Chapter Nine
E van was pissed. Miles had (very) belatedly realized this last night, and had spent the morning realizing just how pissed he was.
The thing about Evan was that he wasn’t like anyone else Miles knew.
Nobody else could have been that angry and just hid it all, so completely, even the person he was angry at didn’t know.
Nobody else could have kissed him, and been as hard as he was, lost to the pleasure Miles was giving him, and feel the anger he did.
Miles felt incredibly stupid that he hadn’t seen it before, but then he reminded himself that Evan must have worked hard to conceal it.
It wasn’t like Miles was incredibly oblivious.
The truth was that Evan hadn’t wanted him to know, and then suddenly he was practically shouting about how it had been too many days with too few apologies.
A tiny voice whispered in the back of Miles’ head that Evan must be high maintenance, which was why he was so hot and so available, and yet so damn difficult, but Miles didn’t think that was really it. There was something else going on, and Miles was determined to figure out what it was.
Even if Evan ended up right, and nothing else ended up happening between them, he still wanted to know.
Which was a state of mind that Miles wasn’t used to.
He was used to not really caring too much about anything that wasn’t in the kitchen.
Now the joke was on him, because his life had been in a state of chaos ever since he’d met Evan, and he still couldn’t walk away.
It would have been way easier, Miles reflected miserably, skulking behind Evan as he pushed the cart through the restaurant supply store.
“I can practically hear you back there pouting,” Evan announced as he examined the list Miles had complied, and compared it to the display of whisks before them.
It was a sad state of affairs that they could be in his personal heaven, and Miles could barely even motivate himself to look at the tempting array of culinary tools in front of him.
“Are you going to let me pick out whisks?” Evan demanded when Miles didn’t answer. “Or are you going to do your job?”
Last night, when he’d pulled the quiche out of the oven, he’d stared at it, realizing that he didn’t want to eat it alone, even though when he’d decided to make it, he’d never even dreamt that Evan would show up at his door.
That was the problem with Evan. He burst in, and when he left, nothing was the same. There was an Evan-sized hole in the life that Miles had always considered very satisfactory.
It wasn’t fair, but it was the bed he had made, and now he had to deal with it. Miles reached over to the whisks and grabbed a handful without even really looking at them, tossing them into the cart.
Evan shook his head and did that cute little half eye roll that usually meant he wanted to do some big production of an eye roll, but decided it wasn’t worth the energy.
“When we’re making . . . Twinkies or dongs, or dings, or whatever the hell you bake,” Evan said snidely, “and you need the right whisk for the job, I’m going to remind you of this moment, and how it’s all your fault.”
“Believe me, I’m sure I won’t need that reminder,” Miles retorted fervently. “Probably because you’ll never let me forget it.”
“Only you,” Evan said, pushing the cart forward with purpose, “would be annoyed I was pissed you didn’t apologize after insulting me.”
Miles wanted to find the even keel of the last few days—when they’d compromised and even found a way to work together—but it was completely lost. Maybe it was the kissing.
Maybe it had been the almost blowjob. Maybe it was the anger simmering right under the peaceful surface.
But it wasn’t going to go back to how it had been only yesterday. That much was obvious.
It wasn’t right, but he silently blamed Evan. Maybe if he hadn’t kept his fucking mouth shut that he was angry then Miles would have apologized right away and prevented all this.
“Do we need anything else?” Miles asked, and gave himself a gold star, because at least he was making an attempt to converse politely.
Evan leveled him an incredulous look. “It’s your list.”
“Yeah, but it’s in your hands,” Miles retorted.
To Miles’ surprise, Evan did actually look down and review the list. “I think we’ve got it all. Oh no, wait, we need silicone molds still.”
“Joy,” Miles muttered under his breath, even though silicone molds were usually something he really enjoyed.
If Evan ignored that comment, and instead pushed the cart over to the right aisle, then Miles told himself they were definitely better off.
Fifteen minutes later, they were checked out and just about done packing the bags into Evan’s small compact.
“I have a lunch meeting,” Evan announced when they both got in the car, “but after, we can head over to your place and work all afternoon. That good with you?”
Miles bit back a snide comment that he didn’t really have a choice. He’d thought when he left the restaurant industry, his schedule would stop being dictated by someone else. It turned out that wasn’t the case.
But instead of bitching, he nodded. There was some recipe research he could do while he waited for Evan. He’d planned on doing it last night, but after Evan left, he’d been in too much of a bad mood to do much of anything, including eat a slice of the quiche he’d been so excited over.
“Good.” Evan sounded pleased with himself that he was back in control. Miles didn’t like it, but he also didn’t know what to do about it.
They stopped by Miles’ apartment and unpacked the bags of supplies. Maybe Evan didn’t want to fight anymore either, because by the time they made it to the Five Points office, the biting tension of earlier had been replaced by a frosty silence.
Miles wasn’t sure it was an improvement, but he also didn’t know how to fix it. So he kept his head down and when Evan grabbed his laptop from the cubicle next door, Miles acted like he wasn’t even there.
When Lucy found him an hour later, he was pretending to do recipe research, but instead knew he was just staring broodingly at the laptop screen.
“You look down,” she said, and the kindness in her voice was so welcome, he couldn’t help but turn towards it.
“Rough few days,” Miles admitted.
“We’re heading over to the good coffee place, you want to come with?”
Lucy hadn’t ever invited him to accompany her and her kitchen minions before, but it was a no-brainer for Miles to say yes.
First, he loved the good coffee place. It was better in every way compared to the Starbucks downstairs.
Second, Lucy had worked at Five Points since the inception of the culinary department.
Almost as long as Evan. Maybe she knew something about why he was so damn prickly.
Maybe he should have asked Evan himself, but Miles figured he had already tried that last night, and while it had worked for a little while, Evan had eventually clammed up and then he’d run away.
“Oh yeah, I could definitely use a pick-me-up,” Miles said and shut his laptop.
While they were waiting for the elevator to take them down to the ground floor, Lucy looked over with a compassionate smile on her face. “Evan running you ragged?” she asked, tucking a lock of short honey-blond hair behind one ear.
Evan had told him once that Reed had hired Lucy a few years ago, when he’d struggled to handle both the kitchen management duties and the producing aspects of his job.
Miles had been surprised to learn that even with her efficiency and obvious skill set, she didn’t have any formal culinary training.
“It’s tough reconciling two visions for one show,” Miles said as they stepped on the elevator together.
Lucy gave him a sympathetic grimace. “I can only imagine. Evan is pretty driven and usually very sure that his vision is the right one.”
“Yeah,” Miles said awkwardly. He wanted to ask, but he also didn’t want to go on record as asking. “I didn’t realize the extent of it until last night. I didn’t know he’d started at Five Points as an intern.”
“Oh yeah,” Lucy said as they stepped off.
Her two assistants, Steph and Chloe, were waiting outside the building.
Steph hadn’t even taken her work apron off, and it was dotted with bright swatches of some sort of red berry mixture.
“He surprised everyone, but I don’t think he ever surprised himself.
He always knew he’d get the producing job.
The rest of us just came on board a little later. ”
“Are you talking about Evan?” Steph piped up.
Chloe was lagging behind, typing something frantically on her phone. “Her girlfriend,” Lucy whispered with a cute little smirk as she nudged her shoulder against Miles’. “They’re practically inseparable and very adorable.”
“Yeah,” Miles said, at the same time that Lucy said, “He’s feeling a little overwhelmed by Steamroller Evan.”
“Steamroller Evan?” Miles’ eyebrows raised and he hoped—prayed—that he wasn’t breaking any sort of unspoken professional conduct to gossip about his producer outside of the office.
But he was desperate for any sort of insider information he could use to convince Evan they were both on the same side.
And also, that Miles didn’t dislike him, no matter what that email might have made Evan believe.
“Shhhhh,” Chloe said, proving that while she’d been texting, she’d also been listening to the conversation. “You know he hates it when you call him that.”
“I don’t care,” Steph said stubbornly, “if you get in his way, and you won’t get out of it, he’ll absolutely steamroll you.”
Three sets of eyes turned towards Miles as they entered the coffee shop, and he threw up his hands. “Ladies, let me get some caffeine first.”
Unfortunately he didn’t get much of a reprieve, as there was actually nobody in line.
When he ordered a muffin with his coffee, Lucy leaned over and whispered in his ear, “Don’t get the banana walnut, get the white chocolate cranberry. Trust me.”