on him, he’d only grown edgier.

  Evan stood behind the central camera operator and crossed his arms over his chest, careful to keep the frown off his face, but feeling it reverberate through him.

  Miles was standing in the kitchen, the place he always looked confident and sure, but he looked nothing like he usually did.

  He looked like an apprehensive wreck, and it was taking every ounce of Evan’s self-control to not walk up there and do something—anything—to calm him down.

  Evan knew he should have stayed. He never should have left, never should have given Miles a reason to doubt that he liked him, that he cared about him, and Evan had been monumentally stupid enough to do it the day before the most important ten minutes of both their careers.

  That was exactly why Evan almost never let himself do what he really craved. Because they were usually really bad ideas, and only made things worse, not better. Last night had been great. He couldn’t even think about it without a little frisson of invisible pleasure, but it hadn’t been worth throwing everything else away.

  The director called for quiet. Miles forced out a painful little half smile, and then the worst ten minutes of Evan’s life began.

  He knew right away that Miles’ performance this time was even worse than some of the recordings they’d done over the last two days. He’d worried about those, had been afraid that he was too stiff, so he’d pushed and pressed and hoped that they could make some improvements before this moment came.

  Now Evan wished he’d just kept his fucking mouth shut, because he would have loved to have those performances be this performance.

  “And now, uh, you put these in the oven for ten minutes,” Miles said, and slid the cookie sheet into the oven. Wooden. Dry. None of the playful, laughing charm that had won over so many people who didn’t care about pastry at all.

  Evan had counted himself in that group, from the very beginning, and this hurt more than he ever could have imagined it would. Because it wasn’t only his failure, it was the failure of a persona that Miles had believed in. A persona that he’d believed himself to be.

  Evan wished he could take it all back, and leave Miles alone. Leave him to his bad production values, and poor lighting, and the single swi
pe of raspberry puree on one cheekbone. Perfection.

  “Cut,” the director yelled, and it blessedly, thankfully, ended.

  “What just happened?”

  Evan turned and Reed was standing there. Evan’s stomach plummeted.

  “He was nervous, uh, a little tense, I think,” Evan said, and because there was nothing else he could do, pushed. “I have a lot of rehearsal footage that you should see. It’s a lot better.” Not by much, but it was better.

  Reed raised an eyebrow. “You rehearsed? How much?”

  “The last two days,” Evan said, even though he was sure that Reed already knew the answer. Evan was unfailingly predictable.

  “What I wanted to see,” Reed said reluctantly, “was a meshing together of your two viewpoints. The organization and production value that you bring to the table, but the spontaneity and charm of who Miles is in the kitchen. Your point of view completely overwhelmed his. You rehearsed him way too much. He knew what he was going to say before he even said it. There was nothing here from Pastry by Miles. It was more Pastry by Evan.”

  It was one thing to know it, it was another to have his boss pronounce it. Evan wanted to sink through the floor and die, especially when he saw Miles approaching behind Reed, clearly hearing every word he was saying. The worried crinkle between his dark brows told Evan everything he needed to know. Miles was half a step out the door, half a step away from going back to Napa and resuming a life that he’d already outgrown.

  And Evan, for the first time in his life, confronted a problem that he didn’t know how to fix.

  “We can do better,” Evan said, because he didn’t know what else to say. He believed they could; he had no idea how to go about doing it, but they couldn’t be so good together sometimes without some potential for success.

  Reed just shook his head. “I don’t want better. I want what you had.” He turned and pinned Miles with a single look. “Just because you want in his pants doesn’t mean you should just nod your head and smile whenever he tells you to do something. He’s not infallible. And neither are you.” He threw up his hands. “For the love of god, take a long weekend and figure out how to work together.”

  “Uh,” Evan said. Because he couldn’t take a long weekend and not know what that meant for his future. Was he fired? Was Pastry by Miles as a Five Points property over before it had even begun?

  “Get out of here,” Reed said sternly, and his expression very clearly stated arguments wouldn’t be tolerated. “I don’t want to hear you did one minute of work. Go somewhere. Clear your heads. And come back here and we’ll figure out this mess you two have made.”

  It was bad, but Evan supposed he was grateful it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.

  Miles looked like a thundercloud come to life as Reed walked off to supervise the finalization of the set for Dream Team.

  “I’m sorry,” Evan said, because everything else felt painfully inadequate.

  “Yeah, you should be. The real question is what you’re actually sorry for.”

  Evan swallowed hard. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “That’s your whole damn problem,” Miles said. “And we’re going to fix it.”

  Which is how, two hours later, Evan found himself in another rental car, heading towards Northern California.

  “You can’t run away every time things get ugly,” Evan said, because he didn’t like where this was going. He knew what had happened the last time Miles had decided to go back to Napa, and they were on thin enough ice as it was.

  “That,” Miles pointed out, “is your other problem. You think I’m running away. I’m not. I’m blowing off steam. You’ve never blown off steam in your life. You’re about to self-combust from all the steam building inside you. You put way too much pressure on yourself. Take too much on. We’re going up to Napa to help you learn to let stuff go.”

  “Shouldn’t we be working on how to fix the show?” Evan insisted. “We’re half-fired at this moment in time. Blowing off work to drink and party doesn’t seem like the best plan.”

  “Reed already told you that you’re not working. And even if he didn’t, I wouldn’t let you. We’ve rehearsed enough. We need to learn to work together, and that’s never going to happen if you can’t fucking relax.”

  “So you’re going to . . . teach me to relax?” Evan didn’t know what to make of this plan. Actually, scratch that. He knew what he thought of it and it wasn’t anything good. It was a terrible plan, probably going to result in them being totally, one hundred percent fired.

  “Yes.”

  “I can relax,” Evan insisted.

  “And yet I have seen zero evidence of you actually relaxing,” Miles said. “We tried things your way, and they failed spectacularly. You wound us both up so tight that I could barely breathe. I don’t even know how you survive wound this tight. So we’re going to do things my way.”

  “But . . .” Evan tried to point out, but Miles just interrupted him.

  “No arguments. No circular logical shit. You’re going to fucking relax if it kills me.”

  “It might, because I’ll probably end up murdering you,” Evan said, and he couldn’t help how grumpy he sounded. He was fine. He didn’t need to relax; relaxation never got anyone anywhere.

  “Yeah,” Miles drawled, his hand on the wheel relaxed as he smiled, skin crinkling near his eyes, “you can fuck me to death.”

  Evan harrumphed.

  “Seriously, it might be fun. You might actually enjoy yourself for a minute.”

  “Are you going to keep bringing up sex just to remind me what happened last night?” Evan demanded. “Because trust me, I do not need a reminder.”

  Miles glanced over, and he was still smiling. Like the further north they drove, the further he unwound. Even Evan baiting the shit out of him didn’t make a dent. “I don’t know, I think I do. A little refresher, we could even say.”

  Evan snorted, because he just couldn’t help himself. “Is that how you get guys in your bed? You never stop harassing them?” It wasn’t hard to swallow the question of why Miles wouldn’t stop harassing him. After all, he’d left Miles alone in bed, and fucked up his career.

  He wasn’t sure which Miles should be more pissed off about, but Evan knew he would never be big enough to let it go. But instead of biting his head off, Miles was driving them to Napa, relaxed and smiling, like last night had been perfect.

  “When it’s perfect, yeah, I’m not going to let that go. Let you go.” Miles smirked.

  And it sort of had been perfect, at least before Evan went and overthought everything. Before Evan remembered what the next morning would bring.

  Somehow they’d both survived the morning, though Evan had a feeling that had more to do with Reed probably not wanting to deal with them than actually catching a break.

  Still. They were still here. Still together. Evan felt the invisible belt holding him together loosen a single notch.

  “It was pretty great,” he admitted, and Miles’ smile grew at least ten degrees brighter.

  “See, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” Miles teased.

  “I don’t know,” Evan said, barely managing to keep a straight face. He was not going to grin at Miles like a lovesick loon. Except he sort of was. Miles was making him begin to believe in fate. “It might be pretty hard later.”

  Chapter Twelve

  It was a long drive to Napa, almost six hours from the studio, but Evan felt like he spent most of it half-hard, blood simmering in anticipation of what they might do when they finally got to the hotel Miles had booked.

  Miles seemed like he wanted it too, just as much as Evan did. The looks he’d been shooting Evan’s direction were hardly subtle, and his comments were even less so. And every so often he’d put his hands on Evan, casually, in the middle of a conversation, like it didn’t mean anything at all.

  But it meant a lot. It meant that Miles worked him up and then carefully made sure he never really calmed down.

 
Instead of pulling into the hotel parking lot, they sailed right past, and Evan tried not to look too frantic as he opened his phone to verify the reservation. “This was the place,” he said, trying to sound calm and not panicked. Relaxed.

  He’d never considered himself particularly sex-obsessed before, but he craved Miles powerfully now that he’d actually allowed himself to.

  “What?” Miles asked, as laid-back as ever. Evan wanted to strangle him and also shove his dick down his throat. He really hated how desperate Miles had made him—just by being himself.

  “That was our hotel,” Evan got out in a strangled voice. “We just passed it!”

  “Oh yeah,” Miles said. “It was. Good eye.”

  “What are you doing!” Evan didn’t even recognize his own voice.

  “Don’t worry,” Miles said, leaning over and resting a warm palm conveniently on Evan’s thigh. Evan sucked in a breath. “We’ll get there soon enough. I made us a wine tasting reservation first. A few of them, actually.”

  “A few?” Evan squeaked.

  Miles shot him a soft, scorching smile. “A few, yeah. Is that a problem?”

  If Miles thought Evan was going to be the first to break down and demand sex, he was crazy.

  “No,” Evan said, pulling himself back together only because he’d done it his whole life. “I’m good.”

  It was a complete and total lie, and Miles’ expression made it clear he knew just how untruthful Evan was being.

  “Yeah, you are,” Miles said, and his voice was a slick caress across Evan’s skin.

  He was going to kill him by the time they made it back to the hotel. Or maybe he’d do as Miles had suggested and just fuck him to death.

  * * *

  “This,” the sommelier said, “is our unoaked chardonnay.” He poured a little of the golden liquid into each of their glasses. Evan shifted uncomfortably on his wooden stool.

  He’d always believed wine tasting would be fun. Anything involving alcohol was supposed to be, right? But from the moment they’d driven up the winding road to the huge, imposing winery, with its expensive fixtures and obvious antiques, to being shown into the private tasting room, Evan had been on edge.