Chapter Eight
N ot even five minutes after the kiss, the kitchen was overrun by Lucy and Steph and Chloe, Lucy’s crew of prep assistants. Evan tried not to think what they would’ve thought if they’d come in just a tiny bit earlier and caught him kissing Miles.
Or Miles kissing him.
Evan still wasn’t sure exactly how it had happened, only that it had happened at all, and if he was being very honest with himself, the world had shook and the floor had rocked and when he’d opened his eyes again, nothing was the same.
It was the first kiss he’d always dreamt he’d get from Miles, and he’d let himself be persuaded into it because he’d imagined it would be like the first time.
It hadn’t been anything like the first time. It had been dreamy and wonderful and perfect.
It couldn’t happen again, but Evan could already tell from the determined glint in Miles’ eyes that he wanted it to. That he believed it was only a matter of time before Evan gave in and let it happen again.
Miles thought he knew Evan, but all he’d seen was the professional surface he’d spent years cultivating. He didn’t know anything about the steel inside that had been forged through even more shitty years making the best of bad situations.
And he’d seen enough in those situations that he wasn’t going to let himself be swayed into a situation where he liked Miles and Miles just thought it was convenient and easy and a simple way to convince Evan to go along with whatever he suggested.
Evan was never going to be the guy who fell for that and then let it drag on. It was necessary for Miles to understand that now.
He scrolled through his email, pretending like he was actually working, while he listened to Lucy and her minions divide up the remaining pain au chocolat and exclaim all over the place about how talented he was, how innovative, how flawless his execution was.
Evan could see the remaining half of his abandoned pain au chocolat on the other counter, and he had a visceral memory of how much he’d really hated Miles when he’d taken that first bite.
He’d hated that everything Miles had said was true, and he’d tried to hate that smug look as Miles watched him discover all his truths.
The final, and worst, truth being that he didn’t hate Miles at all.
It was just ironic that Lucy and the assistants were so excited about Miles’ talents, when Miles had only been tangentially involved. They wouldn’t be squeeing all over the damn place if they’d discover Evan had made the pain au chocolat they were currently ingesting.
“Someday,” Lucy was saying, “I want to take you to this little bakery down the street. The choux are a revelation. And I want to pick your brain as you figure out how they do it.”
Evan tried not to grind his teeth together as Miles talked with Lucy. He shouldn't have been jealous. He and Miles weren't exactly friends, and Miles was a decent enough human being that Evan couldn't deny him workplace friends. Even if they weren't him.
“Are we done?” he asked as he stood, gathering his papers, notebook and laptop. “I have a meeting.” He didn’t have a meeting, and if Lucy went and looked at his schedule later, she’d know he’d manufactured a reason to escape.
Miles glanced over, and Evan steeled himself against the silent apology in his gaze. “Yeah, of course, if you’ve got to split, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”
It wasn’t his proudest moment, but later as he collapsed on his couch, feet and brain and heart hurting, he realized what he’d done. He’d given Miles all the advantages, all the power, all because he’d run away.
What he should do was get up, and go right over to where Miles was probably in his apartment, cooking something delicious, and take some of that power back.
His heart and something deeper, a fault line that ran right through the core of him, quaked at the thought.
He could do something. It was a huge risk, the sort of unimaginable risk that Evan couldn’t have conceptualized even a few months ago.
But the promotion, even as uncertain as it was, had begun to give him the sort of solid foundation he’d always craved.
And once life had become less of a rat race towards one goal or another, always something necessary and vitally important, Evan had become unbearably aware of all the couples that surrounded him. And the contentment their happy relationships gave them.
He’d seen Reed grow confident and happier the longer he was with Jordan. He’d watched Nick worry and stew and pray as his husband, Colin, had figured out where he wanted to play football next. He’d seen one of Lucy’s assistants blossom as she fell in love with her girlfriend.
Love was something Evan had only vaguely heard about, because any kind of love was constantly in short supply in the homes he’d grown up in. There were always more important priorities.
But he’d fulfilled those priorities and they weren’t yelling at him anymore.
He was clothed and fed and had a solid roof over his head.
He had money in the bank. He wasn’t living a terrified hand-to-mouth existence anymore.
He could afford to be exploratory, even if the possibility scared the shit out of him.
But even the fear wasn’t enough to stop him. Even the promise he’d made to himself only an hour earlier that he wouldn’t let Miles kiss him again.
That was the thing. He wasn’t going to let Miles do anything. He was going to be the one doing the kissing this time. The thought was fucking terrifying, but Evan had never let fear stop him.
“This is probably a mistake,” he told himself as he got to his feet and went to look for shoes. “This is almost definitely a mistake.”
Yet he still found the shoes, shoved his feet in them and still tromped one door down the hall.
Miles answered on the third knock, looking very surprised to see Evan on the other side of his doorway.
“Sorry about earlier,” Evan said in a rush because suddenly he didn’t know what to say.
He didn’t know how to go from the awkward realization he was standing on Miles’ doorstep to kissing him like he wanted to.
His lack of any experience besides just sort of falling into bed with people had never seemed daunting. It was now.
He didn’t have a clue how to seduce someone. It seemed to come naturally to Miles, because when he wasn’t pissing Evan off, he was trying to charm him—usually successfully. Evan didn’t do that; Evan couldn’t do that.
Miles lifted an eyebrow. “Are you apologizing again for kissing me back? I didn’t think you had a bad time on the second try.” He was holding a whisk in one hand, and he had flour on his shirt.
“I’m sorry,” Evan said because all he could do apparently was apologize. And even he knew that apologies usually weren’t preludes to anything sexy. “I interrupted you . . . cooking something.”
Miles pushed the door further open, and just shrugged. “Is it an interruption if you do it regularly enough? Besides, I’m making dinner, you might as well come in if you haven’t eaten.”
Evan had been in too much of a hurry to escape the office and his inconvenient, annoying jealousy to grab food on his way home, and his fridge was empty except for three bottles of fancy mustard and half a bottle of sauvignon blanc.
His stomach rumbled as he stepped into the apartment and he smelled something buttery baking.
“You eat too much butter,” Evan said as he toed his shoes off near the front mat.
“At least butter’s natural. It isn’t processed shit,” Miles called from the kitchen.
This apartment was basically the same as his own, except for the kitchen, which Evan could acknowledge was drastically different.
Not the layout. Not the countertops, not the appliances. Just the flour dusting the countertops, and something delicious sautéing on the stove, and the general appearance of a room being used.
Evan mostly used his to unbox takeout containers and to reheat the leftovers the next day.
“You want some wine?” Miles asked, gesturing to the bottle on the counter. “I’ve actually been to this winery, so I can vouch that it’s pretty good.”
Evan had just graduated from buying the very cheap wine at the grocery store, the wine that was a whisper above the box wine and the huge jugs of white zinfandel. He’d never actually been to a winery; in fact his only trip to Napa had been the six hour round-trip he’d made to collect Miles.
It wasn’t like he didn’t want to expand his horizons—Reed was always coaching him to do just that—but horizon-expanding took money and, until recently, he’d never been in any position to indulge.
He poured himself a glass of the cabernet sauvignon and sniffed it, carefully swirling the glass like Reed had taught him the first time he’d taken him to a nice restaurant for dinner.
“It is pretty good,” Evan admitted. Even to his relatively uncultured palate. And it might give him the liquid courage to close the few feet of distance Miles was giving him.
“I know the sommelier who’s in charge there,” Miles said, and his voice grew grittier as he stirred the pan on the stove and then pulled it off the heat.
Evan almost asked if it was an ex-boyfriend but Miles seemed like he was going to tell him even if he didn’t really want to know about all the people Miles had kissed before him. Especially not when Evan was planning on doing more kissing.
“You know Wyatt?” Miles asked, shaking the sautéed veggies in the pan and carefully stirring them into the bowl on the counter. “My old roommate?”
Evan barely remembered anything about his trip to Napa, except the lighter fluid stench coming off Miles and the guilt in his eyes. But he nodded anyway, even though all he had was an impression of a big guy, built like a linebacker with sun-bleached hair.