Page 55 of Kitchen Gods: The Complete Series

And then . . . nothing. An excruciatingly long ten minutes went by without a single text. Ryan checked, then double-checked his coverage. Restarted his phone. Even wandered into the front of the house because the Wi-Fi was always stronger there.

Still nothing.

Ryan couldn’t believe it, they’d had a really good, nearly sexy banter going, and the unfortunately short memories of their one encounter were already flashing through his mind in three-dimensions and full-technicolor.

The sharp dig of the gravel into his knees.

The clean, musky taste of Wyatt’s dick, and the weight of it on his tongue.

Ryan pressed the heel of his hand against his own interested dick.

It didn’t want to wait and entice Wyatt into repeating the past. It wanted more.

It wanted everything, and it wasn’t usually inclined to settle, even though Ryan was pretty sure he wouldn’t need to.

Just not tonight.

Tonight, Wyatt was clearly going to leave him hanging and unsatisfied, which Ryan was man enough to admit he probably deserved. Not that he’d left Wyatt hanging the other night—he’d definitely been fully, if not completely, satisfied then.

But not entirely, Ryan thought, as he remembered the way Wyatt’s face had fallen when he realized that Ryan had no intention of exchanging phone numbers with him.

No, Wyatt had definitely wanted more. He’d wanted more the next morning too, but Ryan had fucked that up by not being honest enough.

Not a mistake that Ryan or his dick were going to make again. As soon as Wyatt got here and settled in a little, he was going to find out what Ryan needed—and also what Ryan wanted—from him.

He never took a chance of being the last one interested, much preferring to cut and run and move onto something better, something more exciting, when a hookup ran its natural course. But tonight, he texted Wyatt again.

Ryan told himself it was the veneer of professionalism that he was trying to maintain because he was technically Wyatt’s boss now. Not that he’d exactly been professional the first time they’d met.

I’ll be around during the day tomorrow and probably the evening too. Hope to see you.

Ryan realized as he finished typing that it wasn’t only his dick that felt that way.

He wanted to get to know Wyatt; he wanted to talk to him again.

He wanted to convince him to take a chance on Ryan’s wild plan most of all, because that meant he wouldn’t have to do it with a stranger he didn’t even like.

He wanted it to be Wyatt. He just needed Wyatt to want it too.

Wyatt looked at his phone and slipped it back in his pocket. Two texts unanswered now.

“You realize we threw this party for you, right?” Xander said, his voice cutting right through the grind of the guitars in the music that someone—not someone with taste, but someone—had put on the playlist.

Wyatt looked up at the crowded rental he was moving out of in the morning, and realized he couldn’t identify more than a handful of guys he’d worked with in the Terroir kitchen.

“I don’t even know half these people,” Wyatt half-yelled. He knew he didn’t have a voice like Xander’s, that could cut through so much ambient noise, and he was usually glad about that fact.

Xander scanned over the crowd with a critical eye. “I think a lot of these are Nate’s friends.”

They weren’t Nate’s friends. If they’d been Nate’s friends, Wyatt would have known them.

He considered pointing this out, but Xander was in a mood—frankly had been in a mood since Miles had moved to LA—and so he didn’t.

Certainly Wyatt leaving and having Nate take over his part of the lease weren’t helping.

If Xander wanted to throw a stupid house party, buy too much booze, and invite too many people none of them knew, then Wyatt certainly wasn’t going to tell him he wasn’t going to regret it in the morning.

“I haven’t seen Kian yet,” Wyatt said, because changing the subject was a far safer approach.

Xander’s lips compressed. “I’m sure the Bastard had some sort of ridiculous project for him that kept him late again.”

“While I’m in LA, I’m going to look for a different job for him,” Wyatt said, even though he’d already told Xander what his plans were. Still, they both knew it was going to be in vain. There was no way Kian would leave Aquino.

Wyatt didn’t want to say it was love because he’d always believed that love needed generosity and respect and admiration to grow and flourish, but maybe he was wrong.

Not about Bastian suddenly becoming generous, respectful or admiring, but about any of those being required for Kian to fall in love with him.

It was a depressing thought, and Wyatt forced his mind back to the party, because even though he was saying goodbye, this was supposed to be a somewhat happy occasion. A celebration of the potential of the future.

The truth was all Wyatt wanted to do was pull his phone back up, despite Xander’s face-melting glare, and text with Ryan.

He was clever and cute and just a little aggressive.

Aggressive wasn’t something Wyatt thought he’d want after Nate, but on Ryan it felt more natural, more an extension of a well-meaning personality than a way to go about domineering everyone and everything.

And Nate had absolutely, definitely done that.

Of course Nate also hadn’t lied about his intentions either, which was something Wyatt was still confused and a little upset about. Why not tell him? Why keep it a secret?

That mystery was all caught up in his own conflicted feelings towards Ryan.

He still felt everything he had the first night they’d met.

He’d never stopped. He was pretty sure that stopping was totally out of the cards now that he was going to be working for Ryan and literally living in his backyard.

Cooking his meals. Taking care of him. All actions that Wyatt knew would develop his feelings even if he tried to hold them back.

But Ryan seemed interested too, despite the mysterious intentions, and that was something Wyatt was increasingly having to come to terms with.

Would he let him? Would Ryan be the guy?

Wyatt had always known, in the corners of his mind, that there would be a guy that would make him want to come out to Nana.

That there would be a guy that he’d be dying to introduce to her, and not just as a “good friend.”

It seemed insane that Ryan could be the guy. It also seemed insane that Ryan was interested, but that was an undeniable fact. Wyatt felt the sharp edges of his phone through his pocket, and finally pulled it back out.

Xander had decamped to the doorway, where he was interrogating Kian. Wyatt glanced down at his screen and before he could change his mind—or chicken out—typed a response to Ryan.

I’m leaving my friends and my job and the city I’ve lived in for years. The only definite thing I know about the future is that I’m going to see you tomorrow.