Chapter Two #3
It should have scared him more that all the parts felt equally important. He did want to build something. He wanted to do it here, in the place where so much of Napa had begun and evolved, now ripe for a new chapter. And he wanted to do it with a man he barely knew.
Despite the episode with the vines and the storm, Damon felt strong and sturdy. Unshakeable. Just the right person that Xander could batter with his own bred-in mistrust.
Damon didn’t just look surprised he’d agreed; he looked elated. That was a god damn genuine smile he was wearing on his handsome face.
“Really?” he asked, excitement seeping into that rough-and-tumble voice.
“This is a good start. I like it.” Xander leaned down, and picked up a clump of dark brown dirt.
It crumbled between his fingers, fertile and rich.
God knew his advice wasn’t always great—or taken into consideration—but he’d been right about this.
From the look of the plants, he’d been dead right.
This was a fantastic place for a vegetable garden.
“When should we start?” Damon asked, like he wasn’t really in charge. And maybe, Xander thought with astonishment, he didn’t think he was. After what felt like a lifetime of bending and scraping and obeying every order, equality and freedom felt like such a heady thing.
But Xander wouldn’t be Xander if he didn’t test things. “Aren’t you the boss? Don’t you have a plan?” he asked lightly.
Damon gave a deep bark of laughter. Xander felt it to his bones. He wanted to put his hands all over the man and feel it as he laughed. “I do. But we’re supposed to be partners? When do you want to start?”
There was nothing for Xander to do then, but be as honest as Damon was being. “As soon as possible.”
Smiling, Damon nodded. “Okay. Do you want to discuss your salary or benefits or anything?”
That was the last thing Xander wanted to do but he wasn’t stupid. “You said you’d pay me more than Bastian.”
“I will.” Steady. Confident. Sure. “How much do you make now?”
Xander rattled off a number. He was pretty sure it was correct. To be honest, as long as he had money in the bank to pay rent, he didn’t worry about money.
“Twenty percent more now, and then consider it doubled when we open,” Damon said calmly.
Xander might be laissez-faire about money, but that was not an insignificant amount. “Are you sure?”
“I’m a Hess, aren’t I? We should do something with my god damn trust fund, and paying your salary seems as good a use as any,” Damon said.
It was hard for even Xander to argue with that.
This time when Xander left, they exchanged phone numbers, Xander promising to be back in a couple of days, after his time at Terroir was finished.
Damon mentioned a contract, Xander agreed to read and sign it, which normally would have felt foolish to him, but this was Damon.
He was like a rock. Unshakeable, even with the addiction. Probably even more so, because of it.
Even though Xander had misjudged people before, he knew he wasn’t misjudging now.
When he turned to go to his car, he glanced back, and saw Damon standing there, watching him go. A darker outline in the dark of the night. And it felt right to have his eyes on him still.
So right that Xander gave himself a blistering lecture when he got into his car.
“You will not fall in love with him,” he sternly told his reflection in the rearview mirror. “You will not fall for another straight boy who won’t love you back. You won’t pine or yearn or otherwise ruin your life panting after someone you can’t have, like Kian. You won’t.”
God knew if the lecture would stick, but at least Xander knew where the lines were drawn.
“Where did you go last night?” Kian asked as he julienned about a hundred thousand carrots, his knife flashing as it flew through the orange flesh.
Chef Aquino must be in a bad mood. He hadn’t forced Kian to prep vegetables for the side sauté they served with some of their main dishes in ages. It was an annoyingly menial job, even though Kian was really good at it.
Probably because he’d been stuck doing it so many times.
“Why are you doing that?” Xander asked, gesturing with a whisk at Kian’s mound of carrots instead of answering his question. He still wasn’t sure how to break the news. Or if he even should. Was Kian still on his side, still his friend, or had he permanently defected to the Aquino camp?
“Steve, one of the new kitchen assistants, quit unexpectedly today.”
“Do you even have to add the unexpectedly part?” Xander wondered out loud. “It seems a little unnecessary these days.”
The meaner Chef got, the faster his new employees departed. And that only wrenched him tighter, leading them all in a vicious cycle. Some days it felt like Kian was the only one who could talk him down.
“We needed him to prep these today,” Kian said, not even bothering to answer Xander’s question.
“So you’re doing it instead.” Xander was prepping the sauces, which was his main job every day, along with soup of the day. That, a delicate creamy vichyssoise, was already simmering away on the stove in a gigantic pot.
“Someone has to do it, and that’s part of my job. To fill in, wherever I’m needed. That’s part of the cross-training Chef promised I’d get.”
Xander rolled his eyes as he peeled shallots. Three years in, and there was still that note of hero worship in Kian’s voice whenever he talked about Bastian Aquino. These days, it was accompanied by a healthy dose of unrequited pining.
That worried Xander enough, but at least it was still unrequited. The day it changed, Xander was going to have to punch the Bastard in the face for taking advantage of a subordinate. For taking advantage of Kian. Xander wasn’t looking forward to it.
“Oh yeah, you’ve gotten a really well-rounded education,” Xander drawled. “A great opportunity to grow a thicker skin.”
Kian’s knife didn’t even pause. It still flew through the carrot at breakneck speed, each julienned slice perfectly sized.
But his voice got harder around the edges.
“I don’t know why you keep doing this. If you’re not happy here, if you don’t enjoy working for Chef Aquino, then leave.
I don’t need you to stay here just to protect me.
I’m a grown man. I can take care of myself. ”
“Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m worried about,” Xander muttered. Kian looked up. “And maybe I will,” he said louder. “Maybe that’s where I was last night. Maybe someone offered me a really good job.”
Kian’s eyes went wide. “Did they really? Who is it? Are you leaving?”
“Shhhhhh,” Xander snapped. “I’m . . . I haven’t told anyone else. Especially Chef.”
“Maybe don’t do it today. You know, with Steve and all.” Kian’s tone went wry. He might defend Chef Aquino to the ends of the earth, because he was not very secretly in love with him, but he was also a realist.
Steve hadn’t even been around long enough for Xander to remember his name.
“I’ll tell him in a few days,” Xander said.
“We’re still finalizing the details.” Damon had texted this morning, promising a copy of the contract in his email in a few days.
And Xander, while giving his word, was still not stupid enough to quit his job until he’d made sure that everything Damon promised was also in writing.
“Who is it?” Kian whisper-demanded.
“It’s a Hess,” Xander said, and sue him, he definitely sounded a little smug. “They want to open a farm-to-table restaurant and they approached me for the head chef position.”
Kian’s already big eyes grew wider. “Head chef?” And Xander did understand his surprise. The Hess family was big in Napa, and if they were really going to open a restaurant under the familial auspices, they’d bring in someone well-known to head the kitchen.
They definitely would not be hiring Xander, who had never been head chef before, and who was definitely not well-known.
But Damon Hess wasn’t his family, with none of their high-profile obligations, which had opened the door wide for Xander.
Xander thought about telling Kian but he was going to be worked up enough already, being the last of their friend quartet to still work at Terroir—and everyone and their mother knew he wouldn’t be leaving anytime soon—so he kept quiet about that important detail.
“Head chef,” Xander confirmed.
“Wow.” Kian’s knife still worked away, reducing the pile of carrots from stupendous to merely numerous.
“Don’t you have zucchini to do after that?” Xander asked. He finished chopping his shallots for the wine butter sauce they served with rockfish, and moved onto garlic.
“And the red peppers,” Kian said. “Also I think Chef said he wanted to add turnips today too. Said he got some in fresh. What kind of menu are you thinking of?” As he asked, his knife flew through the last of the carrots.
“I got offered the job last night,” Xander retorted. “I haven’t signed the contract. How could I have decided on a menu yet?”
Except that he had. He’d spent the last few years of his time in Terroir getting through the worst of Chef Aquino and his temper by clinging to his food imagination. What might he do with this rockfish, if he served it? A sweet corn gastrique, maybe?
Definitely not this tired shallot butter wine reduction that he could make in his sleep.
“You’re going to take it, aren’t you.” Kian said it flatly; a statement, not even a question. Like leaving Terroir was some kind of unspeakable crime.
Xander slammed his knife down onto the board. “Of course I’m going to take it. We’re not all like you, in thrall to the Bastard. You wouldn’t take another job even if the French Laundry came calling.”
“I don’t want to work for Thomas Keller,” Kian retorted stiffly.
“That’s exactly the point I’m trying to make.” Somewhere Xander had lost the steam of his temper, and all that was left was regret. Regret that he’d never been able to save Kian from wasting his abilities and all his blood and sweat and tears, sacrificing them to a man who didn’t care.
The color rose on Kian’s pale cheeks. Pale, despite living in California. Probably because he never left this god damned kitchen.
“You’re pissed off that I won’t listen to your fucking advice,” Kian spat out.
His knife had finally stopped, and it trembled, the shining steel flickering under the lights of the kitchen.
“Well, not everyone is you, Xander, and you don’t know what’s right for everyone.
Maybe if you did, you could tell yourself, and you wouldn’t be so god damned bitter all the time. ”
If Chef was around, he wouldn’t tolerate this argument, never mind a friendly discussion.
Work was for work, as he liked to say. It was not social hour.
But he wasn’t around, probably dealing with the fallout of Steve’s departure, and Xander discovered that despite usually not giving a shit, he really didn’t give a shit today.
He still hadn’t picked up his knife. Instead, he leaned over, and flipped the gas off the stove. The shallots that were slowly sautéing in a puddle of melted butter would slowly grow cold and congeal without their heat source.
“What are you doing?” Kian demanded. His flush rose brighter.
“Leaving,” Xander said calmly. “You can tell Chef Aquino I’m done.”
Kian stared at him wordlessly. No doubt shocked silent.
“You could come with me,” Xander said. “You should come with me.”
“You should at least give your two-week notice,” Kian insisted. “It’s only fair.”
“Why? So Chef Aquino can scream at me and belittle me and act like he’s better off without me when I know the truth? That I should have been promoted to chef de cuisine forever ago, but that Aquino pretends he doesn’t need one, so he doesn’t have to? Yeah, no, thanks. I’m done.”
He picked up his knife, slid it into the cloth wrap, next to all his other knifes, and rolled it up. He didn’t look back as he walked out, but he knew Kian was staring at him the whole way.
There should be guilt at how he was leaving Kian to deal with the Bastard, but wasn’t that what Kian wanted anyway? To deal with him, all the fucking time?
Instead of guilt, all Xander felt was delicious, intoxicating freedom as he left Terroir behind with one gigantic middle finger to all the shit he’d put up with for far too long.