Page 33 of Kitchen Gods: The Complete Series

“What I wanted to see,” Reed said reluctantly, “was a meshing together of your two viewpoints. The organization and production value that you bring to the table, but the spontaneity and charm of who Miles is in the kitchen. Your point of view completely overwhelmed his. You rehearsed him way too much. He knew what he was going to say before he even said it. There was nothing here from Pastry by Miles. It was more Pastry by Evan.”

It was one thing to know it, it was another to have his boss pronounce it.

Evan wanted to sink through the floor and die, especially when he saw Miles approaching behind Reed, clearly hearing every word he was saying.

The worried crinkle between his dark brows told Evan everything he needed to know.

Miles was half a step out the door, half a step away from going back to Napa and resuming a life that he’d already outgrown.

And Evan, for the first time in his life, confronted a problem that he didn’t know how to fix.

“We can do better,” Evan said, because he didn’t know what else to say. He believed they could; he had no idea how to go about doing it, but they couldn’t be so good together sometimes without some potential for success.

Reed just shook his head. “I don’t want better.

I want what you had.” He turned and pinned Miles with a single look.

“Just because you want in his pants doesn’t mean you should just nod your head and smile whenever he tells you to do something.

He’s not infallible. And neither are you.

” He threw up his hands. “For the love of god, take a long weekend and figure out how to work together.”

“Uh,” Evan said. Because he couldn’t take a long weekend and not know what that meant for his future. Was he fired? Was Pastry by Miles as a Five Points property over before it had even begun?

“Get out of here,” Reed said sternly, and his expression very clearly stated arguments wouldn’t be tolerated. “I don’t want to hear you did one minute of work. Go somewhere. Clear your heads. And come back here and we’ll figure out this mess you two have made.”

It was bad, but Evan supposed he was grateful it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.

Miles looked like a thundercloud come to life as Reed walked off to supervise the finalization of the set for Dream Team.

“I’m sorry,” Evan said, because everything else felt painfully inadequate.

“Yeah, you should be. The real question is what you’re actually sorry for.”

Evan swallowed hard. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“That’s your whole damn problem,” Miles said. “And we’re going to fix it.”

Which is how, two hours later, Evan found himself in another rental car, heading towards Northern California.

“You can’t run away every time things get ugly,” Evan said, because he didn’t like where this was going. He knew what had happened the last time Miles had decided to go back to Napa, and they were on thin enough ice as it was.

“That,” Miles pointed out, “is your other problem. You think I’m running away.

I’m not. I’m blowing off steam. You’ve never blown off steam in your life.

You’re about to self-combust from all the steam building inside you.

You put way too much pressure on yourself.

Take too much on. We’re going up to Napa to help you learn to let stuff go. ”

“Shouldn’t we be working on how to fix the show?” Evan insisted. “We’re half-fired at this moment in time. Blowing off work to drink and party doesn’t seem like the best plan.”

“Reed already told you that you’re not working. And even if he didn’t, I wouldn’t let you. We’ve rehearsed enough. We need to learn to work together, and that’s never going to happen if you can’t fucking relax.”

“So you’re going to . . . teach me to relax?” Evan didn’t know what to make of this plan. Actually, scratch that. He knew what he thought of it and it wasn’t anything good. It was a terrible plan, probably going to result in them being totally, one hundred percent fired.

“Yes.”

“I can relax,” Evan insisted.

“And yet I have seen zero evidence of you actually relaxing,” Miles said. “We tried things your way, and they failed spectacularly. You wound us both up so tight that I could barely breathe. I don’t even know how you survive wound this tight. So we’re going to do things my way.”

“But . . .” Evan tried to point out, but Miles just interrupted him.

“No arguments. No circular logical shit. You’re going to fucking relax if it kills me.”

“It might, because I’ll probably end up murdering you,” Evan said, and he couldn’t help how grumpy he sounded. He was fine. He didn’t need to relax; relaxation never got anyone anywhere.

“Yeah,” Miles drawled, his hand on the wheel relaxed as he smiled, skin crinkling near his eyes, “you can fuck me to death.”

Evan harrumphed.

“Seriously, it might be fun. You might actually enjoy yourself for a minute.”

“Are you going to keep bringing up sex just to remind me what happened last night?” Evan demanded. “Because trust me, I do not need a reminder.”

Miles glanced over, and he was still smiling. Like the further north they drove, the further he unwound. Even Evan baiting the shit out of him didn’t make a dent. “I don’t know, I think I do. A little refresher, we could even say.”

Evan snorted, because he just couldn’t help himself. “Is that how you get guys in your bed? You never stop harassing them?” It wasn’t hard to swallow the question of why Miles wouldn’t stop harassing him. After all, he’d left Miles alone in bed, and fucked up his career.

He wasn’t sure which Miles should be more pissed off about, but Evan knew he would never be big enough to let it go. But instead of biting his head off, Miles was driving them to Napa, relaxed and smiling, like last night had been perfect.

“When it’s perfect, yeah, I’m not going to let that go. Let you go.” Miles smirked.

And it sort of had been perfect, at least before Evan went and overthought everything. Before Evan remembered what the next morning would bring.

Somehow they’d both survived the morning, though Evan had a feeling that had more to do with Reed probably not wanting to deal with them than actually catching a break.

Still. They were still here. Still together. Evan felt the invisible belt holding him together loosen a single notch.

“It was pretty great,” he admitted, and Miles’ smile grew at least ten degrees brighter.

“See, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” Miles teased.

“I don’t know,” Evan said, barely managing to keep a straight face. He was not going to grin at Miles like a lovesick loon. Except he sort of was. Miles was making him begin to believe in fate. “It might be pretty hard later.”