It was becoming an all-too-familiar sight: my dad standing in the corner of the kitchen, one hand holding a cup of strong aromatic coffee and the other stroking a two-day stubble.

I sat with my head hanging down, a spoonful of oatmeal halfway between mouth and bowl.

“Tom, that’s the last time I’m bailing you out for fighting. You owe me two hundred bucks.

You need a change of scenery.

Your mom and I have already talked with your Aunt Connie this morning. She needs help at the ranch and will pay you $1200 for the summer.

Finish your breakfast and get to practice.”

Some background.

I was a high school junior, a two-sport jock: football and baseball. I was also bored out of my gourd.

Prom had come and gone. I had already completed enough college-prep courses to skip my senior year, and I had run roughshod through every blond on the cheerleader squad. I craved excitement.

I had become a low-level juvenile delinquent.

I hadn't taken up smoking cigs (or otherwise), and I didn’t drink. Well, to be honest, I did down a Corona or two at beach bonfires. My downfalls were street racing and pussy.

I had bought a 1975 AMC Pacer wagon my freshman year. “Bought” is a loose term. I actually traded six weeks of mowing, trimming, and weeding for the privilege of towing the junker from the barn of my ninety-two-year-old summer employer the mile to our garage. I didn't have my driver’s license yet, so I used my dad’s Husqvarna zero-turn mower, with my nine-year-old sister at the wheel of the rustmobile.

After two years of amateur mechanic work and after watching hours of DIY YouTube videos, I had a pretty sweet ride.

The Pacer, however, became my downfall.

Fast forward.

The week before, we had advanced to the quarter finals of the state baseball championship by beating our crosstown rivals, Carleton Prep. I had been brought in from center field to close the game. The good news? We were up 1-0, and there were two outs in the bottom of the seventh. The bad news? Bases were loaded, and their first baseman, the cleanup hitter, was at the plate.

Everybody knew the batter. He led the area in both batting average and home runs. He had a short fuse and, at 6’ 4” and 235, lost few fights. Even his name, Tug, was intimidating.

Unlike most batters, he didn't glare at me during my warmup pitches. Instead, he just stood and smiled. I found it to be creepy more than anything else. It pissed me off.

I decided then and there to go big or go home.

I shook off the catcher’s request for a slider, low and away. Instead, I buzzed Tug with a fastball under the chin. He swung wildly, strike one.

The second pitch was my specialty: a knuckle change-up. He was way out in front and fouled the pitch to the backstop, strike two.

Our catcher, Tony Alvarez, looked to the dugout for the pitch and relayed the signal, one finger down alongside his batter-side thigh. Coach Andrews wanted me to repeat my first pitch and move Tug off the plate.

I like a challenge, but playing mano a mano with the best batter in town seemed like a bad idea. If I missed even an inch toward the center of the plate, it was a walk-off home run.

I shook off the signal. Tony looked to the dugout and repeated the same signal, but more emphatically. I shook it off and covered my face with my glove, hiding my laughing.

Tony knew what I wanted. He rotated his head right and left and then shrugged his shoulders up and down in a resigned manner. He covered his face momentarily with his mitt and laid down the sign: three fingers waggling, an ultra-slow curveball.

I pulled the front of my jersey up and wiped across my mouth, stalling and hopefully psyching Tug out. I dried my hand on the side of my pants and pulled the bill of my cap down. I raised both hands into the stretch and pulled them down, finally hurling what I hoped would be the game winner.

I watched as the 65 mph pitch headed directly toward Tug’s left shoulder. Crap, was it going to hit him while he was walking in the winning run? Five feet in front of the box, the pitch abruptly curved, dropping across the plate into Tony’s open mitt. Tug’s knees buckled.

Strike three, looking. Game over. We advanced to the quarterfinals.

We hit the showers, dressed, and boarded the bus for the forty-five-minute drive back to our school. As we inched through the crowded parking lot, the guys in the front and passenger side of the bus began to catcall and laugh. I stuck my head out the window to try to spy the target of their derision.

Lo and behold, there was Tug leaning back against a new F-150. Plastered against his front was an Elle Woods look-alike. A tennis racket dangled from her right hand, the left around Tug’s bull-like neck. Her pleated tennis skirt was bunched outward, Tug’s hand clearly squeezing her no-doubt bubble ass cheeks.

Tug looked me in the eye and shot me the bird with his free hand.

I formed an “L” on my forehead with my thumb and index finger and then blew a kiss to his sweet-meat girlfriend.

Last night.

Yesterday we creamed Ellington North HS 5-0 and advanced to the semis. I didn't pitch, but I did go three for four with a dong and two RBIs. After the game, scouts from Auburn and UVA introduced themselves and handed me their business cards. I was on cloud nine.

And then things went south.

Chip Campbell, our team's shortstop, and I had just finished binge-watching four episodes of Landman in what my mom called the rumpus room. Both Chip and I had been disappointed that none of the female characters had flashed a boob, particularly horny Mrs. Norris.

Chip stretched and asked in his usual flight-of-ideas fashion, “Who’d you rather fuck, the mom or the daughter? Maybe the Latina? No, the skinny lawyer? You hungry? Whatta ya say we hit the new In-N-Out Burger?”

Twenty minutes later, we were cross-town and pulling into the burger joint. Chip had finally accepted that my somewhat complex fuck-fantasy would be Mrs. Norris wearing only sunglasses and boots, in the cowgirl position with her long blonde hair dangling in my face.

We grabbed our Double Doubles and Cherry Cokes, heading outside to look for a table. The patio was packed. I looked at Chip. “Looks like we’re eating in the car.”

“Nope, ole buddy.”

I followed Chip’s eyes. There were two available chairs at a patio table for four. A cute brunette was smiling at Chip. Across the table, her back to us, was a blonde. Chip elbowed me. “It can’t hurt to ask.”

While Chip was asking the brunette if the chairs were available, I looked down at the blonde. Holy shit, it was the Elle Woods look-alike I had seen the week before with Tug.

“I know you,” she laughed, raising her thumb and index finger up to her forehead, then pouting out her lips in a smooch.

“Guilty as charged,” I stammered.

Ninety minutes later.

Meg and I had hit it off from the very beginning. Conversation came easily. We actually had a lot in common: everything from taking the same courses in school, to being fans of the Fayetteville Woodpeckers. She laughed a lot and tended to place her hand on my bare forearm with each joke. Her contact raised goosebumps on my arm and a stirring in my shorts.

I couldn’t help but notice the way her crop top was pushed away from her tan belly by small but very perky tits. Her nipples sat well-above the equator and looked as hard as jelly beans. I didn’t know if it was the cooling evening breeze or my studly presence, although I told myself it was the latter.

It became clear that Chip and Meg’s friend Kippy were in no hurry to call it a night. Meg suggested she had to work on a term paper and asked if I could drop her off at home. Kippy agreed to give Chip a lift home later after their meal.

I knew that Chip’s next meal was going to be a taco and gave him a wink.

The drive to Meg’s house was only about fifteen minutes. We quickly eased into small talk, the topics initiated by Meg, seemingly at random. I was doing my best to keep up my side of the conversation, but it was becoming more and more difficult. I was trying to concentrate on driving in the newly started drizzle, plus Meg had a habit of placing her left hand on my right thigh as she launched into a new topic.

I might have been imagining things, but it seemed as if her tiny fingers were slowly making their way progressively up my thigh. There was no doubt, however, about my involuntary response. I had a raging boner that was trying to escape the confines of my mesh basketball shorts.

All I could think was, “Oh, fuck. I hope I don’t cum in my pants.”

I snapped out of my stupor when Meg exclaimed, “Hey, that's my house!”

I made an abrupt right turn, splashing through a puddle and bumping over the curb. Meg jolted out of the Pacer’s low bucket seat. She clutched at anything for a handhold. The “handhold” was my cock.

“Sorry about that,” I uttered as we rolled to a stop.

“Did I break your, your, you know, thing?” I followed her gaze downward. My silky shorts were wadded in her fist, along with the shaft of my meat. The precum-dripping head was peeking out of the lower hem like a shy reptile.

I was caught off guard when she didn't immediately release Mr. Wiggly.

I’m not totally sure how we accomplished the feat, but somehow we were able to release our lap belts, crawl over the low-rise seats, and entangle ourselves on the air mattress I had substituted for the original back seats…all while French kissing and clawing at each other’s clothing.

I rolled Meg onto her back and scooted between her thighs, her head wedged against the back of the seats. Meg seemed to know the drill. She spraddled her tan legs, hips and knees flexed, the soles of her Hokas flat against the headliner. Meg’s Nashville-style cutoffs were pulled tightly up into her crotch, the inseam splitting her exposed peachfuzz-covered pussy lips. The half-inch of frayed denim was already darkened from Meg’s arousal fluids.

I risked coming across as a perv, momentarily dipping my face close to her wetness. I inhaled deeply that wonderful briny girl scent, closing my eyes as a primitive sledgehammer of pheromones was released deep in my brain.

I dropped my full body weight onto her belly and resumed our sloppy kissing.

Meg began grinding her pelvis upward, the bony ledge of her pubis traveling up and down the shaft of my rock-hard rager. I braced the soles of my Olukai flip-flops against the hatchback window and began a reciprocal dry humping, reminiscent of Senor Pepi, our family’s Chihuahua.

I grabbed the top of the passenger seat with both hands and added rotation to my thrusts. The top of Meg’s head banged against the seatback with each grind, but she didn't seem to mind. In fact, she tightened her thighs around my waist and urged me on. “Oh, yeah. That’s it. Harder, harder.”

I felt Meg sneak her hands between our bellies, then down to my still-partially covered cock. I stopped my jackhammering and raised up slightly onto my knees to give her full access. She fisted the business end of my rod with her right hand and fidgeted near her snatch with the left.

And then I felt it.

Meg had somehow shifted the pussy-splitting inseam of her Daisy Dukes to one side. She began running the tip of my turtleheadup and down her pouty lips, painting their inner pinkness with my dripping precum.

I heard her grind her teeth. “Fuck me. Please fuck me. Now.”

“Shit, I don’t have a rubber,” I stammered.

“I don't c…”

Meg didn't finish her sentence.

The passenger-side door was thrown open, followed by a “What the fuck? I’m going to kill you.”

I looked up into the angry, red face of none other than… Tug.