Chapter Fifteen #3
The truth was there was a part of Xander that was dying to act out, to spread it far and wide until everyone was just as poisoned as he was.
“You don’t have to open it,” Wyatt said, reaching over and gripping his elbow. “We can just leave it here, we can put it away in a closet, and you don’t have to face it until you’re ready.”
But Xander shrugged. “I’m not ever going to be ready to face it. And whatever’s in that box, it can’t be worse than going to the restaurant today and not seeing him, knowing he’s not going to show up.”
It should have hurt worse to undo the ribbon, feel the silk slide under his fingertips as he set it aside and opened the lid. Maybe he was just numb; frozen so he didn’t have to feel all the pain slipping through him like water.
Under the lid was tissue paper, which he pulled aside to reveal a pristine white chef’s coat.
Above the left breast pocket was the embroidered Barrel House logo, and underneath it, his name, and “Executive Chef.” Xander traced his finger across the blue threads, remembering nights in a room this exact same color.
Was it better or worse that Damon remembered? Xander didn’t know, all he knew anymore was that it hurt and he just wanted the agony to end.
“You’ve worked a long time for that title,” Wyatt said softly.
“I’m sure he ordered this weeks ago,” Xander said, even though that didn’t help at all.
“He just wanted to make sure I had it.” That was all he could surmise, because there was no note, no last-minute expression of good luck, no promise that he would be there tonight, ready to watch Xander’s triumph.
“It’s going to be okay,” Miles said, and even he didn’t sound convinced that it would be anymore.
You’re not going to cry, Xander told himself sternly, reaching inside and finding that steel that had always seen him through the worst of Bastian’s days back at Terroir.
You’re not going to let anyone see, he promised himself, you’re going to walk in proud and head high, and nobody is going to know you’re dying inside.
By the time he was out of the shower and they were getting ready to head into the restaurant, Xander couldn’t decide which was worse: that Damon believed the worst about himself or that he had decided it was okay for this day, which was supposed to be one of the best of Xander’s life, to devolve into an agonizing exercise in emotional containment.
He was a bomb, waiting to go off, and maybe if he just kept going, putting one foot in front of the other, not thinking, not remembering, not wishing, he might not explode. Even for Xander, there were a lot of maybes and mights in that sentence.
“I knew I would find you here.”
Damon glanced up in surprise. Nobody else knew he liked to come here, way up on the hills of Mount Veeder, only accessible by a dirt road, and never used except for once a year by the land surveyors hired by Hess.
Someday, his father would develop this land. But not now, not until all other options were exhausted, because it was a trek.
And today, Rachel had made the trek up here.
“Xander must have called you,” he said morosely, staring at his feet, picking at a loose thread on the hem of his jeans.
“He did. He didn’t know what else to do, because you just ghosted on him.” There was definitely a reprimand in his ex-wife’s voice. “I thought I told you not to fuck it up.”
She sat down beside him, put a hand on his knee. “What are you doing here?” she asked. “You’re supposed to be down in the Valley, helping him. Being there for him. Running your new restaurant, not up here, pretending like you’re not good enough for any of those things.”
“It’s not pretending,” he insisted roughly.
“I told him that you’re always fighting your own self, and sometimes you win. You need to figure out how to lose.” Rachel’s voice was soft, but he couldn’t look at her.
“I let you down. I left you. I fucking abandoned you for booze. I don’t think that’s winning.”
She laughed, shocking him enough that he glanced up at her.
There was a wry expression on her face and tears in her eyes.
“You never left me. We left each other because we weren’t happy.
Did the alcohol help? Of course not. But you can’t take all the blame for the disintegration of our marriage, Damon.
It was already over. It was nearly over before it even began.
And now you’ve met someone you can really love, who loves you back—loves you so much he’s willing to throw his own pride to the wind just to help you. Fix this.”
Damon stared out over the Valley. The cause of so much of his pain, and now the cause of so much of his hope. “I can’t.”
Rachel sat up, and dusted off her legs. Blocked the harsh rays of the sun as she stared down at him. “Then you don’t deserve him.”
It was a sentiment that Damon had spent the last two days trying to believe, but with Rachel’s pronouncement, he had to admit it didn’t sound quite right.
He still didn’t believe that. At least not enough to stay away entirely.
After arriving at the restaurant and the initial painful realization that no, Damon was not here, Xander discovered there was so much to do, it was impossible to think of anything but the task in front of him, and the fifty million tasks left to do.
That helped; not quite enough, but it was enough to make him functional.
He thought about calling Rachel again and asking if she’d gotten anywhere, but the gaping hole left by Damon’s continued absence answered every question he would have asked her.
Xander started the team prepping. Miles assisted Monica, the part-time pastry chef, not even saying a word about how menial the tasks were, just chipping in and wordlessly assisting, and when Monica looked over at him like she wanted to say something about Evan or his show, he’d simply shook his head.
He wasn’t Miles of Pastry by Miles today, he was Xander’s friend. It helped shore up Xander’s defenses a little, and when Wyatt wordlessly volunteered to manage the front of the house—a job that Damon had given himself—it helped a little more.
At five, Xander went into his tiny private office, tucked behind the kitchen, something he’d claimed not to need when he and Damon had first discussed the remodel, and Damon had insisted on anyway.
He pulled off his old stained jacket, and just stared at the new bright white one sitting on his desk.
It fit perfectly, and Xander didn’t want to know how Damon had known, even though he already knew how. Too many nights with Damon’s mouth and hands skating across his shoulders and chest and stomach, becoming intimately familiar with every ridge and curve of him.
The door opened before Xander could dwell any further, saving him from a headlong tumble into misery. He did up the buttons as Wyatt looked at him steadily.
“It’s time,” he said and all Xander could do was nod wordlessly. It was a good thing his staff, while not yet completely familiar in his recipes, were already impeccably trained and knew every single responsibility. He didn’t need to say a word and he probably wasn’t going to be able to.
He just had to get through the next four hours.
Wyatt pulled him into a quick, tight hug and whispered into his ear, “We can do this. You can do this.”
One hour down, and Miles had gone out to assist Wyatt with seating.
He reported back that diners were cleaning their plates, all with joyful smiles on their faces.
One of the new wait staff reported offhandedly to Xander, while he was standing at the pass-through, inspecting plates bound for tables, that diners were having difficulty even selecting their meal for the night, because “everything sounded amazing.”
So far there hadn’t been any complaints regarding alcohol, or if there was, Miles and Wyatt were keeping him perfectly, completely isolated from it, and he’d never been more grateful.
If even one person walked up to him and demanded a glass of wine, Xander was probably, almost certainly, going to punch them in the face.
Two hours down, a plate came back to the kitchen for the first time. Xander stared at it, the perfect presentation slightly jumbled, and finally looked up wordlessly at the waiter.
“Too much red pepper flakes,” he said apologetically. “Could she get it remade with less? She’s particularly sensitive to spice.”
Xander wanted to retort that if she was sensitive to spice, she shouldn’t order something with pomodoro in the title, but he took the plate, dumped it in the garbage, sent it down to Chris, his dishwasher, and began to remake the food himself.
Hour three, the kitchen and the dining room were humming along so seamlessly that Xander took a piece of focaccia and a glass of water to his office and tried to force something down.
It didn’t work.
He should be the happiest man on the planet right now. His restaurant was a success. People were happily buying his food and claiming they couldn’t wait to return. But it all felt empty without Damon here.
Four hours into the preview, they were winding down.
Miles came into the kitchen and told him he should hire Monica, the pastry chef, full time, and that he needed another line chef because they were going to end up being busy.
Xander made a note on his to-do list and tried to give his friend a genuine smile, but instead it felt fake and plastic.
Like someone else was happy and smiling for him.
There just wasn’t any joy inside of him, and there definitely wasn’t enough for a real smile.
Miles hugged him and told him he’d stay the rest of the week.
Hour five, and as the staff cleaned and Miles and Wyatt bickered over the tally for the evening and closed out the register, Xander went outside to try to clear his head.
It felt like a fog had overtaken him, the price of having to go through this all while feeling abject despair and abandonment.