Chapter Two
It was not ideal, but Wyatt went to his interview on a handful of hours of sleep and a melancholy edge to his mood.
He was generally pretty easy-going, with a sunny, optimistic disposition.
Becoming the leader of the family and being forced to put his beloved Nana in a memory care facility he couldn’t really afford had changed him.
He knew he’d gotten quieter and more withdrawn, a heap of serious problems he couldn’t solve weighing him down.
Miles, his best friend, had told him last week that he was growing up.
But Wyatt didn’t think so. He was the same as always, he just needed something to take the edge off.
Last night, Ryan had provided a much-needed distraction, a temporary lessening of the pressure he was living with, but it hadn’t been enough.
In fact, coming to terms with the fact that Ryan was so temporary was part of what caused his latest bad mood.
Even the thought that he could be making more money after today wasn’t much of a consolation.
“It’s for a private chef position,” was all Reed Ryan, the connection that had gotten Wyatt his interview, had said.
Reed’s description didn’t exactly excite Wyatt.
He didn’t really want to stay at Terroir, and continue to get verbally abused by his boss, Bastian Aquino, for shitty pay, but he also didn’t want to get paid to babysit and make peanut butter sandwiches with no crusts for a spoiled Beverly Hills family.
The fact that he badly needed the money was the only reason he showed up at all.
He was shown into the conference room in the trendy LA office building, and was just about to sit down at one end of the shining expanse of glass when a man entered the room, proving to Wyatt everything he’d assumed about this client.
The suit alone probably cost more than a year at Nana’s facility, and Wyatt couldn’t even begin to price out the watch.
It was clearly expensive, real diamonds shining on the face, and the man wore it carelessly, like he had a dozen more.
He probably did, Wyatt thought darkly. His face was scrunched tight and there was something untrustworthy about it, a slyness in the eyes that Wyatt couldn’t miss.
Wyatt didn’t know if he could work for this man, even if the money was good.
“Hi, I’m Eric Talbot,” the man said, extending a hand, which Wyatt shook firmly.
He looked him in the eye, and tried to do everything else he remembered from that long-ago high school class in interview skills.
Of course he’d had interviews after culinary school—for the jobs he’d gotten at other restaurants, and then at Terroir, but they were never like normal interviews.
Nobody cared if you could communicate worth a damn in a restaurant; they only cared if you could cook.
“Wyatt Blake.”
Eric settled down on one of the ultra-modern sculpted chairs, metal and clear acrylic married together in a tortured formation. Wyatt followed suit and waited a long, expectant moment for the interview to start.
“I’m sorry, we’re waiting for the client,” Eric said. “He’s usually really punctual, but he texted me to say that traffic was brutal today.”
This guy who looked like he could buy and sell Wyatt’s whole family wasn’t even the client?
The client was even richer? Wyatt briefly considered telling him to just forget the whole thing, because this had been a huge mistake.
He was meant to be in a restaurant kitchen.
He was meant to wow patrons with his dazzling culinary skills.
He wasn’t meant to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and grilled chicken breasts with steamed vegetables on the side.
Yet, he couldn’t help but be relieved Eric Talbot wouldn’t be his boss.
In the end, the only thing that kept Wyatt’s butt in his seat were the bills that kept piling up.
This job would be worth it, if Wyatt could keep them paid and at bay.
The stress alone felt like it was slowly crushing him.
Even making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches would be a decent exchange for a loosening of the noose around his neck.
“The client?” Wyatt asked. Reed had given him next to no information about this interview, other than date and time, and even Wyatt thought that was odd. Weren’t you supposed to do research and go prepared to these sorts of things? How could he research someone he didn’t know?
“My client, actually,” Eric Talbot said with a friendly grin that made him look marginally less like a bloodthirsty piranha. “I manage . . .”
Eric didn’t get the rest of the sentence out before the door opened and Wyatt damned everything to hell and back.
This morning Ryan Flores was dressed in jeans and a sky-blue polo shirt, looking as fucking cute as he had the night before.
Wyatt would have picked him up a hundred times out of a hundred, and there was no way it was a coincidence that Ryan had picked him up first and then just happened to be interviewing him today.
Ryan didn’t even look surprised that Wyatt was here, asking to join his staff.
Wyatt tried to let that sink in. Ryan hadn’t just been out of his league, he was in a different universe.
And he was a liar. Somehow the former felt worse than the latter.
“Hi, I’m so sorry I’m late. I’m Ryan.” Ryan extended his hand towards Wyatt, clearly having decided that he was going to play this like they had never met before, like they’d never hooked up, like he’d never pursued Wyatt at all.
Like Wyatt hadn’t wasted three hours of his life and a hookup with the hot angel bartender, staring at Ryan like he was something important and worthwhile.
“Wyatt.” He stood, held out his hand to shake. He couldn’t help but think about the night before, when he’d deliberately not shared his last name. And now it felt stupid and foolish, because Ryan must have known it the whole time. “Wyatt Blake.”
It was impossible to avoid touching Ryan, but Wyatt kept the handshake brief, nothing like the intimate meeting of fingers and palms that they’d experienced the night before.
Still, even the echo of it rocketed through Wyatt, and as he sat down, he slipped his hand under the table, clenching it painfully around his knee.
He didn’t want to be affected by Ryan’s touch.
Or the knowledge that Ryan had known they’d meet again this morning.
His words from the night before reverberated through Wyatt’s brain. Yeah, I’ll see you around.
The joke was definitely on Wyatt.
“Your resume is certainly impressive,” Eric said, kicking off the interview portion.
There was nothing Wyatt wanted more than to stop him right in his tracks, and walk out.
Because whatever this was, he wasn’t sure he wanted a part of it.
But the starting salary kept him in the chair.
Maybe it would be better to work for Ryan than to work for a spoiled family.
It was theoretically possible, he surmised, and he should at least listen to the pitch.
“If I’m reading this correctly,” Ryan said, glancing down at the copy of the resume that Eric had slid across the table to him, “you took a position demotion and a pay cut to work at Terroir.”
“I did.” At the time, with Nana not yet feeling the effects of her Alzheimer’s, it had been a no-brainer.
He’d saved on expenses by moving in with Miles and his other roommate, Xander, and it had been worth the demotion from sous chef to line cook, to work at Terroir, one of the most celebrated restaurants in the United States, and the only restaurant in California to have the difficult-to-obtain Michelin stars.
Ryan leaned back in his chair, so casual, like he hadn’t been on his knees less than twelve hours ago. “Can you explain your thought process behind that decision?”
“It does look like an odd choice,” Wyatt admitted.
He wasn’t happy about defending his decisions, but he would do it.
“Even with the demotion, working at Terroir transformed my resume. It’s one of the best restaurants in America.
Working there proved that I could cook in one of the most demanding, exacting kitchens in the world. ”
Ryan tapped a pen on the glass conference table. “But now, you’re leaving.”
“I’ve worked there almost two years. It’s time to move on.
” Wyatt didn’t want to bring up the pressing financial situation that was forcing this change, but he had a feeling that Ryan and Eric had already dug up that information.
Eric in particular didn’t seem like the kind of guy who would leave anything to chance—and he wouldn’t waste his time or his client’s.
So even if Ryan was choosing to grill him, Wyatt had a feeling the job was essentially his. If he wanted it.
The million-dollar question of the day.
“This job requires someone who can manage themselves successfully. You mentioned that Terroir was demanding and exacting. I’ve heard Bastian Aquino can be a tough boss. Do you think you can successfully transition to working without supervision?” Eric asked.
Wyatt almost laughed. “Oh, definitely. In fact, it would be pretty welcome,” he admitted wryly.
“You’ve never been head of a kitchen before,” Ryan inserted.
“Sure, I have,” Wyatt said. “My own kitchen. Is yours going to be so different?”
Ryan inclined his head, a hint of a smile on his face. “No. Actually, it shouldn’t be.”
“Can I ask why you even need a personal chef?” Wyatt asked. He figured it was fair that he interview Ryan—especially considering he’d obscured his motives last night—even as Ryan was interviewing him.
“I’m going to be doing more entertaining. It feels like I’m always sending out for food. It would be nice to not worry about it anymore. There would be nutrition guidelines provided by my trainer that you’d have to follow.”
“Not a problem. I can easily integrate those into meal plans,” Wyatt said.
“Do you have any more questions, Ryan?” Eric asked.