Kitchen Gods Box Set

by Beth Bolden

  “I’m good. How about you, darling boy? You settle into your big fancy new job okay?”

  She was back. The lapse had only lasted a minute, but it had left an indelible impression on Wyatt. He wasn’t sure he would ever forget this moment. The grease in the air, the five pressure points of Ryan’s hand on his knee, the sweaty grip on his phone.

  He talked aimlessly for five minutes and then told Nana he had to go. He couldn’t pretend like nothing had happened.

  When he finally hung up, there was silence in the car.

  Finally, Ryan broke it. “Was that the first time she didn’t recognize your voice?”

  Wyatt wasn’t sure he could speak, so he just nodded.

  “I’m sorry.” Ryan sounded legitimately sorry, even though it was Wyatt who wanted to apologize for ruining a beautiful afternoon with this tragedy.

  “Don’t be. Please,” Wyatt managed to say. “Please don’t.”

  “We don’t have to talk about it. But if you ever need to go see her, you just say the word,” Ryan said.

  “Okay. I . . . I appreciate it.”

  Wyatt knew he should be more grateful for Ryan’s support and for his flexibility, but all he felt was a growing rage at fate and how it was trying to take yet another beloved member of his family. First his dad had left, then his mom had died, and now the one person he still felt close to was going to forget who he even was.

  He clamped his hand over Ryan’s, and as Wyatt gripped his hand, it struck him, suddenly and catastrophically, that the man Bea Blake would be forgetting wasn’t even the real Wyatt.

  “I texted my aunt this morning,” Ryan said, clearly making good on his promise to change the subject. But Wyatt’s fingers didn’t let up on Ryan’s for even a moment. “Would Friday afternoon work for you?”

  Swallowing all the emotions back, Wyatt held on even harder. “Don’t you have something important or fun to be doing besides going to your aunt’s house and watching her teach me how to cook?”

  Ryan laughed unexpectedly. “Obviously you’ve never met my titi Flor before, because she definitely won’t let me just watch.”

  “I can’t wait to meet her,” Wyatt said, and discovered that he wasn’t even lying. He wanted to meet the woman who could make Ryan laugh like that.

  Ryan pulled into the driveway, the gate shutting behind them. “Do you think you could eat?” he asked, even though the bag of burgers was still sitting between them—a special detour to In-N-Out, and Ryan had whipped out his credit card despite the challenge he’d given earlier.

  Wyatt still felt vaguely nauseous, but he’d only had a few eggs and some turkey sausage this morning before his run, and he’d worked up a real appetite surfing.

  “Yeah, of course,” Wyatt said. How had Ryan even known he’d gotten nauseous? Had it been written all over his face? He pushed the embarrassment away. If there was ever a situation to feel sick over, it was this one.

  “We could even watch some TV,” Ryan suggested.

  Even though Wyatt had long come to terms with the fact that Ryan was nothing like his old boss, it still felt weird that Ryan was seeking him out all the time. Either because he actually wanted to be friends, or because . . . Wyatt didn’t even know how to finish that thought. Because Ryan had explicitly and clearly expressed interest in a fake boyfriend, someone to convince the GM that he was dependable. And if fake boyfriend had been ruled out, real boyfriend was definitely not in the cards.

  “Sure, but if you turn on another of those godawful nature documentaries, I might have to pass.”

  But then there was the way Ryan lit up at Wyatt’s teasing, defying explanation. “What about Star Talk?”

  “With Neil deGrasse Tyson?” Wyatt opened his car door. “I thought you were a stupid athlete.”

  “Well, this stupid athlete went to Stanford, and attempts to combat that stereotype by arming himself with knowledge,” Ryan said flippantly, but his voice was warm and comforting and certain. And Wyatt realized then that Ryan didn’t want him to agonize and obsess alone.

  He thought about thanking him but going back to his cottage, but then Ryan was in the house, leaving Wyatt behind in the garage, and he was babbling about Twitter and flat earth conspiracists, and instead of dwelling, Wyatt let his words wash over him, taking all the ugliness with them.

  Wyatt might not know what the hell they were doing, but they were friends. And that was going to have to be enough—at least for now.

  Chapter Eight

  Over the next few days, Wyatt worked hard to create some kind of routine for his work and his friendship with Ryan. He didn’t want the other man to feel obligated to hang out with him, or eat with him, or even talk to him, but Ryan always sought him out.

  “Are you trying to push me away?” Ryan asked one evening when in determination that he should get a choice, Wyatt had set a single place setting in the cavernous dining room.

  Ryan had showed up in the kitchen, where Wyatt was eating at the island, with his plate and silverware and had shot him a half-hearted glare. “Do you not like eating with me?”

  It had been difficult not to flush. The problem wasn’t that Wyatt didn’t like hanging out with him, it was that he was increasingly loving it, and he’d really liked it to begin with.

  “If I want space, I’ll take it,” was all Ryan had said about it before setting his plate down right next to Wyatt’s.

  They hadn’t gone surfing again, and Wyatt hadn’t invited himself to use Ryan’s home gym. And Ryan hadn’t pushed there either, which was probably smart. The truth was getting half-naked and sweaty together was a terrible combination if they wanted to keep things platonic.

  The attraction was there. The possibility for it to deepen wasn’t far behind. And at least half the time, Wyatt imagined saying fuck it, and pinning Ryan to the nearest convenient surface.

  The wall. The kitchen counter. Ryan’s bed. Wyatt’s bed. In his wilder daydreams, Ryan’s bike again. His imagination definitely wasn’t doing him any favors. He’d go to bed, and lie awake in bed, running through memories, real and otherwise, and put off jerking off as long as possible until he was burning up and there was no other way to relieve the pressure of wanting Ryan.

  And every time, even as he wrapped his hand around his cock and gave himself an experimental stroke, Wyatt knew that it wouldn’t help because in the end, it wasn’t what he really needed.

  What he needed was the god damn real thing; on top of him, under him, pressed against him. Wyatt was discovering he wasn’t particularly picky except it had to be Ryan Flores.

  Wyatt wasn’t naïve enough to believe it might be the same for Ryan, but there was more than one morning when he swore he caught the sharpened edge of sexual frustration in Ryan’s eyes. He recognized it because he saw the exact same fucking thing in his bathroom mirror each morning.

  “You ready to go?” Wyatt looked up, and Ryan was standing there, board shorts and a loose tank, one nipple almost poking out the armhole.

  He’d dressed in jeans and a polo shirt that he’d dug out from the back of his meager closet, because he was going to see the aunt of the guy he liked, and old habits died hard.

  Now Wyatt was wondering if he was criminally overdressed.

  Ryan raised an eyebrow. “You know, I have lots of money but my family rarely lets me give it to them. My titi won’t even let me buy her an air conditioner.”

  Okay, so he was definitely overdressed. But changing would mean admitting why he’d pulled these clothes out in the first place, and even though Wyatt thought Ryan probably knew, admitting it was a whole different story.

  “It’s okay,” Wyatt dismissed, “I worked in hot kitchens my whole career.”

  “Don’t tell me the Bastard didn’t give you guys even a measly fan?” Wyatt had made the mistake a few days ago of referring to Bastian Aquino by his hated nickname, and Ryan had been unexpectedly delighted and had been looking for ways to bring him up so he could use it.

  Wyatt shouldn’t find it
adorable, but that ship had definitely sailed.

  Maybe he should stop trying to fight it, and instead figure out how to embrace it—no matter how impossible the situation felt.

  “I shouldn’t have told you Aquino’s secret nickname,” Wyatt admitted.

  But Ryan just kept grinning in delight as they headed down the garage steps. Ryan opened the door of the Tesla, and Wyatt followed suit, sliding into the sleek car.

  “If I ever meet him, I might have to accidentally slip one or two ‘Bastards’ in,” he said as they backed out of the driveway.

  “If you ever met him, you wouldn’t even dream of it.”

  Ryan raised a dark eyebrow and the hot, insolent look in his eyes swamped Wyatt with desire. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I like living on the edge.”

  He’d definitely noticed. It had been a little hard to miss, and Wyatt, who considered himself laid-back but grudgingly cautious, found it strangely appealing.

  At first he’d thought it was only Ryan's looks that had attracted him, but Wyatt was beginning to realize it wasn’t just his exterior that attracted him—it was the whole package.

  “You drive too fast,” Wyatt pointed out as they screamed onto the freeway, the Tesla handling like a dream, even as he refused to glance over and check the speedometer. “Don’t tell me you’re aspiring to be a professional race car driver too.”

  The other night, Ryan had told him that in high school, before he’d gotten the big scholarship to play baseball at Stanford, he’d briefly considered surfing for a living. “Becoming a professional beach bum,” Wyatt had teased, but it made sense. Ryan craved adventure, craved waking up and not knowing exactly where he was. Craved the liquid lighter fluid of adrenaline running through his veins.

  “Maybe,” Ryan said with a dimpled, slanted grin.

  “All things considered, baseball must feel pretty sedate for you,” Wyatt pointed out.

  “Oh come on. You’re not one of those idiots who think baseball is slow and boring, are you?” Ryan gave a self-conscious snort of laughter. “You totally are.”

  “I’m sure playing the game is a hell of a lot different than watching it,” Wyatt retorted.

  “This should have been my first question in the interview: do you think baseball is a boring lesser version of golf? Or curling?”

  “Curling is fantastic,” Wyatt argued. “Have you ever seen those Swedish guys?”

  “Yes.” Ryan’s lip curled. “And I’m going to remember you voted baseball under curling because of the hot Swedes.”

  “You’re very hot too,” Wyatt said because he should be loyal and honest. Or something like that.

  Ryan cut over three lanes, taking the exit ramp going at least seventy miles per hour. Wyatt didn’t flinch, because he’d learned that if he flinched, Ryan would drive even faster.

  “You’re also a maniac,” Wyatt mumbled under his breath.

  “I heard that,” Ryan announced cheerfully.

  “Tell me about your titi,” Wyatt suggested.

  “Flor? She’s been here . . . fifteen years? Twenty? We’ll have to ask her. She came over with my mom.”

  It was on the tip of his tongue to ask about Ryan’s mom, because even though he’d mentioned his aunt half a dozen times, his mother hadn’t ever come up. But Wyatt didn’t, because he knew how much it could hurt when someone thoughtlessly asked about his—and it had been eight years since she’d died.

  Some wounds didn’t heal, they just scabbed over.

  “She basically raised me,” Ryan continued, essentially but not completely answering the question that Wyatt hadn’t asked. “She’s probably my favorite person in the whole world.”

  The wound created by his nana not remembering him hadn’t even had time to scab over yet, and it throbbed at Ryan’s words.

  “She and my two cousins run a cleaning business. Rich people’s houses, all that bullshit. But she’s good at it, and loves her clients and they love her. Someday, she wants to open a restaurant. I keep telling her I’ll loan her the money, even charge interest, but she won’t take a penny.”

  Wyatt thought of his nana, and one of the lesser lies that he’d told her recently: that the sale of her little bungalow in a Sacramento suburb would pay for her extended care in the memory care facility.

  It wasn’t the most painful lie he’d ever told her—that was still ongoing and likely to remain so—but it had been entirely necessary. She’d never accept Wyatt paying for her care.

  “Anonymous donation?” Wyatt asked, even though they both knew it was useless because they both had tough-as-nails, independent female relatives. They were so easy to love, but almost impossible to help.

  The wound ached again when Wyatt remembered that Bea Blake was no longer as independent as she’d once prided herself on being.

  Ryan rolled his eyes. “If only that would work.”

  “You’ll figure out something, eventually. You don’t strike me as the kind of guy who just gives up.”

  “When you meet her,” Ryan confessed, “you’ll realize that she’ll never let me. I just funnel as many nice, rich people as I can find her way, and that’s how I make sure her dream comes true.”

  "You're a good person," Wyatt murmured.

  "Not really. But at least I make an attempt," Ryan said flippantly. He pulled over next to a small house, painted bright yellow. “So, here we are.”

  Wyatt hadn’t been nervous, but when faced with the prospect of getting out of the car, he realized he was really nervous. It wasn’t so surprising that he wanted Ryan’s titi to like him, and not because he wanted everyone to generally like him. Considering how compartmentalized Ryan typically kept his hookups, Wyatt wondered if he’d taken the job as Ryan’s fake boyfriend if he would have ever met her at all.

  “Just make sure you don’t mention Eric,” Ryan warned as they walked up the concrete path to the house. The grass on either side was neatly trimmed and there was a profusion of tropical flowers on either side of the front door.

  “Eric?” Wyatt asked blankly.

  “My agent. Flor hates him. She thinks he’s a weasel.”

  The door opened and a shorter woman with dark hair pulled back in a ponytail and equally dark, intense eyes stepped out. There was a wide smile on her face, and a few laugh lines around her eyes and bracketing her lips. She looked warm and friendly and the way she immediately pulled Ryan into a big hug and then said loudly, “He is a weasel,” made Wyatt want her to like him even more.

  “No arguments from this corner,” Wyatt said, extending his hand. “Thank you for inviting me into your home. I’m Wyatt Blake.”

  Flor let go of Ryan and gave Wyatt a quick, but very thorough look up and then down. If he’d thought Tabitha’s examination had been tough, it had nothing on Flor’s.

  She reached out like she was going to shake his hand, but then pulled him into a hug. Wyatt got a fleeting impression of coconut and roasted pork and sunshine.

  “You are ready to cook, yes?” she asked, leading them into the house. “Ryan told me you are very good.”

  The house was scrupulously neat, with warm wood floors and framed retro tourism posters dotting the walls. A navy-blue couch sat across from a flat screen television, with sunny orange and yellow pillows brightening its surface.

  Wyatt had never felt particularly unsure about his qualifications before, but faced with Flor’s fierce gaze, he wavered and Ryan ended up answering her instead.

  “Yes, I told you,” Ryan said. “He’s a chef.”

  “Well, lucky you came in time. I’m making the sofrito first.”

  The kitchen was tiny, with just barely enough room for the three of them. But something incredibly delicious was already simmering on the stove, warming up the room. Ryan shot him a smug look, and Wyatt couldn’t help but wish that he’d taken Ryan’s advice and dressed down.

  “Sofrito?” Wyatt asked, fully expecting that he would get incredulous looks from both Ryan and Flor.

  “Oh, you d
idn’t tell me he knew nothing.” Flor directed this comment to Ryan.

  But Ryan only laughed. “Titi, I told you he was a chef. He doesn’t know anything about Puerto Rican food.”

  Flor turned to Wyatt. “Sofrito is . . . the most important thing in Puerto Rican food. It creates the important flavor. I usually make mine every few weeks and then freeze it.”

  Wyatt took in the counter full of peppers, huge bags of herbs, onions, garlic. “I can help chop,” he offered.

  Flor wordlessly handed him a knife. “Not perfect,” she said once he began to break down the peppers. “We’re going to blend it all.”

  But Wyatt hadn’t learned knife skills in culinary school for nothing, and then honed them in one of the most exacting kitchens in the world. He knew what to do with a knife in his hand, even with Flor glancing over at him to check in every minute or so.

  After he’d broken down the peppers and onions and had started mincing the garlic, Flor turned to Ryan, who despite what he’d claimed earlier, was just lounging against the kitchen counter, browsing through his phone.

  “Hijo, he’s very good with his hands.” Her knowing look in his direction had him blushing and Ryan sputtering. He’d been right then, Flor had not met many—or any—of Ryan’s boyfriends. If he’d even had one. That was still unclear and Wyatt wasn’t sure it was even right to ask him.

  “It’s why I hired him,” Ryan said.

  “You didn’t even give me a real interview,” Wyatt pointed out. “We sat at a table and you half-heartedly asked me a few questions.”

  “True,” Ryan admitted and Wyatt didn’t miss Flor rolling her eyes.

  “You’re going to end up broke,” she said.

  “Been doing good so far,” Ryan argued. “I have a huge shoot coming up for Adidas. I think I told you about that.”

  But Flor didn’t seem to be deterred, even as she pulled out a big Vitamix blender. “You trust too many people, who want to take all of your money.”

  Wyatt wasn’t sure he agreed. Yeah, Ryan was generous. He paid him a great salary and had insisted more than once on picking up the bill for things. Had given Wyatt a credit card to charge supplies and groceries. But more than one offhand comment he’d made had made it clear that he monitored it fairly closely. He wasn’t tight-fisted by any means, but he certainly wasn’t running through cash the way Flor made it sound.