The Book of Matthew (The Alex Chronicles Book 1) Read Online Free Page A

guitar. “Back and sides are made of maple. The top is spruce.” He flipped and rotated the guitar several times for me to get a good look at it. “Mahogany neck and rosewood fingerboard.” He held it out to me.
    I secured the strap around my neck and grabbed the neck of the guitar with my left hand, struggling to find a comfortable position.
    “How’s it feel?” Matt asked.
    I pretended to strum the guitar. “Okay,” I lied.
    “Come on. Let’s start.”
    There were seven of us, six guys and myself. We stood before Matt, each cradling a guitar. I hid in the back row to the far right, just in front of the door so I could make an easy and quick escape if necessary.
    We started with a warm-up exercise—reviewing the different chords. Matt had us align our fingers on the combination of strings that formed each chord. Then we were supposed to open strum in down strokes a few times with a guitar pick.
    No matter what I tried, I couldn’t do it right. Either my fingers wouldn’t stretch or I was covering one or two strings too many or too few. The beautiful sounds that should’ve emanated from my guitar when I strummed sounded more like the howls of a wounded animal.
    Noticing my struggle, Matt walked over and stood behind me. He wrapped his arms around me and placed his hands on top of mine. He pushed his chest hard against my back.
    “Like this,” he whispered in my left ear, guiding my fingers. “Take it easy…nice and slow.” His breath tickled my earlobe.
    Our fingers moved in unison, entwined as they searched for strings to press and hold and strum. I stared at the long, slender neck of the guitar, suddenly aware of his closeness. I was caught between the hardness of a wooden guitar and the soft embrace of a human body; I was trapped between the need to push away and run and the urge to spin around and kiss him.
    He whispered in my ear again. “Got it?”
    I nodded.
    He released my hands and our fingers untangled. He gave my wrist a soft, parting stroke and then slowly backed away.
    Suddenly all my nerve endings were alight with fire and my body tingled as if it had received a bolt of lightening. The burning sensation spread through every inch of me, but was concentrated in my lower abdomen, just below the bellybutton. It was a feeling I hadn’t experienced since my night in the grass with Bobby: the intimate touch of a lover quelling the pang of physical contact.
    An hour passed. The guitar lesson was over. I had fudged my way through the whole thing, feeling more lost and overwhelmed every minute.
    There was so much to learn. There were riffs and licks and frets and down strokes…and something about arpeggios and hand muting. These were all things Matt said we would learn in time.
    What the hell had I been thinking two years before as a junior in high school when I decided to take guitar lessons?
    Oh, right. I was trying to impress Bobby. Prove to him that whatever he could do I could do too.
    But I didn’t know the first thing about playing the guitar. I couldn’t even read music.
    I was in way over my head and suddenly feeling like I had chosen the wrong hobby. I wanted to be a writer, not a musician. Why hadn’t I joined the newspaper staff?
    But at the moment I had bigger issues to contend with, like that tingling sensation in my lower abdomen. When Matt caressed my wrist, I felt a spark of mutual attraction, and it made my belly burn.
    While everyone put away their guitars and gathered their things to leave, I stood frozen and silent—too afraid to move, too embarrassed to speak. All I could do was stare off into space and wonder what the hell had just happened. A few people brushed passed me on their way out, shouting their good-byes to one another.
    Matt and I were alone once again.
    He walked over to me. We stood looking at each other for the first time in an hour.
    “You plan on giving it back?” he asked.
    “Huh?”
    “The guitar.”
    I looked down and realized I still had the guitar