Kitchen Gods Box Set

by Beth Bolden

  “Alex,” he said, as he began to pile empty glasses on the tray. “And I’ll be around when you’re done.”

  * * *

  That was exactly what Wyatt was afraid of—that Alex would be there when they got back to the VIP area, and Wyatt would have to decide where he stood on the subject that Ryan had spent the whole evening hinting at.

  It could have been worse, Wyatt thought as he climbed the stairs, trying to look calm and not nervous because he was about to get in front of about a thousand people, not because Ryan kept trying to set them up a threesome. Ryan could have dragged Alex up there to the stage with them and forced the decision in front of the entire club.

  They got to the stage, and the DJ announced them. Wyatt kept a firm grip around Ryan’s hips, feeling zero compunction about pulling him a little rough towards him. Ryan leaned over and played it up, kissing him noisily on the cheek and then moving to his lips.

  If this was happening, it was happening on his terms. Wyatt yanked Ryan even closer and made it even showier, playing to the crowd by dipping him low, and pouring all his frustration into the kiss. The noisy crowd faded away, giving way to a low roaring in his ears. He opened his eyes as the kiss finally ended, and Ryan was staring at him, an inscrutable expression on his face.

  The DJ said more nonsense that Wyatt didn’t understand even though they were practically on top of one of the speakers, and then finally Anne-Marie led them down the stairs and off the stage.

  But it wasn’t a solution, because they were still under the crowd’s microscope and Alex was waiting, an impatient look of excitement plain on his features, for them to collect him and give him the dance he’d been promised.

  Maybe under different circumstances, Wyatt might have enjoyed dancing with him. Would have definitely entertained the threesome idea, but right now, it didn’t feel right. Not now. Not under these tenuous circumstances. Not when Wyatt felt five seconds away from grabbing Ryan back and keeping him all to himself.

  The uncertainty was breeding jealousy and envy in him, and Wyatt didn’t like it, but he didn’t know how to exorcise it either.

  Wyatt grabbed Ryan’s hand just before they were about to head up to the VIP area. “Wait,” he said loud enough that he could be heard even over the pounding bass of the music. “Wait. We need to talk.”

  Ryan turned back to him, pulled his hand back and crossed his arms over his chest. “Are you okay with this?”

  The question was a challenge and it was stark black and white, with none of the shades of gray Wyatt knew were important. At least to him.

  “We need to talk,” he repeated. Even though there was no possible way to talk in here. Not with the music and the strobe lights, and Alex practically hovering over Ryan’s shoulder.

  He wasn’t stupid enough to think they’d get away with it again, but Wyatt decided he was going to try anyway. He pulled Ryan’s hand back, and led him the same way he’d gone the first night they met, winding through the crowd and right out the front door, leading him past the bouncers and the eager partiers waiting to get in, down the street, and into the mouth of the alley they’d first spoken in a month ago.

  Every second, Wyatt expected Ryan to pull away, to go back to the club, to go back to Alex. And that, Wyatt realized as quiet finally surrounded them, was a microcosm of the whole problem.

  He didn’t trust Ryan not to break his heart. He didn’t trust Ryan to pull the parachute if things got hairy.

  “What are we doing here?” Wyatt asked, the question spilling out before he could stop it. If Ryan’s earlier question had been a challenge, this was a demand.

  “Drinking, partying? Eventually getting photographed and introducing all the housewives in the grocery store checkout line to our relationship?”

  “I don’t want a cute answer,” Wyatt said. “I want the truth.”

  “Keeping it fun. Keeping it exciting.” Ryan’s voice sounded brittle. Wyatt’s first instinct was to claim bullshit on that too, but he was beginning to think Ryan was actually telling the truth.

  “Why can’t we have a drink and dance some and make out in the car on the way home, and have undeniably spectacular sex when we do? Isn’t that exciting enough for you?”

  Ryan hugged himself and Wyatt wasn’t sure it was because of the temperature, which seemed mild enough, even for November.

  “It’s always going to get boring. That’s what always happens.”

  “Bullshit,” Wyatt retorted. “I jumped out of a fucking plane for you. If you want exciting, I’m going to give it to you, because I care about you. But I’m done playing games.”

  “I don’t . . . I don’t understand.” Another lie. Wyatt found his normally moderate temper beginning to spike. The one thing he hated was being lied to, and Ryan was doing it a lot, and not just tonight.

  “Sure, that guy in there is hot, I’m not going to deny it, but we don’t need him. Do you need him?”

  “I . . . you don’t want to go home with him?” Ryan sounded incredulous. When Ryan had been the one flirting with him all night, not Wyatt.

  “I want to go home with you,” Wyatt bit out.

  “I’m not dumb,” Ryan sneered. “I don’t believe that you’ll want that forever. You’ll get bored, you’ll start looking, and someday you’re going to wish we took him home. And instead of the three of us, it’ll just be the two of you.”

  “Tell me you don’t need that guy,” Wyatt said again. “Tell me you just want that guy, and we’ll figure this out. Because it’s not about what I want. It’s about what you want.”

  The look in Ryan’s eyes was pure stubbornness. “I want to have fun. I never want to be bored. Never again.”

  It shouldn’t have hurt so much because he’d anticipated it, but it burned like hell anyway. “And I’d bore you, eventually,” Wyatt said quietly. “I get it. Thank you for being so clear.”

  He turned to go, because he couldn’t stand there any longer and try to figure out which stupidity coming out of Ryan’s mouth were lies and which was the truth. But Ryan caught his arm. For a split second, Wyatt’s heart rose, because maybe now he would finally get the answers he wanted. Maybe he could finally break through this barrier that Ryan had insisted on erecting.

  “Where are you going?” Ryan demanded. “We’re supposed to get photographed together.”

  The hope hit the barrier straight on and crashed and burned. Because to Ryan, the games were all that mattered. He hadn’t even listened when Wyatt had tried to lay his heart on the line for him.

  All he could do was shrug. “Go get the fucking angel to do it with you. I’m done.” And he walked out of the alley alone.

  * * *

  Ryan was still unsteady when he walked back into the club. The moment Wyatt had walked away, he’d wanted to run after him, and beg him not to give up on him.

  But he’d been really fucking clear, hadn’t he? He’d laid out the details of the arrangement and had never given Wyatt any expectation that he would change the rules. And now that Wyatt wasn’t getting what he thought he wanted out of the deal, he was done?

  Fuck that. Fuck him.

  His temper had boiled over after that, leaving him raw and shaky, and clenching his hands over and over again, wishing for a bat to hold onto. To ground him. To beat against the most convenient stationary object.

  It wasn’t supposed to go this way, and it definitely wasn’t supposed to end like this.

  He went back to Temple because he didn’t know what else to do. Marching back up to his VIP section, he unscrewed the lid off the tequila and took a shot from the bottle. He was buying it after all, he could do whatever the fuck he wanted to with it.

  “You okay?”

  Ryan looked up and the angelic waiter was standing there, looking confused. Well, that made two of them. “Not really,” he admitted. He took another long swig of tequila and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  There was part of him that really wanted to take the angel home anyway. Keep Wyatt up
all night with the sounds of their fucking. Make it crystal clear that whatever Wyatt thought Ryan felt, he was wrong.

  The truth was, he didn’t know if Wyatt was wrong. Maybe Ryan was wrong. Maybe whatever they’d been doing was bound to crash and burn at some point. Nothing simple ever stayed simple, and even Ryan could acknowledge they’d crossed over into complicated awhile ago.

  “You want a drink?” he asked Alex, extending the bottle towards him. “I probably shouldn’t be drinking alone.”

  “Can’t, sorry, I’m working, and I’ll get fired if they catch it on the cameras,” Alex said apologetically.

  Ryan took another long drink from the bottle, large enough for both of them. It suddenly occurred to him that while the interest in Alex’s eyes might have been genuine, he’d probably been paid to flirt outrageously with them.

  It wasn’t so much different than Wyatt, who he was paying to be his boyfriend and to cook cute, couple-y meals that he could post to his Instagram. But even then he knew it was a lie, because even though he’d been paying Wyatt since day one, money had never been part of what existed between them.

  “Was that your boyfriend who left?” Alex asked, perching just on the end of the couch.

  “Yes. No. I don’t know,” Ryan admitted. His total ignorance of the realities of the situation made him want to drink more. But he didn’t, because he’d learned a long time ago that getting drunk never really helped. Tomorrow morning he would wake up hungover and miserable and still fucking clueless.

  Alex shrugged. It was clear he thought Ryan should go figure that situation out before trying to make threesomes with hot Temple waiters happen. And the galling part was that he was absolutely fucking right.

  “I don’t suppose I can give you a ride back to my place,” Ryan said, even though he didn’t even want to. He wasn’t even sure anymore if Alex wanted to, but this situation was already so monumentally messed up, surely fucking it up more couldn’t make it worse.

  “You’re cute. You’re rich. You’re famous. Normally, sure. But not tonight. Not when it’s not even me you’re thinking about.”

  “We can just not think at all,” Ryan said, sounding a little desperate. The last thing he wanted to do was go home alone, and sit in his empty house, imagining the conversation if he went and knocked on Wyatt’s door.

  Nothing good, that was for fucking sure. But the thought would tempt him all night.

  The look Alex shot him was pitying. “You can’t turn that off,” he said, and got up to leave.

  Ryan ended up alone on the couch in his VIP section, sipping his tequila, and trying to figure out how to text Eric that the photos tonight were off.

  He’d composed version fifty-three of the message when instead, Eric texted him.

  Why am I not hearing rapturous reports of your cute coupledom? Eric said.

  Slight snag, Ryan texted back before he could lose his nerve. The tequila also helped with that. Photos tonight off.

  He sent another text to call the car, and then turned his phone off, gripping the neck of the bottle of tequila.

  Maybe waking up hungover would at least fuzzy up some of the extraneous feelings he was never supposed to have in the first place.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Are you going to tell me what the fuck happened last night?”

  Ryan came awake slowly and painfully, aware at first only of a bright, hideous light shining in his eyes and an annoyed voice looming over him.

  “What are you doing here?” he groaned, turning over, trying to take his sheets with him. The empty tequila bottle thumped to the floor from the bed.

  Not his greatest plan, taking the bottle to bed. But Alex wouldn’t come, even if Ryan had wanted him anyway, and Wyatt . . . Ryan pushed the thought of him from his head, because that pain was even worse than the ache in his head.

  “You are certifiably insane,” Eric retorted. “What the fuck happened? All I’m hearing last night is rumors you’re cheating on Wyatt, there are reports of you flirting with some waiter with angel wings on, and then you cancel the pictures?”

  Ryan groaned again.

  “Do you need me to go remind him that he signed a contract? That he is legally obligated to be your boyfriend until we tell him otherwise? Because I can do that.”

  It was funny how everything seemed bad, until Eric waded into the middle of it and things suddenly became catastrophically terrible.

  “Please do not do that,” Ryan said, all too aware he was begging. “And for the love of god, turn the fucking light off.”

  “Did you have a fight?” Eric demanded. “Where is he?”

  “In the cottage, I don’t know. I didn’t have a GPS tracker put on him.”

  “He didn’t answer the door, and I realized I don’t have a key,” Eric said impatiently.

  “A situation I’m incredibly jealous of right now,” Ryan moaned into the pillow. “Just leave me alone.”

  “No,” Eric said. “We need to fix this problem you created last night. And fix it quick. The rumors are flying fast and loose, and I need something concrete to combat them. Do I need to remind you why we came up with this plan in the first place? This is not making you look great.”

  “It’s not my fault,” Ryan said. He didn’t know if he was lying or not. Only that he wanted to make Eric stop.

  “You’re the one with the high profile,” Eric countered. “So automatically, everything is your fault.”

  “You’re fired.”

  Eric ignored that which was probably better for everyone. “Tonight you’re going to go out to dinner, and there are going to be photographers and you’re going to sit in the most public table in the whole fucking restaurant, and you are going to be the cutest couple LA has ever fucking seen. I don’t care if you hate each other right now, you’re going to put all that aside and fix this.”

  It sounded hideous. The Temple thing had been so much more their speed, with the added bonus of a cute twist that it was the place they’d met. A twist that Eric had made sure all the gossip columnists knew about. And now that was all ruined because Wyatt had decided that Ryan’s determination to never give him a reason to cheat was stupid.

  If anything, Ryan reasoned despite his pounding headache, that proved just how much he cared. Ryan had been about to propose that threesome for Wyatt. A completely selfless act if there ever was one.

  The problem was, he wasn’t sure if it was the tacky taste of tequila poisoning his mouth or the bright light shining in through the window, it no longer made quite as much sense as it had the night before.

  “Fine, we’ll go to the dinner,” Ryan said. He could admit he’d been at least partially wrong. He could go knock on Wyatt’s door and grovel, apologize for the stupid threesome idea, hope they could go back to where they’d been, and beg him to go to dinner.

  He could do that.

  He groaned into the pillow again.

  Maybe.

  “I think you need more of an intervention than I have the patience to give,” Eric said. And the worst part of that was Ryan knew exactly who he meant instead, and that was even worse than Eric.

  And when something was even worse than Eric, it was a very serious problem.

  * * *

  “You look incredibly shitty,” Tabitha said when he opened the door.

  It wasn’t entirely fair. He’d at least managed to drag himself out of bed, and into the shower, knowing she’d be coming and would expect brushed teeth and no tequila body odor at a bare minimum.

  “I feel incredibly shitty,” Ryan retorted, shutting the door behind her.

  “I should have known you’d fuck it up with him,” Tabitha muttered to herself as she made her way through the foyer and down the hall towards the kitchen.

  Ryan stopped in the doorway when he realized where she was headed.

  “Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” she chided him. “He’s not even here. He’s hiding too, I’m sure. Probably angry at you, and I’m sure it’s mostly, if not completely, de
served.”

  “You’re my best friend, you’re supposed to take my side,” Ryan said petulantly, sliding onto one of the barstools and setting his aching head gently against the marble countertop.

  “That’s not what best friends do,” Tabitha said briskly, opening the fridge. “They give you the unvarnished, ugly truth and help you deal with it. Thus, why I am here.”

  “You’re here because Eric bribed you with the newest Gucci bag,” Ryan said. “I heard him on the phone.”

  “I would have come anyway, darling. I didn’t want to waste a chance to get something out of that asshole.” She placed an ice pack against his forehead. “Wyatt’s not here so you might as well tell me everything that happened.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” Ryan said, his voice muffled by the countertop.

  “But you should, and you’re going to. Otherwise how are you going to tell Wyatt that you have to go to dinner tonight?”

  “Eric told you about that too, I assume,” Ryan groaned.

  “If you are going to enact this charade,” Tabitha said, far more kindly than he probably deserved, “you need to actually put the effort in. It’s not all cute Instagram photos and rumors of you surfing together. You dropped the fly ball last night, and threw an interception, to mix metaphors. Time to fix it and show all those fans of yours that you’re actually very happy together.”

  “I’m not sure it can be fixed,” he admitted. The look on Wyatt’s face had been blank and devoid of anything, like he’d shut down and then shut it all away. Maybe Ryan couldn’t get it back. Maybe Wyatt didn’t want him to.

  “I’m certain there will be some groveling involved,” Tabitha pointed out sternly, pulling out the barstool next to him and settling in. “Now, from the top please. I need to know how bad it is before we pick the appropriate groveling method.”

  “He’s been . . . quiet since Napa,” Ryan said. “I thought maybe he’d changed his mind about us. The sex was still so good, though, so maybe it was nothing. Maybe I misjudged.”