by Beth Bolden
She sat down beside him, put a hand on his knee. “What are you doing here?” she asked. “You’re supposed to be down in the Valley, helping him. Being there for him. Running your new restaurant, not up here, pretending like you’re not good enough for any of those things.”
“It’s not pretending,” he insisted roughly.
“I told him that you’re always fighting your own self, and sometimes you win. You need to figure out how to lose.” Rachel’s voice was soft, but he couldn’t look at her.
“I let you down. I left you. I fucking abandoned you for booze. I don’t think that’s winning.”
She laughed, shocking him enough that he glanced up at her. There was a wry expression on her face and tears in her eyes. “You never left me. We left each other because we weren’t happy. Did the alcohol help? Of course not. But you can’t take all the blame for the disintegration of our marriage, Damon. It was already over. It was nearly over before it even began. And now you’ve met someone you can really love, who loves you back—loves you so much he’s willing to throw his own pride to the wind just to help you. Fix this.”
Damon stared out over the Valley. The cause of so much of his pain, and now the cause of so much of his hope. “I can’t.”
Rachel sat up, and dusted off her legs. Blocked the harsh rays of the sun as she stared down at him. “Then you don’t deserve him.”
It was a sentiment that Damon had spent the last two days trying to believe, but with Rachel’s pronouncement, he had to admit it didn’t sound quite right.
He still didn’t believe that. At least not enough to stay away entirely.
* * *
After arriving at the restaurant and the initial painful realization that no, Damon was not here, Xander discovered there was so much to do, it was impossible to think of anything but the task in front of him, and the fifty million tasks left to do. That helped; not quite enough, but it was enough to make him functional.
He thought about calling Rachel again and asking if she’d gotten anywhere, but the gaping hole left by Damon’s continued absence answered every question he would have asked her.
Xander started the team prepping. Miles assisted Monica, the part-time pastry chef, not even saying a word about how menial the tasks were, just chipping in and wordlessly assisting, and when Monica looked over at him like she wanted to say something about Evan or his show, he’d simply shook his head.
He wasn’t Miles of Pastry by Miles today, he was Xander’s friend. It helped shore up Xander’s defenses a little, and when Wyatt wordlessly volunteered to manage the front of the house—a job that Damon had given himself—it helped a little more.
At five, Xander went into his tiny private office, tucked behind the kitchen, something he’d claimed not to need when he and Damon had first discussed the remodel, and Damon had insisted on anyway. He pulled off his old stained jacket, and just stared at the new bright white one sitting on his desk.
It fit perfectly, and Xander didn’t want to know how Damon had known, even though he already knew how. Too many nights with Damon’s mouth and hands skating across his shoulders and chest and stomach, becoming intimately familiar with every ridge and curve of him.
The door opened before Xander could dwell any further, saving him from a headlong tumble into misery. He did up the buttons as Wyatt looked at him steadily.
“It’s time,” he said and all Xander could do was nod wordlessly. It was a good thing his staff, while not yet completely familiar in his recipes, were already impeccably trained and knew every single responsibility. He didn’t need to say a word and he probably wasn’t going to be able to.
He just had to get through the next four hours.
Wyatt pulled him into a quick, tight hug and whispered into his ear, “We can do this. You can do this.”
* * *
One hour down, and Miles had gone out to assist Wyatt with seating. He reported back that diners were cleaning their plates, all with joyful smiles on their faces. One of the new wait staff reported offhandedly to Xander, while he was standing at the pass-through, inspecting plates bound for tables, that diners were having difficulty even selecting their meal for the night, because “everything sounded amazing.”
So far there hadn’t been any complaints regarding alcohol, or if there was, Miles and Wyatt were keeping him perfectly, completely isolated from it, and he’d never been more grateful. If even one person walked up to him and demanded a glass of wine, Xander was probably, almost certainly, going to punch them in the face.
Two hours down, a plate came back to the kitchen for the first time. Xander stared at it, the perfect presentation slightly jumbled, and finally looked up wordlessly at the waiter.
“Too much red pepper flakes,” he said apologetically. “Could she get it remade with less? She’s particularly sensitive to spice.”
Xander wanted to retort that if she was sensitive to spice, she shouldn’t order something with pomodoro in the title, but he took the plate, dumped it in the garbage, sent it down to Chris, his dishwasher, and began to remake the food himself.
Hour three, the kitchen and the dining room were humming along so seamlessly that Xander took a piece of focaccia and a glass of water to his office and tried to force something down.
It didn’t work.
He should be the happiest man on the planet right now. His restaurant was a success. People were happily buying his food and claiming they couldn’t wait to return. But it all felt empty without Damon here.
Four hours into the preview, they were winding down. Miles came into the kitchen and told him he should hire Monica, the pastry chef, full time, and that he needed another line chef because they were going to end up being busy. Xander made a note on his to-do list and tried to give his friend a genuine smile, but instead it felt fake and plastic. Like someone else was happy and smiling for him. There just wasn’t any joy inside of him, and there definitely wasn’t enough for a real smile. Miles hugged him and told him he’d stay the rest of the week.
Hour five, and as the staff cleaned and Miles and Wyatt bickered over the tally for the evening and closed out the register, Xander went outside to try to clear his head.
It felt like a fog had overtaken him, the price of having to go through this all while feeling abject despair and abandonment.
He was just leaning against the back of the building, gulping in air and trying to clear his mind, when he spotted a dark figure in the distance, standing in between the rows of vegetables.
Heart thumping painfully, he pushed away from the building and started walking toward him. He knew who it was; he never could have left him alone for this night. After all, this had always been Damon’s idea, first and foremost. He’d even been the one to convince Xander that the plan had merit. He never could have left him alone tonight.
He started jogging, then he ran, breath coming in harsh pants as he reached the man he loved.
Damon looked over at him, almost in surprise. Almost as if he hadn’t expected to get caught or if he had expected it, that Xander wouldn’t have even come over.
And fuck that, Xander was in love with him. He’d said some stupid shit, sure, and he’d not understood entirely where Damon was coming from, but he still loved him, and he still wanted this. If he was being honest with himself, he wanted it even more than he had before, because now he knew what it was like to do it without Damon.
“You got it,” Damon said first, before Xander could even figure out where to start. What to say first. Should he hug him? Kiss him? Punch him? He didn’t know, but in the end it didn’t matter.
“I got what?” Xander demanded incredulously.
“Your jacket,” Damon said, reaching out like he was going to touch the embroidery right over his heart, but then his hand jerked back, like he hadn’t ever intended to touch him. “You needed it, and I couldn’t let you go without. Not tonight.”
“Then you should have brought it to me yourself,” Xander said. He was trying to stay calm, b
ut it was really fucking difficult.
“I couldn’t. You know that. I . . . I never should have done this.” Damon said this with a small shake of his head, like he couldn’t believe he’d ever imagined he could, and that just added more fuel to Xander’s anger.
“We were doing this!” he yelled. “As far as I was concerned, two nights ago, it was actively happening. I know I fucked up, I know I wasn’t as understanding as I needed to be. But I can be better. We can fix this. You can’t just walk away and not let me fix it.”
Damon’s eyes were sad in the moonlight as he stared at him. “I knew after I divorced Rachel that involving myself with anyone ever again was a huge risk. I’m a burden, Xander, and I don’t need you to say it for me to know it’s true.”
“You have baggage. You’re an alcoholic. I know. I get that. I don’t think less of you, and I don’t think you’re going to destroy me if you are. You didn’t even destroy Rachel. She’s moved on, she’s happy, she’s got a husband and a job and a life. Your demons aren’t going to torpedo anyone—even you.” Xander felt desperate, like his chance was slipping away. He wasn’t sure if Damon would believe him, now or ever. He certainly didn’t look like he believed him.
“They run deep,” Damon said with regret in his eyes and his voice. “Sometimes I don’t even know how deep they run.”
“Then we’ll figure it out together,” Xander said, and he knew he was pleading. He wasn’t even above begging. “Just don’t vanish. Don’t shut me out.” He hesitated, anger swelling again when he thought of what he’d endured today. “Don’t fucking take what was supposed to be the best day of my life and make it impossible to get through. I can’t do this again. This is not what was supposed to happen.”
“It’s what needs to happen,” Damon said gently, and when Xander tried to reach over, to touch him, to remind him of what they’d shared, of what they’d been through already, he pulled away.
“You can’t do this,” Xander said blankly. “You can’t do this.”
“I know it doesn’t seem that way now, but this is better for everyone. Including you.”
Xander snapped. “You’re fucking right it doesn’t seem that way. You don’t get to make these choices! You don’t get to decide that you’re too fucked up to be with me. You’re the best man I’ve ever met. The strongest, the bravest, but right now you’re acting like a fucking coward and it isn’t a good look.”
“You’re right, it’s not. But then you’ve always been right about a lot of things,” Damon said, and Xander wasn’t stupid, he knew what a goodbye sounded like.
“Wait,” he said when Damon started to turn to walk away. “You can’t do this. We’re supposed to be a team. We’re supposed to do this together.”
“It’s your restaurant now. You run it. You’re going to make it shine. I have faith.”
Xander didn’t want to tell him he didn’t have faith in himself. He didn’t want to tell him that running it alone hadn’t been what Damon promised. But it was too late to say anything he didn’t want to say, because Damon was walking away, and it seemed that even apologies weren’t enough to save this.
Alone, in the middle of the garden where they’d first met over a year ago, Xander finally started to cry.
Chapter Sixteen
Damon sat in the car, eyes on the lights of the restaurant and on the solitary figure in the dark field, and cried. There were a hundred things he was thinking, but one particular frustration stood out above all the rest.
Why? Why him?
One of the first things he’d demanded after showing up in rehab was why. Why did he rely so heavily on alcohol? Why did having one drink make him want ten more? Why did life only exist in technicolor when he had a drink in his hand?
Grant, his sober coach, had looked at him frankly during one of their first sessions and had told him that there wasn’t an answer to any of his questions, and that Damon was going to have to find a path to sobriety a different way.
That had pissed him off, and subsequently, he’d spent the last four years pissed off that he didn’t know why. He’d gotten sober anyway, with determination and with Grant’s support, but the whole time the questions had burned away inside him.
The questions were why he’d been out in the pouring rain, ripping up the vines in the first place. The questions were why, after Rachel, he’d been determined to stay single so that he wouldn’t ruin any other lives besides his own.
For a little while, falling in love with Xander had brought happiness and joy and hope to his life, wrenching it from his boring black-and-white existence, and transporting it into technicolor reality for the first time since rehab.
It had been hard enough to find his way to sobriety and leave all that brightness behind when booze had been responsible, but love was a lot tougher to turn his back on. What he wanted was something he had no right to demand, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself.
Xander didn’t even know why Damon had walked away; it wasn’t because he “fucked up” and said some stuff he wanted to take back. It was because the stuff he’d said brought all Damon’s fears into the forefront.
There was a part of him that wanted to go see his father and demand an explanation, or maybe even apology. But he’d covered that after rehab. Nathan Hess took zero responsibility and had zero fucks to give that his son was an alcoholic. No amount of ranting or threats or tears were going to change his mind. Damon had stopped looking for answers from his father a long time ago because there were never any to find.
He glanced down at the phone in his hand and realized his fingers were trembling. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen them shake like this—then it hit him. The last time, he’d wanted a drink so badly he could nearly taste the wine pooling on his tongue. Or the beer. Or the whiskey. He hadn’t particularly cared what it was, only that it promised oblivion from feeling like this.
He couldn’t pinpoint the time or the day, or even the month. It had become part of him, a background haze that he could ignore now because he wanted to be better more than he wanted the emptiness alcohol brought. But today?
Today and the fight with Xander had just reminded him of how easy it was.
Damon knew what he had to do. He called the person who had seen him at his worst and had still never judged him.
“It’s been a long time, Damon,” Grant answered, only letting it ring twice. “Is everything okay?”
Right after the two months Damon had spent in rehab, he and Grant had talked every day—sometimes multiple times a day. He’d supported Damon going to collect his vineyard inheritance when nobody else did. Grant’s phone calls and texts and emails had gotten Damon through a lot of bleak nights, but in the year since first meeting Xander, they’d dwindled, especially as Damon became more confident in his sobriety.
By the time he hired Xander, he and Grant were only exchanging emails once or twice a month. And before, that was perfectly okay. Damon was fine, he didn’t need Grant’s help. The last email from Grant had mentioned that sometimes there were other, uncovered issues that stemmed from alcoholism, and he’d encouraged Damon to find a regular therapist.
Damon had thought Grant was full of shit until now. But clearly he had issues, or else why would he have left the man he loved to deal with the restaurant opening by himself? Why else would he have walked away tonight, even though it had hurt like hell to do it?
“No,” Damon answered truthfully. “No, it’s not okay. I’m not okay.”
“Are you drinking?” Grant asked, his voice careful. “Do I need to come get you?”
“I’m sober.” He took a deep breath. “In love. But sober. I just don’t know how to deal with it. Sobriety I know, love is a complete fucking mystery.”
Damon felt Grant’s knowing smile over the phone line. “We talked about this. What happened with Rachel wasn’t entirely your fault. Marrying so young, you’d already begun to drift apart by the time you started drinking more heavily.”
“I know,”
Damon said, but he wasn’t sure he really believed his own words.
“It doesn’t matter if you have an addiction, Damon. You still deserve good things. Like finding someone to love.”
Damon’s voice was barely above a whisper. “How do I believe that?”
“Probably a lot of therapy, but I’ll get you started since you called me first. Does this person love you back?”
Damon thought of Xander’s destroyed face as he’d walked away. “I think so, yeah.”
“Do you think they’re a smart person? Intelligent? Thoughtful? Do you think they value their own happiness?”
“Of course I do,” Damon snapped. He never would have fallen in love with Xander otherwise.
“Do you think they’d fall in love with someone who wasn’t worthy of their love?”
“I know what you’re doing.” Damon knew the leash on his temper was short tonight; it was almost definitely because it had nearly killed him to walk away from Xander. Staying away completely had been impossible. He’d come because he couldn’t be anywhere else. He’d stood in the garden for hours, watching the lights and the customers pour in, and then pour back out, happy and grinning, full from Xander’s creations. Anger and envy had surged inside him, nearly bringing him to his knees, but what had actually done it was Xander showing up. Yes, he’d come here, but he’d never actually expected Xander to catch him.
“Then you know what I’m going to say,” Grant said, always so painfully reasonable. “If the person you love sees something worthwhile and worth loving in you, then it must exist. You don’t have to believe me. You just need to believe in them.”
“I do,” Damon whispered. He’d believed in Xander from the first moment they’d ever met, rain dripping relentlessly through his dark hair.
“Then you have your answer. You just have to choose to believe it.”
“You make it sound so easy.”
“It is that easy. You can do this, I have faith that you can. Now, tomorrow morning call one of the therapists I sent you.”