Chapter Fourteen
“I heard a crazy rumor today,” Kian said, walking into the kitchen. Xander almost did a double take, but then remembered that today was Kian’s one day off every two weeks.
“That you didn’t actually have to work?” Xander asked, not looking up from the focaccia dough he was kneading.
“It’s actually a two-parter,” Kian said, pulling out the orange juice carton from the fridge and a glass from the cupboard. “One, you’ve decided to become a baker. Two, you’re not serving booze at your new place.”
Xander punched the rising dough down a bit harder than he probably needed to. “It’s not a rumor,” he said.
It was Kian’s turn for the double take. In fact, Xander was pretty certain he almost spit his juice out. “Billy was actually telling the truth?”
“He was.” Xander punched the dough down again as he remembered Billy’s email response to the job offer he’d sent.
It had been polite enough, but there’d been a whiff of incredulity between the lines, like he couldn’t believe Xander was going along with this.
Still, he’d agreed to take the position—but only if Xander was able to talk Damon into serving a limited wine menu.
Billy even volunteered to help create the list himself.
“I know you care about him,” Kian said, “but that doesn’t mean you have to go along with every crazy scheme he comes up with.”
Xander knew Kian wasn’t talking about Billy.
“That’s rich, coming from you,” he nearly sneered.
“I think it’s worth at least having the conversation. I know Hess has money but you want to be at least commercially viable, you know? How long can his trust hold out if he’s paying to keep you afloat?”
Xander knew. He kneaded the dough instead of answering, each turn and punch down more vicious than the last. He was never going to be able to bake this—the waste of flour and oil and yeast serving Xander’s frustration instead of his stomach—but it felt good to use to hands.
“Being involved should make it easier to talk,” Kian continued.
“Supposedly, yet I don’t see you doing it,” he pointed out darkly.
Kian crossed his arms over his chest, his juice long forgotten. “I don’t see why you keep dragging me into this. We’re talking about you and Hess. Or I’m trying, at any rate.”
“There’s nothing to talk about. Damon has a . . . difficult history with alcohol. He doesn’t want it around. He doesn’t want to serve it.”
Kian’s face did soften a little. He reached out and put a hand on Xander’s shoulder, and he slumped at the touch. “You still need to talk to him. This is your life, too.”
“I had two ideas,” Xander said after a long silence. “I thought about making a menu of non-alcoholic cocktails to divide the focus from alcohol.”
“That’s good. And what’s the second?”
“Donate profits from any alcoholic sales to a substance abuse charity.” Xander stared at the dough. He’d been awake most of the night thinking about the quandary, and he, just like Kian, had known he needed to talk to Damon about it. It was at least worth a conversation.
“So you are going to talk to him,” Kian said.
“It’s the only logical thing to do.” Xander had just been trying to come up with something else to do instead, and had come up with exactly nothing.
“He coming over tonight?” Kian asked, and Xander nodded.
“I’ll make myself scarce then.” Kian put an arm around his shoulders and pulled him into a quick hug. “You’re doing the right thing.”
After Kian disappeared, Xander dumped his overworked focaccia dough in the trash and after cleaning out the bowl, started re-assembling a new batch with fresh ingredients.
The truth was Xander didn’t know if bringing it up with Damon was the right thing. Why did they have to serve booze anyway? People could get booze anywhere. Why did they have to get a drink with their dinner at the Barrel House?
Logically, Xander knew they didn’t. But people were creatures of habit and expectation, and at higher-end restaurants in the Napa Valley, there was always wine.
Maybe someday they could flout the trend, and do whatever the fuck they wanted, but you had to establish yourself before you broke the rules. Especially when you were expecting customers to help pay for your continued existence.
He spent the rest of the afternoon lost in the familiar and reassuring rhythm of baking. Even though preview night was in two days and the opening was the day after that, none of this would keep. At least it wouldn’t be as fresh as Xander demanded it be.
Xander collapsed on his bed after a quick shower, hair dripping onto his bare chest. He shouldn’t feel so worried about this conversation.
He and Damon loved each other, and Kian was right; this was exactly the sort of thing they should be able to talk about with that level of emotional commitment.
But Damon had always shied away from discussing his alcoholism, like somehow it tainted him and therefore Xander by comparison.
Instead he locked it away, behind walls that he hadn’t let Xander see behind yet.
“Now, that’s a sight I could get used to.”
He glanced up and saw Damon in the doorway, smirk on his face.
Seeing Damon and knowing they loved each other was still a rush that Xander wasn’t quite used to.
He grabbed the towel around his waist and started to stand up, but Damon took the few steps to the bed and put a hand on his shoulder, holding him in place.
“Stay,” Damon said quietly. His dark eyes were intent on Xander, filled with longing and lust and need and desperation and a thousand different shades in between.
Xander raised an eyebrow, questioning Damon’s request, and was rewarded with another flash of bone-melting desire in his lover’s gaze. For some reason, Damon adored it when Xander challenged him in bed; it was guaranteed to stoke Damon’s blood so much hotter and this time wasn’t an exception.
“Brat,” Damon said, affection and hunger layered equally together in his voice as he lowered himself to his knees in front of Xander. He licked his lips in anticipation and that alone would have turned Xander’s knees to jelly even if he wasn’t already sitting down.
Damon peeled back the towel, not in any huge hurry, which definitely meant that he was going to tease and take his time.
“Suck my cock,” Xander said, surprising even himself at how breathy his voice was. “I know you want to.”
Laying a reverent hand on Xander’s bare thigh, Damon leaned in, breath warm on his skin.
“Fucking tease,” Xander swore impatiently as Damon’s tongue reached out and licked right up the underside of his cock.
“You love it.” Damon’s voice was rough and wild, and his hands clamped around his thighs, dragging them open wider.
For someone with zero practical experience when they’d started dating, Damon had taken to blowjobs like a fish discovering how to swim for the first time.
He was gentle yet demanding, both of Xander and of himself.
Like he desperately wanted to prove to both of them that he wanted it—that he wanted Xander.
“You love this too,” Damon said, one of his hands sliding higher, cupping around his quivering thigh, curling downward, brushing his balls and then lower.
He gave Xander’s hole a brief touch, then another.
His fingers were damp, maybe even wet, though Xander couldn’t remember seeing any lube when Damon came in.
Maybe he was a magician. Frankly, with the way his fingers and his mouth were teasing him, quick little tantalizing touches that seemed to drive him higher and higher until he was mindless with how much he wanted Damon’s cock inside him, that made sense.
Because nobody had ever made him feel this way before—out of control and yet completely grounded with how much Xander trusted him.
It took too long for Damon to even slide a whole finger inside him, and like he sensed Xander’s desperation, he didn’t make him wait nearly as long for the second.
By then, the towel was gone, Damon’s shirt was off, his biceps bunching and flexing as he slowly fucked Xander thoroughly with his fingers.
The first time they’d done this, Damon had been more hesitant, but now he knew Xander, and he knew what he liked.
“Good?” Damon asked, voice nearly a growl as he practically slid Xander across the bed with his thrusts. “You want more?”
Xander knew he said words. He knew they were probably something pleading, but he wasn’t entirely sure of what he was saying. Sweat dripped into his hair, into his eyes as he held onto the edge of the mattress, moaning as Damon finally began to slide his cock inside him.
“Tell me how it feels,” Damon insisted, a hand smoothing down Xander’s back, burying itself in his hair. He wasn’t rough though. Every touch felt touched with love, with adoration. “Tell me,” he repeated when Xander uttered some sort of complete gibberish.
“Big. Full. Close,” Xander gasped. “So close.”
Damon draped his big body over Xander’s and began to work his hips in and out, in the same driving insistent rhythm he’d fucked him with his fingers. “Yeah, I’m close. I’m in you, and you’re in me,” he murmured into Xander’s damp hair. “God, I love you.”
“So much,” Xander managed to say as he wrapped a hand around his own cock, getting in one long stroke before his orgasm roared through him. Damon gave one last deep thrust before throwing back his head and groaning in pleasure.
They slumped to the bed together, the sheets and blankets shoved to one side. “I like being able to reduce you to single-syllable words,” Damon finally said drowsily, stroking up and down Xander’s back. “Makes me feel like I’m giving you exactly what you need. Not just what you want.”
Xander sighed, the buzz of pleasurable contentment warring with his anxiousness of earlier. The sex had helped take him out of his head a bit, but the residual worry hadn’t dissipated. He knew they still needed to talk.