Caught Inbetween

Chapter 2-1

Chapter 2

Jack Rowe and Peter Brandt had been a couple long before Lori came into their lives. The way she heard it, they met in auto shop in high school during Jack’s junior year. Brandt was only a sophomore, a quarterback on the JV football team with careless hair and pretty boy looks. Normally Jack wouldn’t have bothered with a kid like that, but Brandt was good with his hands, and smart, too. He wasn’t just in the class to get an easy A—he really wanted to learn about cars.

Then Brandt realized Jack wasn’t half as dumb as he pretended to be. He hid behind his long hair and soulful eyes, and while that might’ve worked in other classes, it didn’t get him far in auto shop. The moment he got under the hood of a car, his instincts took over—his hands knew where to go, what to do; his mind understood the workings of the engine without his even having to think about it.

Brandt wanted to know what Jack knew. He hung around Jack like a shadow, always hovering nearby, watching, waiting. At first Jack ignored Brandt, but soon he started to snap at the sophomore, mean little jabs meant to send Brandt away. They didn’t work; if anything, Brandt was determined, and he just moved in closer. After a while, he started answering Jack’s retorts with his own, the two of them trading angry quips throughout class, arguing over an engine even as they worked together to take it apart and rebuild it.

By the middle of the school year, other students were avoiding them—no one wanted to work with them because they bickered too much, even though they got their projects done on time. Brandt began to wonder if Jack hated him, or if he were being too much of a pest. He was a football player, for Christ’s sake. Everyone liked football players, didn’t they? So why couldn’t he make Jack like him?

The answer turned out to be surprisingly simple, and it took someone else to point it out. Actually, the shop teacher saw it way before either Brandt or Jack did. It was on a warm day in the middle of December, right before Christmas break. They were supposed to be installing a front disc brake assembly in the shop’s old beat-up 1982 Toyota Corolla, but Jack wouldn’t let Brandt put on the brake pad, claiming he’d put do it backwards. “I will not,” Brandt muttered. “I can do it if you’d let me.”

But Jack refused to hand the pad over. “You’ll do it wrong. Just get out of the way and let me—”

“Damn it!” Brandt snapped. He lunged for the pad, but Jack held them up out of reach. Despite Brandt’s strength on the football field, he was shorter than Jack’s lanky height. He simply couldn’t reach as far as Jack’s hands, way up overhead. “Give it to me! Jack!”

From across the room, the teacher let out a tired sigh. “God, will you two either fight or f**k it out before you drive me crazy?”

Brandt froze on his tiptoes, arm stretched as he reached for Jack’s, still raised above his head. Jack glanced at the teacher, then at Brandt, eyes wide in disbelief. In that blue gaze, Brandt read the same thought floating through his own mind. He didn’t just say what I think he said, did he?

It wasn’t even so much the meaning behind his words as the word itself. Could teachers even say f**k?

Then the words themselves sunk in, and Brandt took a quick step back from Jack. Wait, was the teacher saying they should…what exactly?

“Never mind,” he said quickly.

At the same time, Jack thrust the brake pad at him. “Here, go ahead and do it, I don’t care.”

From his seat behind his desk, the teacher smirked before returning to his copy of Auto Trader magazine. His point had been made, at least, and for the rest of the class period, neither Jack nor Brandt said one word to each other.

Afterwards, though, Brandt caught up with Jack when the older boy went outside to smoke. “Hey, can you believe what Mr. Mac said back there?” Brandt asked, sidling up to where Jack leaned against the back wall of the Vo-Tech building.

Jack shrugged and took a drag on his cigarette, disinterested.

Edging closer, Brandt kicked at a clod of dirt. “What do you think he meant by it?”

This time Jack grunted. “You heard him. Fight or f**k it out, pick one.”

A little thrill tingled deep in Brandt’s belly. “Are you, um—do you want me to choose?”

Jack squinted at him, amused. “Well, since you haven’t thrown a punch yet, I’m thinking you want to screw.”

Brandt felt his face flush. “I’m not—I mean, no, I don’t…I mean, are you…do you…?”

He looked up, hopeful. Jack had to know what he was asking.

But Jack wasn’t about to let him off the hook so easily. “Do I what?”

Lowering his voice, Brandt whispered, “Would you? If—you know…”

Jack sighed and tossed away the butt of his smoke. “Spit it out already. Do I like d**k? Is that what you want to know?”

With a furtive glance around to make sure no one was within earshot, Brandt nodded.

Now Jack looked at him, really seeing him, and nodded once, decisive. “Yeah, I do. There, happy?”

Brandt let out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding. “Me, too,” he sighed in relief. “At least, I think I do. I mean, girls are great, don’t get me wrong. My girlfriend’s hot as s**t, you’ve seen her, she’s the lead cheerleader and she has boobs that just won’t quit, but I really think I want to try something…um, different, if you know what I mean.”

Jack’s face split into a wide grin. “So no punching then. Want to come back to my place? We’ll have it to ourselves until my dad gets off work at six. Maybe you can get your girlfriend to join us sometime.”

Brandt laughed. “Yeah, that’ll be the day.”