Free 100 Sideways Miles by Andrew Smith Page A

Hernandez’s digestive tract that needed to be freed.
    And as it later turned out, I was correct.
    â€œI’m going to go find somewhere to lay down,” Cade said.
    â€œMaybe we should just leave,” I offered.
    â€œI don’t think I should ride in Julia’s car, dude.”
    Cade stood up, wobbling like a tightrope walker in a hurricane.
    We had been sitting on a couch in Blake Grunwald’s parents’ living room—Cade, Monica, me, and Julia. The party was terrible. In the living room, about half of the baseball team were taking drunken turns at playing an NFL video game on Blake’sparents’ wide-screen television. A few girls were in there too, but most of them looked to be in junior high school, so between football plays the boys kept leering at Monica and Julia, and fidgeting conspicuously with their penises.
    Most of the party took place outside, in Blake’s parents’ backyard, where scores of boys from Burnt Mill Creek gathered around gleaming kegs of beer, whooping and hollering over the dumbest and most inane masculine challenges, touching each other—which is something drunk boys at parties tend to do a bit too much—and smoking lots and lots of marijuana.
    And every last boy at the party, even the seventh- and eighth-graders, somehow managed to stroll past our place on the couch, raise an eyebrow, and say the exact same thing, which was this: “Hey, Monica.”
    Monica Fassbinder’s ambidextrous generosity was legendary in Burnt Mill Creek, but as far as I knew, it began and ended at Cade Hernandez.
    â€œI better help you, dude.”
    I got up and put my arm around Cade’s shoulders.
    Blake Grunwald’s parents’ home was what real estate agents in California called seventies ranch style—which meant it was long and narrow, dark on the interior, and built on one level. I led Cade down a hallway behind the living room, assuming we’d find someplace where a boy could pass out and not be noticed.
    It wouldn’t be too much of a challenge, I thought. After seeing the mix of kids who’d come out to Blake Grunwald’s crappy party, I was confident this would be a no-sex event.
    Across from a bathroom done entirely in the same shade of pale green you’d expect to see inside the examining room at afertility clinic, the last doorway in the hall opened onto a darkened bedroom. I didn’t even need to turn on the light to know this was Blake’s room.
    Catchers’ gear emits a particular damp-crotch boy smell. In the case of Blake Grunwald’s catchers’ gear, the scent produced a counteracting effect to how fertile I felt after glancing into the pastel green bathroom across the hall.
    â€œHere,” I said. “Lie down on Blake’s bed. There’s a bathroom just outside the door.”
    â€œOkay.”
    I deposited Cade Hernandez onto our backup catcher’s nicely made bed. I picked up Cade’s legs and put them on top of Blake’s bedspread.
    â€œDo you want some water or anything?” I asked.
    â€œNo. I’ll be okay in a few minutes. Thanks, dude.”
    â€œDo you want me to take off your shoes?”
    â€œWhy the fuck are you wearing my shoes?”
    â€œUh . . .”
    I pulled Cade’s shoes from his feet. He was burning hot. I could feel the soggy heat rising from his body like he was a wet tea bag that had just been lifted from boiling water. So I pulled his damp socks off, tucked them into his shoes, which I placed on the floor at the foot of Blake’s bed, and shut the door very quietly.
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    When I got back to the couch in Blake Grunwald’s parents’ living room, Monica Fassbinder and Julia Bishop were gone.
    I realized too that Blake Grunwald had just come inside the house from his parents’ backyard and stood glaring at me withhis flabby chest puffed out and his arms bent back like a gunslinger in an old