Sixteen year old Jacob Smithson has quite a temper. He’s picked on by other kids because he likes boys, and recent fighting has kicked him out of public school. As a last resort, his parents have placed him in the St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Boarding School for Boys.<br><br>It’s at his first mass at St. Thomas where he sees Avery Dendritch, a senior who serves as altar boy during the service. When they meet, the attraction between them is hard to deny. The two become fast friends, and as the school year progresses, their friendship deepens into something more. For the first time, Jacob has found a place where he belongs ... and someone with whom he’s falling in love.<br><br>But the other students gossip about their growing relationship, and while Avery can ignore them, Jacob cannot. As the rumors and slurs start up again, can he curb his temper, or will his penchant for fighting get him expelled from St. Thomas, as well?

Without Sin

The ID scanners look like those things stores use to swipe credit cards. They’re at every door of the church, a nun nearby watching to make sure they’re used correctly. Avery wonders how else you could use it. You stick your student ID in upside down, it slides through, you pick it up when the machine beeps. It’s not brain surgery.


He waits for the beep. The nun watching over him is Sister Mary Something or other, Avery isn’t sure exactly what her full title is, but she teaches Driver’s Ed to the juniors. He didn’t have her class. He had Father Sean, who is hell on wheels. That was before they transferred the priest to the biology labs.


Chapter 31