Chapter Ten
“A re you insane?” Evan hissed at Miles as they walked down the hall from Reed’s office. It didn’t even feel like the first time he’d asked this exact same question this exact same way in nearly the same spot.
And didn’t that just say it all?
Miles shot him a look like maybe Evan was the crazy one, but there was no way that was the case. “Maybe we shouldn’t do this here,” he said softly.
He had a good point, but Evan wasn’t feeling magnanimous enough to admit it.
Instead, he pointed towards the big double doors that led to the elevator bay.
Wordlessly, Miles followed Evan to their cubicles, and they packed up their laptops.
Evan also grabbed his big folder of filming notes, and they decamped from the office, walking the few scant blocks to the apartment building they shared.
Miles unlocked his door, and the first thing he said, when they were finally alone, was, “Are you hungry? I’ve got lots of leftover quiche from last night.”
Evan decided the question he’d asked earlier applied even in locations that weren’t the hallway outside of Reed’s office.
“Food? That’s what you want to talk about right now?” Evan’s voice was inching upwards, both in volume and in pitch. It was a testament to how upset he was that he didn’t even try to stop the inevitable.
They’d been on the cusp of a huge blowout in the conference room, and Reed had merely interrupted them. Maybe if they finished the fight, they could buckle down and finally get some work done.
But Miles shot Evan an incredulous look, and after setting his laptop on the kitchen counter, walked right over to the fridge and opened the door.
“Okay,” Evan admitted, which was not easy for him to do. “I guess we do need to talk about food. Not whatever happened in here last night. Not your fuckups. Not my hang-ups. We need to figure out how to convince Reed.”
Miles flipped the oven on and slid the pie plate, suspiciously full, into the oven.
Maybe Miles hadn’t been able to eat either, after Evan had left.
Evan had ended up with a liquid dinner, comprised of whatever remaining wine he had left in his apartment, followed by a shot of vodka from his freezer, and a restless, mostly sleepless night, punctuated by sudden and annoying bouts of accidentally turning himself on by dwelling on what had nearly happened.
“It’s not going to be that hard,” Miles said.
Evan didn’t even know what to say. “You did hear him, right? He wasn’t lying. He will absolutely need to be convinced. And I know Reed; that isn’t going to be easy.”
“No, it won’t be easy. But he picked me for a reason, and he picked you for a reason.
Those reasons haven’t changed. We just need to figure out how to make those reasons work together a little better.
” Miles’ gaze slid to the counter. “You know him better than I do. You know how this all works better than I do. So tell me what to do.”
“You’re really giving me control over this whole thing.” Evan couldn’t believe after all these weeks of fighting and clawing each other, Miles was just going to hand the power over without a single word of argument.
But Miles shrugged. “I can’t go back to Napa a failure. I can’t go back to restaurants if this doesn’t work out. So it needs to work out.”
Evan didn’t need another word to convince him. “Okay,” he said, flipping open his big folder stuffed full of notes. “Let’s start.”
“Food first,” Miles said. “I’ve had too much caffeine followed by too much adrenaline. I’m all shaky.”
“Fine.” The food smelled good, almost better than it had last night, so Evan wasn’t going to exactly complain if Miles wanted to feed him.
“Also,” Miles said, fidgeting with the frayed edge of a kitchen towel.
“I need to apologize. Really apologize,” he continued when Evan opened his mouth to say that an apology wasn’t necessary.
“I was an asshole. I was insensitive. I was thoughtless. And I’m beginning to realize that some of those things aren’t new.
For that, I’m sorry. I’m going to be respectful from now on.
The professional I promise you I can be. ”
“Apology accepted.” Evan figured if they dealt with this, then maybe they could move on. And maybe he should take advantage of Miles’ sudden contrition to set up some ground rules.
“But if you’re really serious,” he continued, “let’s write down some ground rules.” He opened his notebook to a blank page. “Rule number one, I think is pretty self-explanatory. No kissing.”
Miles opened his mouth and then snapped it shut again. Evan was unpleasantly reminded of everything he could do with that mouth, before he pushed those thoughts right out of his mind. Remembering kissing Miles and Miles kissing him was not going to get them a full season pickup.
“Rule number two. No sex.”
Miles didn’t even react to that.
“Rule number three. No arguments,” Miles added.
Evan lifted an eyebrow. “No arguing? You must really have had a change of heart in Reed’s office.”
“Not just Reed’s office,” Miles admitted.
“I went to grab coffee with Lucy and when she told me about the circumstances surrounding your internship, I realized just how insensitive I’ve been, when this means everything to you.
It means everything to me too. And I can stop arguing if it means we can save everything we’ve worked for. ”
Evan felt everything go hot and then cold inside him.
Ice cold. Like an ice floe in Antarctica.
It hadn’t come as a surprise that Lucy had told Miles about his past. She had probably been trying to help, because rumors were flying fast and thick in the office that Miles and Evan weren’t getting along.
Lucy must have believed that she could assist by cluing Miles in, because normally she didn’t encourage gossip.
Evan was still monumentally pissed off that she’d opened her big fat mouth, and he was definitely going to tell her that when he saw her next. They’d known each other and worked together for years now, and he expected better from her. Not for her to sell him and his secrets out to Miles.
“It’s nothing,” Evan said coldly. “It’s less than nothing. Forget what she told you. It’s not important.”
“It is important,” Miles argued, heat flashing in his eyes, frustration and admiration and galling sympathy. “I think . . .”
Evan ripped off the notebook page and stomped over to the fridge. He hung it on the fridge with one of the silly magnets Miles must have brought. This one was a brightly colored neon lobster. “Rule number three,” he stated, pointing to the rule he’d written in his neat handwriting.
Miles’ dark eyebrows slanted with annoyance and everything he was holding back, but he remained silent, letting the quiet grow until the beep of the oven timer interrupted his pouting and Evan’s cold shoulder.
“Eat,” was all Miles said, as he slid a wedge of quiche over on a plate, a fork balanced on the edge. “You’ve got to keep your energy up, and you look tired.”
Evan wanted to retort something spiteful, but he buried the spike of heat under the cold wall of ice surrounding him, and merely looked pointedly over at the list on the fridge.
Miles didn’t reply, merely walked over to the fridge and scrawled something under the third rule. “Rule number four,” he announced, “sarcastic retorts are banned.”
“Fine by me,” Evan said, even though he felt a pulse of disappointment at losing the banter he’d actually enjoyed trading with Miles.
It didn’t matter, anyway. Only one thing mattered now. Not fucking this up again.
“First,” he said, between big bites of quiche he didn’t really taste, “I want you to go through the cookie recipe again. That’s what we’ll do for the test. It’s the easiest recipe on the list.”
There was a mutinous jut to Miles’ jaw but he nodded, and Evan watched as he began to assemble his ingredients.
He was right. He had to be right. There was no more room for error.
Miles watched as Evan ate his quiche and didn’t even taste it, then pushed it aside only half-finished. He pressed his lips together and told himself that it didn’t matter if this felt all kinds of wrong; it was what Evan wanted.
Or at least what he’d told himself he wanted, though that was a distinction that even Miles could acknowledge didn’t matter anymore.
“I made notes last time we baked these cookies,” Evan said.
As always, Miles’ gut reaction was to correct, to snark just so Evan could snark back.
A stupid petty correction that he could use to flirt with the other man.
But this time, he kept his mouth shut, even though technically, they hadn’t baked anything.
Miles had baked these cookies by himself, and Evan had just watched—and also, if Miles was being really honest, drove him insane.
With sexual frustration. With desire. With need.
“I bet there isn’t time for me to teach you how to make them,” Miles said, and sue him, he sounded regretful because he really was. The best afternoon he’d spent in forever had been the one when he’d taught Evan how to make pain au chocolat.
That was the afternoon when Miles had discovered that maybe teaching other people how to bake might not be too terrible.
Evan leveled him an annoyed look, frosted cold at the edges. “Both of us know that wasn’t a serious offer. I’m not here to learn how to cook, and you’re not here to teach me.”
He was right, but the truth still stung.
Miles turned back to the counter where he’d been assembling his mise en place to make sure he had everything he needed.
“We need to finalize the recipe today,” Evan announced. “So no crazy experimentation, please.”
It was only all those hard years of being shit on by head chefs in kitchens that kept him even-keeled and calm when he nodded. “I’m going to do a quarter dark chocolate, and three quarters semi-sweet,” he said. “That should balance out the bitterness nicely. And I’m swapping white sugar for brown.”
Evan’s sharp nod of acknowledgement shouldn’t have hurt, but it did.