The hospitality was part of the apology, he told himself.
“First thing that came to mind,” Wyatt said. “Sorry. If you wanna give me a list of compliments you’re okay with…” he trailed off, smirking faintly.
Kai was just starting to get the impression that he was going to end up liking Wyatt. Now that they were making an effort to get along, he was turning out to be good company.
“Well, make yourself at home,” Kai said, gesturing to the table. He heard Wyatt sit down while he focused on taking his stew off the stove top and getting his potatoes out of the oven, making an effort to plate them up in a way that would look as impressive as possible.
He knew Wyatt wouldn’t have actually appreciated anything fancy, which was the only reason he wasn’t carefully drizzling a sauce into complex geometric shapes on the plate right now.
Wyatt would have thought that was showing off, and Kai wanted this to seem effortless. As though he made dinner for people all the time.
He didn’t, but Wyatt didn’t need to know that.
“I was kinda expecting to meet Mr. Jones,” Wyatt said. “Uh… another Mr. Jones, I mean.”
Kai snorted. “I know what you mean, but no. Between filming and preparing and emails and test runs and… occasionally sleeping, where would I find the time? And who’d marry me?”
“Yeah, I hear that,” Wyatt said, wry laughter in his voice. “Should’ve gotten married before all this started. Then I’d have someone to come home to.”
Kai hummed in agreement, but that surprised him. He’d assumed Wyatt would have people lining up to be someone for him to come home to, but he probably didn’t have any more time than Kai did. Wyatt was one of few people who understood what this particular job was like.
“Beats working in a hot kitchen twelve hours a day, though,” Wyatt said.
“Does it?” Kai asked. He’d done his share of time in hot kitchens and long shifts, and some days, he would have done anything to go back. It was high-pressure, but it was a different kind of pressure.
Of course, it was one thing, to think that, to fantasize that the grass was always greener, but...
Most days, he knew he couldn’t have done it again. Not in the kind of restaurant he’d want to work in, anyway, and anywhere else he’d be wasting his talents, which in turn would make him resent his job.
No, this was a better job. Even if sometimes it didn’t feel like it.
Even if he suddenly had to share, which wasn’t actually Wyatt’s fault. He’d been saddled with this just the same as Kai had.
“Kinda miss my bakery back home,” Wyatt said.
“You own a bakery?” Kai asked, surprised again. He had a hard time imagining Wyatt sweating over accounts as well as a hot oven.
“No. God no,” Wyatt said. “The place where I started, I mean. My uncle owns it. Four a.m. starts, long days, couldn’t have a normal social life, but… sometimes, I miss it.”
“Well, the social life part hasn’t changed,” Kai said, lifting both plates and bringing them over. “I assume, anyway.”
Wyatt laughed. “This counts as social,” he said, licking his lips as he looked down at his plate. “Man, look at those potatoes. You need to teach me how to get all those crispy edges.”
Kai preened. Wyatt knew exactly how to pay him a compliment.
Which reminded him…
“I need to apologize for… well, lots of things, but first off for calling you ignorant. And a hick. That was… cruel, and I said it because I knew it would hurt. No excuses. It was the wrong thing to do.”
Kai avoided meeting Wyatt’s eyes as he said it, instead busying himself with opening the wine and pouring them a glass each.
Wyatt shrugged, though Kai could see him shrinking back into himself as he picked up his fork. “It’s fine. Been called worse.”
“No you haven’t,” Kai said. “I mean, maybe objectively, but… I know that hurt. And I’m sorry.”
“Apology accepted,” Wyatt said, cracking the crispy outer layer on a potato and dipping it in the liquid from the stew. “And it really is fine. Consider yourself forgiven. I was overreacting because you made me feel stupid.”
“I didn’t intend to,” Kai said. “I thought you’d flirt back.”
It had stung when he hadn’t, though Kai wasn’t about to admit that part. That Wyatt wouldn’t even play pretend with him hurt. He didn’t think he was that repulsive.
“Would’ve if I’d known what was going on,” Wyatt said, raising his fork to his mouth. He made a soft, surprised sound, his eyes widening as he chewed and swallowed. “What’s on the potatoes?”
“Just salt and sumac,” Kai said. “No point in gilding the lily, potatoes are basically perfect as they are.”
“What’s a sumac when it’s at home?” Wyatt asked.
“Oh, it’s uh… it’s a Middle Eastern spice. Lemony, but without the herbal, earthy notes of lemongrass. I…” he paused. “Could describe it to you in embarrassing detail, or just let you eat.”
“Nothing embarrassing about knowing your shit,” Wyatt said. “They don’t call you the spice master for nothing, right?”
“They call me it mostly because I’m heavy-handed with chili flakes and it’s a good marketing gimmick,” Kai said. “But I have a very strong sense of taste. I’m the kind of asshole who can tell you what side of the vineyard a wine grape was grown on from a single sip, y’know?”
Wyatt chuckled. “Now that, I always thought was bullshit.”
Kai shook his head. “Supertasters are real. There are downsides, though. I can’t stand coffee. Or a lot of vegetables, actually, which is embarrassing for a chef. But on the other hand I can name the component parts of a dish without even having to think about it.”
“Huh,” Wyatt said, nodding. “Guess that’s my something new for the day. Well, that and the sumac.”
“I try to be interesting,” Kai responded, starting in on his own meal. He couldn’t help squirming with pleasure as Wyatt made delighted little sounds while he ate, thrilled that this was going over well.
“So uh… I guess we need to talk about the elephant in the room,” Wyatt said once he’d gotten about a quarter of the way through his plate.
“The show?” Kai asked.
“The ratings, and how we’re supposed to keep them up,” Wyatt clarified. “Apparently we’re in the top five shows on the network and the top if you only count online viewing. After two episodes. So I guess it worked.”
Kai shrugged. “Donna said it would. She knows what she’s doing, so I never doubted it.”
“So… it’s probably something we should keep up then, right?” Wyatt asked.
Kai looked at him carefully. “I thought it made you uncomfortable,” he said.
“Only because I had no idea what was going on,” Wyatt explained. “One minute you were being an ass to me and the next you were… commenting on my ass.”
“I don’t remember making any comments on your ass,” Kai said. “But I take your point.”
“I don’t want this to be my last show. I don’t wanna go home with my tail between my legs,” Wyatt said.
“No, me neither,” Kai agreed. “You might’ve noticed that I’m not great at…”
“Getting along with other people?” Wyatt suggested, but it wasn’t unkind. There was a small smile playing around his lips as he kept eating, still making pleased little sounds from time to time. “Is there cinnamon in this?”
Kai chuckled. “A lot,” he said.
“It’s really good,” Wyatt responded.
“I was going to say not great at flirting,” Kai continued. “I don’t get a lot of practice. I’m not… like you.”
“You could be,” Wyatt said. “It’s a skill you learn like anything else, and you’re probably fine. You’re sharp, so that’ll work in your favor. And I mean… I was going out of my way not to respond naturally, and it still apparently worked for the audience.”
Kai snorted. “So it doesn’t h
ave to be great?”
“Nope. I think… if we’re both on the same page, we can pretend we’re really into each other, right? I mean…”
That wouldn’t have been hard. Wyatt was… not Kai’s type, exactly, but the kind of man Kai wished he thought he had a hope in hell with. Not necessarily Wyatt himself, but Wyatt was gorgeous, and kind, and Kai… usually had to pick between one or the other.
Men who were both tended to be out of his league.
And he had a terrible habit of picking gorgeous over kind, which brought a whole different set of problems with it. Kai had never had a boyfriend who hadn’t treated him badly. Hell, Wyatt didn’t even like him and he was being nicer about it than most of the people Kai had been screwing.
So yeah, he could pretend to be into Wyatt. It wouldn’t be much of a challenge.
“Yeah, I think so,” he agreed. “You’re not completely repulsive.”
Wyatt laughed, pausing to drain his wine glass. Kai poured again automatically, his particular version of hospitality mostly involving making sure everyone’s glass stayed full.
“You’re not completely repulsive, either,” he said kindly. “We could even come out of this friends, maybe.”
“To friendship?” Kai raised his own half-full glass.
“Friendship,” Wyatt agreed, touching their glasses together softly. “And keeping our jobs.”
“And keeping our jobs,” Kai repeated, smiling wryly.
Maybe, if they both worked together, they could manage that.
Chapter Nine
Wyatt hummed softly as he rolled up his sleeves to knead, feeling as though the show was going well today. He hadn’t screwed anything up, conversation was flowing easily between him and Kai… he could do this. If this was what it was going to be like, he could absolutely handle it.
At the other end of the counter, Kai chuckled. “You just rolled your sleeves up, didn’t you?”
Wyatt raised an eyebrow. “How’d you know?”
“A soft sigh ripples through the audience every time you get your forearms out,” he said. “I think they like them.”
When Wyatt glanced over, Kai was grinning to himself. This time, though, he was ready for it. Hell, now that he knew to expect it, having Kai compliment him—in his roundabout way—was even nice.
“I think that means we should get to see yours, too,” Wyatt responded, scraping his brioche dough out of the bowl and dumping it on the floured countertop.
Kai turned to look at him, eyes wide.
Wyatt smirked. They might have agreed to a truce, but he could get a little of his own back. Besides, if this was about their respective sex appeal…
“Come on,” Wyatt said, a murmur of agreement from the audience backing him up. “Sleeves.”
Kai sighed, setting his knife down gently on the cutting board. He stepped back, long, elegant fingers unbuttoning the cuffs of the deep navy shirt he was wearing.
The wardrobe department kept putting him in blues and greys, which were a good look on him. Clearly, they’d figured out that people didn’t watch cooking shows just for the food.
Wyatt wasn’t sure they watched for the food at all. Not with someone like Kai working methodically and elegantly, his satin-smooth voice explaining every step along the way. Wyatt was going to have to catch up on his old shows.
For research purposes, obviously.
“I’d just like to state for the record that this is a bad idea when you’re working with anything hot that might spit at you,” he said, cuffing his first sleeve efficiently and then moving onto the next one.
Lean, corded muscles moved under his smooth skin as he worked. Wyatt’s mouth was suddenly dry.
A wolf whistle from the audience snapped him out of staring, and he turned his attention back to Kai’s face, grinning broadly even as he wrestled with a surprising spark of arousal coiling around the pit of his stomach.
It was just a forearm. This was stupid, but…
Wyatt had known, intellectually, that Kai was attractive. That wasn’t in dispute. He was pretty, with delicate, elfin features, and his eyes sparkled when he smiled, and he was tall and thin but not… gangly, or anything. He had shoulders broad enough to make his frame look balanced, and Wyatt was just realizing that under his clothes he was all skin and muscle.
This was the first time Wyatt had felt attracted to him, though. All because he’d rolled up his goddamn sleeves.
He was way too bi for this.
“I think they like it,” he said, forcing himself to focus on pretending to drool over Kai instead of actually drooling over him.
Wyatt went back to his bread, ignoring the way the tips of his ears were burning.
“The trick to getting a nice, soft brioche dough is kneading the hell out of it,” he explained, figuring that if he concentrated on what he was doing, he could stop thinking about Kai’s forearms.
Or the rest of him.
Hell, what would his thighs look like?
Wyatt couldn’t risk a glance right now, but his brain was happy to give him a full-color artist’s impression of exactly how Kai would look naked.
“Which is why your forearms are so much more impressive than mine,” Kai said. “I’m not made for kneading.”
“I dunno, I think they liked your forearms,” Wyatt said, looking up at the audience.
Well, the bright lights in the general direction he knew the audience was, anyway.
“What do you guys think? Cheer if you’re into Kai’s forearms.”
The cheer that roared up in the audience was loud enough to make Wyatt blush, and he wasn’t even the one being cheered for. When he looked over at Kai—definitely not looking at his thighs, definitely not looking at his thighs—he could see him blushing even through the half-inch of makeup they’d slapped on him.
He really didn’t need it. If anything, he was prettier without. He probably rolled out of bed looking incredible.
Wyatt swallowed.
He really didn’t need to picture Kai in, near, or on a bed right now.
“Next week,” he began, forming his ball of dough and putting it in a bread tin. “You can have him in a t-shirt. Even if I have to peel his shirt off myself.”
Wyatt realized what he’d said a moment too late, and glanced over again to see Kai just looking at him, eyes wide.
He’d gone too far. After all the crap he gave Kai about making him uncomfortable, now he’d done it.
“I’d like to see you try,” Kai said, the barest hint of a smirk playing around his lips.
The thing was, Wyatt would also have liked to see himself try.
Not that he planned on making a move or anything. It was no big deal, really.
Kai was hot. He’d known that from the beginning. It just seemed a little more obvious right now.
“Yeah, well, we’ll see,” Wyatt said, wanting to distance himself from the conversation. He set his brioche dough aside and covered it with a clean towel before turning back to the audience.
“Now, if you make this at home that needs about an hour to rise, and then you’ll knock it down again and let it rise, then bake it. Instructions are on the website, like always, but no one wants to watch bread rise for two hours, so I’ve got one I made earlier,” he said, grinning.
He loved saying that.
“So we’re gonna cut this and fill it with strawberries and cream, which is perfect for a summer picnic,” he said, heading to the fridge.
Wyatt worked in silence as Kai explained what he was doing, pouring cream into a bowl and slicing strawberries carefully. He wasn’t quick with a knife like Kai was, but he could just about manage to cut up a few giant strawberries with a paring knife without putting his fingers in too much danger.
“Those strawberries look amazing,” Kai said once he was done explaining, while Wyatt was sprinkling balsamic vinegar and sugar over the ones he’d cut up.
“You can have one if you want,” Wyatt said, nudging the remainder of the pack over.
“Both my hands are occupied,” Kai responded. He sounded genuinely disappointed by that.
Wyatt hesitated for a second, an image flashing in his mind that made his stomach flip.
It was too much, on the one hand, and he’d already come close to crossing a line today.
On the other hand, Kai wanted a strawberry, and Wyatt wanted ratings. They both wanted ratings.
Why the hell shouldn’t he play this up? They’d agreed to it, after all, and it was clearly working.
Wyatt picked out a nice, fat strawberry and rolled it in sugar, holding it by the end and then heading over to offer to Kai, holding it up to his lips.
Kai’s eyes widened, and he turned just a fraction to look at Wyatt. There was a moment where Wyatt wasn’t sure he wouldn’t refuse, but then he parted his lips, took most of the strawberry in his teeth, and bit down, separating the flesh from the core expertly with just his mouth.
He made a soft, happy noise, closing his eyes as he chewed and then licking his lips.
Wyatt’s mouth was dry all over again.
It was completely unfair that he’d been given a co-host who could just… radiate sensuality as easily as he could breathe.
Another wolf whistle from the audience, followed by laughter, snapped Wyatt out of staring at Kai again. Whoever was doing had done him two favors today.
He got the feeling it was Donna. She’d taken to watching the shows being filmed from the audience.
“I could get used to you hand feeding me,” Kai teased, though Wyatt could see him blushing again, too.
“You wish,” Wyatt responded, going back to his brioche with his heart pounding in his chest.
Fine. Kai was hot, and he was kind of into him now that they weren’t fighting.
That didn’t mean he was going to say anything about it. They were just flirting for ratings, and enjoying it was okay.
It didn’t have to mean anything at all.
Chapter Ten
Kai looked around the empty studio to make sure he was alone before making a beeline for the fridge, extracting the strawberries and cream Wyatt had put away earlier. No sense in wasting them, and the strawberries had tasted even better than Kai expected.
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