Free Lost Along the Way by Marie Sexton

as he stood upright. “Just promise you won’t laugh if you have to carry me the last two blocks.”
    “I swear.”
    We started slow, judging each other’s pace, working to find a rhythm that suited us both. My legs were longer, but his natural gait was faster than mine. It felt strangely intimate, trying to match our footsteps, trying to blend the beat of our shoes on the pavement into a single song. I would have liked to keep running, but I could tell he was ready for it to be over. I didn’t have to carry him as he’d feared, although he was certainly breathing harder than I was by the time we reached his front door.
    “Come in,” he said, holding it open for me. “I’ll get you some water.”
    His house was much like him—a strange mixture of opposing themes. New speakers, but an ancient TV. Clunky tools I couldn’t identify lay carelessly on lace doilies. Pieces of metal on the coffee table next to a book about Tarot. Even the smells were contrary. Metal and grass and…
    Sugar?
    We rounded the corner into his kitchen, where three short loaves of banana bread—or something similar—lay resting on cooling racks.
    “Did you bake these?”
    He stared at them in shock, as if surprised to see them there. As if he for some reason wished they weren’t. “Yes.”
    “This morning?”
    “Last night. I couldn’t sleep. I, uh, well….” He filled a glass with water and held it to me. “It’s sort of a long story.”
    I’d only had a bowl of cereal before my run, and the smell of all that sugar and cinnamon made my stomach grumble. I took the water but set it right back down. I only had eyes for that bread. “Are you going to offer me any?”
    His eyes widened in alarm. “No!”
    I laughed in surprise. “Why not? Are they for somebody special?”
    “Ummm…. No. Not really. I mean, well, they were going to be for you, but—”
    “That’s the best news I’ve heard all day.” A rack of knives sat next to the loaves. I took one out and cut several thick slices. The aroma was mouthwatering.
    “I don’t think you should eat that.”
    “Why not? Is it pumpkin bread?”
    “No. It’s… sort of my own recipe.”
    “It smells amazing.”
    “Danny, I mean it. You shouldn’t—”
    I took a bite before he could stop me. The expression of alarm on his face was almost comical. I swallowed fast in order to ask, “Did you poison it or something?”
    “Of course not!”
    “Good, ’cause it’s fantastic!” I couldn’t have said what it was. Not pumpkin or banana or spice bread. But whatever it was, it tasted like heaven. “Why were you worried?”
    “Well….” He gnawed his lower lip in a way that was beginning to become familiar, although for the first time, I took real notice of his lips. I’d never noticed before how full and soft they were, between all his overgrown stubble. “I don’t really know much about baking.”
    “Seriously, it’s delicious.” I broke a piece off and held it toward him. “Try it.”
    He hesitated, and I moved closer, holding the morsel to his lips, watching him expectantly. I felt an unbidden thrill as he opened his mouth and let me slip the bread onto his tongue. He looked terrified, as if the bread really might be poisoned, but then his eyes drifted shut as the flavor hit him.
    “It’s good, isn’t it?” I took another bite myself, chewing slower this time, letting myself savor it. Behind him the window over the sink afforded a view of the backyard, and an old unattached garage. “Is that your shop?”
    “It is.”
    “Can I see it?”
    He smiled, his inexplicable discomfort over the bread suddenly gone. “Sure.”
    I grabbed another slice of bread and followed him out the back door. The yard needed to be mowed and was thick with weeds. Piles of scrap metal lay in heaps, although whether sorted by size or by degree of rustiness, I couldn’t tell. It surprised me. He took such good care of his front lawn, and of my parents’ yard.
    “This one’s always