Chapter Eight #3
“You could have explained that to me,” Xander added. “Instead of just telling me to leave, like David. You hired him.”
“I hired you,” Damon said, sounding perplexed, and it was only the confusion in his voice that prevented Xander from exploding into a rage of flames.
Yes, he had technically hired Xander. Yes, he was paying him a salary. But they were partners, Damon had made that clear, and they were trying to be even more.
Reducing him to a mere underling hired to be at his convenience smacked of everything that Xander had joyfully left behind at Terroir. He’d done that because he’d believed that Damon would be a far better boss than Bastian Aquino had ever been.
“Can you just . . . let me in?” Damon asked.
Xander nearly dropped the phone. “You’re here?” He ran a hand through his hair, messy after a quick shower, and left to dry however it wanted. He glanced down at his old pair of jogging shorts he’d shrugged on. He looked like hell, but maybe that was okay.
Honesty, right? In all things. Including his appearance.
“I wanted to say I was sorry,” Damon said, and he did genuinely sound apologetic. “I wasn’t expecting . . .”
It was clear what Damon hadn’t been expecting. He hadn’t been expecting Xander to come at him like a runaway freight train on fire with rage—justified or not.
Xander set his laptop aside, and went to the front door, opening it. Damon stood on the front porch, phone to his ear and a pizza box in his hands. His mouth twisted in a wry, apologetic smile. “You are here.”
“I said I was,” Damon said. “I’m not going to lie to you.”
Damon couldn’t possibly know about the fears lurking in the back of Xander’s brain, and buried deep, like unexploded mines, in his heart. He still set them to rest. He extended the pizza box. “I thought you might be hungry, and my mother said never to go to someone’s house empty-handed.”
Popping open the box, Xander took in the scent of fresh dough, tomatoes and grease. “Pepperoni and mushroom?”
Damon shrugged, and looked embarrassed. “Is it terribly self-serving of me to admit that it’s my favorite?”
Xander just stared at him.
“I thought if you didn’t want it, I might as well get something I would eat,” Damon said. He stopped, glancing around. “Are you just going to leave me on the porch, rambling about pizza?”
Xander had considered it. It might be an excessive punishment for Damon’s crime but he was still mad—or afraid, he’d lost track of what each felt like. “I don’t know,” he said slowly.
“You don’t know.” Damon looked like he wanted to grab the pizza back and go back to his car and stress eat the whole thing. Xander understood the impulse all too well.
“I need to tell you something about me first,” Xander said, shifting his feet. It was one thing to preach honesty, and to demand it at every turn, but it turned out it was totally different to demand your own honesty when it came to someone you cared about.
“I don’t date because I’m not good at it. I need . . . a measure of transparency that most people aren’t willing to give,” Xander admitted. “I can be a real asshole about it.”
“And you don’t think I can give it?” Damon asked. Calculatingly, a bit harder than Xander expected.
“I don’t know . . . I thought you could. I wanted you to be able to. I wouldn’t have started this otherwise. But this afternoon . . .”
“Made you doubt,” Damon finished for him. Which was good because Xander hadn’t been exactly sure what this afternoon had made him feel.
But he knew the truth, and he wondered if he would ever have the courage to say it out loud. Or if Damon would just say it for him.
This afternoon had made him feel vulnerable again, and he’d sworn that he’d never feel that again.
Taking down that wall that separated him from the rest of the world had initially felt good and right, especially when it was Damon he was letting in.
But he’d been caught up in the rightness of it, the first initial swoon of realizing that his crush was mutual.
Damon was going to screw things up, he’d admitted that much to Xander before they’d even kissed. And anyone would and could. Nobody was perfect.
Xander pushed down the natural fear that bubbled up inside him. “A little, yeah.”
“I’m sorry,” Damon said, sounding genuinely contrite. “I’m sorry I made you doubt. My dad . . . he fucks me up bad. I can’t say he’s the reason I’m an alcoholic, but if one person was actually at fault, he would be. I didn’t want you to be poisoned by his shit, or watch me as I tried to avoid it.”
And looking back, Xander could see that. He’d seen the fear in Damon’s eyes, the reluctance as his father had walked toward them.
He understood trying to protect people you cared about from terrible things. He’d been trying to protect Kian for what felt like forever.
This wasn’t all that different.
Xander turned and walked into the house, gesturing for Damon to follow him.
He settled back down on the couch, and Damon wavered, unsure, in the doorway to the living room. “Come sit,” Xander said, patting the spot next to him, “let’s eat our feelings.”
Damon walked over, a grateful look in his eyes as he sat down.
They’d each unapologetically devoured two pieces when Xander spoke. “Was it bad today?”
Sighing, Damon leaned back on the couch, crossing his hands across his stomach. He looked younger and more vulnerable than Xander had ever seen him. “Yes.”
“Why did you come back to Napa, if he was so awful?” Xander couldn’t help but ask. “You could’ve stayed away? Don’t get me wrong, I’m selfishly happy you’re here, but wouldn’t you have been better off someplace else?”
“My grandfather left me that land when he died about a year and a half ago,” Damon said softly. “And I loved him. I wanted to make him proud. I wanted to prove to him that I could be more than just a guy who loved booze.”
“You can, you are,” Xander argued, suddenly feeling irrationally and fiercely angry that anybody could shit on their own family like this—especially for a disease that nobody could prevent. “You’re doing an incredible thing. Brave and important.”
Damon shot Xander a lazy, soft glance. “I know. Doesn’t make it very easy.”
“Easy things aren’t worth doing,” Xander scoffed, and then grinned. “Besides, I’m here, I can help.”
His glance slid away, and Xander felt the pizza, greasy and heavy, settling nauseously in his stomach. “You can, you have. But I take more than I give. Today was a good example of that.”
“We both have . . . baggage,” Xander pointed out. “But I know we can work through this. I want to work through this. I called you even though I was angry with you. But I still called. And you weren’t sure if I’d open the door, but you came here anyway.”
Damon reached up and cradled the side of Xander’s face with his palm. “I want better for you than to have to deal with my baggage.”
Xander had had a feeling this was where this conversation was going, and there was no way he was going to let Damon push him away selflessly when he’d already faced his own demons and told them off. “No way. You don’t get to make that choice.”
“You sure about that?”
“You try to take my personal autonomy away, I’ll kick your ass,” Xander said.
Damon burst out laughing, and Xander patted himself on the back for lightening his mood. “I’d like to see you try.”
“Admittedly, it would probably end up being a lot more homoerotic, and would almost definitely devolve into sex, but the point remains. This is my decision, and I’m not going anywhere.”
Damon raised an eyebrow. “Homoerotic? Think I can get a demonstration?”
Leaning closer, Xander kissed him firmly on the mouth.
He tasted like spicy tomatoes and the earthy musk of mushrooms. Normally he might not like it, but he loved it now.
He deepened the kiss a little, Damon’s other hand reaching up to pull him closer.
It was good, soft but hot, a reaffirmation of everything they’d both admitted they felt.
But before it could get too hot, Xander pulled back.
Damon’s bottom lip jutted out, and he pouted. “We’re still taking things slowly?”
Xander had to nod. He was Damon’s first time with a guy. He didn’t want to rush him, no matter if he wanted to rush himself. There was too much at stake here—Xander’s heart for one, the restaurant for another.
“Fine,” Damon grumbled. “It’s probably the right call, but for the record, it sucks.”
Xander plopped back against the couch. “Yes, it does. And not even in the good way.”