Kitchen Gods Box Set

by Beth Bolden

  Wyatt could still feel the warmth of Ryan’s smile as he’d gazed lovingly at him, even months later.

  “Hey, you sappy idiot,” Tony called over, “did you get the pulled pork on to heat?”

  Wyatt awkwardly pointed an elbow at where the big hotel pans were warming in a water bath. “I might be sappy but I’m not an idiot,” he retorted.

  “You and Ryan disgust me,” Tony said, shaking his head. “You were just thinking about him, I could tell you were. You get this incredibly fond look on your face, like you’re staring at him and he’s not even fucking there.”

  “I spend a lot of time imagining his face instead of actually seeing it,” Wyatt argued.

  “Even the long distance hasn’t dimmed your honeymoon period.” Tony lifted up a big cardboard box of butter lettuce and with a few efficient movements began breaking each head into individual leaves.

  “And it’s not going to,” Wyatt said. “Not even now that Ryan’s signed his new contract and he’s going to be playing for the Dodgers for years to come.”

  Wyatt wanted to tell his brother he was just jealous, but he didn’t because he was and that was the whole problem. Not of Ryan, specifically, but of the forever happiness that Wyatt had found with him.

  Frankly they were so blissfully in love, it was a miracle the world wasn’t jealous. Instead, the world ate it up with a spoon. Without even trying, Wyatt had somehow become the chef in LA to follow on Instagram, and when he’d worn Ryan’s jersey to Opening Day, the picture had gone viral.

  It would have been so easy to lose their way with all the publicity and the attention, and with the shaky beginning of their relationship, Wyatt should have been more worried. But Ryan had never once given him cause to worry.

  For someone who’d claimed he didn’t want a relationship because all relationships became boring eventually, Ryan had fully and completely embraced their coupledom.

  And when, late one night while binge-watching a show on Netflix, Ryan had leaned over and said, “I think I’m bored now,” Wyatt had never been happier.

  It was the only time since the accident that he’d ever brought it up, and the last time too.

  “Hey, you guys in there?”

  Wyatt turned around, and Ryan had just pulled up next to the food truck, driving a white Range Rover. He’d stuck his head out the open window, and Wyatt put down the knife and emerged just as he climbed out.

  “You’re late,” Tony grumped, though his tone didn’t have any heat in it.

  “I know, but I was running an important errand. Picking someone up from the airport, actually,” Ryan said, going to the passenger door and opening it. To Wyatt’s shock, the snowy-white hair of his nana emerged, shining in the sun.

  “You brought Nana,” Wyatt said, dumbfounded.

  Ryan’s smile was warm as he carefully helped Bea out of the back of the SUV. “I did. She deserved to be here, to watch her boys open their brand-new food truck.”

  “Wyatt,” Bea exclaimed, walking towards the truck and intercepting Tony, giving him a hug, “it looks even better than the pictures. And, Tony, I’m so proud of you.”

  Wyatt climbed down, and wrapped her in a long hug after his brother released her. “I’m so glad you came,” he whispered into her shoulder, glancing up to see Ryan staring at them, a soft look in his dark eyes. “Ryan always has the best surprises.”

  “That’s because he’s lovely, darling,” Nana whispered to him. “You marry that boy, you hear me?”

  Wyatt surreptitiously wiped the moisture out of his eyes before Tony could see and make fun of him. “I’m sure going to try.”

  “It’s beautiful, hijo. You didn’t tell me how shiny it is.” Wyatt finally let go of Bea, and met Titi Flor’s loving stare.

  “Wyatt, you have much to be proud of,” she said, reaching him and wrapping him in a big, warm hug.

  Wyatt’s gaze locked with Ryan’s. He looked only a little embarrassed. “I figured it would be good for Nana to have someone to look after her,” he said, “and Flor wasn’t going to be left at home today.”

  “You should all be here today,” Wyatt said, throat suddenly tight with emotion. “Tony and I couldn’t have done it without you.”

  “You could have,” Ryan said, his voice a vow, “but we’re happy we could be here to share it with you.”

  Flor led Bea off to one of the decorated picnic tables, chattering the whole way, the older lady smiling and offering her own opinion right back.

  “Those two could run the world if they set their mind to it,” Ryan said fondly, as Wyatt wrapped an arm around his waist.

  “It was a great surprise,” Wyatt said seriously, “thank you for making sure she was here.”

  “You want to make the most of the time you have left with her, and whatever you want is what I want,” Ryan said, reaching over to cup Wyatt’s cheek in his palm. “I love you.”

  It wasn’t the right time, or the right place, or like anything that Wyatt had started vaguely planning in his head. But suddenly the thought was there, stark and bright and so right it overpowered everything else.

  “Marry me,” Wyatt choked out. Ryan’s eyes grew wide. “Not today, not now. Just someday. Promise me, we’ll do it before she can’t remember.”

  Wyatt remembered all too well those dark times before he’d met Ryan when he’d been determined that the last memory his nana had of him would be a lie. Now he wanted to shine as much light and beauty and truth onto her last days as he could.

  And what was lighter or more beautiful or more full of honesty than a wedding?

  “Damn you,” Ryan laughed, the love in his eyes swamping Wyatt, “just had to steal my thunder.”

  “You were going to propose?” They hadn’t even talked about it, but Wyatt couldn’t say he was surprised. Ryan, once he had figured out that Wyatt was what he wanted, had been the best boyfriend. Not a perfect one, but he’d kept his promise and was a real one.

  “Someday,” Ryan said with a bright grin.

  “I think that’s a yes,” Wyatt said, pulling him in even tighter.

  His only answer was to put his hand in Wyatt’s, and kiss him hot and fierce—for forever.

  The Invitation

  A Catch Me Short Story

  “Oh my god,” Tony said, sticking his head in the doorway of the food truck. “Did you see who’s here?”

  Wyatt hadn’t seen who was here, because he’d been working his ass off in this tiny, stuffy kitchen of their food truck, prepping for the event they’d be hosting in . . .he checked his watch . . .approximately twenty minutes.

  “No,” Wyatt retorted testily, “because I’ve been in here, trying to get all the prep done.”

  “Oh,” Tony said, clearly unconcerned. But then that was sort of Tony’s mantra. “But seriously, you won’t believe who’s here.”

  “Should I guess?”

  But Tony obviously didn’t want Wyatt to guess—what he really wanted was to unveil the news with as much pomp and drama as possible. Basically, Tony being Tony.

  “Colin O’Connor and his husband,” Tony hissed with delight.

  Wyatt rolled his eyes. Tony had just moved down from Napa about two months ago, to help Wyatt get the food truck up and running. While he seemed to technically comprehend that Wyatt’s boyfriend was a professional baseball player and actually kind of famous, the truth was, he always seemed surprised when celebrities showed up. Even though they almost always came at Ryan’s invitation.

  “Yeah,” Wyatt said. Admittedly, those two popping up was unexpected. Ryan definitely wouldn’t have invited them. In fact, Wyatt remembered Ryan bitching about how boring and stodgy they must be, only a couple of months before.

  He’s so serious and settled down, Ryan had said about Colin, like that was the worst possible thing that could happen to someone. Ironically, one of Ryan’s favorite things these days was for Wyatt to make dinner and afterward, to cuddle on the couch.

  Of course, Wyatt wasn’t going to be dumb enough
to point out Ryan’s newfound domestic tendencies, because the person most benefiting from them was him.

  “Have you met them before?” Tony asked excitedly. “Has Ryan?”

  “I think they sort of tangentially know each other.” That was probably true enough. No reason to tell Tony a bunch of stuff he would almost certainly unload when faced with a celebrity of Colin O’Connor’s stature. And Colin definitely didn’t need to be told to his face that Ryan thought he was dull and tedious.

  “He’s hot,” Tony said, climbing into the truck and picking up the knife. He’d left fifteen minutes earlier to write up the menu board and apparently had been star-struck enough by Colin and his husband for a job that normally took only a few minutes to stretch to fifteen.

  “Which one?” Because while yeah, Colin was hot—that Sports Illustrated cover had been mind-numbingly sexy—he’d always been more attracted to dark-haired guys. Like Colin’s husband, Nick. Or like his own boyfriend, Ryan.

  “I mean, they’re both hot as hell,” Tony said, “but have you seen Colin O’Connor in person? It’s like being blinded by the fucking sun.”

  “He’s married, you remember,” Wyatt reminded his brother.

  He also reminded himself that it was good and wonderful and fantastic that Tony had discovered his sexuality, all the while hoping he wouldn’t have to extricate Tony after he propositioned Colin and his husband for a threesome.

  “Yeah,” Tony said with a happy sigh. “It’s too bad they didn’t go into porn.”

  “It’s too bad who didn’t go into porn?”

  Wyatt looked over and Ryan was standing in the doorway of their food truck, a perplexed frown on his face.

  “You don’t want to know,” Wyatt said.

  “Actually,” Ryan said, leaning on the doorframe and grinning evilly, “I kind of do.”

  “You really don’t,” Wyatt said. “Besides, I don’t have time to tell you, because Tony’s discovered an epic boner for Colin O’Connor and his husband and abandoned me to all this prep work.”

  “Nick’s hot,” Ryan said, moving into the trailer, which was officially over-full now. “Let me guess, that’s who should have gone into porn.”

  “It’d have been convenient and a money-maker,” Tony said.

  Wyatt rolled his eyes. His brother was incorrigible on the best of days, and then recently Ryan had made everything worse by encouraging him.

  “I mean, that Sports Illustrated?” Ryan said. “We all got off on that forever.”

  “Late to the party, but I’m totally there with you right now,” Tony agreed.

  “Can we work now? Or is that asking too much?” Wyatt complained. “We have twenty minutes left to feed Colin O’Connor and his husband, and about a hundred other people, and it’s going to be tight.”

  “That’s what he said!” Tony crowed, and Ryan actually laughed.

  * * *

  But it turned out that Tony wasn’t really that wrong. When the meal was served, and Wyatt was finally pulled from the truck to do his chef-ly rotation around the long tables, he came face to face with Colin and forgot his own name.

  “Hey, I know you,” Colin said, switching the remnants of his meal from one hand to the other, and holding his hand out to shake. “You’re the chef. Ryan’s boyfriend. Wyatt, right?”

  “That’s me,” Wyatt said lamely, shaking his offered hand, and also, horribly, discovering that the Sports Illustrated cover hadn’t done him justice. Not at all. Wyatt wondered dimly, with the part of his mind that hadn’t been blown out by the supernova of hotness that was Colin O’Connor, why he hadn’t done porn. Football had probably paid a lot better, though with a face like that, who wanted to keep it covered up with a helmet all the time?

  “Lunch was fantastic.” Colin kept talking, like everyone who met him didn’t have routinely X-rated fantasies about him. Even people who had partners they were perfectly, completely, utterly happy with.

  “Thank you,” Wyatt said, and as if on cue, Tony appeared next to him.

  “Hi,” Tony said, extending his own hand, “I’m Tony Blake. Wyatt’s brother.”

  “Another chef!” Colin seemed positively thrilled by this news. “I guess it runs in the family.”

  “What runs in the family?” A slight, dark-haired man wearing what must be a furiously expensive pair of silver aviator sunglasses appeared next to Colin.

  “Oh, honey,” Colin said, wrapping a gloriously muscled arm around his husband’s shoulders. Wyatt wondered if it would be really bad manners to ask him to take his shirt off. Just for comparison with that Sports Illustrated cover. “This is Wyatt and Tony. They’re brothers, and they made lunch for us today.”

  Nick eyed him up and down. Even behind the mirrored sunglasses, it was clear it was both a leisurely and a complete perusal. “Oh?”

  “Wyatt is Ryan Flores’ boyfriend, you know,” Colin said.

  “Yeah,” Nick said. Wyatt had a feeling there wasn’t much he didn’t know.

  “You know, Ryan and I are always getting compared, but I don’t think I’ve ever exchanged more than a word or two with the man,” Colin said, gesturing around like this was impossible. Like he couldn’t quite believe it. “Is he here? He must be, I’ll have to find him and say hi.” And he departed then, apparently not only to throw his trash away but to find Wyatt’s boyfriend.

  “Really?” Tony said skeptically.

  Wyatt nearly slapped a hand over his brother’s mouth, before he word-vomited all over the sidewalk, but of course he didn’t. And of course Tony kept going.

  Why? Because it was Tony, and he’d apparently been put on this earth to make his younger brother’s life hell.

  “Is that so surprising?” Nick asked casually.

  Wyatt would have to be an idiot to think that anything this Nick guy did was casual. He was an actual piranha in a really attractive form. Not quite as attractive as his husband’s, but still definitely not unattractive. Not at all. But then, because Tony apparently was an idiot, he answered.

  “Well, they’re not really alike, you know?” Tony said. “Ryan’s young and wild and well, you know, my bro’s taming him a little, but can you ever tame a beast like Ryan?”

  Nick raised an eyebrow.

  “Well, can you?” Tony repeated. “And no offense, you’re both smoking hot, but you know, also fucking domestic? And who wants that?”

  Wyatt wanted to drop through the floor and die.

  “Lots of people,” Nick said smoothly.

  “Apparently,” Tony grumbled.

  “Not ever you,” Wyatt retorted, getting his voice back. “I’m sorry about my brother, honestly,” he said, shooting Tony a glare. “He’s . . .we don’t take him out in public very often.”

  Nick did the unimaginable then. He actually straight up grinned. Like he was absolutely fucking delighted.

  “I bet not,” Nick said, then he did something even more insane. He pushed his sunglasses back and smirked. “Do you ever get a chance to have a night out without him tagging along?”

  “Uh,” Wyatt hesitated, and Tony jabbed him in the side with a sharp, pointy elbow. “Uh sure, I guess.”

  “Because we wanted to invite you and Ryan to our house in Malibu,” Nick said.

  Tony straight up squeaked next to him, and Wyatt’s brain whirled. Yeah, he totally wanted to go see Nick and Colin’s amazeballs house in Malibu.

  “That’d be great.”

  Nick grinned again, dropping his sunglasses back in place. “I think you’ll find out that we’re not nearly as ‘boring’ as you’d imagine. I’ll drop you an email, Wyatt. Nice to meet you both.”

  As he walked away, Tony started spluttering, and Wyatt was so shocked he couldn’t move.

  “Oh my god,” Tony said, “I think he just propositioned you and Ryan. For an orgy.”

  “No way,” Wyatt. “There was no way that he did that. He was just inviting us to see their house, to hang out a little.”

  “You should go, and then film it,”
Tony exhaled in a rush. “And then I could watch it!”

  Wyatt turned on his brother, kind of outraged. Also kind of turned on. But he couldn’t exactly admit that, could he? “Even if it actually was an invite to an orgy, which it wasn’t, you want to watch me having sex? I’m your brother.”

  “I’d just watch them, and well, maybe Ryan a little bit.” Tony’s eyes grew big as Wyatt’s expression turned murderous. “I mean, he is totally hot, and that’s a sign of . . . I don’t know . . .honor, or pride, or something that you got a hot boyfriend.”

  Was it really? Wyatt didn’t know what to think anymore.

  “Are you going to tell Ryan about this?” Tony asked, as they walked back to the food truck.

  “Of course I am,” Wyatt retorted.

  “Well, I hope you would, but you know, it might be a really good surprise too. Like woooo, happy birthday, you just won an orgy with Colin O’Connor and his hot, snarky husband.”

  “It’s not his birthday, not anytime soon,” Wyatt said. Then clenched his teeth. “Besides, for the final time, it wasn’t an invite to have group sex with them. It was just a casual invitation.”

  Tony threw up his hands. “You know what I mean.”

  “Then yes, I am going to tell him. Oh my god, surprise him with a Colin O’Connor orgy. I can’t believe you,” Wyatt said.

  “You’re obviously going,” Tony said.

  “I don’t know,” Wyatt said. “It depends on the date but I’ll probably try to make it work. For dinner. Not for an orgy.”

  Tony held out his hand for a high five, but Wyatt just rolled his eyes.

  “Grow up,” Wyatt said, but Tony just laughed.

  Clearly that was never happening.

  * * *

  “So, explain what this is to me again,” Ryan said a week later when they were in the town car that picked them up to take them to Colin and Nick’s Malibu estate. “We’re going to have an orgy . . .?”

  “Have you been listening to Tony?” Wyatt demanded.

  “Uh,” Ryan said.