Kitchen Gods Box Set

by Beth Bolden

  He could see Hess and Xander, standing close together, and to his own astonishment, he was surprised. He didn’t generally expect romantic attachments in other people, probably because his own had been so few and far between. But it would help explain why Xander hadn’t even been a little tempted by his counteroffer. He’d known Xander wouldn’t take it when he’d offered it, but he hadn’t expected Xander to be so sure, so quickly.

  But he had, and Damon must be the reason. Bastian supposed he could see the attraction. He was good-looking, if a little brooding for his own tastes. Xander had never been particularly caught up in good-looking men before, but Bastian supposed that was what those people who believed in love at first sight were always nattering on about.

  Sometimes you saw someone, and you connected with them despite everything.

  Bastian approached the bonfire as he watched the light flickering off the delicate features of Kian’s face. Two years in and he still couldn’t explain it, couldn’t quantify it. Couldn’t fucking contain it. He knew the moment Kian saw him because his face lit up, like Bastian’s arrival flicked on a lamp inside him.

  Bastian was the least humble person he knew, but the way Kian looked at him sometimes was incredibly humbling. He knew he didn’t deserve it and wasn’t ever capable of deserving it—and Kian knew that, had been witness to so many moments that should have changed his mind, but he’d stayed steadfast and loyal and true, and Bastian couldn’t deny it any longer, in love.

  “You came,” Kian said, approaching him, his voice still a little breathless.

  “I said I would,” Bastian said. “How’s the finger?”

  “It hurts.” Kian made a face, and Bastian chuckled in spite of himself.

  “I’m sure it does,” he said sympathetically. “Let’s get you home.”

  Kian glanced down at Bastian’s hand, and then at his own, the one he hadn’t tried to bisect today. He knew what Kian wanted, and the better part of him should have turned away, continued on to the car so Kian wouldn’t have a chance.

  But Bastian had never pretended to be an angel, and he stayed there, waiting as Kian reached out and took his hand in his own.

  There was a million things Bastian could say. One of them definitely was, I only did that because you were hurting and scared and it made us both feel better. But he didn’t, because even though the circumstances were different, the way Kian’s hand curled into his own still made him feel better. Helped cleanse away a little of this wretched day.

  Because he’s still hurting, Bastian told himself as they walked back to his car, but even he didn’t really believe the lie.

  Kian had to let go when they reached the car, but as soon as they were back inside, Bastian took a deep breath and placed his hand on the center console, palm up. Eyes wide, Kian glanced at the offered hand, and then back up to Bastian’s face.

  It was the simplest of touches—it could even be construed as platonic, but there was nothing platonic about the thrill Bastian experienced whenever Kian touched him.

  Kian smiled and tucked his hand right back into Bastian’s own.

  Bastian let out the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. “We should talk about this,” he said carefully, even though the last thing he wanted to do was talk and potentially destroy the rest of the ramshackle hut currently trying to contain all his apprehension about this relationship.

  Shooting him a very frank look, Kian shifted around in his seat. “If you’re going to say that you regret today, that you regret taking me to the emergency room and that you regret holding my hand, even as you’re doing it now, you might as well not bother.”

  “I meant about what you said earlier,” Bastian said, and even though his voice was steady, he knew his pulse wasn’t, and it was very possible that Kian could even feel how terrified he was in the sudden dampness of his palm.

  “What I said earlier?” Kian asked, and even though he’d been so green and innocent when he’d started at Terroir—and in some ways, still was—Bastian knew when he was actually clueless and when he was just pretending. He could fool other people, maybe, but not Bastian. Never Bastian.

  “You know what you said earlier.” It was likely very obvious that he was trying to avoid actually saying the same words Kian had, but then Kian was also pretty damn transparent about his own memory.

  “What was it?”

  Bastian gnashed his teeth and pulled the car over onto the side of the road. He threw the car into park and turned his full attention onto Kian, who had the faintest smile on his lips.

  “Is that it?” Bastian demanded. “You want me to say it?”

  Shrugging, Kian glanced down at their intertwined hands again. And Bastian knew exactly the point he was trying to make.

  “You can’t be in love with me,” Bastian said flatly, even though he knew he was, and that this was just plain foolish. “You shouldn’t be.”

  “But I am,” Kian said simply. “And I think you’re in love with me too.”

  “We can’t do this,” Bastian said, and he knew just how desperate he sounded.

  “We’re already doing it.” Kian’s voice was gentle, coaxing. “We’re doing it right now.”

  It hurt, maybe even worse than Kian’s finger getting sliced up by the Japanese mandolin, but somehow Bastian managed to pull his fingers away from Kian’s. Stopping the kiss in San Francisco should have hurt worse, but somehow he managed to feel more now than he had even then.

  This is for Kian, Bastian reminded himself. This is for Kian, even if it doesn’t feel like it. Even if it feels like the worst thing on earth. You can do anything, for him.

  Kian stared at him incredulously. “Really? This is what you’re going to do? Pretend you don’t care about me?”

  “I do care about you!” Bastian said, and the pain blooming inside of him made him sound so much angrier than he wanted, than he’d intended. “I’m doing this because I care!”

  “Then why don’t you care about what I want?” Kian demanded.

  “You don’t know what you really want! You don’t know what you’re giving away.” Bastian knew it was a lie when he said it, and fully expected that Kian wouldn’t believe it.

  But from the way Kian’s eyes shuttered, and he turned away, gaze determinedly focused on the dark landscape outside, he thought Bastian believed he was an idiot who didn’t know anything and hadn’t, in the last two years, thought through the downsides of their relationship at all.

  Maybe, Bastian thought brokenly, that’s for the best.

  “Take me home,” Kian said, and his voice had dropped about fifty degrees.

  For a split second, Bastian wanted to take it back, to plead his forgiveness, but the words were already out there, and Kian already believed them.

  It was too late for them, like it had been from the first moment.

  * * *

  It seemed like the right thing to do after dropping Kian off was to drive right past the turnoff to his house and continue down the road to his mother’s.

  Celeste did not look particularly surprised to see him when she opened the door.

  “Rough day?” she asked and handed him a warm mug. “Hot milk,” she explained as they headed towards the back porch. “With a touch of brandy.”

  Bastian took a grateful swallow and nearly burned his tongue. “Ahhh,” he exclaimed.

  She made a sympathetic noise. “You were five minutes earlier than I thought you’d be.”

  That was odd, even for his mother. Bastian set the mug aside. “How did you even know I was coming?”

  “I follow a few of your chefs on Instagram,” Celeste said primly. “More than one of them posted the bloody towels. It wasn’t hard to deduce who it was that hurt himself. And that you’d twist yourself into knots when it happened.”

  Bastian didn’t know how to react to Celeste’s confession she even had an Instagram, never mind that she was following some of his employees. She rolled her eyes at his surprise. “I follow you too, of course, but it
’s all advertisements for the restaurant. You need to figure out something more personal to put on there. Frankly,” she said, making a disappointed cluck, “it’s very boring, Bastian. I’m surprised you even have followers.”

  “Uh,” Bastian stammered, not very eloquently.

  “I even follow your young man. Kian. Very cute. Clever. I can see why you like him.”

  Even though the mug of milk was probably still close to boiling, Bastian reached for it anyway and took a long gulp. “He’s not my young man, maman.”

  Her dark-eyed gaze was penetrating. Under it, he felt eight again, caught again sneaking sweets off the shelf at the corner market with his friends. Except this time the sweet was Kian.

  “He could be,” she said thoughtfully.

  He greatly disliked the point she was trying to make and hated that she was right.

  “No, no, no,” he ground out. “He can’t be. I’m his mentor. His boss. It would be inappropriate and an incredible distraction.”

  Raising an eyebrow, Celeste sipped her own milk. “And it is not now?”

  It was something more destructive than mere distraction; she was absolutely right about that.

  “Bastian,” she continued, reaching out to place a soothing hand on his knee, “you can be so rigid sometimes, and I hate to say it, but that reminds me of your papa.”

  He couldn’t help it; he grimaced.

  “Oui,” she said, “he wasn’t a good man. He was mean and neglectful. Your intensity, your certainty you are always right, those you get from him. But that doesn’t make you bad, not like he was.”

  “Maybe I’m not bad, but I’m certainly not good either,” Bastian admitted darkly.

  Celeste shrugged, lace ruffles on the sleeve of her nightgown fluttering in the midnight breeze. “You are human. Not bad, not good. But you have tried to do good, staying away from Kian.”

  “Hasn’t done much good.” Bastian took another gulp of milk, the brandy burning the way down his throat. He didn’t feel like the way forward was any clearer, but like she always did, his maman still made him feel better. Or it could’ve just been the excellent brandy.

  “When you came to me two years ago, on his very first day, I told myself, Celeste, he will not last a month. But I was wrong. You held back, because for the first time, you care more about someone else than you care about yourself. And that is why you are nothing like your papa.”

  “I want to believe that,” Bastian said, his throat suddenly aching. “I want to be better.”

  “And this young man, he makes you better,” Celeste insisted. “I know, I see it.”

  “So you think I should just . . . give up?” It was both the very best thought and the worst.

  “Do I think you should just go to Kian and say, I was wrong, let us be together? No. No, you should not. Because you do not get to expect him to drop all his concerns and suddenly expect him to be at your beck and call. You know better than that, Bastian.”

  Was that what he’d expected? That when his desires finally overrode his apprehensions, he’d just crook a finger and Kian would come running, desperate for even the crumbs from his table?

  Yes, maybe.

  The truth hurt.

  “See, you have much to talk to him about,” Celeste said, sounding very final, as if she’d discovered his solution for him. When Bastian felt just the opposite, unmoored and unsure.

  Bastian finished his milk. “I don’t even know how to begin.” Especially after tonight, Bastian thought, he probably hates me after what I said.

  “That,” Celeste said, smiling, “is up to you to figure out, Bastian, darling. I can’t solve everything for you. How else would you learn?”

  “I said . . . something to him tonight,” Bastian confessed. “He’s probably not very happy with me right now.”

  “Then apologize to him,” Celeste said.

  Bastian stared at his hands. “I guess I do owe him one.”

  “At least one, I’m sure.”

  “Actually,” Bastian offered, “I think I’ve apologized to him more than I’ve ever apologized to anyone before. Except you.”

  To his horror, Celeste’s eyes filled with tears. “Oh, Bastian,” she said, rising and wrapping her slim arms around him. “You love him.”

  Of course he loved Kian. How could he not?

  * * *

  When Bastian woke up the next morning, he felt resolved. He was going to ask to see Kian first thing in his office and he was going to apologize. An apology with no strings attached and no expectations.

  But of course, he’d been in love for the better part of two years, with no end in sight, so there were some inevitable expectations attached.

  He still wasn’t sure if he’d been wrong or if he’d been right, but Bastian was beginning to realize that it didn’t matter anymore. They couldn’t continue this prolonged dance of not ever. They’d probably even moved beyond not now. They needed to figure out how to move forward into this might actually be happening.

  Bastian caught a glimpse of Kian’s bright hair as he walked out of the locker room and started to hurry over to him, but Kian stopped him with a single, dead-eyed look. He looked awful, white and drawn, shadows under his eyes, like he hadn’t slept, and it appeared that the very last person he wanted to talk to was Bastian.

  He should have gone over and followed through on the apology. He knew that, but for the first time in a very long time, when faced with an uphill battle, he didn’t batten down the hatches and keep attacking. He waved the white flag and he turned back around. Tomorrow, he told himself, even as he knew that if he didn’t do it right now, there was no point in doing it at all.

  When Kian came over to him finally, it was mid-morning, and for half a second, Bastian’s heart beat a little faster.

  “I need the daily assignments,” Kian said, in a dry, utterly professional voice that Bastian had never suspected he even owned.

  “Right, right, of course,” Bastian said, wiping his hands on a towel. They were shaking, and he thrust the towel away awkwardly before snatching it right back. “Let me get them for you.”

  Maybe what he should have done right then was not just apologize but give Kian the job he deserved—Xander’s old job, the sous chef job that had been his forever. But he didn’t, and he didn’t apologize, and as Kian turned and walked away, Bastian believed that this was the very worst.

  He’d always believed before that he and Kian had been professional with each other, but professionalism devoid of Kian’s sunny smile, the light that shone in his eyes, and those single, brief glances that were more like caresses—it was hell on earth and Bastian was never going to survive it.

  Chapter Eight

  Kian couldn’t believe it. Even after everything that Damon had put Xander through, they’d ended up together. Instead of Xander sulking alone, ranging from furious to distraught that Damon had abandoned him during the opening of their restaurant, they were currently cuddled up together on the couch—like Kian didn’t even exist.

  Xander probably wouldn’t be happy to hear that Kian was especially pissed off that of all the people in the world, Xander had ended up blissfully happy and blissfully in love. Prior to meeting Damon, Xander had been bitter and lonely and downright curmudgeonly. While Kian was happy for his best friend, it wasn’t supposed to be Xander who’d found the love of his life—it was supposed to be Kian.

  But then, Kian thought morosely as he tried to avoid watching the happy couple make out, I’ve already found the love of my life.

  Every single fucking time Kian believed that he and Bastian had finally managed to find a way through their situation, instead of pointlessly and endlessly spinning their wheels in the exact same damn spot, Bastian would slam on the brakes.

  It wasn’t like Kian hadn’t thought this through. He had. He’d spent the last two years, falling deeper and harder, and trying to ignore his feelings, but they weren’t going away. The chance they would seemed slimmer than ever. He’d weighed the pros
and the cons, and he’d decided that something needed to change. Anything had to be better than the place they were in now. But Bastian wouldn’t even have a conversation about it. He said, nope, it’s not happening, like he was the one who got all the say in their relationship.

  As far as Kian was concerned, that was fucking bullshit.

  Kian might be young and a little naïve, not as experienced in the culinary arts, but he knew what he wanted. He knew what it might cost, and he was willing to take that chance anyway.

  He couldn’t sit here anymore. As much as he liked them both, Xander and Damon were sickening together, and every second Kian did nothing, he got angrier.

  And he was already really fucking angry.

  You don’t know what you want! You don’t know what you’re giving away.

  Bastian’s words from a month before kept echoing through his head—but he’d been so fucking wrong. Kian knew because Kian wasn’t a fucking idiot. It was definitely a risk, but life was a risk, and why should they settle for this hopeless half relationship when they could have more? Possibly without sacrificing a goddamn thing?

  Kian stood up suddenly.

  “Where you going?” Xander asked lazily, and Kian tried to ignore that Damon was kissing a line up his neck. “You look sort of pissed off.” He sounded surprised, like Kian couldn’t possibly be pissed off.

  Oh, Xander had no fucking clue how pissed off he could be.

  “I am pissed off,” Kian bit off. “And it’s none of your fucking business where I’m going.”

  Xander would almost definitely try to stop him, if he knew, and so Kian wasn’t going to tell him. This was something he needed to do for himself.

  He grabbed his wallet and his keys and climbed into his tiny little used hatchback.

  The drive to Bastian’s house didn’t take very long. He’d thought when he arrived there would be less anger and more nerves, but as he pulled into the circular driveway, he still felt pretty fucking pissed off.