Chapter Thirteen #2
“You are a good son, and a good man. I hate to see you doubt that.”
“I’ve done some . . . sometimes I’m not good. I can be cruel,” Bastian admitted, finishing his drink in one gulp.
“Your chosen profession, that is cruel though, sometimes?”
“Sometimes,” Bastian acknowledged. She wasn’t wrong. The fine dining kitchen was a place of exacting standards, and sometimes a very thick skin was needed to deal with the cutthroat atmosphere and unrelenting perfectionism.
His own behavior wasn’t always ideal, but Celeste did have a point. He knew he could be better, but she was right; his greatest advantage was that he never wanted to let go of anything.
It was why he hated it when employees left, even when there was a good reason for them to move on. It was why he’d refused to promote Kian, even when he deserved it. It was why staying home during service these last few weeks had nearly killed him—even though he’d been willing to try for Kian.
Clearly he’d been approaching this situation entirely the wrong way.
“Do you feel better?” Celeste asked.
Scrubbing a hand over his face, Bastian thought for a long minute. Truthfully, a little of the panic he’d been feeling had died the moment he’d walked into the kitchen. It wasn’t all gone, but it had calmed considerably.
The only thing still bothering him was the text that Kian had sent him, and the niggling feeling that he was actually hiding something.
“Much,” Bastian said. “Finish your drink and I’ll drive you back home.”
“But,” Celeste tried to interrupt but Bastian shot her a hard, uncompromising look.
“Yes, you’re my mother, but it’s late, and I’m not letting you drive home without me. I’ll send someone with your car tomorrow.”
While he waited for his mother, he pulled out his phone and finally replied back to Kian’s text. I know you’re tired, but I’d like to see you.
Glancing back at the words, it was impossible to deny there wasn’t an inherent demand in them, similar to how Bastian moved through life, expecting all barriers to melt away or be conquered. But he was reminded of his mother’s words as they walked to his car.
He knows what you are, Bastian, better than anyone else.
After he dropped Celeste off at her home, giving her a quick kiss on her soft cheek, he checked his phone, and to his surprise, Kian had actually replied.
Out on the back deck was all he’d said, which Bastian assumed was an invitation of sorts.
The house was dark when he pulled up to it, and Bastian realized as he got out of the car that he’d barely ever been here.
He was Kian’s boyfriend and he’d made him come to him almost every time.
Yes, he wanted to avoid Xander and their other roommate, who was apparently a sommelier, but even when he’d tried to make their relationship feel equal, inequalities kept cropping up.
Kian was sitting on the back porch, a mug in his hands.
When Bastian approached, he didn’t think he was being too paranoid to believe that Kian didn’t look exactly thrilled to see him.
Maybe he should have given Kian the space he’d clearly been wanting.
But Bastian was so terrified that a night of space might lead to even more space, not less.
“I’m sorry,” was the first thing he said when he sat down.
Kian looked surprised. “For what?”
Bastian drummed his fingers on the table. “For being myself?”
“I knew what I was getting into when I took my clothes off the first time,” Kian laughed.
He leaned over, bumping shoulders with Kian, and glanced down into his mug. There were clearly dregs of wine in it. Bastian raised an eyebrow.
“It was a night,” Kian finally confessed. “Nothing I can’t handle. But a night nonetheless.”
It was impossible not to wonder when Bastian’s first instinct had shifted from tough-as-nails to apologetic. Because he’d nearly been about to apologize again, and that wasn’t his fault. Not really. Well, he conceded, it might have been, because he’d been the one to hire Mark.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Bastian asked carefully. Not apologizing, necessarily, but trying to be supportive—the way a normal boyfriend might be. He wasn’t ever going to be a normal boyfriend, but Kian was right. He’d known what he was getting into when he’d made his feelings clear.
“Honestly?” Kian asked wryly. “No, not really.”
It was exactly what Bastian had feared. He tried not to react, but Kian knew him well, and could probably see how afraid he was.
“I already know you didn’t burn the place down,” he said, trying to make it lighthearted.
He must have failed because Kian looked startled. “You went to Terroir?”
“Not because of you. Because of me. I guess I was also having a bad night. Bad week, actually.”
Kian frowned. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“It’s not anything to do with you. I said you’d made me the happiest I’d ever been, and I meant it,” Bastian said, reaching out and brushing a kiss across Kian’s lips. “I love you. But letting go of the restaurant is hard for me. Impossible, actually.”
“You make it sound like something really terrible,” Kian said with amusement, “but I already knew that.”
“That’s why I went. I . . . missed it. I missed knowing everything that happened.”
“I know I’d miss it so I can hardly blame you for missing it. You created it,” Kian said simply.
“Would you be okay if I came by? Not to undermine your authority. Not to take away your decisions. To just . . . be there. Would that be okay?”
Kian laughed. “It’s your god damned restaurant, Bastian.”
“Yeah, but.” Bastian took a deep breath. “I’m trying to keep things separate.”
“You told me way back at the beginning this was going to be messy.”
“I was right,” Bastian said. “And I’d still do it, every time.”
Kian stood up, a gleam in his eyes that always boded well for Bastian and offered a hand. “Do you want to go make things messier?”
Remembering his words from earlier, Bastian hesitated. “I thought you were tired.”
“I think I’m getting a second wind,” Kian said, grinning. “Come on, we’ve got an empty house. Let’s use it.”
Kian didn’t know exactly what had driven him to his house tonight—but even though he couldn’t identify what it was didn’t mean that he couldn’t understand it.
Even when he wasn’t sure he could face Bastian, he’d still missed him, still craved his touch.
He reached out and took Bastian’s hand, the rough scars from too many cuts and burns now so familiar to him. All it took was the feel of their palms sliding together, the nearly innocent gesture a reminder of the not-so-innocent nights they’d spent wrapped up in each other.
“You’re sure there’s nobody here?” Bastian asked as Kian pulled him through the sliding door.
“Xander and Nate both know we’re together,” Kian said, trying not to roll his eyes.
Bastian wasn’t all that concerned about keeping their relationship a secret, so Kian didn’t get why he’d even care if they heard them.
It wasn’t like Kian hadn’t had to lie awake some nights, listening to one or both of them have sex in their respective rooms.
“Yeah, I know,” Bastian admitted. “You trust them, that’s enough for me. But I wanted . . .” A look of uncertainty that Kian had never seen crossed Bastian’s face. “I want you to fuck me.”
Bastian had hinted once or twice that he shared Kian’s versatile interest, but he’d never expressed a desire for Kian to fuck him before.
It didn’t surprise Kian that he wouldn’t want anyone around if that was really what he wanted.
Bastian would equate it with a loss of control, with the resulting vulnerability.
“Okay,” Kian said, and squeezed Bastian’s hand reassuringly.
He knew better than anyone else how difficult typical and utterly normal relationship milestones were for him sometimes.
He’d assumed they would come easier, once Bastian had insisted he take over Terroir, because Kian had always believed that the restaurant represented all of Bastian’s control in one brick-and-mortar structure.
But maybe that wasn’t entirely true, because Kian had never seen the shadowy fear that he saw in Bastian’s eyes tonight—or his clear need to relinquish control while he fought against it at the same time.
“I’m not good at this,” Bastian murmured.
“At trusting someone else or being fucked?” Kian asked archly. “Because you keep saying that, and I keep not believing you.”
Bastian cracked a tiny smile. “Are you going to lecture me again about sexual politics? Because I’m not going to lie, that was hot the last time you did it.”
“Probably because I was half naked while I did,” Kian said, and hated how all it took for his breath to catch was a few words. Bastian, for all his hang-ups and control issues and occasionally dickish behavior, was the key to every lock inside him.
“I can arrange that.” He hesitated. “Where’s your bedroom?”
It hit Kian then that this was only the second time Bastian had ever been in his house, and that they’d never even kissed inside it.
Their entire relationship had played out in the starkly luxurious confines of Bastian’s house.
He’d never dried off after a shower with one of Kian’s threadbare towels.
He’d never seen his bare bones room, with its mattress that lay on the floor.
He could have upgraded—he had some money saved—but it had never seemed important.
He was barely ever home, and then he and Bastian had taken their relationship past mere pining, and then he’d never been home at all.
For all his vaunted internal boasting that their relationship was more equal than ever, it wasn’t, was it?
“This way,” Kian said, walking Bastian down the hall, opening the door to his bedroom. He wasn’t worried it would be a mess; you’d have to live in a room for it to be a mess, but he’d barely even been in here the last few weeks.
“Save your breath,” Kian said wryly, “there’s no real compliment to be found, but that’s okay.”
Bastian raised an eyebrow. “It is?”