Home Skillet Read online

  Home Skillet

  Cate Ashwood

  Sandra Damien

  Contents

  Blurb

  Also by Cate Ashwood

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Epilogue

  Butternuts about Benny: A Love Song in Gnocchi

  About Cate Ashwood

  About Sandra Damien

  Excerpt: The Extra Virgin

  Excerpt: The French Prince of Bel Air

  Sometimes the only way to move forward… is to go back.

  JAMES

  I don't know what's more shocking—the sudden end to my marriage, or the fact that I'd married a woman at all. But now I'm broke and homeless, kicked out of my Upper West Side apartment while my ex-wife walks away with everything we've ever worked for.

  So what's an executive chef stripped of his dignity gonna do?

  Go back to Jersey with his tail between his legs, that's what.

  BEN

  I can’t say that spending a decade pining after my best friend was the best use of my time. While I'd pretty much become an expert at the whole unrequited love thing, I'd resigned myself to the fact that Jimmy and I were never gonna happen. But when Jimmy turned up on my doorstep in his hour of need, I jumped at the chance to offer him my bed—er, couch. I mean, what are friends for, right?

  Now that he's released from the shackles of matrimony, I can't wait to show him exactly what he's been missing out on all these years.

  What I didn't anticipate was him showing me that maybe I'd been missing out too.

  Also by Cate Ashwood

  Sawyer’s Ferry Series

  Alaska

  Copper Creek (Coming Soon)

  Zero Hour Series

  A Forced Silence

  A Fallen Heart

  A Forgotten Life (Coming Soon)

  Hope Cove Series

  Brokenhearted

  Wholehearted

  Ironhearted

  Newport Boys Series

  Keeping Sweets

  Resurrecting Elliott

  Standalone Stories

  When the Devil Wants In

  Textual Relations

  Married for a Month

  The Mistletoe Effect

  His Fairy Godfather

  Thirty Things

  Tasting Notes

  The Storm Before the Calm

  Bloom Box (Heartsville)

  Red Runs Through (Piece Us Back Together)

  Brick by Brick

  Five Ways a Boy Can Break Your Heart

  Riding the Board

  Published by Cate Ashwood & Sandra Damien

  Home Skillet © 2018 Cate Ashwood & Sandra Damien

  This is a work of fiction. Characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author.

  All rights reserved worldwide. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

  eBooks are not transferable.

  They cannot be sold, shared, or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work.

  Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Help support authors by purchasing only authorized copies.

  Edited by One Love Editing

  Cover Design © 2018 Cate Ashwood

  Content Warning: This work is classified as a gay romance. It contains graphic language and sexual content between two adult men. Not intended for anyone under the age of 18.

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you so much to our amazing beta readers: Julia, Bella, and Kirsten, and an extra helping of thanks to Leslie, who had the task of beta reading twice. This book would have been something else entirely if it weren’t for you.

  Prologue

  Ben

  Summer, 1992

  Not that I had a ton of experience or anything, but I was 98 percent sure nothing in the world felt better than having Jimmy’s hand on my dick.

  I’d been thinking about it all day. I thought about it while I walked across the parking lot into work. I daydreamed about it while I ignored my manager droning on about uniformly placed garnishes. I fantasized about it while I plated twelve identical orders of kids’ chicken strips for a birthday party. As the day wore on, it had become an all-out obsession.

  In twenty-nine minutes, I’d be off work and heading home. Jimmy was meeting me at my apartment. And I couldn’t fucking wait.

  “Could you guys hurry up? Table fifteen has been waiting for twenty minutes for a goddamn house salad,” Byron barked, looking even more bug-eyed than usual. He was on expo, and the kitchen was always a little more stressful when he stepped into that role.

  I shoved some lettuce into a bowl, added some sad-looking veggies, and doused the whole thing in dressing that came in a barrel before carrying the dishes over to Byron. He grunted at me in lieu of actual words and turned back to the pass, shouting through to the servers who were just as fed up with his antics as I was.

  Jimmy was the one light spot in my somewhat bleak reality. Once upon a time, I’d been as busy as him, attending classes and thinking about my future, but then my dad had been laid off. Watching them struggle to make bills had been too difficult. So I’d taken a leave of absence to help out for a bit.

  It was only temporary. As soon as my parents got back on their feet, I’d pick up where I left off with school, but in the meantime, my life consisted of basting ribs with bottled barbecue sauce at the restaurant and counting down the days until I could hang out with Jimmy.

  It’d been too long since I’d last seen him. We’d lived together right out of high school, and having a roommate I was also getting blowjobs from on a regular basis was pretty much a wet dream come true. Now that he was living in Manhattan, those visits were fewer and further between, but every time we saw each other we picked right where we left off, as if no time had passed at all.

  Except it was getting harder and harder to pin him down. As graduation neared, he was busier than he used to be, and I knew how stressed he was about which direction to go in once he was finished up with school.

  In the meantime, I snagged him to hang out as often as I could, and today was one those days. He’d said he had something he wanted to talk to me about, and as soon as I was finished my shift, I’d be at home and hopefully naked and sweaty with my best friend within a matter of minutes.

  “Ben!” I snapped out of yet another X-rated fantasy to see Byron staring at me again.

  “What?” I asked, trying to keep the exasperation out of my voice. I checked the clock that hung above the back door. I just needed to get through the next twenty-seven minutes.

  “Where the hell is the salmon for table twelve?”

  I shrugged. “Richie’s in charge of proteins today.” And he’d gone on his break halfway through an order, apparently. I did a quick visual sweep of the stations but
didn’t see the dish. “Still in the microwave, I guess?”

  “Goddammit, Ben. It’s supposed to be at the pass with the rest of the order. What the hell is wrong with you?”

  “That I was dumb enough to take this fucking job,” I mumbled under my breath, resisting the urge to point out it wasn’t my job, instead fetching the pallid fish, sliding it onto a fresh plate next to a pile of limp salad, and handing it to him.

  He made a big show of huffing and sighing, mopping at his shiny, pink forehead with a stained rag from his waistband, and I turned my back on him with a roll of my eyes.

  Even Byron couldn’t spoil my mood today. Knowing Jimmy would be there to make me forget all about Buck’s made everything just that little bit more bearable.

  Twenty-four minutes to go.

  Those twenty-four minutes felt like twenty-four hours, but somehow, I managed to make it through without telling Byron to suck a dick. Ten minutes after I got home, I heard a key slide into the lock. There was only one person who had keys to my apartment.

  Jimmy.

  I was on him before the door had fully clicked shut, grabbing him by the back of the neck and kissing him hard. He grunted, pushing me forcefully against the wall, his hands going to my ass as he shoved his tongue down my throat.

  God, I loved a man who could multitask.

  I leaned into him, eager sounds falling from my mouth as he slid one hand into my hair and tilted my head to the side. I loved when he got like this, like touching every inch of me was his one mission in life.

  Jimmy had this crazy ability to narrow his focus to one singular task, and when he wasn't behind the closed door of my apartment, that focus went to his food. But when he was, when we were here and locked away from the rest of the world and he didn't need to worry about anything other than what made him feel good, that focus fell to me.

  And that was my favorite thing ever.

  His hands found their way beneath my shirt, his thumbs grazing my hips as he yanked my shirt up. He broke our kiss just long enough to get it off, and I pulled his off at the same time.

  The faster Jimmy got naked, the better. It was a sight to behold and one I'd been looking forward to all fucking day.

  Our pants went next, shucked to the side, and then we were standing in my living room completely naked. This is what I’d been waiting for. Jimmy was absolutely stunning. His coppery-blond hair fell into his eyes, his cheekbones stark in the low light cast from the lamp. I let my gaze drift down the hard, lean lines of his body and linger over his cock, standing hard and at attention.

  His eyes were dark. “Come here,” he said gruffly, grabbing my hand and pulling me with him to the couch. He fell back into the lumpy pillows on my futon, pulling me with him, my body covering his.

  With a groan, I kissed him, loving the way he tasted, the way his cock fit hard against my hip. I rocked against him, both of us moaning in unison at the friction created by our bodies. There was nothing between us except heat—nothing that mattered except the sensation of his skin sliding against mine and the noises coming from the back of his throat.

  I needed that like I needed to breathe. Jimmy was everything. I loved him so hard it hurt, and I wanted to make him feel as good as I did.

  I got lost in him as I kissed him, arching back to create enough space to fit my hand between us. I lined our cocks up, my fist wrapping tight around us both, the head of my dick slipping against his with each stroke.

  “Fuck, yes,” he gasped. His voice was strained, and I could tell by the way he sounded and the way his whole body lay tense, primed, that he was already close. This is how it was with us, and I loved that I turned him on that much. The first round was, without exception, frantic and desperate, and one of us usually came way too fast. But always within a few minutes, we’d start all over again.

  I twisted my wrist a little with each upstroke, my blood surging at his answering moan.

  “Benny… Jesus… Harder.”

  He wanted it harder? That I could do. I kissed him with more force, tightening my grip on our erections, and ground down with more intensity as his hips rose up to meet each thrust. With a grunt, he came, his dick spilling over my fist, slicking my movements and the warmth of his come pulling me over into my own orgasm.

  I collapsed my full weight onto him, burying my face in his neck and panting against his sweaty skin.

  “That was quick,” he chuckled.

  “We’re not done,” I assured him. “We got all night. Just gimme two minutes to recover.”

  He laughed again and wrapped his arms around my back, holding me tight to him. I lay like that for a second, enjoying the feeling of security him being there gave me. I was suddenly groggy, the orgasm draining the last of the energy that hadn’t been sucked away by my job. Letting my eyes fall shut, I relaxed into Jimmy, wishing he still lived with me, wishing there wasn’t going to be a time that he kissed me goodbye and told me he’d see me soon.

  “You said you had something you wanted to talk to me about,” I said, my brain still clouded, but I wanted to hear what Jimmy had to say, because I had something to tell him too.

  It had been a long time coming—a secret I’d kept from him for way too long. Sometime between junior high and the moment we’d kissed for the first time in River County Park, I’d fallen in love with my best friend.

  Tonight, I was going to tell him.

  A small part of me was nervous. Things were good with us—really good—and I didn’t want to screw anything up, but Jimmy had always stuck by me, and we’d been through some heavy shit. I needed to tell him, needed him to know how much he meant to me.

  And maybe it was a small risk, blurting something like that out, but I was pretty sure he felt the same way. We’d never made any declarations before. Hell, we weren’t even technically in a relationship. Jimmy was way too closeted to ever admit he was dating a dude, but the way he looked at me when it was just me and him…

  Like the way he was looking at me now, his eyes soft and trained on mine. His hands were still moving slowly against my skin, creating little tingles in its path, like tiny ripples of pleasure dancing across my skin everywhere he touched. I felt the wave of happiness roll over me.

  “Later.” He nuzzled into my neck, and I let out a contented sigh.

  “So are we gonna celebrate in the meantime?”

  “Celebrate?”

  I sprawled across his body, not wanting to lose too much contact with him, and reached to grab the magazine off the coffee table. “Look what I found today.” Sitting up, I flipped through it until I found the article Jimmy had been featured in. “Culinary Fare Magazine’s top pick for hottest up-and-coming chef of 1992… Mr. Carver, I gotta tell you, I’m hella fucking proud of you.” I clutched the issue to my chest. “Everyone is. My mom bought out the whole newsstand. She’s been telling everyone her adopted son is a celebrity chef. Between her and your mom and your mom’s quilting group, I don’t think there’s a spare copy in all of New Jersey.”

  He laughed, and I felt the sound reverberate through my body.

  I dropped the magazine and lay back down, enfolding myself in his arms.

  “Can you stay tonight, or do you have to go back to the city?”

  “I gotta take off soon. Jen’s expecting me.” I tried to hide my disappointment but did a shit job, apparently. “Don’t be like that. You know how hard this is for me.”

  Normally, I’d have cracked a dick joke, but it was hard to feel any levity in the situation. I hated that he had to go, and I hated that he was going home to her. I knew there wasn’t anything between them, not like there was with us. She was his best friend—in New York anyway—but no one would ever replace me.

  Didn’t mean I had to like her, though. So what if I had some jealousy issues? It was totally warranted in this case, not that I could ever tell Jimmy. The few times a year we all hung out, I played nice and did my best to pretend I was fine with him spending more time with her than with me. They might have had a few
things in common—culinary school being the biggest—but Jimmy and I had history, and that was impossible to compete with.

  “You hungry?” I asked after several minutes of silence. “I could make you something.”

  “Nah. Just wanna hold you a while longer.”

  There was something about his tone that was… off. I pushed myself up to sitting so I could see his eyes. “Is everything okay?”

  Jimmy didn’t answer, just slid his hand along the side of my neck, pulling me in to kiss him. It was long and slow and made my head spin with the sweetness of it. My heart felt like it was going to burst out of my chest.

  I needed to tell him how I felt about him. My throat was tight as I pulled back, the words alight on the tip of my tongue.

  “Ben,” he said and looked into my eyes, my pulse racing. “Tonight has to be our last time.”

  My whole world collapsed in on itself as I processed what he’d said. “Wait. What?”

  “Me and Jenna… Jenna and I… we’re getting engaged.”

  Chapter One

  Jimmy

  Six years later…

  “I need scallops, two filets, and a rib eye, medium rare.”

  I stuck the tickets to the rail to a chorus of “yes, chef”s and smiled. Music to my ears. There was nothing like the adrenaline rush of a Saturday-night dinner service—the pace, the energy, the onslaught of sounds and smells that lingered long after we bid the last customer good night. It was a perfectly timed choreography where every component came together to create food perfection. There was a reason the Carvery had a months-long wait list and consistently high ratings in the Zagat Guide.