King of the Kitchen (22 page)

He could hardly keep his eyes open, especially when Beck started shampooing his hair. It felt more intimate than anything else they’d done, and Duncan relaxed into the sensation. He was dead on his feet and barely able to help dry himself off when Beck rinsed both of them off and stopped the water.

Duncan let himself be guided back to bed and arranged easily until they were spooning.

“This okay?”

Beck’s question had Duncan reeling.
This
was what he was going to ask about? “I’m breaking all my rules for you,” Duncan muttered sleepily.

If Beck had any response to that, Duncan didn’t hear it. He was out like a light.

Chapter FOURTEEN

BECK HALF
expected Duncan to be gone in the morning, but when his alarm went off two hours after they’d gone to sleep, Duncan was still sprawled across his bed, snoring.

If they didn’t leave soon, they’d be late for the morning read-through, but Beck was sorely tempted to let it slide and snuggle back in beside Duncan. They deserved to sleep in after how crazy last night had been.

Unfortunately, Beck’s life never worked like that. He was always overscheduled, so he knew if he let himself lapse this one time it could easily turn into a habit. He poked Duncan in the side, but Duncan mumbled something unintelligible and rolled away, taking all of the blankets with him.

He looked so young with his face lax in sleep. Not that he usually looked old; he didn’t. But Beck wasn’t used to seeing Duncan’s face at rest, and it made him look different. More vulnerable and less defensive. Duncan wore his over-the-top expressions like a shield, Beck was coming to realize. Kind of like how he hid behind a mask of polite indifference whenever he got flustered, except the exact opposite. Duncan was the clown, the one who always went for the laugh. Or, at the opposite end, the hot-headed guy who waded into things that were over his head in the moment.

Beck heard the front door open, and a second later, Lindsay called out.

“Beck? You’d better be dying, you asshole! I drove all the way over here because you wouldn’t answer your goddamn phone!”

Shit.

Duncan hadn’t woken in the commotion, so Beck slipped out of bed and grabbed his robe, tied it tightly around himself, and eased the bedroom door shut behind him. No good would come of Lindsay knowing—

He stopped dead as he turned the corner to the living room, where Lindsay was kicking what was obviously two different sets of clothing into a large pile.

Well, fuck. There was no way she wouldn’t figure out who the T-shirt on top belonged to. It didn’t take a genius to realize they only knew one person who’d be caught dead in a T-shirt with a smirking rolling pin and the caption “Bakers do it for the dough.”

“Really, Beck? I have to come tearing over here because you can’t be bothered to pick up the phone because you’re still in bed with Duncan?”

He grabbed the pants he’d been wearing last night and dug his phone out of the pocket. It was nearly dead and showed ten missed calls from Lindsay, plus two from Christian and one from Campbell. Fucking hell. It was barely seven.

“So I’m guessing the blogs got a hold of Vincent’s rant?” he asked, dropping his phone on the side table and padding to the kitchen. If he had to be up, there was damn well going to be coffee.

“Of course they did. It’s made national news. Someone took a video, and it’s already been shared more than 500,000 times on YouTube.”

Oh God. Duncan was going to flip his shit.

“Of what, exactly?” he asked, not wanting to disclose more than he had to. Who knew what had gotten picked up.

Lindsay opened the laptop she’d been clutching to her chest and put it on the counter while Beck poked at his coffee machine.

“Why don’t you go get Duncan so you can both see this?” she asked.

“Because he’s sleeping, and there’s no reason to ruin his day until he gets up,” Beck snapped. “Show me the damn video.”

It was grainy, obviously shot with a camera phone from a few tables away. Lindsay cranked the sound on the laptop, and even then it was hard to distinguish Vincent’s voice from the din of the restaurant itself. They’d caught him at the peak of his rant, and even with the poor lighting and zoom, it was easy to see how red his face was. Beck and Duncan looked flushed too, but nowhere near as badly as Vincent.

It only lasted thirty seconds and consisted mostly of Vincent waving his hands angrily and Beck putting his arm around Duncan, but the stony look on Beck’s face and the absolute misery on Duncan’s didn’t leave much question as to whether or not Vincent was angry with them.

“There are a few blogs with transcripts. I’m guessing either from someone who was there or someone who’s better at lip-reading than I am,” Lindsay said. “I’m kind of hoping they’re wrong, actually. Did he really say those things to Duncan?”

Beck gritted his teeth and poured them cups of coffee. He added creamer and a generous sprinkling of sugar in to his and handed Lindsay’s over black. “What, that gays are an abomination and he’d disown him if he didn’t give up this gay phase? Yes, he did. He’s a vile human being.”

Lindsay looked sick. “How’s Duncan?”

“How do you think? He’s going to be a hundred times worse when he finds out this is all over the place,” Beck growled.

“Hey, I didn’t have anything to do with it. I’m the one who woke up to two calls at five in the morning asking for the network’s comment on your relationship.”

Beck grimaced. “So that made it too?”

“What, the part where you—hold on, let me find it.” She flipped between tabs until she came to what she wanted, then read off the screen. “‘A source in the crowd said
King of the Kitchen
’s Beck Douglas tossed Vincent Walters’s words back at him and protectively wrapped around an obviously distraught Duncan Walters to shield him from both his father and onlookers.’”

Beck choked on his coffee. “No! I didn’t. Well, no.” He shook his head as he combed his memory of last night. He’d put his hand on Duncan’s shoulder for support, and Duncan had been the one to pull his arm around him so it looked like they were embracing.

“Beck, I need to know. Are you and Duncan dating?”

Beck picked up his spoon and stirred his coffee, watching the milky liquid swirl around. “Maybe?”

Lindsay made a frustrated noise. “I can’t work with ‘maybe,’ Beck. I need a yes or a no. I have to issue a statement, both from the network and from you, and maybe even from Duncan if he wants me to. Vincent’s people are going to be all over this soon, if they aren’t already. They’re going to spin it as a misunderstanding between father and son and ask for the media and fans to stay out of it. Is that what you want to happen?”

Beck ran a hand through his hair. “It’s not my place to say, Lindsay! This is his life. I don’t get to decide those kinds of things for him. Personally, I’d like the entire world to know what a horrible, flaming bigot his father is. I want people to boycott all of Vincent Walters’s restaurants. I want Big Gay to get out there and leave horrible reviews on his Yelp pages. It’s petty, but I do. I hate what he’s done to Duncan, the way he’s made Duncan ashamed of who he is.”

Lindsay clucked her tongue. “So burn him to the ground? I can do that.”

“No!” He squeezed his eyes shut, wishing he was still curled up in bed with Duncan. It would have been nice for them to have had this conversation with each other before he had to have it with someone else. “It’s up to him.”

“Then wake him up, Beck.”

He took a deep breath and counted to five before responding. “No. He’s going to wake up to what might be one of the worst days of his life. He was mortified people overheard Vincent last night—he’s going to be absolutely gutted that it’s on the Internet. So I’m letting him sleep.”

She sighed. “Fine. We’ll do our part, then. How involved are you with Duncan?”

He snorted. “Obviously, I slept with him.”

“Oh really,” she said flatly.

He looked up and glared at her. “Twice. At the studio a few weeks ago and then here last night.”

She squinted at him. “Was it terrible?”

“What? No!”

Her brows furrowed, and she leaned forward and rested her head on her fist. “Well, that’s usually the only reason two consenting adults avoid each other like the plague after knocking boots, which must have been what caused that rift between you after the first show.”

“It was great. Is that what you want to hear? Too good, because I thought it meant more than it did, but it was a casual thing for him. So I’ve been avoiding him because I’m in a little over my head and I don’t want it to bleed over into the show. And then things happened last night and here we are.”

“So what are we looking at here? Do you
want
to be in a relationship?”

He looked up and sighed. “I don’t know? I told him I couldn’t do casual, and he said okay, but we haven’t talked about it yet today.”

She nodded. “All right. First order of business, DTR.”

“DTR?”

“Define the Relationship,” she said with exaggerated slowness.

“Well, excuse me for not using chat-speak like an eleven-year-old girl,” he snapped.

“Second order of business,” she continued like he hadn’t interrupted, “come up with a media plan for all the contingencies.”

“Can I seriously not let this play out on its own without you and your lackeys getting involved?”

“No, you really can’t.” She sighed. “Look, I’m sorry. Dating’s hard. I get it. Shit, I can’t keep a guy around for more than a few dates, so maybe I don’t get it. I don’t know. But the point is, you and Duncan are in the public eye. And what’s more, you’re in the public eye together, representing the network. So if two of my costars tell me they’re going to start dating? You bet I need a plan. Even more so when the public gets ahold of that information. I need to know if you want to confirm or deny the story to the public. I need to know what to do if you break up. If Duncan was a chick, I’d need a plan for what to do if he got pregnant, so you can be thankful we’re leaving that one out.”

Beck sighed and rubbed his face. “I know. I just—I like him. He’s ridiculous and kind of obnoxious, but I like him.”

Her frown softened. “He’s obviously into you, Beck. I know the two of you bicker constantly, but I really do think it’s flirtatious. And both of you are know-it-alls, but that’s not something that’s going to change.” She laughed when Beck made an outraged noise. “I’ve seen him with people he doesn’t like. My father, for one. He goes all quiet and tense. You should have seen him that morning when they went toe-to-toe. I thought he was going to bore through the table with the force of his glare. It’s nothing like how he acts around you. I’m pretty sure you two will work things out.”

“And if we don’t?”

“And if you don’t, I’ll have a media plan for that,” she said sassily, ducking when he tossed a paper clip at her. “Can we get Duncan up now?”

“No need,” Duncan said, shuffling into the kitchen. “You’re not exactly quiet. Lindsay has a voice that, shall we say, carries.”

She stuck her tongue out at him. “Are you calling me shrill?”

“No, but I’m not contradicting you, either.” He poured himself a cup of coffee and dumped half the sugar shaker in it before stealing Beck’s spoon to stir it. “Hit me with it.”

“I could just be here for breakfast,” she said.

“Or you could have come in forty minutes ago shrieking the place down. I heard a lot of it. Including you trying to save me from this for a bit, which I appreciate,” he said to Beck, pressing a kiss to Beck’s temple.

Beck nearly melted with relief when he felt Duncan’s hand intertwine with his. He squeezed, locking their fingers together.

“Yesterday’s blowup with your father is probably going viral today,” Lindsay said bluntly. “Someone recorded it, and it’s on YouTube. We can’t do anything about that,” she said, holding up a hand when Duncan opened his mouth. “What we’re looking at is damage control. What do you want officially out there from the network, from Beck, and from you? I can help you with all that.”

Duncan looked down and swallowed. “The video—”

“Pretty much,” Beck said, not wanting Duncan to have to say the words. “It has everything important.”

Duncan’s shoulders slumped. “And people are saying?”

Lindsay cringed. “That Vincent Walters is a homophobic asshole who doesn’t deserve a penny of their money in his fancy restaurants. That Beck Douglas and Duncan Walters should be ashamed of themselves and listen to Vincent, because he’s a God-fearing man who’s looking out for their souls, and no one should watch
King of the Kitchen
because it promotes sodomy. It’s all over the place.”

Jesus. Christian was probably having a fit over that. He was always supportive, but he hated it when the show or his restaurants got dragged into things. Then again, he
really
hated Vincent, so maybe the fact Beck was in the news because he’d gone up against him would actually make Christian happy. It was hard to say.

“What do you want to do?” Lindsay asked softly.

Duncan hadn’t raised his gaze from his untouched coffee. “Issue a statement, I guess. Tell them that after a lot of thought and years of soul-searching, I’ve decided to cut ties with my father once and for all. That his bigoted views are backward and hurtful, and apologize to anyone who was hurt by them.”

Beck squeezed his hand.

“And about your relationship with Beck?” Lindsay prompted.

Duncan did look up at that, his eyes meeting Beck’s. “I said I’d give it a go last night. You still up for that?”

Beck’s stomach swooped. “Yeah?” he asked, watching Duncan carefully. “If you’re sure, then, yes.”

“So were you or weren’t you meeting up with Vincent to tell him you two were dating?” Lindsay asked.

“We weren’t. We weren’t even dating till just now, really.”

Lindsay cooed. “How precious. Now. Moving on. I need to know what you want people to know, what people don’t already know about this clusterfuck that you want them to continue not to know, and what I need to watch out for.”

Beck groaned. “That could take a while.”