Recipe for Two

The house was quiet when Wyatt climbed out of bed and headed downstairs for breakfast. It was only eight, but the Abbots were early risers. Justin started work at what Harper called stupid o’clock every morning, Dad was in LA for a few days for meetings, and Lettie got up early every day to take the dogs for a run before school. Harper had always liked to sleep in as late as she could, but she hadn’t lived at home for a few years now. First she’d had college, and now she had just started an internship at a non-profit in San Francisco that assisted immigrant families. Wyatt missed her, but they still talked at least once a week, and texted every day. She was still his biggest cheerleader, despite the fact she wasn’t entirely sure what he was doing with his life.

Well, that made two of them.

Wyatt was turning twenty in a few months, and he still hadn’t figured it out. Dad and Justin were happy for him to take his time, but his unofficial gap year had stretched on to about eighteen months already, and Wyatt was starting to feel like he was mooching. He wasn’t—not technically at least, since he helped Dad out with his show, and helped Justin out in the greenhouses—but it bothered him that he hadn’t done anything for himself yet. He’d had it all handed to him. Not like Harper, who’d got her internship all on her own. She was forging her own path, and Wyatt was still getting carried by Justin and Dad.

Wyatt shuffled into the kitchen. It was spotless, as always, except for Justin’s breakfast things sitting in the sink. Wyatt rolled his eyes at that and put them in the dishwasher. Dad hated when things were left in the sink, but even after fifteen years together Justin was still doing it. Which was fair, Wyatt supposed, since Justin was always on Dad’s case about leaving damp towels on their bathroom floor.

Wyatt grabbed the cereal from the pantry and the milk from the refrigerator, and ate leaning up against the counter.

One of the perks of being a kind-of celebrity’s kid was that he didn’t have to explain their family dynamic to many people. He called Dad his dad, but really Dad was Justin’s husband, and Justin was Wyatt’s big brother. Most people got their heads around it, eventually.

And one of the downsides of being a kind-of celebrity’s kid was, well, everything else. Wyatt had loved being celebrity chef Del Abbot’s cooking partner on the YouTube channel Dad had started when Wyatt was still a little kid. He’d even come up with Dad’s catchphrase: buh-bye. It had been cute when he was four. Wyatt had never been great at talking to the camera the way that Dad was, but he hadn’t needed to be. That was Dad’s thing. So they’d done the YouTube channel together, and a few specials and things for cable TV for the holidays, and there were even some family photographs in some of Dad’s cookbooks and stuff.

Then, when Wyatt had been fifteen, one of the kids at school had showed him this website. It had a counter on it, counting down the days until Wyatt turned eighteen. And the comments underneath it had said exactly what people wanted to do with him when he was legal. Some of them had made him blush, but some of them had been much, much worse than that.

Wyatt hadn’t wanted to be in the next cable TV special after that.

So he was pretty sure that he didn’t want to follow Dad into the world of TV shows and autographs and appearances and celebrity. He still loved cooking though. He’d loved it ever since Dad had taught him. He’d always liked making desserts more than mains, and had gone through a stage of wanting to be a pastry chef. These days though, he had a thing for cakes. Cupcakes. Not like the gross ones that were double their own height in frosting. Just nice ones. Plain ones, he supposed. Nothing Instagram-worthy at all, but they tasted good.

He hadn’t figured out a way to tell Dad that maybe he didn’t want to be a pastry chef after all. He wasn’t even sure himself, not really. He wasn’t sure of anything.

Story of his life.

Wyatt put his bowl and his spoon in the dishwasher and wiped the counter down before heading back upstairs again.

He showered and shaved and then used the fancy moisturizer that Dad had been given in a gift pack at some awards night he went to, and had taken one whiff of before turning his nose up at it. Wyatt liked the smell of it. It was a little citrusy or something.