Free The Battle for Jericho by Gene Gant Page B

of attention to himself. He was one of those people you’d see hanging around in the background, like an extra in a movie scene who’s there to dress up the action without being a part of it. I played soccer with him and some of the other guys at the park, and Hutch was good enough at it that he could have made the team at school, but he wasn’t on any sports team, nor did he come to any of the games. Until now, his only passion had seemed to be video games, which he lived and breathed pretty much twenty-four hours a day. Sneaking glances at him as he drove, I wondered what else there was to him, what other secrets he might be hiding.
    I don’t know about Hutch, but I was as nervous as I’d been heading out for my first date with Lissandra. The current apprehension was different, and worse. Back then I’d been afraid of doing something to embarrass myself or offend Lissandra. Now I had no idea where Hutch was taking me or what would happen when we got there. Add in the certainty that whatever happened between us would leave me up to my eyeballs in shame, and you get a level of anguish that makes a person rend his garments as he hurls himself screaming off the nearest cliff.
    I, however, didn’t rend or scream or hurl, although I do believe I threw up ever so slightly into my mouth when Hutch accidentally grazed my knee while changing radio stations. Relax, Jericho, be cool . I sat in my leather bucket seat, as prim as the old ladies on the Mothers Board at my church, backpack on my lap, arms folded across my chest like armor, hands tucked firmly in my armpits, staring straight ahead as I went to my heterosexual doom. Storm clouds should have been brooding over us, the wind howling like a lost wolf. The afternoon was a bit cooler than yesterday, but the sky was bright blue and sunny. Damn it, even the weather was mocking me.
    Maybe you shouldn’t be doing this. Maybe you’re not ready. The thoughts kept swirling in my head. I have to confess here that I had checked out Hutch’s body a few times when he was naked in the locker room after gym class. Just to see how I stacked up against him. You know? Body-wise, I’m just not in his league. As I pointed out before, he has a nice build, not as ripped as Mac’s, but nice. And his butt’s nice too. It’s paler than the rest of his body, sort of round but not the kind of round you see in a girl’s butt, and you can see the muscles flex in it when he walks….
    Jesus. This can’t be happening. Tell me I am not sitting here thinking about another guy’s booty. I freaked a little at that, but it wasn’t the first time I’d thought about Hutch’s naked body. Damn it, I’d even scoped out the bare bodies of some of the other guys in our gym class, just taking mental notes to see how I measured up, of course. I would have to stop doing that. Images of the naked boys I’d seen in the locker room flitted through my head now like a slideshow. Clearly, I was already getting in too deep. It was one thing to join the gay team and maybe fool around a little bit with a guy here and there. It was another thing altogether to dive so far down in the homosexual ocean that you never come up again.
    “Hey,” Hutch said. “You okay over there? You’re thinking so hard, it’s giving me a headache.”
    “I’m cool, man.” My body had been twisted around itself so long that the circulation had been cut off to my extremities. My fingers and toes were all tingly dead from the lack of blood. I uncoiled slowly and stretched out my limbs, shaking my hands to get the juices flowing again. “Where in God’s name are we going, by the way?”
    “We’re almost there,” he replied.
    “You know, I’m kind of surprised your mom is letting your drive her car just for getting an A in some subject. From what you told me yesterday, it doesn’t sound as if your folks like you very much.”
    Hutch looked bitter. “They don’t. But this is their way of giving me another reason to stay on