Chapter 2

I got home somewhere after 2 AM and snuck into the house. As I went up to my room, I was careful to not step on the two steps that creak. I’d taken off all my clothing when I first came in and I figured if I heard mom or dad moving, I’d just hide my stuff, tell them I was thirsty and was getting a drink. Nobody heard a thing. As I drifted off to sleep, I thought about my evening with Mandy. I was still hard, so I took care of it while I thought about Mandy. Tonight, I thought it felt better than usual.

Next morning, I woke to the sound of dad pounding on my door telling me to move my lazy ass out of bed. I looked over at the clock and saw it was only 7:45 in the fricken’ morning and he expected me to rise and shine. I groaned aloud. That resulted in more pounding asking me if I was okay. Pop wanted the lawn mowed and raked before the agent came over and took pictures of the house for the listing. I called out I was up, and I’d be downstairs in a few.

As I dressed, I wondered for a moment if I’d just had a really good dream, or had I actually been naked in a pool with a chick while we were making out. Then I realized how tired I was and decided it hadn’t been a dream after all, it had been real. The next question was, had it been worth it, and I pushed that thought out quickly with the new thought, “Hell yes it was worth it.” Mandy and I had a wonderful time last night, and I thought she was the most fascinating girl I’d ever met.

Mom and dad were bright and sunny this morning and again, dad covered all the things he wanted me to finish. I assured him I’d finish everything before the agent showed up. I promised everyone would be happy with the way the house looked.

Standing at the sink, I gulped my OJ and grabbed a bagel off the counter. On my way to the garage, I munched on my breakfast and when I opened the garage door, I was pleased the mower had been parked in a spot where it was easy to reach. Since we have a fairly large yard, a couple of years ago pop bought a ride around mower and I don’t mind mowing the lawn.

I had my cell phone in my shirt pocket and about halfway through mowing I felt it vibrate. Pulling over in the shade of one of the trees, I shut off the motor and pulled out my phone. It was a text from Mandy. “Last night wonderful Miss U cannot sneak 2 night, 2 morrow?” I was so pleased to see she still wanted to continue to see me. When she walked me to my bicycle, she had slipped on a short robe with nothing on underneath. After she kissed me, she took my hand, and placed it on top of her pubic hair. Smiling up at me, she told me, “Next time I want you to touch me there. I trust you.” One more kiss, and she went back into her house. Once again, my ride home was just a blur.

I texted back, “2 long 2 wait. I miss u now. Yes about 2 morrow. Hugs. Me.” It seemed I had hardly pushed send when my phone went off again. “Miss U 2. Plz text me more 2 day”. I sent back a yes and just as I pushed send, mom came out the back door, and shouted, “I don’t hear the mower running buster!” I quickly put the phone back in my pocket, fired up the mower, and started mowing again.

There were several chores to do during the day and my parents kept me busy. Whenever I could send Mandy a text, I either told her how I missed her, or how wonderful her kisses tasted, or how cute I thought she was. Once I even told her my brain kept thinking how sexy she looked in the pool last night. That text got me many sexy replies.

That evening dinner was quiet. I didn’t know exactly what was going on, but I could feel a level of tension. Something had happened during the day and the two parents I started the day with were missing. The two people sitting at the dinner table were upset, and I didn’t have a clue about the reason.

I asked once if there was a date when we were planning our move. I noticed mom and dad look at each other, and I thought pop looked angry. Mom answered, “We don’t know yet. We are still working out how this is all going to work.”

My question back was, “Are we still moving?” As soon as I asked, dad got up from the table without saying a word and left the room. “What’s the matter?” I asked.

“Nothing. Your father is under a lot of stress at work. Don’t worry.” For some reason, I was not expecting that answer, but something in mom’s tone of voice told me to let it go. Whatever was happening was something I needed to leave alone for now. Lucky for me the house phone rang, and it was one of mom’s buddies. Now was a good time to beat feet.

I slipped out of the house and went to the garage looking for something to do. A couple of years ago our next-door neighbor purchased a motorcycle, a brand-new Harley Davidson Sportster. He’d used poor judgment one evening (my father’s expression) and rode the bike after drinking quite a lot. He ended up having a bad accident and ruined the bike along with losing his license for a year. Although he didn’t total the bike, it needed a lot of work. The injured man was no longer interested in riding, and for some unknown reason, when he asked my dad if he wanted to buy it, pop purchased the wrecked bike. At the time he told mom it was a “father/son project”, but after a few months, it was clear it was going to become pop’s bike. Mom felt pretty pissed for a few days about it, but when she saw it would be some time before it ran, she mellowed.

Dad ordered a repair book online, and the two of us started to take the bike apart. It seemed my job was to clean parts. The engine was back together now, but we still had the bike’s transmission spread over the workbench. I was cleaning the parts one at a time, and then I put them back in the order dad had showed me. I started working on the transmission, and I don’t know how long I worked on the bike until I felt my phone go off in my pocket again. It was Mandy. I cleaned my hands, and for the next half hour we texted sweet nothings back and forth. She told me she missed me and promised me we would have fun the next evening.

The next morning things between mom and dad were still as tense as the night before. I remembered Scott had come home from the lake last night. I told mom and dad if they didn’t mind, I was going over to his place. Whatever was going on between them was so intense they both just murmured for me to go. I grabbed my bike, and I was gone in a heartbeat.

Scott’s mom was in their kitchen when I stepped up on the back porch. Before I had even started to knock, the door opened, and Mrs. Teeters said, “Come in Bill.” I don’t know how she knows it, but every time I stop by and come to the back door, before I can even knock, she has the door open, and she is inviting me in. To me, Scott’s mom looks as if she stepped out of the 1950’s. She wears an apron, and looks matronly in her blue dress, and you just expect her to smell like cinnamon, which she does. Next to my mom, I adore Mrs. Teeters. She tousled my hair, and told me Scott was still in bed, and I should go up, and roust him.

I took the stairs two at a time and was standing in front of his door before Mrs. Teeters could call him again. When I flipped the door open, I watched him pull his pillow over his head. I told him to wake up. Grabbing one corner of his blanket I told him again to hit the deck! By the time the blanket was coming off his butt he was grabbing at it with one hand, and still trying to hold the pillow in place. I gave the blanket one final tug and reached out to pull on his pillow. When he peeked out and saw who it was, he swore at me, and told me to close the door behind me. I informed him I was going to wait for him in the kitchen and eat a few pancakes his mom was cooking.

Mrs. Teeters was laughing when I came into the kitchen and asked me if I had any luck in getting Scott out of bed. About that time, we heard the toilet flush upstairs, and we both nodded our head that he was up and moving. When he entered the kitchen, his hair looked a mess, and he was only wearing pajama bottoms. “What the hell is so important you need to wake me in the middle of the night?”

Mrs. Teeters barked, “Scott Teeters, you watch your language. You will not swear in my kitchen.”

“Oh, you mean I can swear in the rest of the house?” Sometimes Scott says things I’d never say at home. Mrs. Teeters is used to his mouth, and she just laughs. Shortly both of us had a stack of hotcakes in front of us, and we were chowing down. Between mouthfuls, Scott asked, “Have you heard from Coach when summer practice starts?”

“I have bad news; dad has a new job, and we are selling the house, and moving.”

“No shit?”

“Scott Teeters!” His mom shouted.

“Sorry mom,” Turning back to look at me, Scott lowered his voice, “When do you move?”

“I don’t know yet. I’ve asked pop, but it seems there is a problem between mom and dad, and they won’t tell me when we are gonna move.”

Mrs. Teeters piped up, “What’s wrong with your mom and dad?”

I looked over at Mrs. Teeters and begged, “Please don’t say anything. I shouldn’t have brought it up, because I really don’t know for sure. I just know things around the house are tense, and I don’t know why.”

“Should I call?” Scott’s mom asked.

“Gee Mrs. Teeters; I don’t think that’s a really good idea. Let’s just let things be for now. Okay?”

“Ok Bill, you tell me if you change your mind. I just love your mom to death, and I’d hate to see any problems.”

“Thanks’ Mrs. T.” I nodded to Scott, and we left the room. Once we were in his room Scott asked me how I felt about the move. It was tough not to break down, and cry. “Dude, I was so sure I would be one of the players selected to play varsity wide receiver this year. We’ve practiced so hard together, and I was sure we would set some school records. This so fucking sucks.”

“I know. It ain’t ‘casue we are best friends; I just trust you when I throw you the ball. I know you’ll be right where I need you. We have practiced so long for this.” Scott raised his voice, and shouted, “It ain’t fucking fair.” We heard Mrs. T holler from downstairs, “Scott Teeters, you watch your mouth or I am coming up there, and I’ll wash that filthy thing out with soap.”

“Sorry mom. I was just telling Bill what a raw deal he got.”

“Well, I don’t want to hear any more words like that again. Do you understand?”

“Yeah mom.”

“And don’t you ‘yeah mom’ me either. I’ll tell your father about that potty mouth of yours. See if he lets you say things like ‘yeah mom’.” We both snickered at the thought of Scott calling his dad, ‘mom’.

We headed downstairs, and as we descended the stairs to go outside, my cell phone went off letting me know I had a text. Scott stopped so fast I almost ran into him. He turned and looked back at me. “Who is texting you?”

“Excuse me, but I know more people than just you.” I joked.

“Well fuck you too.” He snapped back, and we both laughed. “Are you going to tell me who it is?”

It wasn’t that I felt ashamed of Mandy or anything; I just was not ready to share her with anybody yet. I know that might sound lame, but it was how I felt, and she was something I had never experienced before. Right now, she was mine, and I was not ready to tell anybody about her. “It’s sort of a surprise. I’ll tell you about it soon, but for now I really don’t want to discuss her.” I said rather lamely.

“Her!” Scott shouted. “Her ... I want details.”

“Stop now or I will leave.”

“Fess up. Who is she?”

“Scott, I’ll leave if you don’t stop.”

“Come on, tell me. I’d tell you if it was me.”

“Well it ain’t, and I’m not ready to talk about it.”

“Fine, be that way asshole.” I could tell I’d hurt Scott, but I really didn’t want to talk about Mandy with anybody yet. “Why don’t you just go to her place? What are you doing here?” He turned back around and stomped back up the stairs. I could tell the best thing was for me to leave. In a day or two, he would be over things, and we could talk it out.

Once I was outside, I checked my phone. “plz tell me u’ll C me 2 night. I miss U so much.” I was so happy to hear she still wanted to see me. Quickly I texted back I would be in the park at 10:30. I received a message letting me know how pleased she was.

Dinner was very uncomfortable. Dad just sat there lost deep somewhere, and I could tell mom was upset about something as well. I chattered on about Scott being back and all I got from the two of them was an “Uh ha.” Trust me when I tell you there ain’t much conversation when all you receive is that response. As soon as the dishes were off the table and the kitchen cleaned, I went out to the garage. Even with all the doors and windows closed, I could still hear mom and dad arguing. I couldn’t make out the words, but the tone of voice was all I really needed to hear. Around 9:30 I headed up to my room and when I passed by my parents room, I heard mom tell dad to keep it down, she didn’t want to me to hear. Hear what I had no idea, for some reason they wanted to keep me in the dark.