Kitchen Gods Box Set

by Beth Bolden

  “Oh yes, it’s very warm,” she said, smiling. “It’s got a set of heaters at the bottom of the pit, so it’ll get warmer as you sink further down. But be careful to not touch the bottom with your feet, because it’ll burn you. You’ll want to use the concrete edge to swing your butt in and out of the mud, instead,” she suggested.

  “Right,” Xander said, staring at the pit with concern. Burning hot mud. Okay then. Still, it could’ve been needles; that would’ve been way worse. Right?

  Xander wasn’t quite sure anymore.

  “You’ll want to stay submerged in the mud for twenty or so minutes,” she continued. “There’s a clock over here.” She pointed to an inset clock, high on one wall. “And after, please shower back here.” Part of the room had been separated by a thin, translucent shower curtain, and Xander saw showerheads behind it. “After you are free of all mud, we’ll proceed to the mineral bath.”

  “Is that at least a little cleaner?” Xander muttered under his breath. The guide just smiled.

  “I’ll let you two get started,” she said. “I’ll be back in about thirty minutes.”

  When she closed the door behind her, Xander’s gaze met Damon’s. “Are you sure about this?” Xander asked.

  “Honestly, no?” Damon said with a chuckle. “But we’re doing it. At least the weirdness might help you forget for a little bit about . . .well, you know.”

  “I know,” Xander said. Maybe Damon was right; maybe this would help him forget about his anxiety and stress for at least thirty minutes. Even that reprieve might be worth getting into a hot tub of mud.

  “I guess we should get going,” Damon said and began unbuttoning his plaid shirt.

  Normally there was nothing Xander liked better than to watch his boyfriend undress, but usually there were much more pleasurable activities that followed the undressing.

  Still, Xander pulled his own t-shirt over his head and pulled down his loose athletic shorts, stowing his clothes, including his shoes and socks, on one of the wooden benches against the wall. With trepidation, he approached the closest mud pit.

  “Don’t look so excited about it,” Damon teased, as he headed towards his own. “Now how are we supposed to do this again?”

  “I think we’re supposed to sit on the edge and kind of . . .swing over?” Xander suggested. “Just don’t touch the bottom. That much I got.”

  Xander watched as Damon did it, looking like a fucking piece of Roman statuary as he flexed his biceps, using his strength to plop his ass right into the mud.

  “Ah!” he yelped, and Xander nearly came to his rescue—because that was what true love did, right?—but what stopped him? All this fucking mud.

  “Is it okay?” Xander said, gingerly sitting on the side of his own pit. “Am I going to die?”

  “No, but it’s weird,” Damon said. “She said it was hot, but I really didn’t think about what hot mud would feel like.”

  “Let me guess,” Xander said, taking a deep breath and beginning to scoot over, his ass hovering right over the oozing mass, “it feels way fucking strange.”

  “Just about,” Damon said wryly as he slowly sank down into the mud, his body disappearing one little bit at a time as gravity did its job. “Just try it. It’s . . .you’ll get used to it.”

  “Fuck,” Xander bit off as his ass touched the hot mud for the first time. “Fuckity fuck fuck,” he yelled. “I’m not getting used to this!”

  He looked over and Damon, the backstabber, was laughing, as his body mostly disappeared from sight, buried in the mud.

  “God, I hate this,” Xander said vehemently as his body began to sink too. “And it smells.”

  “I think it’s supposed to,” Damon offered. “I think that’s part of its benefits.”

  “The smell?” Xander said with disbelief. “How does that help you?”

  “I honestly do not know,” Damon admitted. “I’m . . .this whole thing is not what I expected.”

  “Seriously,” Xander said. He found as he relaxed into the mud though that he felt buoyed and light, floating and suspended in its mass. “I want to fight anyone who said this would center my chi.”

  Damon laughed again, and Xander found himself laughing too, despite the mud surrounding him.

  “I’m not sure it’s supposed to center your chi,” Damon said, still giggling.

  “Well, it’s fucking not working,” Xander retorted, smacking a mud-covered hand on the concrete side of the tub, a big blob falling off his wrist and landing on the tile floor with a loud splat.

  “Fuck, that sounded weird,” Damon said, and he was laughing again.

  “Are we just supposed to . . .sit here? Lay here?” Xander wasn’t sure what exactly you called being submerged in mud.

  “I guess,” Damon said, shrugging, his shoulders moving under the mud.

  “Okay, well, here goes nothing,” he said, wiggling further down, gasping as his body hit a hotter pocket of mud. He leaned his neck back on the concrete headrest and tried to close his eyes, but frankly, after even thirty seconds, he already knew this wasn’t the relaxing solution he’d hoped it would be. How could it possibly be?

  “I don’t know about you,” Damon said, his bluish-green eyes dancing with amusement as he glanced over at Xander, “but I keep sinking.”

  “I think that’s the mud’s way of telling me I feed you too much,” Xander said.

  “Maybe,” Damon said, chuckling. “Definitely possible. Besides, muscle weighs more than fat.”

  “It’s like a fucking black hole of mud, sucking us to hell,” Xander complained, because he, too, was now sinking further than he felt entirely comfortable with. He kept having to brace his forearms, more mud falling off him in unceremonious plops to prevent his entire body from sinking down further.

  “I feel like that introduction didn’t prepare me for this.” Damon’s forearms were braced on the edges too, and he was flexing in such a distracting way that suddenly Xander was disappointed there was about a thousand gallons of mud between them. They’d used to laugh through sex—drunk on happiness and love—before the Michelin inspectors had come, and he thought, just maybe, they could actually do it again.

  “Yeah, she was pretty nonchalant about it,” Xander agreed. “Hey, just spent twenty minutes of your life, trying not to drown in the boiling hot mud—oh, and make sure you don’t touch the bottom of the pit either, because your feet might fry.”

  “Not exactly a recipe for relaxation,” Damon agreed with a charmingly helpless smile. “I’m sorry this wasn’t what I thought it might be.”

  “Don’t be,” Xander said and discovered he actually really meant the words. “This is more fun than I’ve had in ages.”

  “Really? Me too,” Damon said.

  “Imagine that.” Xander let out a huffed laugh. “We needed to come to the mud baths of all places, to find something fun again.”

  “I don’t think we’ll have to go this far again,” Damon said, his gaze a caress against Xander’s mud-smeared cheek.

  “Me either,” Xander said, and suddenly he did feel relaxed. Terrified, too, of the boiling hot mud at the bottom of the pit, and also wondering how on earth he would ever get mud out of every crevice it had seeped into—but overall, this was what they’d needed. To get out of their own heads for a few hours. To remember a time when they’d laughed and loved and not given a single shit what anyone else thought.

  “Do you think we can get out now?” Damon wondered.

  “It hasn’t been twenty minutes,” Xander said, pointing to the clock, though he too was just about ready to get out of this pit.

  “And?” Damon asked. “Do you really think you can get all this mud off in only ten minutes? Because I sure as hell don’t.”

  “Good point,” Xander said dryly. “I guess we can begin the . . .de-mudding now.” He braced his hands on the concrete edge and tried to pull himself out of the mud. “Fuck!” he exclaimed. “This is a lot harder than it seemed.”

  “Ugh, yeah,�
� Damon agreed, and when Xander glanced over, he could see that his boyfriend was struggling less, but he was still struggling to yank his body out of the mud. “This sucks.” He finally pulled himself clear, and Xander couldn’t help it; he burst into gales of laughter as Damon stood on wobbly legs and mud began to fall off him in huge blobs, dripping viscerally as he walked over to where Xander was still half-submerged in the pit.

  “Need some help, babe?” Damon asked dryly. “Or maybe you’d like to stay in there a bit longer?”

  “I’m good, thanks. Get me out of here,” Xander said. He offered an arm up and between the two of them, pulling hard, they managed to extricate Xander from the sucking mud pit.

  “This is just . . .truly gross,” Xander said, walking naked to where the showers were. He could hear and feel himself shedding mud, each clump landing with one nasty sounding plop.

  Damon flipped the other shower on. “I’m just trying to figure out how anyone could ever advertise this as a ‘fun couples’ experience,” he said.

  “What,” Xander said flatly, beginning to wash away all the most obvious encrusted mud bits. “That’s what they told you? Seriously?”

  Damon nodded wryly. “Seriously.”

  “They’re on crack,” Xander burst out. “Like, actual high-as-a-fucking-kite crack.”

  Damon burst out laughing as he used his hands to slough off all the extra mud, the water finally beginning to run clean. At least cleaner.

  “But,” Xander added, because he’d learned a long time ago that being honest with the man he loved was always the right route to take, “I do feel better, even though this wasn’t anything like I expected it’d be.”

  “It wasn’t for me, either,” Damon admitted. “But I’m glad. We were both kinda . . .going out of our minds there.”

  “No,” Xander admitted with a chuckle. “No, that was just me. Definitely only me, but I appreciate you trying to be nice about it.”

  Damon ducked his head under the water and finished rinsing off. Xander flipped off his water and then Damon’s. Damon smiled as Xander leaned over and brushed a clean-ish kiss to his mouth. “I think we both kinda smell like . . .”

  “Mud?” Damon supplied. “Yeah, we kinda do.”

  There were robes hanging on a hook near the door, and they slipped them on. They were cozy and comfortable, basically the opposite of the entire experience so far, but as they waited for the lady to take them to the next room, and Xander cuddled against Damon’s bigger, bulkier frame, he thought that playing hooky from work had never felt so unexpectedly good.

  The sound of a knock on the door resounded through the tile-lined room. “Oh good, I can’t wait for what we get next,” Damon said under his breath.

  Xander elbowed him as he stood and walked towards the door. “You’ve already submerged yourself in mud, how bad could it be?”

  “Hey,” the woman said after Xander opened the door to her cheery, overly enthusiastic smile. “How was the mud bath?”

  “Enlightening,” Xander admitted.

  “Oh, good!” she said, clearly taking the more positive connotation to his reply. “Let’s go get you situated in the mineral baths. These are fun. A nice relaxing time.”

  “Sounds like it,” Damon said, his face so straight as they followed her out of the tiled mud room and down the hall that Xander knew he was being sarcastic.

  She showed them into another tiled room, but this one had a small circular tub in it, similar to a hot tub in style. “I’ll let you soak in here for about half an hour,” she said. “There’s towels on that bench.”

  “What?” Damon said when she left, closing the door behind her, “no instructions on how to climb in and out? No heaters to avoid? No mud to wash off?”

  “It actually sounds relaxing after the last room,” Xander admitting, shedding his robe and climbing into the water, exhaling in happiness at the perfectly warm temperature and the cool fizzy bubbles that enveloped his body as he sank in.

  “Oh, this is nice,” Damon agreed as he floated next to him. Xander leaned over and rested his head on Damon’s shoulder.

  They were quiet for a moment until finally Damon said, “Do you want to talk about it?”

  Xander had a very good idea of what the subject was, but he still played dumb. “Talk about what?”

  Damon made a rumbling noise of frustration, and Xander decided that he’d been pushed far enough—both with his behavior in the last few weeks, and now the mud bath—so he took pity on his boyfriend. “No, but I guess we should.”

  “Yeah,” Damon agreed. “We should.”

  Xander took a deep breath and floated deeper into the pool, letting the fizzy bubbles leech away his anxiety. “I’m afraid we won’t get it and I’m afraid we will. I’m not sure what the future holds and . . .and it scares me.”

  “I know,” Damon said, wrapping his arms around him. Xander followed suit by wrapping his legs around his boyfriend’s waist. “But we’re going to be fine. Even if the restaurant closed tomorrow, even if we never get any stars, even if all our fields burned down, I know we’d deal with it together, and that’s what matters to me.”

  “I know,” Xander said, and he knew it, so why did he feel like he’d be a failure if he didn’t win any stars?

  “But I get this is a big deal to you, personally. Not everything is about our relationship,” Damon said, and Xander let out the breath he hadn’t quite realized he was holding.

  “We’re partners, though,” Xander said, playing the devil’s advocate, even though he just wanted desperately to take Damon’s words at face value.

  “Yeah, and you’re the creative genius, which means this shit matters,” Damon said. “And that’s okay.”

  “Even when I become a neurotic mess?” Xander asked hopefully.

  “Especially when you become a neurotic mess,” Damon said, leaning over and pressing a kiss against Xander’s bicep. “I love you. Michelin stars or no. But because I love you, I want you to have what you need.”

  “I love you too,” Xander said, and he felt like he was breathing easier than he had in a month. “And if we don’t win them this year, we will the next. We’re just getting started, you know.”

  “I know,” Damon said, certainty radiating out of his words.

  And Xander wondered . . .it had only been six months since they’d gotten together, but Damon had been making statements like that, and he had to wonder if Damon was considering making their partnership a more permanent one.

  “Hey,” Damon said, when Xander fell quiet, “are you really okay?”

  “I will be,” Xander admitted. “Honestly, it’s just the waiting. It’s . . .it’s hard.”

  “I know,” Damon said, and it sounded like he was talking about something else entirely.

  * * *

  It turned out that Xander had to wait another three days. One morning, very early, when Damon had already left for the garden, and Xander was contemplating hitting snooze on his phone alarm one more time, even though it was a baking day at the restaurant, the phone rang, deciding for him.

  “Hello?” Xander answered hesitantly. He didn’t recognize the number.

  “Hello, is this Xander Bridges?” the pleasant voice asked.

  “Yes,” Xander said.

  This was it, he thought, everything changes now.

  “I’m really pleased to be able to tell you that this year’s Michelin Guide has awarded you with one star for your restaurant, Barrel House.”

  Xander felt hot and cold all at the same time, his heart palpitating with the excitement and the sudden realization of this lifelong dream. “Thank you,” he managed to get out.

  “It was our pleasure,” the voice said. “Look for the guide coming soon. We’ll send an advance copy.”

  “Of course, of course,” Xander said, but he was already upright, racing through the house, phone loosely near his ear, searching for his shoes—because what he needed, more than anything else, was to find Damon right now.

 
Finally he located a pair of Damon’s old galoshes by the back door—the ones he liked to wear when it had rained for three days straight and the garden was a mud pit.

  He shoved his feet into them and launched himself out the back door, still making meaningless conversation with the woman on the phone.

  Now she was reading him the entry and he heard words like “casual but elegant” and “exceptional rustic Italian-inspired” and “best focaccia” and even “non-alcoholic beverages.” Everything he’d ever dreamt of her saying, but the truth was, it wasn’t all him. He’d done it, of course, but he’d have never done it without the single most important person in his life: the man he loved.

  “That sounds great,” Xander said, breathing hard as he raced through the backyard towards where the garden started. Damon had the hose out, the water shooting out of it in wide swaths of crystalline droplets, floating through the air in a net of sparkles. He turned when he heard Xander’s footsteps and for a single shared moment, they stared at each other, Xander’s expression and the fact that he was out here at six in the morning wearing Damon’s galoshes telling him everything he needed to know about what Michelin had decided.

  “I have to go,” Xander said and clicked his phone off, sliding it in his pocket and racing towards Damon.

  They collided in a heap of arms and legs, but Damon was unbelievably solid—wide and strong and built like a fucking tree, something that could withstand even the hurricane that Xander was. He kept them upright and murmured as he hugged Xander tightly, “I knew you could do it, I knew you could.”

  Xander shut his eyes tightly, happiness cascading through him. “We did it,” he corrected Damon firmly. “It was us. Together. Unstoppable. Always.”

  Damon’s hands tightened around Xander’s waist and he knew then it was only a matter of time. This was a partnership that neither of them would ever tire of or want out of. It was forever.

  Indulge Me

  Throughout the restaurant industry, Chef Bastian Aquino is a notorious control freak. For two very long years, Kian Reynolds has worked for Bastian as his special assistant, doing whatever he and his restaurant needs. The toughest part isn’t even all the impossible tasks he expects Kian to complete flawlessly—it’s the hopeless, endless love he feels for his older boss.