Kitchen Gods Box Set

by Beth Bolden

  “No. I’m here because I’m sorry. But yes, we do need to do that.”

  Wyatt looked straight at him, a challenging look in his eyes. “How can I ever believe you if you make me go do this tonight?”

  “I don’t know,” Ryan said and it was the most wretched truth he’d ever told. “I really wish I could figure it out, because this is killing me.”

  “It didn’t seem to be killing you last night,” Wyatt said, and there was a cruel edge to his tone that Ryan told himself that he absolutely deserved.

  “I know. I was . . . I guess I should tell you why I acted that way. I probably should have started with that. When I first got drafted by the Dodgers, I had a boyfriend. And he was a little older, and exciting, and I loved that. I thought I loved him. And then one day, I came home early, and he was fucking some guy in our bed. I kicked him out, of course, but not before he told me that he’d had to do it because we’d gotten too boring. We’d stayed in and ordered pizza and watched Netflix and he’d gotten bored. I realized then that I’d been bored too. After that, I swore that I’d only do hookups. Because that would never happen in a hookup.”

  “Because you’d never stay long enough for anyone to get bored,” Wyatt said slowly. “I want to say that’s really stupid of you, to believe something a cheating asshole tells you, but you thought you loved him. And he echoed something you were feeling too.”

  Ryan nodded miserably. “Tabitha said we were both wrong for each other, and that if it’s right, it doesn’t matter if you’re boring together, because you never get bored.”

  “I don’t know, I could go for boring sometimes,” Wyatt said ruefully.

  “I just want you to know why I would do something like last night,” Ryan said. “I was confused, things between us had gotten so complicated and you’d gone sort of quiet, and I thought, completely stupidly, that you were bored.”

  “I wasn’t bored,” Wyatt admitted. His eyes looked so blue from across the room, boring into Ryan. “I was falling in love with you and afraid that you didn’t feel that way about me.”

  “Oh.” Ryan had said plenty of times how stupid he’d been, but this really drove the point home. If he’d only asked, instead of assuming that Wyatt pulling away was a bad thing. “You said, was.”

  Wyatt shrugged. “That’s not something that changes. I’m just not sure I trust you. Those are two separate things.”

  “Because of the dinner tonight.”

  “Because of the dinner tonight,” Wyatt repeated. “Because of a hundred other things that I shouldn’t question but I am anyway.” He sounded upset and conflicted, and Ryan probably should have felt more sympathy for him, but he was also doing a little happy dance internally that he sounded conflicted at all. Wyatt could have just kicked him out, but he’d listened, and they were trying to figure things out. Of all the ways this could have gone, it certainly hadn’t gone the worst.

  “I really am sorry, but I can’t get us out of the dinner. Believe me, if I could, I would. I would do it, if it helped you trust me again,” Ryan said. He knew he was begging; he’d always assumed it would feel worse. More demeaning, maybe. But it felt right. Like putting everything on the line for someone he loved.

  “That’s okay,” Wyatt said, and for the first time, there was a hint of a smile on the corner of his mouth. “I could think of worse ways to spend an evening than being wined and dined by a cute guy.”

  “You’ll go?”

  “I didn’t think I had much of a choice,” Wyatt said wryly. “Not if I don’t want to get sued by Eric.”

  “Threats and blackmail are really more his style,” Ryan said. “But yes.”

  “You need to get a new agent,” Wyatt said.

  “Sadly, you are not the first person to tell me that.” Ryan took a deep breath, and asked the question that really worried him. “What are we going to do about going forward? After tonight?”

  Wyatt sighed. “I care about you. I care about what I started building here. I don’t want to leave, even if I’m mad at you, even if you’ve embarrassed me. So I won’t. But I don’t think we can go back to where we were right away. I need time. I need to figure out if I can trust you again.”

  “Okay.” Ryan was feeling cautiously optimistic. Wyatt had agreed to go to dinner. Wyatt wasn’t leaving. Wyatt was willing to wait and see if he could give Ryan another chance.

  Best-case scenario, considering how catastrophically he’d torpedoed things the night before.

  He’d considered more than once if he should tell Wyatt he loved him too—because now the other man had told him twice he felt the same. Once in anger and now again, while they were trying to resolve things. But Ryan hadn’t wanted to tell him as an apology. He wanted it to be a moment of celebration and happiness. Something bigger and brighter. Special. Just like Wyatt was to him.

  So the three little words would have to wait but he had another ace up his sleeve. Tabitha had suggested presents, and though people usually gave apology roses or apology chocolates, Ryan was betting on his apology gift being a hell of a lot more successful than that. He’d wanted something concrete that could say so much better than he could two important things: one, that he knew he’d messed up and two, that he was willing to put the work in to fix it. But the present wasn’t going to be delivered until late tonight, or early tomorrow, no matter how much he’d pleaded, so Ryan would have to wait.

  And waiting was really not his strong suit.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Ryan didn’t know what to do with himself. In his own house.

  This was why he’d avoided dating for so long; it always turned him into an unsure neurotic who was always afraid every decision was the wrong one and would doom the relationship before it even got off the ground.

  The one good thing, he thought as he loitered in the hallway between the living room and the kitchen, waiting for Wyatt to appear for their dinner date, was that he’d already done the fucking up and probably couldn’t mess the relationship up any worse.

  He heard the back door open and close and Ryan sauntered a few casual steps to the right so he could see Wyatt walk in and through the kitchen. He was wearing dark jeans and a light-blue button-up nearly the shade of his eyes. His face was still shadowed, faint circles under his eyes, but he’d lost that pinched, angry, hurt look from earlier, and Ryan was relieved. He didn’t think he could sit through a whole dinner, seeing that look while knowing it was all his fault.

  “You look great,” Ryan said enthusiastically. Tabitha had told him how important it was he take every opportunity to show Wyatt how much he meant to him. But that had probably been too much enthusiasm, deployed too quickly.

  Wyatt looked taken aback. “Okay. Thanks, I guess?”

  Definitely too enthusiastically.

  Honesty and the communication were the key, Ryan reminded himself. “That . . . came out wrong. I don’t know how to do this—not the right way anyway. I’ve only had one boyfriend, and it didn’t end well. So I’m almost definitely going to mess up again.” Admitting to failure in advance was not easy, but he did it anyway because it was true.

  “I don’t want a perfect boyfriend, I want a real one,” Wyatt told him, voice soft and pleading. “I want you.”

  “I want you too,” Ryan said, and he couldn’t help the ache that spiraled through him at just how much. “Exactly as you are. And you do look good. That wasn’t . . . I wasn’t lying. I just haven’t always said what was on my mind, how much I care about you, and I’m trying to fix that. Trying to be better, for you.”

  “I want the Ryan I’ve spent the last month with,” Wyatt said, walking over and pulling Ryan into an unexpected hug. “Not some other version of you. Not someone who’s trying to be someone they’re not. When I said I want you, that’s exactly what I meant.”

  Ryan ordered himself not to get too comfortable, and not to turn Wyatt’s innocent embrace into something else. To just enjoy it, and not grab hold too tight, afraid that this would be his last chance. W
yatt wasn’t going anywhere. He was sticking around and letting Ryan prove that he was telling the truth.

  He let him go reluctantly. “We should go, our reservations are soon.” And because he hadn’t asked last time, he asked this time. “Are you okay doing this?”

  Wyatt shrugged. “Do I wish we didn’t have to do this tonight? Yeah. But I understand the reasons why we need to.”

  “I’m sorry,” Ryan automatically apologized as they moved towards the garage. “That’s my fault.”

  “You can stop apologizing,” Wyatt pointed out wryly.

  “Sorry,” Ryan said and grimaced. “I told you I’d be bad at this.”

  “Just relax,” he coaxed, reaching out to give Ryan’s shoulder a quick squeeze.

  Ryan moved through the garage and opened the passenger door of the Maserati. He’d had it washed and detailed this afternoon until the midnight-blue paint gleamed in the dusk light.

  “What’s this?” Wyatt asked, stopping short. “We’re taking the Maserati?”

  “You want a real boyfriend, and this real boyfriend intends to give you the best he can,” Ryan admitted.

  “Also, because it looks pretty damn cool in the pictures,” Wyatt said, sliding in. Ryan snorted as he closed the door.

  “You’re not wrong,” Ryan admitted as he got in the driver’s side. “I’ll admit about ten percent of the decision was how killer we’re going to look pulling up in it.”

  Wyatt rolled his eyes as Ryan pulled out of the driveway.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Some place in Malibu that’s apparently the new restaurant,” Ryan said. “I thought you’d enjoy it. I made sure Eric got us a good table.”

  “A public table, you mean,” Wyatt retorted, and there was the faintest edge of bitterness to his voice. And Ryan couldn’t help but think that he also wished they hadn’t had to do this so soon after their fight. They both would have benefited from some time. Even if it was hard. Even if it hurt. Throwing them in together so fast had left a lot of issues unresolved.

  Fear bubbled up inside him, but he didn’t have an outlet for it, so he pushed his foot down on the accelerator, feeling the engine roar to life.

  “Yes, a public table,” Ryan said. “You know why we have to sit at a public table. And I’d apologize, but you just told me I’ve apologized enough already.”

  Wyatt didn’t say anything, just looked out the passenger window as Calabasas passed by. Ryan turned onto a windier road, but didn’t slow down. Pressed down harder on the accelerator, actually. When he’d bought this car, the salesman had promised second-to-none acceleration and handling, and he’d never had a chance to take it out like he should have after it had been delivered.

  What was the point of owning a car like this if you didn’t test its limits a little?

  “I wish you wouldn’t drive so fast,” Wyatt said to the window, and yeah, he was definitely still annoyed.

  Instead of slowing down, Ryan took the next turn at seventy. It was a stupid thing to do. Stupid and reckless, and a remnant of a time when he hadn’t cared what sort of attention he got, even if it was negative. He’d thought he’d left that attention-seeking behind in high school, but the fear kept creeping up.

  He didn’t like Wyatt ignoring him. Even if it was Wyatt trying to avoid an argument.

  “God damnit, Ryan,” Wyatt ground out as the car flew around another curve in the road, tires squealing.

  “What? Is this too fast for you?” Ryan teased darkly as he stepped on the accelerator in the flat, jumping up to triple digits as easily as breathing. Reveling in the attention he was getting again.

  “I don’t care if you’re hooked on adrenaline, but this is stupid and reckless,” Wyatt ground out.

  Ryan glanced over at Wyatt, and registered how pissed off he looked. But it was a split second too long, especially when he was going over a hundred miles per hour. Especially when the next turn was a lot tighter than he remembered.

  He jerked the wheel reflexively, and knew a moment too late that he’d miscalculated. He’d forgotten about the damp road. It had rained early this morning, just enough to bring out the oil on the road, but not enough to wash it away. The tires tried to grip but failed, and before Ryan could even yell out a warning, or brace himself against the roof, the car was flipping, his stomach heaving as they rolled down the road in a cacophony of metal scraping against asphalt.

  They finally slid to a halt, and the first thing Ryan did was frantically look over at Wyatt, who was slumped against the leather seat, eyes closed. He unbuckled, and immediately started checking him for injuries, heart beating a thousand miles per hour. Faster than he’d ever driven. Faster than he’d ever drive again.

  “Oh god, oh god, oh god,” he chanted under his breath as he realized Wyatt’s arm was crooked at an awkward angle. And when his hands reached up to set his head at a better angle, they came away wet and red.

  He smeared blood everywhere as he dug his phone out of his pocket and dialed 911. All over his phone and his shirt and the leather interior of the car. Streaks of rusty red everywhere.

  The operator answered immediately, asking him the emergency and taking down the information as Ryan spit it out, voice shaky.

  “Are you hurt?” the operator asked.

  “No, I’m fine, I’m fine. But my boyfriend, he’s not fine. I think his arm is broken, and he’s knocked out. I think he hit his head against the window. Oh god, what if he’s dead?” It had never occurred to Ryan to check his breathing, but now he did, pressing his fingers against the artery in his neck to feel the blood beating there.

  The pulse was faint but it was there, sluggishly beating against his fingertips. “We need an ambulance now,” Ryan demanded. Fear was making him nauseous. Wyatt still hadn’t moved. His face was pale and unresponsive.

  “Don’t move him out of the car,” the operator ordered. “The ambulance will be there shortly. Maybe keep talking to him, see if you can wake him up. And if he does, keep him calm.”

  Ryan set the phone down and did his best to cradle Wyatt’s head so it wouldn’t flop.

  “I’m so fucking sorry,” he whispered to him. “And I’m going to damn well apologize for this because it’s my fault again. Showing off, trying to get your attention. I just . . . I’m so afraid you won’t see me otherwise. That you won’t stay. That you’ll find someone else, someone who doesn’t have any problems. Someone who doesn’t do stupid shit like drive too fast and end up hurting you.”

  Wyatt’s fingers quivered against Ryan’s, and he took that as the right sign and kept going.

  “I love you,” he said. And it felt like such a waste to say it now, when he could have said it fifteen minutes ago, when they were both fine. Angry, but fine. When Wyatt might have been more receptive to hearing it. When they weren’t lying in a heap of mangled metal and plastic, and Wyatt’s blood wasn’t all over Ryan’s hands.

  “I love you,” he repeated again, heart in his throat, “please don’t fucking leave me. Not like this.”

  * * *

  “Let me get this straight,” Eric said, his voice a hardened mask, no doubt hiding apoplectic anger. He hadn’t been still since arriving at the hospital five minutes earlier, pacing in the hallway with Ryan outside of Wyatt’s room. “Instead of going out tonight and fixing last night, you took Wyatt out to dinner. But you never made it to the restaurant because you crashed your Maserati and now Wyatt has a broken arm and a concussion.”

  Ryan hadn’t thought it was possible for the events of the evening to sound any worse, but somehow they did, recited through Eric’s clenched teeth.

  “That sounds about right,” he said morosely.

  “You told me you want this,” Eric said. “You begged me to find a way to fix your management’s opinion that you’re reckless and careless with your personal safety. I told you I’d help you, and I’ve been fucking trying.”

  Nobody liked Eric much, Ryan included, but it was hard to deny that he’d been trying, desp
ite all the ways Ryan fucked up.

  Eric threw his hands up in frustration. “I can’t help you if you won’t help yourself,” he continued.

  “It was a mistake. A mistake that won’t happen again. I was . . . messed up over Wyatt.”

  “And just like that, you’re not messed up over Wyatt?” Eric asked in disbelief. “To be honest, he’s messed you up since the first night you met him. I don’t think crashing your Maserati is going to help with that.”

  “It’s not, it’s not. I’ve been messed up because I was fighting how much I cared about him, but I’m not fighting it anymore. This is where I’m meant to be.”

  “In a hospital,” Eric muttered under his breath. “Standing vigil over your injured boyfriend.”

  Ryan couldn’t help but admit he wasn’t always the world’s quickest learner, but he’d learned now. He’d felt how easily it all could end. How silly it felt to keep fighting something when it felt so natural. He didn’t know how he could have let it go on so long. He’d been a fucking moron, and maybe he could get out of this without paying the heaviest price. He leaned against the wall and wished Wyatt would wake up so he would know if he’d ever forgive him for almost killing both of them.

  “I called you because you always told me to call if you things got . . . rough.”

  “It got rough alright. I’ll clean this up because that’s my job,” Eric said. “But no more bullshit. It doesn’t suit you.”

  “Agreed,” Ryan said miserably.

  Eric turned to go, but held back for a split second. He reached out, and for a grade A asshole, he had a pretty convincing sympathy face. “You’re a good kid, Flores. Don’t let the system change you.”

  Then he was gone, walking down the corridor with purpose, no doubt to start handing out non-disclosure agreements like party favors.