I pulled out the stool a hostess I didn’t recognize led me to and settled my body into it, my elbows resting on the counter and my fingers steepled against my lips.

Lachlan had his back to me, inspecting a cut of meat one of his cooks had brought from the fridge in the rear of the kitchen, so he hadn’t seen me yet. From here, it looked like venison, except even I could see the color was wrong. From the downturn of Lachlan’s lips and the pulsing of his jaw near his ear, I could tell he didn’t like what he saw either.

I knew Lachlan’s face and all his expressions like I knew my own. Maybe better, I thought, as he quickly masked his irritation and clapped the other cook on the shoulder before sending him back to the freezer to grab another cut of meat.

It wasn’t the cook’s fault the meat had gone off, and I recognized that Lachlan was careful not to take it out on him … even though he was irritated and probably wanted to. From the hard set of his shoulders and the tilt of his head, I knew his butcher would be hearing a mouthful in the morning.

I sat there unobserved, drinking my Glenfarclas and taking it all in. I’d missed him like crazy. It sounded insane even to my ears, but since he’d broken up with me, I’d lost nearly a stone. Nothing tasted as good as Lachlan’s food, and nothing nourished me quite as well as his love and attention.

It was a risky move, coming here unannounced, but it seemed appropriate somehow, too. CAMP was where we’d met, and where I had fallen in love with him. If he turned me away tonight, I’d never step foot in his restaurant again, but I had to visit … even if it was for the very last time.

Eventually, he finished up what he was doing at the back of the room and resumed his spot at the front of the kitchen, right on the other side of the counter from me.

Without looking up, he asked, “What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to see you,” I answered, not caring if anyone overheard the agony in my voice. I was done hiding how I felt about Lachlan MacLeod.

“You should have called first,” he said, arranging some garnishes on the white porcelain plate. “You can’t just show up here unannounced.” He spoke to the plate the entire time.

“If I’d have called, would you have agreed to see me?”

He took a few beats to answer, and when he did, he raised sad eyes to mine. “No. Probably not.” His jaw clicked again, and his eyes danced away, but not before I noticed he had dark smudges beneath them. And, like me, he looked thinner than the last time I’d seen him.

“And that’s why I didn’t call.”

Surrounded by his employees and other diners, I couldn’t hear a one. For me, Lachlan was the only thing that mattered. Like a planet, I was drawn to his gravitational pull, and I didn’t think anything would ever change that.

His eyes met mine again, and this time our gazes locked and held. For several long seconds, I took him in as he stared back at me. Finally, he shook his head. “I’m slammed tonight, Liam. We’re going to have to do this some other time.”

The dismissal stung, but it’s what I’d expected. For months, I’d unwittingly toyed with Lachlan’s affections, and the fact that he hadn’t had me tossed out of here on my ass was more than I deserved. I hated myself for what I’d put him through, but maybe not more than he hated me for it. I wanted to make it up to him somehow, to tell him I understood what a difficult position I’d put him in. And to explain that I’d never do it again.

But first, I had a meal to eat. I was suddenly starved. “Just act like I’m not here, or I’m just any other customer. I’ve been dying for your food.”

He stared at me for a few seconds, his face not betraying a thing. But then his nostrils flared, and he gave me a slight nod. “Fine, but I’m going to ask Polly to move you to a table.”

Ouch. I’d expected him to be surprised I was there, and maybe even a little bit angry, but I hadn’t expected him to brush me off quite so easily. But that was probably because I was an idiot where this man was concerned, and instead of good sense, when I thought about seeing him again after all these weeks apart, my head was filled with fanciful notions.

“Alright, sure,” I said, setting my napkin aside as he raised his hand to beckon Polly over.

“Can you please show Mr. Donnelly to table sixteen?”

“Of course,” she said, her face showing obvious confusion.

Lachlan didn’t often put single diners at one of his much-coveted tables, instead reserving them for couples and groups of three or more. Table sixteen, even though it was off in the corner, was prime real estate and we all knew it. That’s how badly he wanted me out of his sight. I tried not to let that thought discourage me. I’d come here to apologize—to beg for his forgiveness, really—and to see if he would ever be willing to give me a second chance. I’d sit at that table until the restaurant closed if that’s what it took to have that conversation with him.

Mentally, I tallied what a four-top would spend on a meal and how much they’d likely tip, using that information to calculate how much I’d be leaving for the wait staff at the end of the night, because I was not giving my seat up for anything. Quickly, I looked around the room. No one here—save Lachlan himself, and that was a long shot too—would have the strength to force me out either. Not that I planned to make a scene or anything, but it never hurt to be prepared—just in case.

An appetizer, a main dish, two desserts, and half a bottle of wine later, I was the last customer left in the restaurant. My waitress, another new employee, approached uncertainly. “Is that all for you tonight, sir?”

“That depends,” I answered, my stomach feeling fuller than it had in a really long while. Somehow, I’d forgotten how rich Lachlan’s sauces could be.

“On …?”

“On whether or not your boss is ready to speak to me himself?”

She glanced over her shoulder toward the open kitchen with a surprised look on her face. “Oh! You’ve been waiting for Chef MacLeod? I’m sorry, I didn’t know. I’ll send him right over,” she pronounced, quickly scurrying away.

I knew she was only rushing to fetch him because she figured the sooner she brought him over, the sooner I’d pay my bill and get the hell out of there. She just wanted to go home for the night, but I appreciated the pep in her step nonetheless.

A minute later, Lachlan approached my table, his face wary. “I thought you’d left,” he said, planting his feet shoulder width apart and crossing his tattooed arms over his chest. He’d removed his apron, and the sleeves of his button-down shirt were rolled up to his elbows, exposing all that delicious skin.

“No, you didn’t,” I responded, staring up at him and drinking in his dark, handsome features. “Since you realized I was here, you’ve known precisely where I was every moment of the night.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Because you’ve gone out of your way not to look at me the entire night. No one does that good a job ignoring someone unless it’s deliberate.”

Lachlan sighed and rubbed his chin thoughtfully before asking, “What do you want, Liam?”

“I want to talk to you,” I said, pushing my chair back and rising from my seat. I didn’t like being at a disadvantage, and with Lachlan looming over me, I definitely felt like he had the upper hand. Not that this was a competition, but if I was going to press my case, I wanted to do it on equal footing.

“I think we’ve said all that needs to be said, don’t you?”

“Obviously, I don’t, or I wouldn’t be here. Just hear me out.” I stretched out my hand, but then halted. I wanted to touch him so badly, but what I wanted and what Lachlan needed were two different things. History had proven I could just about persuade Lachlan to do anything if I had my hands on him—and he I. At no point during this conversation did I want him to feel coerced, or like he didn’t have a choice. “Please?” I asked, dropping my hand to my side, his eyes following the movement.

With a deep sigh of resignation, Lachlan raised his eyes and notched his chin. “Fine,” he said, pulling out the chair in front of him and dropping down into it. “I’ll give you ten minutes.”

I returned to my seat and stared at him for another few seconds before speaking. Not only were there dark smudges under his eyes, but his hair had grown longer too, and the permanent five o’clock shadow he typically wore had grown out into something better resembling a scraggly, untamed beard. With his red-checked flannel shirt and facial hair, Lachlan looked a bit like a mountain man or a lumberjack—which was fitting given the theme of his restaurant.

I didn’t think this new look was deliberate though, because my hair had grown longer, too, and I only bothered shaving these days when my whiskers annoyed the shit out of me. While I loved the feel of Lachlan’s against my bare skin, I actually hated how it felt growing out of mine.

“I’ve missed you,” I started, my eyes dropping to where his hands were folded in front of him, his fingers were linked. I wouldn’t have thought anything of it, but his forearms were rigid, and a single raised vein was visible. He was tense, but he was trying not to let it show.

When he didn’t respond, I continued. “I know I hurt you, but I never meant to.”

“I know that,” he said, finally breaking his silence. “It doesn’t mean it didn’t happen though.”

“Still, I could have handled things better.”

He relaxed a bit then, his shoulders releasing some of their pent-up tension. “We both could have.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong. I take full responsibility for what I put you through. What I put us through.”

He looked away then, giving me his profile. His beautiful, sexy, hard profile. A few heartbeats later he turned back to me. “It’s fine. I knew what I was getting into. I thought …” he trailed off, leaving his thoughts unspoken.

“What did you think?” I asked, sitting forward.

“No, it doesn’t matter.”

I did reach out then. I couldn’t have stopped myself even if I’d wanted to—and I definitely didn’t. I let my hand settle over Lachlan’s, and I squeezed. “It does matter. Everything you say matters to me, Lach.”

His eyes dropped to my hand on his, and then back up. “Fine,” he bit out, like he was furious that I was making him admit something he hadn’t ever wanted to say out loud. “I thought if I gave you enough time, you’d come around. That maybe you’d fall in love with me and decide I was worth the sacrifice. Except, even though you claimed to love me, I still wasn’t worth it.” His eyes flashed with anger and resentment, and he slid his hand from mine, setting them in his lap underneath the table.

“I did love you,” I argued, before realizing I was speaking in the past tense. “I do love you,” I clarified. “I love you so fucking much it hurts.”

He scoffed and shook his head. “Well, you’ve got a weird fucking way of showing it.”

I stabbed my fingers through my hair, pulling on the roots, before dropping them back to the table, my palms pressed flat. “Look, I wish I had done things differently. I wish to goddamn hell that I’d told you every day what you meant to me, and then backed up those words with actions. But I didn’t know how to handle everything I was feeling. I’d never loved anyone until I met you, and that terrified the shit out of me, especially with how fast it all happened.

“And the fact that you’re a dude, too? Again, I didn’t know what I was doing. At all. Can’t you understand that?

“Every time I made a decision, I knew it was the wrong fucking one, but I didn’t know how to make the right one, either. I was trapped between my feelings for you and the weight of all these responsibilities. You took on the brunt of that, and I’m sorry for it. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t love you. I love you, Lachlan, and I don’t think I’ll ever stop, goddamnit.” The words rushed from my lips with a growl, and my chest heaved.

As silence settled between us, I realized that somewhere along the way, all hell had broken loose with my tear ducts. Now, salty tears streamed down my face in warm rivulets, and I swiped at them angrily.

“Fuck,” I grumbled, disgusted at myself. Until I’d met Lachlan, the only time I could remember crying was at my parents’ funeral. I wasn’t a crier by nature, but with him, I was a goddamn baby who couldn’t keep a lid on his emotions.

Lachlan’s fierce scowl relaxed, and for a quick second I saw something resembling affection pass over his features before he locked it down tight. He leaned forward, resting his forearm on the table and stared down at the wood, his finger tracing a pattern over the polished grain. “I’m sorry you’re hurting, Liam. Believe me, I never wanted this either, but I was suffocating.” He raised his eyes, and they were shiny. “From the beginning, I tried to make that clear. Maybe I made a mistake by being with you when I knew you couldn’t give me what I needed, but I couldn’t help myself,” he continued, his voice breaking. “I wanted you more than anyone I’d ever wanted before in my entire life. It was selfish, I know. Especially since in the end, it only ended up causing us both grief.”

I reached out and gripped his hand. He tried to pull it away, but I held on tight. “But I can give you what you need, or at least I can try. That’s—”

“—That’s the problem though,” he said, interrupting me. “We’ve already tried. Twice. And yet, here we are.” He tugged sharply on his hand, and this time I let it go.

“I came out to my teammates,” I blurted, and his eyes widened in surprise. “Turns out a couple of them had already guessed, but on the whole, they weren’t as surprised as I feared they’d be. In fact, they were pretty damn supportive. We don’t have to hide anymore, Lachlan.”

He chewed his lip and looked away. I could practically see the wheels turning in his head. “And what, we just pick up where we left off? Pretend like none of this ever happened?”

“God, if only it were that easy,” I answered with a sad laugh. “No. As much as I wish we could, I know I have to earn your trust back.”

“You never lost my trust, just my … hell, I don’t even know what to call it.”

I shook my head. “No, I promised you we were moving toward something, and I didn’t deliver on that. This time I will.”

“I don’t know, Liam,” he said, crossing his arms and dropping his chin to rest against the mound of his palm, his fingers tapping his cheek lightly. “Just … I don’t know.”

“What can I say to convince you that things will be different this time?”

It was a risky question, but second by second, I felt Lachlan’s resolve firming, his need to protect himself winning the war that raged inside of him. In the battle between his head and his heart, his head was winning, and I didn’t know how to combat that. I’d laid my heart bare, opened myself up to ridicule and scorn, hoping it would be enough.

Coming out to my teammates had been an enormous step, but the fact of the matter was, I wasn’t entirely out either. I was working my way up to that, because yes, I had every intention of doing so. I just didn’t know if that declaration happened in the near future, or if it was way off in the distance. To be honest, the question of when and how I eventually admitted to being bisexual rested heavily on how this whole conversation played out … on the demands Lachlan might make as a condition of us getting back together. That was, assuming he let things get that far. He could shut me down entirely.

“We have a standing invitation to have dinner with James and his wife Mary—hell, we’re invited to Christmas Eve dinner at their place. And Hamish and his girlfriend Mandy can’t wait to hang out with us,” I told him, hoping my words painted a picture that he wouldn’t be able to resist.

He turned back to me. “And when you come here for dinner? Are you going to kiss me hello in front of my staff? Are you going to hold my hand in the supermarket? Are you going to pretend we’re just friends?”

I swallowed, my mouth suddenly dry. I knew how I wanted to answer, but the truth was, I was still scared. Just because I’d come out to my friends and teammates didn’t mean I wasn’t still afraid of how others would react, what they would say. For a brief moment, I allowed myself to acknowledge that fear, and tell myself it was okay to feel that way. What wasn’t okay was if I let that fear control me. If I gave in to it at the expense of the best thing that had ever happened to me, I wasn’t worth Lachlan’s love. Fuck, I wouldn’t be worth the air I breathed.

Reaching for my wine glass, I took one final sip to coat my parched throat. Setting it down, I looked Lachlan straight in the eye and nodded. “Yes. If that’s what you need, then yes.”