Chapter Six #2
It shouldn’t have made Wyatt feel any better, but it did, a little.
If Ryan felt bad, at least that meant he’d cared.
He’d really wanted it to be Wyatt, and Wyatt still felt incredulous that Ryan had cared so much.
It shouldn’t have mattered. Wyatt should have been pissed as hell that he’d concealed his motives, but there had been genuine understanding in his eyes when Wyatt had told him why he couldn’t accept.
“It’s a secret talent of mine,” Tabitha said. She turned to Wyatt. “Don’t you feel better, too?”
“I’m fine,” Wyatt said stiffly, even though they all knew it was a lie. Nobody knew it more than Ryan.
“Then it’s time for me to get out of your hair,” Tabitha said, gracefully sliding off the barstool. Even though Wyatt was beginning to suspect she’d drank quite a bit of Ryan’s vodka.
“Wyatt’s making dinner, you can’t leave yet,” Ryan said. They all knew what he really meant was, you can’t leave me alone with Wyatt.
Tabitha reached over and patted him on the cheek. “I’m sure I’ll be back.”
Wyatt threw a towel over his shoulder. “I’m holding you to that.”
She batted her eyes exaggeratedly and it didn’t even make her look ridiculous, only more beautiful. “It isn’t every day that I get to enjoy the efforts of a Michelin-starred chef,” she said.
He wasn’t really Michelin-starred. That had been his boss, Bastian Aquino, but he didn’t correct her, only smiled.
“I’ll call you an Uber,” Ryan said, “you are so damn drunk.”
“Don’t worry, I already texted Calvin, he’ll be here in a minute.”
Ryan rolled his eyes. “Next time I’m not calling you.”
Tabitha’s expression was dead serious. “Of course you will. That’s why we’re friends.” She tugged Ryan into a quick, tight hug.
Wyatt turned back to his corn in the sink. He didn’t want to cry again, but he felt close and he didn’t even know why.
He heard Tabitha depart, her sandals clattering on the wood floor of the hallway, and scrubbed harder on the corn cob in his hand. He wanted Ryan to come back to the kitchen, but at the same time he dreaded it.
“You’re making shrimp. With some sort of corn thing.”
Wyatt turned and Ryan was definitely back, framed in the doorway again. This time he came in, and sat right down at the barstool Tabitha had been occupying until a few minutes ago.
“I’m making shrimp with a corn salsa,” Wyatt confirmed. “I hope that’s okay.”
“I told you. Anything you want to do is fine by me.”
“What about foods you don’t like?”
Ryan shot Wyatt a teasing, chastising look. “Starting the interrogation back up, I see.”
“It’s not an interrogation. And yeah, we got a little .
. . derailed before.” Wyatt willed himself not to flush, but the reminder was all he needed to go hot and then cold all over.
He didn’t know how they could still work together after the sex they’d had.
Maybe that was the real question he should be asking, not what Ryan’s least-favorite foods were.
“It was all—okay, mostly—your fault. Though it wasn’t like I was complaining that you decided to get a little unprofessional.”
Wyatt stiffened. And not in the good way. “I wasn’t . . . I mean . . . I’m . . .”
Ryan held up a hand, and his smile was a little sad. Too much like he’d looked that first night at Temple. “If you apologize for having sex with me, great sex, mind you, I’m going to be offended.”
“I won’t, then,” Wyatt said, even attempting a smile of his own. But he wasn’t sure he’d been any more successful than Ryan.
Imagine being so torn up that you couldn’t be in a fake relationship with someone. Wyatt figured it was pretty damn clear that he was willing to take just about anything Ryan could offer him.
“Foods I don’t like . . . olives. This is an olive-free house.”
“Olive oil?” Wyatt asked.
“Does it taste like olives?” Ryan asked archly.
“It’d better not,” Wyatt said. He placed the cleaned cobs in a deep bowl and started slicing off corn kernels.
“I’m olive oil neutral then,” Ryan said.
“What else?” Wyatt asked.
“Beets. Pickles—except maybe in a Cuban sandwich.”
“Good call,” Wyatt said approvingly. “There’s nothing like a really good Cuban.”
“Can you make one?”
Wyatt pulled tomatoes out of the wire basket he’d bought today. At least Tabitha and Ryan had known where to put these. He’d searched for the garlic for five minutes, only to find it in the produce drawer of the fridge.
He guessed Tabitha wasn’t kidding that she and Ryan didn’t spend much time in the kitchen.
“A Cuban? Um, yes. Definitely.”
“Can I make requests? Is that allowed?”
Wyatt let his knife slice rhythmically through the tomato. It steadied him, even when he wanted to fly out of his own skin. Or fuck Ryan again. “You’re the boss. What’s allowed is up to you.”
“What would I have been if you’d said yes this afternoon?” Ryan asked, voice soft.
Wyatt’s knife hesitated. The ripe tomato, like his heart, bruised a little under the pressure of the knife. “The guy you were dating, I guess. Bonus: he cooks, too.”
It was hard not to hear the hurt edge to Ryan’s voice, and it was impossible to deny that he’d been eager before. Ryan had wanted this. Real or not real. And Wyatt could only assume it might have become real. Maybe.
“And now I’m your boss again,” Ryan said, and he sounded frustrated.
“You made it clear this fake boyfriend was something you needed. I’m assuming you’re planning on hooking up with him, whoever he is.”
“That was the plan.” Ryan wasn’t even hiding his regret.
“So you’re my boss, and hopefully, maybe we can figure out how to be friends.” Wyatt already knew it wasn’t going to be enough; but it was better than nothing.
“Is that what you want?” Ryan asked cautiously.
The chopped tomato got dumped unceremoniously into the bowl with the corn. Wyatt tackled a red onion next, chopping it a bit more forcefully than was entirely necessary. “It’s not what I want,” he said. “But it’s reality.”
“We can be friends,” Ryan said. There was an understandable lack of enthusiasm—which Wyatt totally got. There was a decided lack of getting naked in being “just friends.”
But the alternative was worse. It meant losing moments like this, and even though they’d only just met, Wyatt already knew Ryan was important.
Truthfully, he’d known from the first moment, and every successive moment since convinced him he’d been right.
Not for the first time, Wyatt thought that maybe even a fake relationship with Ryan might be worth jeopardizing what he’d spent so many years protecting.
Wyatt pushed the thought away, along with all the negative ones. They would make this work; they would figure something out. He hadn’t missed how Ryan looked at him, too. “I asked Tabitha how you met, and she told me that you were a snotty kid from Stanford.”
Ryan laughed, and like he’d hoped, the mood lightened. “I know it’s tough to believe.”
Wyatt finished with the onions and moved onto the bundle of cilantro by the cutting board. “Actually, not really.”
In the middle of stealing a tomato chunk from the bowl between them, Ryan made an outraged noise and instead of popping it in his mouth, tossed it with deadly accuracy at Wyatt’s face.
Ryan wasn’t a professional baseball player—a shortstop, even—for nothing. The tomato landed with a plop against its target: Wyatt’s cheek.
Wyatt had a vision of the walls of this kitchen spattered with red tomato juice and the floors peppered with corn kernels as Ryan pushed him up against the island, devouring him like he was all the food he needed.
“Shit. I think I promised you I wouldn’t throw anything.” Ryan sounded unsure, like he wasn’t sure if Wyatt was pissed or not.
“It’s not a plate. It’s not a knife or a pot full of hot water.” He looked up and shot him a quick grin. “I think I’ll live from a tiny tomato.” To illustrate his point, he flipped it into his open mouth.
“Imagine my relief you’re going to survive,” Ryan said with a laugh.
“So you were a snotty kid from Stanford and Tabitha wrote your coming out profile.” Wyatt kept coming back to his friendship with Tabitha because it not only seemed fascinating from the outside, she seemed to be one of the most important people in his life.
“Did she tell you that?” Ryan asked curiously.
“Yes, but she didn’t have to. I thought back to a few years ago and realized where I’d seen her before. On ESPN, giving an interview, right after the story broke.”
“She’s got a memorable face,” Ryan said.
Wyatt rolled his eyes.
“Okay, she’s generally pretty memorable,” Ryan admitted.
“And nice,” Wyatt added.
It was Ryan’s turn to roll his eyes. “Not even close. Tabitha is a lot of things; beautiful, smart . . . unsurprisingly deadly, but she’s not really nice.”
“I think the honesty is nice.” It had also been unexpected to find Ryan, a professional athlete, so close to someone who would unapologetically call him out on his own bullshit.
“She keeps me grounded. Keeps me honest. Keeps me real. Sometimes,” Ryan hesitated, “sometimes it’s easy to get lost. And she’s always found me.”
“That’s what my nana has always been for me,” Wyatt volunteered.
He didn’t want to revisit their earlier conversation; he definitely did not want to discuss his reluctance to come out of the closet, but Ryan still needed to understand why the reluctance was there.
How vital to his life his grandmother was.
“My mom died when I was a teenager, and my dad was never really around much. So she’s really all I have. ”
“My mom is great and all,” Ryan said, propping his elbows on the counter and leaning on them. His dark eyes were contemplative. “But it’s my aunt I’m closest to. She could probably go toe-to-toe with you in the kitchen and might even come out on top.”
“Not a professional?” Wyatt asked.
“Just a home cook, but the Puerto Rican food she makes is to die for. Better than any restaurant, here or back home.”