Chapter Six #2
“God damnit,” Bastian bellowed. “Without even a fucking word to me. Did he think he could just walk out and it wouldn’t haunt him forever?”
Kian considered telling him to not even bother. If the Hess family had decided on Xander, even Bastian Aquino wasn’t going to get them to change their mind and give him back.
“I don’t know what he was thinking,” Kian said, and that was at least honest.
“How much of Steve’s prep do you have left?” Bastian asked. “Maybe I should handle the sauces tonight.”
“I’ve got about half my prep left and then I can finish the soup,” Kian offered.
“We’ll at least get a temp in to cover the prep tomorrow,” Bastian said, rising from his chair and buttoning up his collar. Walking around his desk, he paused next to Kian. “You keep giving me strange looks.”
“I keep expecting to have to clean your desk off the floor,” Kian said, and he was only half joking.
Bastian sighed. “I saw orange, okay? I saw it, and I’m pissed. But I also think we can get him back.”
There was no way Xander was going to come back to Terroir, no matter what Bastian enticed him with, but conceptualizing a plan was at least temporarily delaying Bastian’s temper, and Kian wasn’t going to spoil that.
“Where is he going?”
For a brief moment, Kian considered telling Bastian he didn’t know. Maybe a month after The Kiss, he might have. Maybe even two months after. He’d been pissed for a long time, but now he was just resigned. “Hess. They’re opening a farm-to-table restaurant.”
“Huh, that’s a surprise, I would have expected to hear rumblings,” Bastian said, and started to walk past Kian, but at the last moment he stopped. He glanced around, like he was confirming nobody was watching, and then he lifted his hand to Kian’s cheek briefly, the fingers brushing against it.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry I gave Xander the sous job, not when you deserved it.”
Kian had been dying for this apology for six months, but even the tender, apologetic look Bastian swiftly shot him wasn’t enough.
He wanted more. He wanted Xander’s old job. He wanted more than just the fleeting touch of Bastian’s fingers on his cheek. He wanted another kiss. He wanted even more than that.
It didn’t matter that it was dangerous or that Bastian had said it was impossible. It didn’t even matter that a part of Kian believed Bastian was right, because there was another part of him that was actively rebelling. That part wanted more and was not going to be placated with less.
“And you’re still going to try to convince him to come back?” Kian said incredulously. He didn’t need Xander back; they both knew it. Bastian could promote Kian and the kitchen would probably run better, not worse, without Xander.
But Bastian couldn’t have looked more surprised than if Kian had been the one to walk out in the middle of prep.
“I don’t think you understand,” Bastian began, and Kian knew his mental gymnastics so well by this point that he knew exactly what he was going to say. I don’t apologize to anyone, and I’m apologizing to you. You’re special, you’re important, and you need to stay exactly where I’ve put you.
Kian had liked that place, but even at the beginning, it hadn’t quite felt like enough, and by now, two years in, Kian was tired of it and bored.
“I understand,” Kian cut him off. “More than you realize.”
Bastian’s hand dropped to his side and he flexed it, like he was trying to forget the way Kian had felt under his fingertips.
Even if he never forgot, it wouldn’t be enough.
Kian wanted to weasel his way under his skin, until there was nothing else between them.
Until Kian didn’t know where he stopped and Bastian began.
He loved him. Why had he ever thought this sort of half relationship would ever be enough?
“I guess you do,” Bastian said slowly.
“I need to check on the soup,” Kian said and walked away.
He wanted to be shocked and incredulous that, in one breath, Bastian would tell him that Kian should have had the job that was Xander’s , in the next, tell him he was getting Xander back. But the truth was, Kian wasn’t, at all.
He’d known the person Bastian was for a long time now, and he’d loved him anyway.
Believing that his mother’s advice was solid, he’d loved the good and the bad parts of him, and that wasn’t going to change, at least not anytime soon.
But he was done tolerating Bastian’s shit and he was done giving in.
Most of all, Kian was done being jealous of Luc for having things he never would.
The service passed in a blur of Bastian yelling and far too much work. Kian went home and crashed, passing out on his bed diagonally, with his socks still on. He didn’t know where Xander was, and he wasn’t sure he even wanted to.
A loud, insistent series of knocks drove him from his warm blankets the next morning, until he finally gave in. He got up, not even bothering to throw a shirt on, and jerked the door open.
He’d half expected a one-night stand of Nate’s—their new roommate—or maybe even some kids selling magazines or tubs of cookie dough.
It wasn’t a one-night stand of Nate’s or a kid. It was Bastian, his aviators and a grumpy look on his face.
“Took you long enough,” Bastian grumbled. “Were you dead?”
It was too bad it hadn’t been one of those kids. Kian really wanted some cookie dough right about now. He’d scoop it right from the tub, and eat it spoonful by spoonful, unbaked.
Breakfast of champions.
“No.” Kian kept his voice neutral. “What are you doing here?”
“I need to talk to Xander,” Bastian said, like he couldn’t believe Kian had forgotten. He hadn’t—not exactly, anyway—he’d just chosen to prioritize other things. Like making it through last night’s hellish service and then sleeping.
“I haven’t seen him.”
“His car’s outside,” Bastian said impatiently. “Go get him. I’m sure he’s sleeping off a hellacious I just quit Terroir bender.”
Bastian was probably right, but there was something imperious in his tone today that Kian didn’t like.
He crossed his arms across his chest and let Bastian look at all the bare skin he had on display.
Let him look and want. Maybe it would only be a fraction of how much Kian wanted, but that was better than nothing.
“Or I could go drag him out myself,” Bastian said, raising an eyebrow.
Kian rolled his eyes. “Fine. Come in and wait in the living room.” He held the door open and Bastian followed behind him.
Kian couldn’t see him but he had a feeling he was eyeing everything, from the mis-matched furniture they’d picked up at Goodwill and IKEA and on the side of the road, sometimes, to the winery posters that Nate had tacked all over the walls.
It wasn’t much, it certainly wasn’t the sleek, ultra-modern house that Bastian lived in on the top of Mount Veeder.
But Bastian knew what he paid his chefs, and even with three of them in this house, they weren’t buying multimillion-dollar houses anytime soon.
Kian refused to feel ashamed, because he loved the house they lived in.
It felt like home, not the house Bastian merely existed in between shifts.
“I’ll go get Xander,” he said shortly, and left Bastian in the living room, while he clearly debated whether to sit on the couch or not.
Fuck his snobbery, Kian thought wretchedly. There was a reason why, in all the many, many fantasies he’d had of Bastian, they’d never been at his own house. And today, that really pissed him off.
Tonight, he was going to imagine Bastian blowing him in their bathroom with the chipped tile. Fantasy Bastian’s eyes would say everything, but his mouth would be full, wouldn’t it?
Taking out his frustration—sexual and otherwise—on Xander’s door, he pounded hard on the thin wood, and then even harder when Xander didn’t open it.
“Xander, I know you’re in there,” he said loudly.
“You’re wrong,” a voice finally croaked on the other side of the door, “Xander isn’t here.”
Kian remembered that Xander’s bedroom door didn’t even have a lock, and bracing himself for whatever he might find, decided he was sick of waiting, and just opened it.
“I need to talk to you,” he said.
“So talk,” Xander said, rolling over in bed, his hair a mess, and his pallor pale, like he’d drunk too much last night. “Clearly nothing is stopping you.”
“You walked out last night,” Kian said.
“I quit,” Xander interrupted him. “I didn’t just walk out. I fucking quit. Just in case that wasn’t clear.”
It had been abundantly clear. Kian had never wanted to punch Xander in the face more than he did right now. And Xander could be annoying and frustrating and infuriating a good portion of the time.
“Believe me, it was clear.”
“Okay then,” Xander said, and rolled back over, leaving his back to Kian.
It was really difficult to say who Kian was more pissed off at—his friend or his boss. Maybe he should just sic them on each other and let them fight to the death.
“What I keep trying to tell you is that you don’t have to. Leave, that is. Chef is here . . . and he wants to talk to you.”
“Chef is here?” Xander finally sounded like he was paying attention, Kian thought with satisfaction. “In our house?”
“Yes.”
“What the fuck,” Xander said tiredly.
“I suggest,” Kian retorted primly, “that you get cleaned up and get out here before he gets tired of waiting and leaves.”
After a long moment, Xander finally listened and slid out of bed, staggering to stay upright.
Kian let the full force of his glare out. And he’d learned from the very best.
“Hurry up,” Kian said, and shut the door behind him.
He marched back into the living room, not even a fraction less pissed than he’d been before. He didn’t sit down, though Bastian had finally managed to do it, perching on the edge of the couch.
“Is he coming?” Bastian asked shortly.