Epilogue
Eighteen months later
“I think this is a very bad idea.” Bastian wasn’t perfect, would never be perfect, and still liked to construct all sorts of walls to keep his deeper feelings from the world. The only difference now was that at least when he constructed the walls, he built them with Kian inside.
Kian rolled his eyes. “It’s going to be great. How could it not? It’s a wedding.”
“Your friends all hate me,” Bastian said, and, unusually, sounded like he actually regretted this.
It was hard, but not impossible, to keep his chuckle hidden inside.
It was just so unusual to see Bastian on such shaky ground, uncertain of how he’d be received.
What Kian had discovered more and more over the months, as their personal relationship deepened and their professional relationship flourished, was that he’d always had these feelings, he just was total shit at expressing them.
But now he’d started to, with Kian as the only witness.
“You didn’t seem to mind them hating you when they all worked for you,” Kian pointed out wryly.
Bastian thought about this for a long moment, then gave a sharp nod, his eyes following Kian from the closet to the suitcase on the bed, as he packed for their trip down to southern California.
Bastian had gotten home a little earlier, so he was already packed, and he kept eyeing his duffel, sitting on the floor by the bedroom door, with extreme trepidation.
“Did you do laundry this week?” Kian asked from the depths of the closet. The shelf holding his jeans was pretty bare. He’d meant to do some earlier, but Cluster, the small plates bistro adjacent to Terroir, was in the middle of a menu overhaul, and he’d been too busy.
“Did I do laundry?” Bastian appeared in the doorway, arms crossed over his bare chest. “Do I ever do laundry?”
“Not if you can help it,” Kian sighed.
“I have time to throw in a quick load now,” Bastian offered.
Four years ago when Kian had walked into Terroir for the first time, he never would have dreamt that one day Bastian would be offering to do his laundry.
The problem was that even though he was a relentless perfectionist in the kitchen, it turned out that Bastian was fucking awful at chores like laundry. Last year, he’d even managed to turn an entire load of whites bright pink even though there had been nothing red to be found.
Socks regularly disappeared, stains didn’t come out, and even though Bastian, who hated failure with the fire of a thousand suns, meticulously folded every item, somehow everything always came out wrinkled.
Kian shot him a loving look. It was sort of adorable how bad Bastian was at laundry. “I think I’m going to have to pass on that offer.”
A frustrated noise escaped Bastian. “I was going to be careful.”
When you were dating and living together with someone like Bastian Aquino, diplomacy was of the utmost importance. “I’m sure you were,” Kian said, with the straightest face he could manage.
“I know it’s mind-boggling that someone with Michelin stars is unable to do a load of laundry,” Bastian said with a disgusted sigh. “God knows I know how pathetic I am.”
“Hey,” Kian said, reaching up and brushing a lingering kiss on his cheek, rough with stubble after a very long day, “if the worst thing you ever do is fuck up my clothes, I’m good with that. I’m just going to run a load myself. There’s time before we leave tomorrow for it to dry.”
Kian pulled a selection of jeans and shirts out of the hamper and then Bastian trailed after him as he went down the hall to start the washing machine.
“It wasn’t that I didn’t care that they hated me, before,” Bastian said.
Oh, so they were back to the prior subject of conversation—that all of Kian’s best friends didn’t like him, their dislike long predating Kian and Bastian’s relationship.
Kian shot him a look over his shoulder. He hadn’t given a single fuck that they’d hated him. He’d been not-so-affectionately called the Bastard and he’d carried the insult of that nickname regally, like a fur cloak.
“Oh, really?” Kian asked, turning back to him after hitting the start button on the washer.
“I didn’t like it,” Bastian claimed.
Kian rolled his eyes as they returned to the bedroom so he could finish packing. “They don’t hate you. It’ll be fine.”
Celeste had texted him this morning, telling him that she’d told Bastian the same thing. Apparently this was something he was really worried about.
“Listen,” Kian continued, pushing Bastian down on the edge of the bed they shared, and climbing onto his lap.
He’d grown another inch and had begun to fill out his lanky body a little, but Bastian would always be bigger than him—something Kian hoped would never stop being hot.
“This is a really happy occasion that is actually not about you. Just relax and try to have a little fun. That’s what you typically do at weddings. ”
Bastian glared. “I know what to do at a wedding.”
“Oh?” Kian raised his eyebrow. “And how many of them have you taken off to go to in the last . . . let’s say . . . ten years?”
“I’ve been a little busy.” Despite his words, Bastian’s grumpy expression was beginning to crack, and Kian could see the beginnings of a smile. And he could feel the beginnings of something else stirring under his crotch. This position turned Bastian on just as much as it did Kian.
“A little advice then,” Kian murmured, leaning in a little until they were almost kissing. Nearly, but not close enough. “Smile. Laugh. Eat. Drink. Enjoy yourself.”
Bastian’s arms wound around his middle and pushed Kian down, brushing their growing erections together. “Are you going to be there?”
“Yeah, I am.”
“Then it shouldn’t be very hard for me to do any of those things,” Bastian admitted.
Even though they’d been together a year and a half, Bastian being sappy and sweet still turned Kian’s world upside down. It shouldn’t have been unexpected by this point, but it always was, in the best possible way.
Kian leaned down and kissed him long and slow and filthy. “I love you,” he whispered against his lips.
Bastian didn’t answer but from the way he crawled up his body, Kian knew exactly what his answer was.
Bastian hated weddings.
If there’d been a way to avoid this one without hurting Kian’s feelings or looking like a complete asshole, he would’ve done it.
But considering that one of the grooms was a former employee of Terroir, and one of Kian’s best friends, it was impossible.
Add to those facts the other fact that both grooms were up-and-coming in the culinary scene, and this was the wedding.
That still didn’t mean that Bastian had to like it.
“It’s awful, isn’t it?”
Bastian glanced up from where he’d been minutely examining his program, stuffed and uncomfortable in his suit, and saw a blonde woman, a rueful expression on her face wearing a turquoise dress with flowers strewn across it.
“You must be Kian’s boyfriend,” she said, settling in next to him. Bastian, who’d been actively trying to keep his expression neutral, frowned.
“I’m Tabitha King,” she said, holding out her hand.
Bastian let his frown deepen, even though there was a strong possibility that Kian would see it and be disappointed in him. This was a wedding, and it was supposed to be filled with love and beauty and happiness, right?
Bastian was more intimately acquainted with those concepts than he’d ever been, but the visible outpouring still made him nervous.
“Do I know you?” he asked, shaking her hand briskly. She had a surprisingly firm handshake and a way of looking at you that stripped most pretense away.
“I’m Ryan’s best friend,” she said.
It took him a long moment to place who Ryan was, and then he remembered Kian mentioning that Wyatt, his old employee, had ended up dating Ryan Flores, the baseball player.
“But this isn’t Wyatt’s wedding,” Bastian objected.
She tilted her head and the look in her blue eyes was as sharp as one of his Japanese steel knives. “Correct. I also work at Five Points, which is why I’m here.”
“So you work with Miles and Evan, then,” Bastian said, a little pleased that he’d finally managed to figure out the somewhat complex personal relationships.
He’d never claim to be a very good boyfriend in that regard.
His focus was too single-minded. It had expanded to include Kian, but not Kian’s circle of friends, most of whom, unfortunately, were ex-employees and hated him.
Tabitha shrugged. “Not really, but they’re two really nice guys.”
It dawned on Bastian that not only was she clearly friendly with Wyatt, she would also be friendly with Miles. Therefore she knew exactly who he was, yet she’d still identified him as “Kian’s boyfriend,” and not as Bastian Aquino, head chef of Terroir.
“Miles used to work for me,” Bastian admitted, even though technically Miles had worked for René, the head of pastry at Terroir.
“I know.” Tabitha eyed him steadily.
Bastian sighed. “Then you know three quarters of the wedding party hates my guts.”
“Thus making you the most interesting person at this wedding,” Tabitha pointed out, “and why I’m over here talking to you, instead of sucking up to my boss.”
“I’m flattered,” Bastian said dryly.
“At least I’m not asking you when you’re going to do this,” she said, giving a general wave around the wedding preparations.
He adored Kian, and he was almost completely certain that Kian adored him, but this sort of event, with the proliferation of flowers and silky tents and strung lights and a full wedding party—not his type of thing at all.
“So you thought you’d come over here not to ask when we’re getting married and also because I’m the most interesting yet most hated person at the wedding?”
She laughed. “Something like that. And because you were sitting alone, and I know what that’s like.”