Sex & Sourdough (36 page)

“Anders,” Kevin said gently, “Maybe we should just go back down to the car.”

“You will not move!” Aaron shouted again. “You’re not going anywhere until the police arrive and make damn sure that sick fuck isn’t just circling the parking lot waiting for you. You’re staying put.”

Anders’s face became serious. “What did he leave this time?”

“Wait for the police.”

“Aaron….”

In the distance, Kevin heard a single siren wail.

“No.” Anders shook his head firmly.

Anders moved in a flash, grabbed his brother by the shirt, and dragged him out of the doorway. He ducked low under Aaron’s arm as his brother tried to stop him. He slipped inside the apartment, but he was only inside for a few seconds before he stumbled out backward, his eyes wide and skin pale white. His brother caught him in a tight hug and dragged him out onto the landing, then handed him off to Kevin.

Anders turned to him and clung to his arms, trying to move both of them farther from the apartment door. He was panting, gulping for air but only drawing in ragged breaths.

“Anders, look at me,” Kevin whispered. “Whatever it is, you need to breathe.” Anders just shook his head frantically. Kevin held him tight, trying to force his body to be still.

The single police siren was joined by what sounded like a dozen more, all growing louder and louder.

“He wouldn’t….” Anders whispered. “He….”

“Breathe, Anders,” Kevin whispered against his temple. “Just breathe.”

“We were just friends….” Anders choked out.

Kevin felt his stomach twist itself into a double knot. He wrapped his arms tighter and tried to hold Anders still. Anders was still moving, and when Kevin shifted his grip, Anders slipped away. He hit the stairs at a jog, rushing down them two at a time. Kevin caught a glimpse of Anders’s face as he turned on the landing. He had never seen Anders look furious before, but fury was the only word for what Kevin saw on his face.

“Anders, get back here!”

Aaron raced down the stairs after his brother.

Kevin was torn. He wanted to go after Anders, but he had to know what had enraged him before he could help. He stepped toward the open apartment door and gasped.

There was blood everywhere, including a deep pool of rotting black blood beneath a lifeless mass of purple and white flesh. Kevin didn’t need to get a good look at the body to know who it was—he could tell just from the clothes. Chex Mix was lumped in a heap on Anders’s floor.

Kevin turned toward the stairs, pushing through the pain and the exhaustion, desperate to get to Anders. His legs gave out on him twice, and only an iron grip on the handrail kept him from tumbling down the concrete steps. When he finally had both feet on the ground, he staggered toward Anders while he tried to catch his breath. Anders was staring at the hedge where he thought he’d seen Joel earlier.

“Anders,” Kevin rasped.

“Kevin.” Anders caught him as he stumbled. “Get in the damn car, now!”

“Anders, calm down! The police are coming. You can hear the sirens! Calm down, Anders,” Kevin begged.

Anders returned his gaze to the bushes and shook his head. “He said that hiker wouldn’t be there waiting for me….” Anders stared up at Kevin, his blue-gray eyes filled with unshed tears. “Don’t you get it?” He shuddered and pinched his fingers into Kevin’s arms so hard Kevin knew he would have bruises. The sirens were closer now, so loud Kevin had to lean close to hear him.

“Anders!” Aaron shouted.

Kevin saw him the moment he glanced up from Anders’s eyes. Joel wasn’t near the hedges at the edge of the parking lot but standing against the building, right behind them. He was smiling. Kevin saw him move, saw the pistol in his hands. He swept Anders behind him as fast as he could, but the motion left him off balance, stumbling forward. When Kevin regained his footing, he saw the barrel of the pistol pointing at his own chest.

“I told you I wouldn’t let you end this, Anders. I promised you’d be sorry if you ever cheated on me, didn’t I?”

“I never cheated on you, Joel. Put the gun down.”

“Never cheated on me?” Joel shifted his grip on the pistol and laughed. “What would you call the last four months, if not cheating?”

“Moving on!” Anders wedged himself between Kevin and the pistol. Joel stepped to the side, shifting so Anders was out of his line of fire. “After the way things ended, how could you still think you have any right to come near me? That hurting my friends might get me to forgive you? Why the hell did you kill Chex Mix?”

“Forgive me? You think I’m the one who needs to be forgiven? I knew about that fuck buddy of yours weeks ago! I knew you were cheating on me before you ever came back to school! I told you that he wouldn’t be waiting for you, didn’t I?”

“That was weeks ago!”

“Yes. It didn’t have to be this way, you know. I was perfectly happy to just get him out of the way and take you back. But you needed closure, I get that now. You need to see that I’m serious about this, that I’m willing to do anything to prove how much I love you! You needed to see that he is gone!”

“You killed one of my friends!”

Joel’s lips curled up into what might have been a smile. “Don’t pretend you weren’t with him! That asshole would have had me running between New York and Maine looking for you! I tracked him down a few days after he told me to look up north, and he eventually admitted it. He admitted he lied to keep me away from you.”

“That doesn’t mean we were lovers!”

Joel glanced at Kevin and his smile faded. “I realize that now. I got the wrong hiker. My mistake.”

In a single moment, Kevin heard the crack of the pistol firing and felt something slam into his side, sending him crashing to the ground.

The sound of sirens exploded around them, and flashing red-and-blue lights bounced off the pastel-yellow building. Kevin saw the grin on Joel’s face evaporate as his body shook, pierced by one bullet after another, his blood splattering onto the wall behind him. Kevin watched him fall, the pistol still clenched in both hands.

Kevin gaped at the chaos around him and suddenly felt like the world had ground to a halt. Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion, the edges of his vision a blur. He heard shouting around him, and heavy boots moved in and out of his vision. He couldn’t make out the words, couldn’t make sense of anything. The only solid fact that penetrated the haze was that Anders was sprawled on the ground beside him, bleeding.

“H
EADS
UP
!”
Michael called out from the hospital-room door. Kevin looked up just in time and caught the plastic-wrapped loaf of bread as it sailed over Anders’s hospital bed. “Apparently, me fetching that
exact
bread and bringing it all the way down here was more important than drawing up new contractor agreements. Oh,” Michael said as his gaze strayed over Anders’s sleeping face. “Sorry,” he whispered, “Dad said he was awake.”

“He was awake when your dad came by this morning.” Kevin traced the logo on the bread wrapper. “Your dad is something else.”

“You have no idea. What is the deal with you and that bread? When I asked, he just laughed at me and went back to staring at his crossword puzzle.”

“It’s mine,” Kevin explained. “I don’t know how he found out, and I doubt he knows what it means to me—not just because it’s mine, but….” Kevin shrugged. “It’s hard to explain. It’s home.”

“It’s from the grocery store,” Michael pointed out.

“I know it’s from the grocery store.”

“Oh, come on…. We learned a long time ago that if we ever wanted to stay ahead of our parents, we needed to team up. No holding out on me.”

“It’s my recipe. The Rock Creek Bakery is my family’s bakery. It’s our brand, I guess… I don’t know all the details, but I asked my attorney to make sure my family didn’t struggle with the bakery, and this”—Kevin held up the sourdough loaf—“was his solution. Wholesale bakeries and national marketing. I really don’t know how your dad figured out it had anything to do with me, but even the smell is enough to make me feel better.”

Kevin still had some doubts about whether Frank was actually trying to make him feel better. The man still hadn’t said more than a few simple words to him, and even though every word had been polite, Kevin wasn’t sure what to make of him. He kept bringing hot coffee each morning, and every day he seemed like he wanted to start a conversation but just hadn’t quite worked up the nerve. Kevin wanted to believe the man was trying to be welcoming, but he was dreading whatever Frank Blankenship ultimately decided to say to him. After seeing Anders and his family at dinner, Kevin didn’t think it was safe to make any assumptions.

Michael started at him and then chuckled. “Our dad doesn’t go into any situation unprepared. And that explains a lot about why he defended you at dinner,” he whispered. “You weren’t kidding about not needing a meal ticket, and he knew it from the start.”

Kevin didn’t address that. He might not plan on taking Anders’s money, but he had been living off Anders’s family for the past week. It felt opportunistic and awkward, not paying for his own meals. “He defended me?” he asked curiously. He didn’t actually recall the man saying much.

“More than you may realize. He got our mother on your side. Trust me, that’s the equivalent of having a team of attorneys, a publicist, and a gang of thugs all fighting in your corner,” said Michael, keeping his voice low. “And he got our minister to back you up too. That seemed like overkill, to be honest. We’re still wondering just what you did that impressed him so much.”

“I’ve got no idea. The bread was there before I ever met him.”

Michael shook his head slowly. “Like I said, he doesn’t walk into any situation without being prepared. This morning, the only thing he would say was that I had to go buy that exact bread and bring it to you for lunch, and nothing short of the office exploding should prevent me from getting it to you personally.”

“I’m sorry.” Kevin chuckled. “I really don’t know what to say. I’m grateful, but that’s kind of creepy.”

Michael shrugged and strolled toward Anders’s bed. “How’s he doing?”

“Better. He was awake most of the morning. He even got up and walked around a bit. The doctor said they would be able to discharge him this afternoon, but the paperwork took so long that he got another dose of painkiller. It knocked him out.”

“I’m going to go get an iced coffee, then. You want one?”

Kevin settled his gaze on Anders and shook his head. “No, thanks.”

“You want a ride back to the house? It would give you a chance to get some rest.”

He shook his head again. He wouldn’t be able to rest in the guesthouse if Anders wasn’t there. He had spent three years wandering without a home, always tired, alone, and cold. The only thing in the world other than sourdough that made him feel like he was home was Anders, and the only place he would actually be able to rest was by Anders’s side. “I’m good here. Thanks, though.”

“Suit yourself. I still need coffee. Be back in a bit.”

When he left, Kevin slouched into the chair and stared at his lover
again.

Anders looked pale, and the peaceful expression he usually wore was marred by lines of tension at the corners of his eyes. His left arm was wrapped in a rigid white splint that held his elbow bent at a right angle. His entire arm was held up by a stack of pillows. The bullet from Joel’s pistol had ripped through his upper arm, cracking his humerus just above the elbow. He had been rushed to the hospital in an ambulance and went straight into surgery. After police statements, Kevin followed Anders’s family as they waded through a sea of reporters to get into the hospital, and he had spent nearly an entire day sitting in waiting rooms while Anders was stuck in the ICU. When they finally let Anders have visitors, Kevin had followed his family in, and he’d stayed by Anders’s side since.

He’d felt so helpless, watching Anders get hurt, knowing there was nothing he could do to help him. He didn’t know what to say to Anders’s parents. He wasn’t sure if he should apologize to them for not protecting Anders, or apologize for putting Anders in a position where he felt like he had to protect Kevin. Either way, an apology wouldn’t begin to express how sorry he was that Anders had gotten hurt. He couldn’t find any words to describe how terrified he’d been when he’d thought Anders might die.

For three years, he’d been trying to enjoy what was left of his life before it ended. He’d agreed to go home with Anders, to try a real relationship, but he’d never imagined that fate could end up so twisted. He was the one who was sick. He was the one whose heart and lungs would fail all too soon. It would be cruel to make him lose Anders long before his own disease killed him.

Anders’s cell phone chirped and vibrated on the tray table. Anders shifted, tried to roll over, but then settled again.

Kevin grabbed Anders’s phone and slid his finger across the screen to unlock the touch pad. He had been using Anders’s phone for the past two days. He’d gotten in touch with Spider and Chex Mix’s family. The police had notified Chex Mix’s mother in person, but Kevin had been the one to break the news to Spider, and he’d called Chex Mix’s mother to offer his and Anders’s condolences. A regular funeral was going to be held in Pensacola, where his mother planned to inter his ashes, but Spider had gotten her permission to hold a second memorial at the top of Mount Katahdin, at the northern end of the Appalachian Trail. Chex Mix would never reach the end now, but at least Spider would see that some of his ashes reached the end of the trail. But that would have to wait until spring, when the trail to the top of the mountain wasn’t blocked by snow.