by Beth Bolden
Kian raised an eyebrow. “And you think this will fix it?” He still wasn’t convinced. He desperately wanted to go back to work for Bastian, he desperately wanted to take this job, but there was still a part of him that believed what Bastian had claimed two years ago.
They couldn’t work together and have this too. It wouldn’t ever work.
“I’m not expecting it to work out all the time,” Bastian said, “but I know I have to try. I can’t let you walk out again, not like before. That . . . it killed me. I thought the worst was when we kept our hands off each other, but that wasn’t the worst. Not having you here, in my life, that was the worst.”
“Neither of us has changed,” Kian said slowly, “I don’t know how this won’t end in disaster, all over again. And if it does, I’m not sure I can handle it.”
Bastian’s eyes were intense on his. “I’m not a different man. I can’t be a different man. I am the man I am, the good and the bad. But I’m more aware now. That’s all I can be. And you’ve grown up. You’re assertive and confident and challenge me in ways that I never expected.”
“And you’re okay with that?” There was no way to keep the disbelief from his voice. Bastian had claimed to try before and had failed utterly.
“I don’t hate it as much as I thought I would,” Bastian admitted. “I know we can’t . . . we can’t ever really be equals. Not really. I know that’s what you wanted. I know that now. But I think this gives us the best chance to be more equal. Your best chance to grow, a little bit outside of my shadow.”
Kian didn’t say anything for a long moment. There was a part of this that felt too good to be true, too perfect almost, but this didn’t feel like it had with the chef de cuisine job which he’d known wasn’t right. This felt far more like the right sort of beginning.
There were so many paths open to him right now. He could keep working for Barrel House. He could find a job at another restaurant. He could take this job now, that Bastian was offering him.
The truth was, he knew what he wanted, but he was fucking terrified of losing Bastian again. Of losing everything he’d ever cared about.
“I’m afraid,” Kian admitted, his voice cracking. He’d never let Bastian see any weakness, always afraid that it would mean Bastian’s admiration and his respect and his love would die in the face of it. And maybe it would have, before, but Bastian was growing.
All Kian could do was trust that he was ready to see it. And if there wasn’t any trust between them, how could they ever hope to have a personal or a professional relationship?
“I know,” Bastian said very softly. “I am too. Absolutely fucking terrified.”
And suddenly, shockingly, the way forward felt very clear. Kian knew what he should do, what was absolutely the right move for him, and it also happened to be exactly what he wanted.
He reached over and grabbed the pen that Lindsay had left on the table, and without a word, signed the contract, pushing it over towards Bastian after he was done.
Bastian grinned, so bright it nearly hurt. “You won’t regret it, I swear,” he promised, and Kian leaned forward, his mouth only an inch or so away from Bastian’s.
“I probably will, at some point,” Kian said thoughtfully, “but you’re worth the risk.”
Bastian’s eyes were dark, deep wells, staring right into Kian’s. “I am?” For the first time, the inherent cockiness in his tone was more subdued. And that, Kian realized, was his fear talking.
Fear of things falling apart, fear of the messiness overwhelming them, fear of failure, fear of not being enough, of Kian not loving him enough to stick out all the times when he wanted to quit because it was too hard.
Bastian probably felt that the fear he felt was an embarrassing weakness, something to push Kian away, but in the end all it did was convince Kian completely that they’d both do whatever it took to make this work.
“You’re worth everything,” Kian admitted and leaned forward that last inch to kiss him. It had been too long since the last time they’d kissed, and even though he knew now that they had all the time in the world, he didn’t want to wait another second.
Epilogue
Eighteen months later
“I think this is a very bad idea.” Bastian wasn’t perfect, would never be perfect, and still liked to construct all sorts of walls to keep his deeper feelings from the world. The only difference now was that at least when he constructed the walls, he built them with Kian inside.
Kian rolled his eyes. “It’s going to be great. How could it not? It’s a wedding.”
“Your friends all hate me,” Bastian said, and, unusually, sounded like he actually regretted this.
It was hard, but not impossible, to keep his chuckle hidden inside. It was just so unusual to see Bastian on such shaky ground, uncertain of how he’d be received. What Kian had discovered more and more over the months, as their personal relationship deepened and their professional relationship flourished, was that he’d always had these feelings, he just was total shit at expressing them. But now he’d started to, with Kian as the only witness.
“You didn’t seem to mind them hating you when they all worked for you,” Kian pointed out wryly.
Bastian thought about this for a long moment, then gave a sharp nod, his eyes following Kian from the closet to the suitcase on the bed, as he packed for their trip down to southern California.
Bastian had gotten home a little earlier, so he was already packed, and he kept eyeing his duffel, sitting on the floor by the bedroom door, with extreme trepidation.
“Did you do laundry this week?” Kian asked from the depths of the closet. The shelf holding his jeans was pretty bare. He’d meant to do some earlier, but Cluster, the small plates bistro adjacent to Terroir, was in the middle of a menu overhaul, and he’d been too busy.
“Did I do laundry?” Bastian appeared in the doorway, arms crossed over his bare chest. “Do I ever do laundry?”
“Not if you can help it,” Kian sighed.
“I have time to throw in a quick load now,” Bastian offered.
Four years ago when Kian had walked into Terroir for the first time, he never would have dreamt that one day Bastian would be offering to do his laundry.
The problem was that even though he was a relentless perfectionist in the kitchen, it turned out that Bastian was fucking awful at chores like laundry. Last year, he’d even managed to turn an entire load of whites bright pink even though there had been nothing red to be found.
Socks regularly disappeared, stains didn’t come out, and even though Bastian, who hated failure with the fire of a thousand suns, meticulously folded every item, somehow everything always came out wrinkled.
Kian shot him a loving look. It was sort of adorable how bad Bastian was at laundry. “I think I’m going to have to pass on that offer.”
A frustrated noise escaped Bastian. “I was going to be careful.”
When you were dating and living together with someone like Bastian Aquino, diplomacy was of the utmost importance. “I’m sure you were,” Kian said, with the straightest face he could manage.
“I know it’s mind-boggling that someone with Michelin stars is unable to do a load of laundry,” Bastian said with a disgusted sigh. “God knows I know how pathetic I am.”
“Hey,” Kian said, reaching up and brushing a lingering kiss on his cheek, rough with stubble after a very long day, “if the worst thing you ever do is fuck up my clothes, I’m good with that. I’m just going to run a load myself. There’s time before we leave tomorrow for it to dry.”
Kian pulled a selection of jeans and shirts out of the hamper and then Bastian trailed after him as he went down the hall to start the washing machine.
“It wasn’t that I didn’t care that they hated me, before,” Bastian said.
Oh, so they were back to the prior subject of conversation—that all of Kian’s best friends didn’t like him, their dislike long predating Kian and Bastian’s relationship.
Kian
shot him a look over his shoulder. He hadn’t given a single fuck that they’d hated him. He’d been not-so-affectionately called the Bastard and he’d carried the insult of that nickname regally, like a fur cloak.
“Oh, really?” Kian asked, turning back to him after hitting the start button on the washer.
“I didn’t like it,” Bastian claimed.
Kian rolled his eyes as they returned to the bedroom so he could finish packing. “They don’t hate you. It’ll be fine.”
Celeste had texted him this morning, telling him that she’d told Bastian the same thing. Apparently this was something he was really worried about.
“Listen,” Kian continued, pushing Bastian down on the edge of the bed they shared, and climbing onto his lap. He’d grown another inch and had begun to fill out his lanky body a little, but Bastian would always be bigger than him—something Kian hoped would never stop being hot. “This is a really happy occasion that is actually not about you. Just relax and try to have a little fun. That’s what you typically do at weddings.”
Bastian glared. “I know what to do at a wedding.”
“Oh?” Kian raised his eyebrow. “And how many of them have you taken off to go to in the last . . . let’s say . . . ten years?”
“I’ve been a little busy.” Despite his words, Bastian’s grumpy expression was beginning to crack, and Kian could see the beginnings of a smile. And he could feel the beginnings of something else stirring under his crotch. This position turned Bastian on just as much as it did Kian.
“A little advice then,” Kian murmured, leaning in a little until they were almost kissing. Nearly, but not close enough. “Smile. Laugh. Eat. Drink. Enjoy yourself.”
Bastian’s arms wound around his middle and pushed Kian down, brushing their growing erections together. “Are you going to be there?”
“Yeah, I am.”
“Then it shouldn’t be very hard for me to do any of those things,” Bastian admitted.
Even though they’d been together a year and a half, Bastian being sappy and sweet still turned Kian’s world upside down. It shouldn’t have been unexpected by this point, but it always was, in the best possible way.
Kian leaned down and kissed him long and slow and filthy. “I love you,” he whispered against his lips.
Bastian didn’t answer but from the way he crawled up his body, Kian knew exactly what his answer was.
* * *
Bastian hated weddings.
If there’d been a way to avoid this one without hurting Kian’s feelings or looking like a complete asshole, he would’ve done it. But considering that one of the grooms was a former employee of Terroir, and one of Kian’s best friends, it was impossible. Add to those facts the other fact that both grooms were up-and-coming in the culinary scene, and this was the wedding.
That still didn’t mean that Bastian had to like it.
“It’s awful, isn’t it?”
Bastian glanced up from where he’d been minutely examining his program, stuffed and uncomfortable in his suit, and saw a blonde woman, a rueful expression on her face wearing a turquoise dress with flowers strewn across it.
“You must be Kian’s boyfriend,” she said, settling in next to him. Bastian, who’d been actively trying to keep his expression neutral, frowned.
“I’m Tabitha King,” she said, holding out her hand.
Bastian let his frown deepen, even though there was a strong possibility that Kian would see it and be disappointed in him. This was a wedding, and it was supposed to be filled with love and beauty and happiness, right?
Bastian was more intimately acquainted with those concepts than he’d ever been, but the visible outpouring still made him nervous.
“Do I know you?” he asked, shaking her hand briskly. She had a surprisingly firm handshake and a way of looking at you that stripped most pretense away.
“I’m Ryan’s best friend,” she said.
It took him a long moment to place who Ryan was, and then he remembered Kian mentioning that Wyatt, his old employee, had ended up dating Ryan Flores, the baseball player.
“But this isn’t Wyatt’s wedding,” Bastian objected.
She tilted her head and the look in her blue eyes was as sharp as one of his Japanese steel knives. “Correct. I also work at Five Points, which is why I’m here.”
“So you work with Miles and Evan, then,” Bastian said, a little pleased that he’d finally managed to figure out the somewhat complex personal relationships. He’d never claim to be a very good boyfriend in that regard. His focus was too single-minded. It had expanded to include Kian, but not Kian’s circle of friends, most of whom, unfortunately, were ex-employees and hated him.
Tabitha shrugged. “Not really, but they’re two really nice guys.”
It dawned on Bastian that not only was she clearly friendly with Wyatt, she would also be friendly with Miles. Therefore she knew exactly who he was, yet she’d still identified him as “Kian’s boyfriend,” and not as Bastian Aquino, head chef of Terroir.
“Miles used to work for me,” Bastian admitted, even though technically Miles had worked for René, the head of pastry at Terroir.
“I know.” Tabitha eyed him steadily.
Bastian sighed. “Then you know three quarters of the wedding party hates my guts.”
“Thus making you the most interesting person at this wedding,” Tabitha pointed out, “and why I’m over here talking to you, instead of sucking up to my boss.”
“I’m flattered,” Bastian said dryly.
“At least I’m not asking you when you’re going to do this,” she said, giving a general wave around the wedding preparations.
He adored Kian, and he was almost completely certain that Kian adored him, but this sort of event, with the proliferation of flowers and silky tents and strung lights and a full wedding party—not his type of thing at all.
“So you thought you’d come over here not to ask when we’re getting married and also because I’m the most interesting yet most hated person at the wedding?”
She laughed. “Something like that. And because you were sitting alone, and I know what that’s like.”
When Kian had told him that Miles had asked him to be one of his attendants, it hadn’t struck him right away that meant that he would be on his own, surrounded by people who either knew him personally and didn’t like him or who had definitely heard the worst of the rumors about him.
He’d fully expected to have to sit through the ceremony by himself, even though Kian had insisted that he could sit with Damon and Ryan. He and Damon had come to an uneasy truce, but they weren’t ever going to be friends, and after getting a glimpse of Ryan, in sunglasses and a very sharp suit, with a trail of fans following him around, Bastian had decided he wasn’t going to go to the trouble to introduce himself.
“Well, thank you,” Bastian said stiffly.
She laughed again. “I couldn’t drag my husband to this—he hates weddings too—and he’s working besides, so you’re stuck with me. Though,” she added speculatively, “you need to let me introduce you to Ryan after the ceremony.”
It would be so easy to brush her off. It wasn’t like Bastian hadn’t been doing it his whole damn life, never letting a single person close.
He’d thought he could just let Kian in, and leave the rest of the world out, but the longer they dated, the more impossible that seemed.
This wedding was the prime example of that, and he was beginning to realize that loving Kian came with all this other stuff too—and other people, one of whom was sitting next to him right now.
“Sure, I’d like that,” Bastian said, voice gruff and suddenly swamped with emotion because Kian had brought life with him when he’d let him in.
He’d brought people and joy and vitality and a messiness that Bastian didn’t always like, but in the end, enjoyed nevertheless.
“I knew you’d come around,” Tabitha said impudently. “You’re really not as scary as your reputation promised.”
>
Bastian opened his mouth, very willing to promise that he was as scary as it took, but then the music started—a goddamn string trio complete with harpist.
He leaned closer to her, and said under his breath, “I didn’t realize that Miles was the string trio type.”
Tabitha smothered a laugh. “You clearly haven’t spent much time with Evan.”
So apparently Evan was the string trio type in their relationship. Frankly, Bastian thought as the ceremony began, he wasn’t sure he could picture Miles settling down with a string trio type. Even when Miles had been filming his pastry videos, he’d always been so casual and laid-back.
But then Evan and Miles approached the officiant, dressed similarly in gray suits, and their hands gripped tightly together. Evan’s white shirt was buttoned up and topped off with a pale yellow bow tie. Miles had not only eschewed the bow tie, he’d left the top two buttons of his shirt unbuttoned.
And somehow, despite that clear outer difference illustrating their inner differences, they couldn’t take their eyes off each other, the love radiating out of them so palpable, that Bastian had to wonder if he and Kian were so obvious.
They’d spent forever hiding their feelings, so maybe they weren’t. Or maybe, like Michel had told him wryly and more than once, they’d always been shitty at hiding. Everyone had always known, but it had only been that worm Mark who had figured out a way to twist it, to make their feelings for each other so negative.
Right before he spoke, Bastian realized that he recognized the officiant. That was Reed Ryan, and somehow Evan and Miles had managed to drag him out of the kitchen, which was impressive.
“Ladies and gentlemen, family and friends, welcome,” the officiant said, smiling wide. “I’m Reed Ryan, and I’ve had the pleasure and the pride of knowing Evan and Miles for several years now, and I was so touched when they asked me to officiate their wedding. Of course, I was also terrified because I’m the worst public speaker ever, so please bear with me.”