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

Mrs. Dendritch continues, uninterrupted. “But if this is it,honey—if this isit, then nothing will be able to keep you two apart.” She waits for him to digest this. “You know that. Don’t you?”


He lets out a breath he doesn’t know he’s been holding. “Yeah, but—”


She’s not through. “Say he gets expelled. He lives an hour from here. You can talk on the phone. You can visit—”


“No,” she concedes, “not often, but enough. And he’s still welcome to visit any time you’re home. He’s not that far away.”


He looks up at her. He’s not really sure where Jacob lives but he knows it’s far enough from the school that he can’t simply walk there. Didn’t his mother say it was an hour away? How does she know? Mrs. Smithson told her,he thinks. That’s what they were probably talking about while he was in with the monsignor. He’s almost sure of it. “What do you mean?”


Chapter 66