Chapter Six #3
It was like he didn’t know Kian at all. How often had Kian failed to complete a task to his satisfaction?
Kian couldn’t even remember the last time that had happened.
He always got his shit done. And constantly questioning if he could, if he was up to it, was really beginning to get to him.
Let Bastian question everyone else, the rest of the kitchen that fucked up regularly and couldn’t really be counted on. He was Kian, and he was different.
Xander finally emerged, looking slightly less like hell. “What do you want?” he barked at Bastian.
“You quit last night,” Bastian said, and despite his own current feelings, Kian was grudgingly impressed at how even his voice sounded.
“I did.” Xander also sounded surprisingly even-tempered.
Apparently the only one in this room who wanted to throw something was Kian.
“You’re not even going to give me the benefit of a two-week notice?”
Kian barely refrained from rolling his eyes. There was never a two-week notice at Terroir. Only flaming tempers and Bastian’s desk in pieces on the floor.
“No,” Xander said, still steady.
“Or an opportunity to counter what Damon Hess offered you?”
Xander instantly looked over at Kian, who felt a tiny twinge of shame. Yeah, he’d sold Xander out, but Xander hadn’t said where he was going was a secret. And who was Damon Hess anyway? That name didn’t even sound familiar, and Kian thought he knew all the Hesses in town.
“Not much is a secret,” Xander retorted bitterly, which wasn’t fair at all. If he’d said it was a secret, Kian would have at least considered not divulging it.
“Kian is worried about you,” Bastian said, which was completely untrue.
Kian was worried about himself. “Worried you’re throwing your career away on someone who can’t properly support you.
You know, he isn’t even really a winemaker.
He’s not a restauranteur. He’s playing at growing a garden.
But he’s not even a Hess—not like you think. ”
Suddenly, Xander’s reticence to tell Kian more yesterday made sense. It wasn’t the Hess family that was starting this restaurant. It was some far-flung edge of the family, not connected in the same ways at all.
Maybe Kian was more worried about Xander than he’d realized. What was he thinking?
“He’s exactly what I think,” Xander said.
“There’s nothing I can offer you that might make you change your mind?” Bastian offered slyly, and Kian gritted his teeth. Here was the job offer that should have been his—the second one that Xander had been offered and he hadn’t. The first had stung, this one ached.
“What,” Bastian continued, “if I made you my chef de cuisine?”
The sous chef was typically the second-in-command of a kitchen, especially if the executive or head chef was on premises, and involved, like Bastian was.
If the executive chef was distant, or less involved, there needed to be someone in the kitchen who was nominally in charge.
And that was the chef de cuisine. Kian had never imagined that Bastian would consider taking that step back—or ceding the control of his kitchen to someone else.
To Xander.
Yes, it definitely ached, because in some far-flung future, when this inevitably happened, many years distant, Kian had always believed that position was his. Nobody else knew Terroir like he did. Nobody else deserved it like he did. Nobody else had worked as hard.
“You mean the job I’ve deserved for six months?” Xander demanded. “The one you already should have offered me?”
Xander was . . . wrong. There was no way around it. He was blind to what really happened at Terroir. Blind to anything but his rapidly expanding ego. Kian sighed inwardly.
“I can’t apologize for that, Xander,” Bastian cut in smoothly. And of course he wouldn’t. He didn’t apologize to anyone.
Except to you, Kian thought. Twice.
“I think I’ll take my chances with the ‘not real’ Hess,” Xander said.
“You really mean that,” Bastian said, and he sounded surprised.
Of course he’d probably believed that this offer would be the one thing that would sway Xander’s mind.
“Hess said you’d say that, but I couldn’t believe it.
Couldn’t believe you’d turn down chef de cuisine to work for a part-time gardener whose restaurant is currently a ramshackle shed without a real kitchen. ”
Xander frowned. “You went and talked to Damon?”
Bastian stood and began to pace, which Kian knew was a bad sign. “He poached you. In my own fucking restaurant! What else was I supposed to do?”
To salvage his prodigious pride? Kian wasn’t sure. At least he understood why Bastian had come here and why he’d offered Xander the job, even though he’d known he wouldn’t take it. He’d had to do something, so he could feel in control again.
“Fucking ask me if I wanted the job. Not my new partner. Not my friend and roommate. Me. That’s your whole problem. That’s why I left. You have to control everything, and it fucking sucks.” Kian froze. Xander was notoriously lacking in basic tact, but this was a lot, even for him.
And then it got worse. Xander pointed in Kian’s direction. “And that one,” he said, “is too nice to ever say anything to your face, but you’re a psychotic megalomaniac who desperately needs to be checked.”
It was too much. For Bastian’s temper. For his ego. For his everything. Kian held his breath as Bastian shot Xander a death glare, and then marched right out of the house.
“You’re an idiot,” Kian said, which was all he could say.
“Are you really going to let someone else, some guy you don’t even know, tell Chef Aquino what you want to do?
” This was completely unlike Xander, and while Kian was still undeniably pissed, that worried him.
What was Xander’s deal with this Hess person?
Was it serious? Because Kian saw reflected back in Xander’s eyes some of his own insanity—the determination to follow Bastian everywhere, no matter what happened, no matter what he said, no matter what he did.
And that was so unlike Xander, it was sort of terrifying.
“Are we really going to do this? You and me, really?”
Kian desperately wanted to pretend that he didn’t know what Xander meant. But unlike Xander in this moment, he wasn’t stupid and he wasn’t unaware of the mistakes he kept making. “I don’t know what you mean,” he retorted through stiff lips.
“I mean, are you really going to get bent out of shape over my new partner telling Aquino to take a hike when I was going to do that anyway? When you would follow Aquino to the depths of any hell he concocted, just because you’re too in love with him to ever tell him no?”
It was such a painfully accurate assessment that Kian felt the wind knocked out of him. He’d done that. He’d done that for two years.
“No,” he finally said. “No, I guess we’re not.”
“Okay then,” Xander said and he finally sounded pissed. “I’m going back to bed, to contemplate my brief joblessness, and you can go running after Aquino because I know you’re dying to.”
Xander was right, but he was also wrong. Yes, Kian wanted to go after him, but not to apologize or try to placate him or any of the things that Xander assumed he’d do.
No, he wanted to read him the fucking riot act. Chef de cuisine, really? Xander?
Which was exactly what he said when he wrenched open the door of Bastian’s car.
Bastian had the nerve to look a tiny bit ashamed. “Get in,” he said. “Let’s get a coffee.”
Kian gave him a look, since he still hadn’t put a shirt on, and he was currently in socks, but no shoes.
“We’ll go through the drive-through,” Bastian amended, leaning back and rubbing his temples. “I didn’t sleep last night. I lose too many more good chefs and people are going to talk. They’re already fucking talking.”
“You care too much about what other people think,” Kian said, which was true, but was also an unfortunate symptom of the restaurant business. Everyone had an opinion, and when those opinions were formed by important people, it could make or break a restaurant.
Bastian’s glare was expected. He pulled out of their drive in a spray of gravel. “You know it matters.”
Kian had heard this story before; too many good chefs would leave a restaurant, and there’d be blood in the water. For patrons, for other chefs, for critics.
They’d come in droves, hearing that Terroir’s sous was gone, to see if the standard of the food had fallen at all.
Kian didn’t need to tell Bastian that he would make sure with every fiber of his being that nothing would change, because Bastian was just as committed.
“How did you know it wasn’t a Hess restaurant?” Kian asked, changing the subject.
“I know because I know,” Bastian said, annoyingly. “Also, because Nathan Hess has been talking to me about taking over the bistro at their winery. I’d just about decided to tell him I was interested, but now there’s this wrinkle.”
“No Xander.”
“No Xander,” Bastian agreed. “He was an ass, but he was a reliable ass. I still like the bistro concept, I’ve been wanting to open a second location for awhile now, but I’m not sure I want it on Nathan Hess’ property.”
“Why not?” Kian asked as Bastian pulled the car into the parking lot of his favorite coffee shop.
Bastian pulled out his phone and dialed. “Yeah, it’s me,” he said when someone on the other end answered. “Two cappuccinos. Dry. No sugar. Double shots.”
Of course this was Bastian’s idea of a “drive-through.”
“You’re insufferable,” Kian said as he rolled his eyes.
The smile Bastian shot him was cocky and so sure of himself it made Kian’s knees weak. If he hadn’t been sitting down, he would have wobbled. As it was, his nipples tightened even in the comfortable warmth of the car, and Bastian, who noticed everything, swept his gaze across his chest.
Kian blushed, and then flushed even redder when a young woman exited the coffee shop, bearing two cups of coffee. Bastian rolled down the window, took the cups, and gave her a twenty-dollar bill.
“Keep the change,” he said.
The woman’s eyes lingered over him, nearly completely undressed in the passenger seat of the car, and he wondered if he’d hear through the rumor mill next week that Bastian was driving his young hookups around.
It’s not like that, but I wish it was, Kian couldn’t help but think.
“Drink your coffee,” Bastian said brusquely. “We have a long day.”
Oh yeah. No Xander. No kitchen assistant.
“I called the temp agency, they’re sending over someone, but I’m sure they’ll be useless,” Bastian grumbled.
“Is the Hess deal why you offered Xander chef de cuisine?” Kian asked between sips.
Bastian’s expression was locked up so tightly Kian couldn’t decipher it. “I offered him chef de cuisine because I knew he wouldn’t take it.”
It shouldn’t have made sense, but in a strange, fucked-up sort of way, it did. Bastian had known it was useless, had known that Xander was done with Terroir, but he’d wanted to salvage his pride, to at least make an effort to win him back, even if it was a fool’s errand.
“Someday,” Kian said seriously, “your pride and your ego are going to get you into big trouble.”
Bastian laughed—rich and full and hearty. Kian wanted to lean over and lick the tiny speck of milk foam off his upper lip.
“Someday, huh?” he asked.
“You’ve done okay for yourself so far,” Kian said with a shrug.
“High praise, coming from you,” Bastian retorted dryly.
“I learned my expectations from the best.” Kian looked over at him. Bastian’s hands were clenched on the wheel.
There was silence for a minute. Kian thought he could fill in what Bastian was going to say next. We can’t do this. This is dangerous. This is impossible.
It was all of those things, and inevitable, too.
Bastian cleared his throat. “I should get you home. Like I said, it’s going to be a long day.”
It almost didn’t matter that Bastian hadn’t actually said those things, because he’d thought them, and Kian had known he’d thought them—that was almost enough.
“Yeah,” he finally said. “I’ll need to give the rundown to the new temp.”
“Right, yes,” Bastian agreed. He started the car and drove them in silence back to Kian’s house.
Kian knew he should ask who was going to take over Xander’s role as sous chef. He should remind Bastian what he’d said just yesterday—that it should have been Kian’s job, all along. But he didn’t ask, because, he realized as he got out of the car, he was afraid of what he’d do if Bastian said no.