Soufflés at Sunrise (22 page)

All Kai knew was that he missed him. He missed his face in the morning, the way it felt when Chase held him, his laugh, hanging out alone, his kisses. Fuck. Kai missed everything about him, and he couldn’t believe one small mistake could’ve made him lose it completely. He wanted Chase back in his life, back in his bed, and not just some distant guy who was only polite to a point because he has to be. It had been a few days, but it felt like five hundred years.

Kai raked his hands through his hair but didn’t put it up. He knew Chase liked it down. Maybe it would help. Right? He didn’t change out of his warm-ups and tank top. He wanted to look as approachable as possible so maybe Chase would forget he was once a massive asshole to him.

Kai walked out into the hallway of the building and up the stairs. He took them one at a time, practicing in his head what he was going to say. He didn’t know how to tell Chase how it had pulled him apart when all those people got to see the Chase only he saw, how it had felt like everyone could see his insides.

The deck was quiet other than the distant sounds of the street far below. Kai didn’t have to look for him. Chase had his favorite spot on the roof and he barely deviated from it. Especially when they’d had a rough day and were lucky not to have been kicked off the show. Breon. Kai still couldn’t believe Breon was gone. He was someone who could’ve won it. He was a brilliant chef. Kai would miss him. They’d promised to keep in touch.

Chase. This is about Chase.

He didn’t have the mental power to concentrate on more than one problem. Not until he told Chase what he was feeling and hopefully got some relief.

Chase was where Kai knew he’d be, curled up onto his favorite cushy deck chair, staring at nothing.

“Hey,” Kai said quietly.

Chase looked up but didn’t answer.

“Is it okay if I sit down?” Kai asked.

Chase still didn’t answer for a minute, just looked at Kai with big, sad eyes. Kai didn’t want to assume; he wanted to wait for Chase to give him permission. Chase finally nodded.

“I wanted to say a few things to you,” Kai said slowly. “I’ve wanted to for days, but this is difficult for me. I guess I didn’t realize quite how much you mean to me.”

“What can you say?” Chase asked quietly. “Do you have any idea how much that hurt when you pulled me down like that?”

“I’m really sorry I snapped at you,” Kai muttered. “I didn’t mean to.”

“I just… it hit me really hard. I hate talking about this shit.” Chase looked down. Kai hoped that wasn’t all he was going to get out of him.

“I’d had a bad day and I was jealous, okay? You won, you deserved to win, and I felt like shit.”

“So you… told me I was arrogant?” Chase choked out. “Like, I realize that’s not some huge insult in the grand scheme of things. Clarissa’s said way more awful things to me in the past few weeks. But you….”

“You trusted me.”

“Yeah, I mean, with that stuff. The stuff we were doing. Nobody’s seen that side of me before. I really thought you were—”

“Nobody’s seen that side of me before either,” Kai said quickly. “I didn’t even know I had that side until I met you. Do you have any idea how important you are to me?”

“You didn’t treat me like I was important. You treated me like… like I was only someone you wanted to be with as long as you were better than me. I just… I just don’t know what to do with that.”

“I know that’s a problem with me—that I like being the best. I had to be the best to get where I am now. Second-best was never good enough for me, and that attitude has helped me achieve stuff. Do you get that?”

“I suppose that makes sense,” Chase mumbled.

“But I don’t have that advantage with you. You’re as good as me, we’re equals. And when we….” He looked around the rooftop, making sure they really were alone. “When we’re in the bedroom, I let you do those things to me, I let you
dominate
me. No one has ever done that before, Chase. No one has ever seen that side of me—fuck, I don’t think
I’ve
ever seen that side of me before. I guess it just scared me. I acted like an ass because of it.”

“I get that. I don’t think you’re better than me either, by the way,” Chase said. He laughed a little, which Kai hoped was a good sign.

“I miss you.”

Chase looked like he was about to reach out and touch Kai, but then he pulled his hand back. “I.” He stopped. “I miss you too, okay? I’m just not sure, I don’t know. Something weird happened inside of me that day when you were so mean. I don’t want it to happen again. That probably sounds nuts. But it’s true.”

“I’m sorry, Chase. I’m so sorry. I wish I could take that back.” More than anything. It was just one stupid moment, but he’d played it over and over again in his head.

“Yeah, me too.” Chase muttered. “I just don’t know that you can.”

“Is that really it?” Kai asked. It was ridiculous, he knew. They’d only been messing around for a few weeks, but there was something special about Chase. Just like he’d said. They had some connection. He didn’t know how to fix it. He knew that he wanted to though.

It turned out there was something worse than having someone else be better than you. It was laying your heart on the line and begging for forgiveness and being turned down anyway. Which Chase had every right to do. Some actions spoke louder than the words that came after, and Kai had never been that good with words.

“I don’t know,” Chase said. “For right now, yeah. I think so.”

“Do you want me to go back downstairs?”

Chase coughed and looked up. Then he nodded slowly. “I think I do.”

W
ELCOME
TO
Burned
, where we find fresh new cooking talent… and a few culinary disasters! It was a close call for both Chase and Kai last week, but in the end, Breon went home in a surprise upset over his and Al’s conventional cheese pastry tart. He’d been a favorite to win, but it shows that in our kitchens, everyone can get burned. Clarissa and her assistant Polly, on the other hand, showed the judges exactly what they wanted. Their unusual take on traditional snack cakes were as innovative and delicious as they were nostalgic. The judges especially loved their beet-and-sweet-potato twinkie. Congratulations, Clarissa!

After this it only gets harder. This week our contestants each have to produce a mini collection of themed desserts. The sky’s the limit; our chefs can choose any theme they want, but it has to be something special. Safe is not the way to go in this challenge. Good luck!

Our grand prize winner gets a year of pastry training in Paris, a whole kitchen’s worth of top-of-the-line commercial tools and appliances, and a hundred thousand dollars for his or her own business.

With stakes this big, we ask the one question on everyone’s mind: Do these chefs have what it takes to rise to the top? Or will they get
Burned
?

“H
ERE
, I
brought you toast and scrambled eggs,” Kai said. He sat them down on Chase’s nightstand. Chase wasn’t asleep. Kai knew what asleep Chase looked like, and he knew what pretending looked like. Chase was pretending.

Of course he doesn’t want to fucking talk to me.
Kai felt like an asshole. And the thing was, he got why Chase was so hurt. It wasn’t an ego thing anymore, even though Kai’s ego was definitely bruised. And it wasn’t about what had happened, not really. He’d apologized, as sincerely as he knew how, and Chase hadn’t turned him down. As long as there was hope, Kai was going to keep trying to fix things. He guessed if Chase wanted him to totally fuck off, he would have said so by now.

“Hey, Chase? Breakfast?”

Chase “woke up” and rolled over. “I’m not very hungry,” he said.

Kai had noticed Chase’s appetite being really bad since the incident. He’d barely touched his meals in the house, and that was when he was even there to eat them. He spent a lot of time up on the roof alone. After that last conversation, Kai didn’t know if he could face going up there again. Even if it was to shove food in Chase’s face and make him eat it.

“I think you should have some breakfast. It’s challenge day. You need your fuel.”

Chase sat up and the blanket fell away from his bare golden chest. Kai wanted to reach out and touch so desperately. He always wanted to touch, obviously. Who wouldn’t? Chase was like honey in skin form, sweet and tempting and warm. Kai drooled.

Chase reached for the plate and Kai handed it to him. He sat his tea on the bedside table. He’d only put two pieces of toast and some eggs on the plate.

“Can I stay?” Kai asked.

Chase paused for a moment, then nodded and started listlessly spooning some into his mouth. He didn’t even look like he liked it all that much. Kai knew the damn eggs were good. Things needed to be fixed between them before it was too late. Kai sat down.

“What do you think the main challenge is going to be?” he asked. He was going to try, damn it, he’d promised himself he would keep making an effort.

Chase simply shrugged and took a small bite of his toast.

“Chase, we’re both miserable. Can you please talk to me?” Kai asked. “Please?”

Chase shrugged again. It was just about the most frustrating thing ever. “I know we’re both miserable,” he finally said. “I just don’t know how to get past this. It’s like… I don’t know. I don’t know if I can show you that side of me again and I don’t know if we can be, like, a thing without it. It’s part of what we were.”

The word “were” made Kai’s belly clench. “I hope someday it can be part of what we are again. If there’s anything I can do, I don’t want to be a ‘were’ to you.”

Kai couldn’t believe himself. He’d never outright asked to be taken back before. He’d never really been with anyone seriously enough to care, and as short a time as he’d been with Chase, something about them was very, very serious. He didn’t even recognize the words that were coming out of his mouth, but he meant them.

“Thanks for breakfast,” Chase said. He put his plate down. At least he’d eaten most of it. Kai figured he’d sit next to him at lunch, make him a plate from craft services and shove it down his throat if he had to. Kai liked taking care of Chase. He liked when Chase took care of him too.

“No problem. You sure you don’t want any more?”

Chase looked up and smiled at him. The first smile of any kind he’d gotten since that day when he’d screwed everything up. “No, thanks. But it was good. I’m fine, okay?”

Kai looked at the ground. “Just so you know, I’m not.”

Chase nodded and reached out to brush his hand against Kai’s arm. Then he stood and went to the dresser where he kept his clothes. Kai figured it was time to get ready to go.
Yay
. Another challenge.

T
RIO
DESSERTS
.
That wasn’t bad. Kai could do it in his sleep, which was good because he would practically have to. He hadn’t slept well since Chase started his deep freeze. The makeup lady had to put an extra layer of under-eye concealer on him, which had sucked. Getting makeup put on wasn’t one of Kai’s favorite activities. Part of him wanted to toss this one out, get cut from the show, pack his bags, and go home to Hawaii where he could figure out what the hell he was feeling with his family all around him. Another part of him, probably the bigger one—no, for sure the bigger one—wasn’t ready to give up.

“Chefs,” Diego started.

Fantastic. Another one of his longwinded speeches.
Kai’d heard enough of Diego’s dramatizing to last the rest of his life. He’d long since mastered the skill of tuning him out. No time like the present to practice, though.

“Welcome back to the
Burned
kitchens.”

Like we weren’t here yesterday.

Kai had seen enough of the damn kitchens now. At first, the big, open spaces had seemed welcoming, now they were oppressive, stifling his creativity. It would be worth it if he won. Everything would be worth it if he got to tell his family he’d won the money, could open up his own place, feel like something other than a kid from Kaneohe who had to prove he was worth it. Whatever that meant. Kai didn’t look at Chase, because he wasn’t exactly sure how Chase fit into that fantasy. Even though it had been the dream since the start, these days it felt farther away from what he really wanted than he’d ever expected.

“This week you’re doing everything in threes. You’re going to produce a trio of desserts for the judges that complement each other and work together. I don’t have to say that we’re looking for creativity and that extra special something. But I’ll repeat it anyway. See you when the challenge is over.”

Trios, trios….
Kai had done a few back at Donovan’s. He could do this one. He just had to not look at Chase and not think about the way he’d barely returned his glance that morning when Kai brought him breakfast. Maybe it was time to give up that dream. Kai needed to stay on the damn show. It was his time to shine, not some guy who’d flipped him inside out and then walked away. Right?

He didn’t know what he was talking himself into anymore. Didn’t matter, anyway.

Trio desserts were fairly classic and could be done in several different ways. At Donovan’s he’d always gone with a chocolate, a cream, and a fruit option, each only several mouthfuls, so tiny and delicate and bursting with flavor. Kai wondered for a moment if that was too predictable for a show like
Burned
, then decided to hell with it. Sometimes there was a reason why things were done in a certain way.

He’d do miniature versions of desserts he loved. Passion fruit meringue…
thing
, he’d figure out a name for it later; a rich, dark chocolate fondant; and because he hadn’t had chance to make it yet, his grandmother’s favorite coconut crème. The flavors of all three would work together well on the plate, and he was confident he could make all three delicious and beautiful in the time he had allocated.