by Beth Bolden
Xander didn’t know what to say, other than a desperate need to apologize. For the shitty childhood Damon had experienced? Because occasionally Xander wanted to enjoy a glass of wine? Because he wanted to serve alcohol at the Barrel House?
Because while Xander now understood Damon’s relationship with alcohol better, he still selfishly wanted to serve it.
“It’s the point of the thing,” Damon admitted. “It’s not that I don’t see a lot of value in any argument you might make, but when I ripped those vines up, I knew exactly what I was doing, exactly what I was throwing away, exactly what those vines were worth—I was doing it because I was done with alcohol completely. I was sober, had been sober for years, but it still haunted me.”
Xander looked at the man he loved frankly. “Do you really believe that ripping up those vines meant you aren’t ever going to want a drink again?”
Looking away, Damon shook his head slightly.
“I’m not the person who has to tell you what to believe, and what to discard. I’m not you, and I can’t make decisions about what’s important and what has meaning. But the physical manifestation is gone; it’s still here, inside you, and it’s going to be there until the day you die.” Xander pressed his palm to Damon’s chest, right where his heart beat. “Even if you never take another drink, it’s going to be part of you. I can accept that—I want to accept all of you—but can you?”
Damon turned further away, and Xander’s heart ached. Maybe he shouldn’t have been so honest; but he couldn’t be in this relationship and be any other way. He’d always prized truth and he couldn’t become another person for Damon. No matter how much it fucking hurt.
“I don’t know,” Damon mumbled, turning his face into his arm. Xander thought if he lifted it away he might find damp skin. “I don’t think I know anything.”
“You know lots of things. You’ve conquered your demons. But locking them away doesn’t mean they go away.” He slid off the bed and went around to the other side, crouching by where Damon’s face lay against his arm. And as he’d imagined, Damon’s eyes were red and wet. “Let me ask you something. If we serve wine, let’s say, at the Barrel House, are you going to want to have a drink any more than you normally want one?”
Damon shook his head emphatically.
“If you ever feel that’s true,” Xander said with quiet determination, “then this isn’t a conversation. It’s a decision, solid and final. But I don’t think you’re really tempted anymore.”
“I hate it. I’m envious of it. I’m jealous as hell of anyone who can just have one glass of wine with dinner and call it good,” Damon finally admitted.
“The final decision is yours,” Xander said. “I’ll respect whatever you decide. It’s your restaurant, it’s your land, it was even your idea. And it’s your disease. I’m willing to do whatever you want. Would I like to serve wine at the restaurant? Yes, because sometimes I like to have a glass of wine with dinner, and I know other people do too—especially people who come to Napa. But I’ll abide by your decision and we don’t ever have to talk about it again.”
* * *
Xander kept his word. He let Damon have some time alone in his room as he showered again, and when he was done, he went into the living room and flipped on the TV.
Damon heard him calling for Chinese, putting in an order for sweet and sour pork and Damon’s regular order, Kung Pao chicken, and some fried rice and potstickers. He heard the delivery guy at the door, and heard the door shut again, even smelt the spicy aroma of dinner in the air, but he didn’t come out of the bedroom.
He considered leaving and going back to his lonely house. It had always been lonely, since his grandfather had died and left it to him and he’d moved back to Napa, but ever since he’d met Xander, being alone there had grown claws. Now, he found it nearly unbearable.
Sometimes he wondered if he’d decided on building a restaurant because that meant he’d always be surrounded by lots of people on his land.
Maybe that was what this was really about; not the booze at all.
No, Damon thought grimly, it was really always about the booze. He was a Hess, living in Napa; that much was inescapable. He’d left here briefly but he still came back home. He belonged here, whether he wanted to be here or not, whether he resented that fact or not.
Xander was a great believer in the truth, and Damon knew, as he dragged himself upright and wiped his eyes, that he meant everything he’d just said. But that didn’t mean he didn’t mean what he hadn’t said—and what Xander hadn’t said was that he didn’t think the restaurant could be a success without serving wine.
What it boiled down to was that he didn’t think the restaurant could be successful with Damon involved. Because Damon and wine did not mix, no matter how Xander tried to justify his opinion. An alcoholic shouldn’t be around alcohol, that much seemed pretty obvious, at least to Damon.
Rachel was happening again. Exactly what had prevented Damon from even dreaming about love was happening again.
Damon gingerly leveraged himself up and walked to the bathroom, shutting the door with a quiet click and staring at himself in the mirror. Red eyes, tight mouth, hopeless expression. He recognized the man in the mirror a little too well.
As devastating as the divorce had been, Damon knew he loved Xander more completely and more fully—more maturely—than he’d ever loved Rachel. They’d been kids; he was a man now and so was Xander. Losing him was going to destroy Damon all over again, except it was going to be much worse this time around, because Damon wasn’t going to be able to run away to lick his wounds.
Xander was going to be right there, right in front of him, every day, and it was going to hurt like hell. It was a good thing, then, Damon thought darkly, that he wasn’t a stranger to pain.
He dressed and went into the living room. Xander had an old episode of Kitchen Wars on, Landon Patton and Quentin Maxwell bantering over a lazy Susan contraption, berries flying everywhere, and every molecule in Damon’s body ached at the normalcy he was never going to be able to have.
Xander flipped the sound off, and looked up at Damon, concern written all over his face. “Are you okay?” he asked. “I . . . I . . . maybe I shouldn’t have made you talk about it.”
“No. No, I’m glad you did.” He took a deep breath. “You’re right. What you said is right. We should serve wine.”
“You think we should serve wine?” Xander asked cautiously.
“No, I really don’t. But what I want doesn’t really matter. It hasn’t mattered in a long time. Ever, probably.” Damon sighed. “Eat your dinner. You have training tomorrow and you need your strength. I’m going home.”
Xander raised his eyebrow and it didn’t do anything for Damon. Nothing like what it normally did. He felt beaten and numb instead. Like he’d fought his battles all over again, but this time he’d lost.
He loved Xander. He was talented and smart and bright and deserved a restaurant that would showcase him to his best advantage; a jewel in the proper setting. Damon knew, with his issues and his darkness, that he couldn’t really be a part of that. Not really. Xander would figure it out sooner or later, the same way Damon just had.
Xander belonged to the shiny, bright world of people who could have a glass of wine with dinner or a beer on a warm afternoon and it didn’t mean anything. People who didn’t have a difficult and complex reaction to a drink menu on a patio table. Damon had known this from the very beginning, he’d understood it was fundamentally true almost from the first moment, but he’d tried to push the inevitability aside, and then he’d straight-up begun living in a fantasy world where it didn’t exist at all.
Earlier tonight, Xander said he wanted a real love. This was a real love, in a real world.
He got up and put his arms around Damon, pressing a kiss to his cheek. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow, okay?”
Not talking wasn’t going to happen. Breaking up wasn’t going to happen. Not with the restaurant opening on the horizon, o
nly a few days away. The best Damon could do was to pull gradually away until Xander realized the same thing he just had. They were better off as friends and business partners.
“Yeah, of course,” Damon said, ignoring the lump in his throat.
“Night. I love you.” Xander pressed another kiss in, deeper, firmer this time. Like he could permanently brand his lips there. Damon wanted to tell him that it didn’t matter, he was going to feel his mouth against his skin forever—there was no erasing it now.
“I love you too,” Damon said, and meant it just as much, if not more, tonight, than he ever had.
Xander just didn’t realize that those three little words also meant goodbye.
* * *
The second the door closed behind Damon and he heard his car start up in the driveway, Xander dialed his phone in a blind panic.
“Wyatt,” he said desperately, “I think I just really fucked things up.”
“What did you do?” Wyatt asked. “Did you over-whip the marshmallows again?”
“Have you been talking to Miles again?” Xander demanded.
“Of course I talk to Miles. We live in the same freaking city,” Wyatt drawled. “Stop changing the subject. What’s got you sounding so panicked?”
“I told Damon we should serve wine at the Barrel House.”
Wyatt was silent for a long moment. “Didn’t you tell me last month that he was a recovering alcoholic?”
“Yes,” Xander said miserably. “He is.”
Xander didn’t know what he’d been thinking—actually, scratch that, he knew exactly what he’d been thinking. He’d been thinking with his ego, hyper-aware of what people were saying about him, worried that nobody would give the restaurant a chance because of the lack of booze.
He’d let his fear get in the way of . . . Xander hesitated, unsure how much he’d really fucked up, then realized he’d let his fear jeopardize everything. The restaurant. His relationship with Damon. His future and Damon’s future, seemingly so bright only a few days ago, suddenly dimmed because he’d been dumb enough to listen to Billy and Kian. And his own fucking ego.
“Listen, opening a restaurant is a crazy thing to do. It’s absolute insanity before it happens. People say stuff all the time when they’re stressed. Chalk it up to that and move on.”
The last time they'd talked, Xander had given Wyatt a very vague idea that he and Damon were just sort of screwing around, nothing serious. Why had he done that, when Wyatt was going to find out the very first time he saw him and Damon together? Especially when that particular event was going to be happening shortly with the restaurant opening?
Plain and simple, Xander hadn’t wanted to be the new Kian. Involved with his boss and his partner, potentially screwing up his own future.
The worst part of this whole thing was that he hadn’t even needed Wyatt or Miles to warn him. He’d done it all on his own, with zero help from anyone else.
“I don’t think he’s going to move on that easily,” Xander admitted.
“Why not?” Wyatt sounded distracted and he suddenly heard the roar of a crowd in the background. Flipping to ESPN, Xander sat down heavily and watched as Wyatt’s boyfriend Ryan hit a solid stand-up double in front of a packed Dodger Stadium.
“You’re at Ryan’s game, aren’t you?” Xander asked flatly.
“Yes, but as I’m discovering, the baseball season is 162 games long. I think I can talk to you for five minutes to keep you off the cliff and be a supportive partner.
“You really care about him, don’t you?” Wyatt persisted when Xander didn’t respond.
Xander was quiet still, but Wyatt could be damn stubborn when he wanted to be and he wasn’t letting him off the hook now.
“I love him, okay?” Xander finally said, voice cracking. “I really love him, and I fucked it all up.”
“You’re going to apologize, and he’s going to forgive you. It’s gonna be fine.” Wyatt’s voice was almost drowned out by more crowd noise. “I’m sorry, I really do have to go now. But I’m coming up tomorrow, and I’m bringing Miles with me.”
Xander almost told Wyatt not to bring Miles, because somehow it was worse that Miles was going to be front and center to him totally screwing up his life. Wyatt was chill; Wyatt also always understood. Miles was a little pricklier.
But he didn’t, because in the process of epically fucking up, he’d realized just how much he needed his friends here. Even Kian, who he kept trying to be pissed at. Maybe if Kian hadn’t brought up the rumors and his concerns hadn’t so closely echoed Xander’s own. That was bullshit though, and Xander knew it. It wasn’t Kian’s fault he’d selfishly mouthed off, suggesting that his recovering boyfriend serve booze at their restaurant. That was all on Xander, and he wasn’t being pessimistic when he knew he’d be paying for it.
Chapter Fifteen
Xander woke up to a text message from Miles the next morning, demonstrating very clearly that yes, he and Wyatt definitely talked. Apologize, was all it said, and Xander wished it was just that easy.
There was nothing on his phone from Damon, which was unusual even with how busy they’d gotten with the preview night tomorrow and the real opening the day after that. Damon still got up early to tend the gardens, though he’d been talking about hiring some gardeners to help him out, and he liked to send something Xander would wake up to.
Sometimes it was silly like, you know, you were drooling all over my chest last night while you were sleeping or sometimes a picture of the sunrise. Lately he’d been sending simple, I love yous.
It was difficult to not read something into the fact that Damon not only hadn’t sent that particular message, but that he hadn’t sent anything at all.
His heart was aching and his stomach was in his shoes, but Xander was still a god damned professional, and he dragged himself into his chef whites, pulling back his hair with one of his favorite chili pepper bandanas and drove to Damon’s.
He didn’t even bother detouring toward the house. Instead, he met with one of his food distributors, set up a delivery schedule, and received orders from his other distributors. After everything was meticulously labeled and put away, his new employees started showing up.
Billy shot him a little smirk, and Xander gave him a cold stare, daring him to ask if he’d brought the wine issue up with Damon. But Billy must have been smarter than he assumed, because he didn’t say a word. Maybe the fight was written all over his face. Xander didn’t know, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to.
The morning was devoted to organizing the kitchen, putting all the tools and equipment away and establishing the processes by which Xander expected every single member of his team to do their jobs. This might not be Terroir, but he’d learned there that organization was next to cleanliness and godliness.
Noon rolled around without Damon showing up at the restaurant, and Xander let everyone take a break. He ran down to the corner store and grabbed two sandwiches and some bottled water, walking into the back door of Damon’s house without even a knock.
Xander set the food on the counter, the quietness of the house unsettling him. He wasn’t even sure Damon was here, and after a thorough check of the rooms, realized that he’d been right. Damon wasn’t even around today, the first full day of training and only a day before the preview night.
The Barrel House was ready: the dining room stood pristine, the furniture arranged, the plates stacked in the kitchen waiting to be filled, the massive refrigerators already beginning to fill up. The crates of vegetables from the garden had been sitting on one of the stainless steel counters this morning, like Damon had left them early and then departed, not even bothering to wait for Xander.
The concern that a simple apology might not be enough began to swell inside of him. He pulled his phone out and sat down heavily at one of the barstools, staring at the screen. But instead of dialing Damon’s number, he called Miles.
“When are you guys going to be here?” he asked before Miles could even ask if he’d apo
logized.
He would have—he wanted to—but Damon wasn’t here to apologize to. And Xander couldn’t help the bad feeling lingering that Damon had arranged it that way on purpose.
“Soon,” Miles promised. “We’re about two hours away.” He paused, and Xander gave him full brownie points for waiting more than twenty seconds before asking. “Did you apologize?”
“I haven’t been able to,” Xander said. “I wanted to. I came to his house, with lunch as a peace offering, and he’s not even here.”
It was obvious from the whispered consultation that Wyatt and Miles were having in the car that neither of them believed this boded well for Xander. The knowledge he’d really, truly, epically fucked this up, continued to gnaw at him.
“Did you call him?” Miles asked.
“Yeah,” Wyatt chimed in, Miles clearly having put him on speakerphone, “you should call him. It’s only two days until opening. He’s probably running a thousand errands.”
Except Xander had seen Damon’s ever-evolving to-do list for the opening, and he’d whittled it down to just a few items. They’d worked it together, crossing off item after item, and that had helped make it a lot more doable. Not for the first time, Xander regretted forgetting, even for a split second, that they were always better together, working as a united front.
“Okay, I’ll call him,” Xander said, and not really because Miles and Wyatt thought he should. He knew he should.
“Okay, we’ll see you tonight,” Miles said, and Wyatt chimed in, adding his goodbye.
Xander hung up and stared at the screen, working up the courage to dial Damon’s number. It probably should have been tougher, but then Xander imagined life without him, a life where they were professional partners and nothing else, and his fingers flew across the screen.