Sex & Sourdough (4 page)

Kevin shook his head to derail that train of thought before it could pick up steam. Anders was obviously gay, so there wasn’t any harm in admiring him, but Kevin didn’t want to start thinking about him as anything more than part of the scenery.

Kevin watched Anders hike in front of him, his spirits lifting when he saw the wonder and surprise light up Anders’s face every time they stumbled around a corner and saw a vast Georgia valley or a hidden waterfall appeared. He imagined that Anders would be the type of person who would cling to a guidebook, looking up details about what he could expect to see next rather than looking at what was right in front of him. Kevin enjoyed watching the excitement and awe when Anders saw something truly unexpected. It made the worried young man who had started hiking with him yesterday look younger and carefree.

They stayed inside a shelter that night, and sleeping proved impossible with the rain pounding down on the tin roof. It was still raining when they set out again the next morning. That meant cold dinners, cold breakfasts, and cold lunches to look forward to. That combination usually had Kevin ready to hunker down and wait out the weather, preferably in a warm hotel somewhere, but Anders was supposed to meet his friend in two days. They had plenty of time now, but if they spent a day hiding in their sleeping bags, they would have to abandon their easy pace in order to make it in time. Kevin could do fifteen-to-twenty-mile days easily enough, but the way Anders collapsed at the end of the first and second days of hiking made it obvious that he wasn’t capable of keeping up a faster pace.

By noon, they were less than two hours away from the Blood Mountain shelter, and about four hours away from Neels Gap and the outfitter store where Anders was supposed to meet his hiking partner.

As the world around them began to dry out, Kevin stripped off some of his layers and relaxed. He stretched and flexed his fingers as some of the pain ebbed away. At the rate he was going, he would have to start doubling up on his medication during cold, wet days. Unfortunately, doubling his medication meant doubling the side effects that came with it, and he was already light-headed enough. It also meant that he risked running out sooner. He had six refills of each medication on file with a national pharmacy chain, and he had to make those last through the end of his hike in October. With his doctor on the other side of the country, getting new prescriptions had proven impossible last year. Last year, when he tried this hike, he hadn’t been quite so sick. He’d made it out of New England before his hands had begun to react to the cold weather and his blood pressure began to creep up again. He’d run out of refills when he still had five hundred miles to go, so even though he’d been hiking through the warm, dry fall weather, the last quarter of the trail had been miserable.

Kevin stopped for a moment to mix up some bread dough, kneading loose flour into the thick starter until the dough became stiff and dry enough that it didn’t stick to his fingers. He kneaded the ball of dough, folding it over and then stretching it with both hands, while he walked. Ahead of him, Anders stopped humming and stared at him.

“What’s up, Butch?”

“Please don’t call me that.” The way Anders grimaced at the sound of the nickname slowed Kevin down. He hadn’t been able to think of anything better, even though he’d spent the last two nights trying to figure out something about the young man that was distinct and catchy. He’d learned that Anders had just graduated from college, getting top marks in a business administration program he didn’t seem remotely interested in. He was supposed to be going to law school in the fall, but he didn’t seem excited about that either. The only time Anders smiled when he talked about himself was when he talked about the hiking partner he was hoping to meet up with tomorrow.

And when Anders talked about
him
, he alternated between glowing and the terrified expression Kevin had seen at Amicalola Falls State Park. His smile grew from a mere upward curve of his lips into a bright, gigantic grin that made his entire face brighten and made his gray-blue eyes sparkle. And every time, the smile fell as quickly as it came, only to be replaced by trepidation and fear. Whatever Anders’s relationship with his hiking partner was, it was way too complicated for Kevin to speculate about. One more reason Kevin had to remind himself that Anders was fine to look at, but nothing more.

Kevin looked down at the ball of bread dough in his hands and forced his fingers to stretch out, pushing through the aches in his knuckles. He folded the bread over again and again until the texture changed and the dough began to stretch instead of tear. He carefully placed the ball of dough back into the flour bag, checked to make sure his tiny jar of sourdough starter was still upright and safe, and set the whole bag into an outer pocket on the side of his pack.

“I’m sorry,” Kevin said, dusting off his hands and hurrying to catch up to Anders. “I just can’t figure out what else to call you. ‘Slim’ would fit, but it isn’t any fun.”

“You don’t have to come up with a trail name for me.” Anders smiled back at him. “I can just be Anders, can’t I?”

“Well, you can…,” Kevin admitted. “Just Anders?”

“Just Anders.”

“Fine….” Kevin didn’t hesitate to pout. When Anders looked flustered and stalked off ahead, rolling his eyes, Kevin smiled.

“You’re making more bread?” Anders asked, without turning back.

“Always. Sourdough takes a while. I had to feed up the starter last night, and it will still take until dinner to rise.”

“It really does take that long?”

“It’s not like it’s hours of work,” Kevin pointed out. “It’s ten minutes of kneading when I don’t have anything else to do and then eight to twelve hours of carrying dough. I’d be carrying the flour and water anyway, so the weight doesn’t change.”

“Why do you do it?” Anders asked, stopping so suddenly that Kevin nearly walked into him.

“Why do I do what?”

“Make bread. It’s a lot of work, even for people with a full kitchen. Even the soda bread Miss Tabitha used to make for me and my brothers was a lot of work. Why not just use tortillas like everybody else? They’re a lot of calories, you don’t have to cook them, and they take up less room.”

Kevin paused a bit too close to Anders, close enough that his senses were flooded with the smell of the sweat, grime, and the distinctly masculine musk that emanated from Anders. Kevin caught himself swaying as the smell swept over him. He had never once imagined that the smell of another unwashed hiker could possibly be sexy, but the smell of Anders’s body ricocheted through him and settled low in the pit of his stomach.

He stepped ahead of Anders to put some distance between them.

“Kev?” Anders laughed. “Was that a stupid newbie question?”

Kevin had to think for a moment to figure out just what Anders was talking about. “Question? Oh! I like bread.”

“That’s it? It’s got to add five pounds to your pack weight.”

“Yeah, about that. But it’s five pounds that’s edible.”

“It’s still a lot of work.”

Kevin kept his eyes on the trail ahead of him. He rubbed a bit of the dried plaster of flour and water off his fingers and then touched the small vial of his dad’s ashes hanging around his neck. “It reminds me of home,” he said carefully.

When Kevin didn’t elaborate, he heard the thud of Anders’s footsteps hurrying to catch up to him.

“Where’s home?” Anders asked.

“The Rock Creek Bakery, in Bishop, California.”

“A bakery is home? In California?”

“It’s technically California…. It’s close to Nevada, though.”

“What part of the state is it in?”

“Do you know where Yosemite is?”

“No.”

“Giant sequoias, Lake Tahoe, any of that?”

“Ah…. Honestly, no.”

“Donner Pass?”

“That I’ve heard of.”

“It’s about two hours south. It’s one mountain range away from Yosemite National Park. It’s a small town, but it’s a great place. There’s hiking in the summer, skiing in the winter, and there’s always something going on. I don’t get homesick much, but bread makes me happy, either way.”

“Sounds like it’s a place worth missing….”

“It is,” Kevin agreed. “It’s beautiful.”

“You’re lucky you get to travel,” Anders went on. “Aside from visiting my grandma in Miami, this is the farthest I’ve ever been from Jax.”

“Jax?”

“Jacksonville, Florida. My dad runs a real estate development firm there—financing condos, brokering commercial real estate sales, stuff like that. He does contract law too, but only because he likes the prestige. I wanted to go away to college, but the University of North Florida was right next door, so….” Anders shrugged.

“Where did you want to go?”

“Just away. I didn’t have any ideas,” Anders admitted. “I didn’t have any clue what I wanted to do with my life, or where I should go to do it. You know,” he said as he looked up and smiled brightly, “I still don’t have a clue what I want to do. Sometimes I wonder if I’m just going along with this whole law school thing to buy myself a few more years to figure it out.”

“Well, you’ve got a few months to think it over. That’s one thing a long hike is perfect for—figuring stuff out.”

Anders’s smile vanished. His gaze dropped and he shoved his hands into his pockets. “I doubt it. If my dad finds out I came out here on my own, he’ll probably show up at the next shelter to drag me home himself. And that’s assuming Joel doesn’t beat him to it.”

“What are you, twelve?” Kevin poked him.

“Hey! Weren’t you the one telling me I should have stayed in the parking lot?”

Kevin rolled his eyes. “Technically, yes. But there’s a difference between taking advice from a pro and letting your parents control your life until you’re forty.” Kevin watched Anders open his mouth to argue and then close his mouth again without saying a word. The teasing had obviously hit too close to home. Kevin backpedaled quickly. “But I admit, it’s got to be nice having family who looks out for you like that.”

“You don’t have family?”

“None who would come out here if they thought I was in trouble.” Kevin had made damn sure of that. When he first started getting sick, less than a year after they had buried his dad, Kevin had done everything he could to distance himself from his mom and sister. He had spent six months getting angry, snapping at them both, and becoming more and more of an asshole, until he finally decided to walk away.

It was easier to be an asshole than it was to tell them both the truth. When his dad had first told them he was sick, Kevin had only been sixteen. He had been willing to step up and work extra hours at the Rock Creek Bakery, even though he was still in high school. He didn’t mind hard work, and he had been in the bakery with his father since he was old enough to walk. He loved it. The work, the smells, the people, even the feel and texture of the dough. He loved the early mornings when he would get to watch the sun rise during his first break. He loved the customers who would always buy something extra if he took the time to chat with them while he was kneading bread.

But within months of announcing that he was sick, his father’s kidneys failed and his lungs became inflamed. He was hospitalized and quickly admitted to a nursing home. With the extra expense, they couldn’t afford to keep any of the bakery’s employees, so Kevin had dropped out at the end of his sophomore year to keep the place running. By the time he was eighteen, he was running the bakery by himself. His mom all but broke down, spending every moment she could with his dad. Every time she left the nursing home, she fidgeted nervously, fearing that he’d slip away while she wasn’t there. For those last three years, Kevin divided his life between the bakery and his dad’s room in the nursing home himself.

When his dad died, Kevin had been willing to hold their family together too. He’d tried.

Six months later, a sudden irregular heartbeat landed him in the ER for the first time in his life. Weeks of tests and consultations later, Kevin had found himself sitting in the office of his new rheumatologist, amused and terrified when he seemed to be the youngest person in the waiting room. He wasn’t even twenty-two.

He had listened to the doctor explain the results of his blood tests, the conclusions they could draw from his echocardiogram and EKGs, and the reality of his prognosis. The doctor had given him all-too-familiar handouts on lupus, explained that his immune system was just beginning to cause inflammation and destroy the tissue of his muscles and organs, and that there was nothing they could do except wait and see how the disease progressed. They could treat the symptoms as they developed and hope his immune system spared his kidneys and lungs. It was already starting to cause fibrosis in the lining of his heart, to create electrical short circuits in the pathways that controlled his heart’s rhythm, and it would likely begin attacking his very blood vessels next.

Kevin had always had the dedication and work ethic to take over the bakery. He had been willing to put college on hold so he could be the anchor that held his family together. But he hadn’t had the courage to tell his mom and sister that the disease that had crippled and killed his dad was destroying him too. He had watched them over the course of his dad’s illness, watched the grief chip away at them a little more each day, until the moment that his dad passed away came with as much relief as it did sorrow. He couldn’t make them go through it again.

He had turned into an asshole, made them both furious with him, and then he had run away.

Since then, he had thought about going home a few times, but he knew it was better to keep his distance. His mom and sister had their own proceeds from his dad’s life insurance to fall back on, just like he did. They were running the bakery and thriving without him. This way there would be no drawn-out illness, no weeks or months spent living in hospital waiting rooms. When the medications stopped being effective and his body succeeded in destroying itself, they would only have to cope with the sudden loss of the son and brother they hadn’t seen in years. They wouldn’t have to suffer through those years with him.