Without Sin

Chapter 1-2

Mike doesn’t remember what the altar boy looked like. “Light red hair,” Jacob tells him. “Almost blond. Sticks up in the front?”

“Do you know how many boys fit that description?” Mike sits at his desk, leaning over his geometry book. “You and me both.”

“My hair’s more brown than blond,” Jacob tells him. “Come on, think. Pale green eyes. On the altar, damn it.”

How could he not remember? Jacob can’t forget. He’s lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling and still thinking about that altar boy at mass. Homework is the last thing on his mind right now. “It was just this morning, Mike. How the hell do you make it through your classes with a memory as bad as yours?”

Ignoring that, Mike tells him, “I’ve got a schedule.” He’s an usher sometimes and he has a list of who serves for the month. As he looks through his notebooks for the piece of paper, Jacob asks him what he does as an usher. “Those guys who stand by the pew at communion?”

Jacob continues to stare at the ceiling; it takes him a moment to realize Mike’s waiting for an answer. “Yeah?”

“That’s an usher,” Mike says. “They tell you where to go when it’s your turn.”

“Up to the altar,” Jacob says. Everyone knows that. Hell, he knows it and he’s not even Catholic.

But Mike has found the paper and he holds it up as he scans it, looking for today’s date. Jacob’s about to snatch it from his hands when he finally says, “Avery Dendritch. Oh, him. I remember now.” He puts the paper away before Jacob can ask to see it. “Why do you want to know?”

“You know him?” Jacob sits up, interested. “Is he a sophomore?”

“Avery?” Mike laughs.

He was at St. Thomas Aquinas last year and acts like he knows everyone. There are only a couple hundred boys in the whole school—Jacob’s freshman class back home was larger than all four classes here combined—so he doesn’t understand why Mike doesn’t know more people, what with his big mouth. He thinks maybe it has to do with the way his roommate came in after dinner and closed the door on the noise in the hall so he could study. Study! Jacob still can’t get over that one. Studying is something he saves for the week before exams and he vows not to do it a moment sooner.

“Avery is a senior,” Mike says, turning back to his Geometry. “Been here all four years. He’s in the choir.”

Jacob wonders if he’s as bored there as he looked on the altar. He can picture it, that boy in the choir. Probably has a pretty voice, too. Jacob thinks someone who looks like that would probably sing soprano, and squeal when he comes. And that thought does bad things to his stomach. He’s sixteen, but he’s fooled around enough to know that most guys aren’t quiet when they come. He sure isn’t.

“A senior?” Jacob tries to keep his voice light, disinterested, but inside, his blood is boiling and his thoughts whirl out in all sorts of crazy directions.

He wants to know if Avery is seeing anyone. He wants to know if he likes boys the same way Jacob likes boys, and he wants to know if maybe he’d consider dating a sophomore. Maybe he’d consider dating me, Jacob thinks, and because that thought makes him flush, he frowns so Mike won’t see how turned on he is. Avery is cute and Jacob’s seen cute before, but there’s something almost wicked in the way Avery looked so damn disinterested in church this morning, and Jacob likes wicked. He thinks maybe there’s more to that altar boy than people think. He wants to be the one to find out.

But he thinks Mike may be the type to get all weird on him if he found out his roommate thought of other boys touching and kissing and loving him, so he keeps his mouth shut.

“I don’t really know him,” Mike says with a shrug. “He’s two years older than me. I’ve never talked to him.” Frowning, he glances over at Jacob and asks again, “Why do you want to know all this?”

“No reason.” With a laugh, Jacob adds, “You haven’t talked to him? s**t, Mike, you talk fifty-five miles a minute. I can’t believe there’s anyone here you haven’t talked to yet.” Mike blushes at that and turns back to his homework. At least he doesn’t mention Avery again.

Jacob stares at the ceiling and remembers the curve of that boy’s ass beneath his cassock. He whispers Avery’s name under his breath, just to try it out. He likes the way it feels on his lips.