We were home from freshman year — three of us lived in the area and two were in town visiting.

We went to her house to watch the Lord of the Rings, but ended up playing pool most of the night.

It was just three of us at the moment — one guy, two girls.

After a bit of mockery of the fact that the pool table was felted in the colors of our rival school, also her parents’ alma mater, he starts teaching us how to play.

I’m sort of the “official airhead” of our bunch (just what I get, after being “the smart one” in high school) so I’m not only playing shitty pool, but doing so gleefully.

We’re in the middle of the first or second game of cutthroat I’ve ever played.

It’s my turn.

One of his balls is right by the corner pocket, directly diagonal from the cueball, with only the 8 ball in the way.

He decides to help me out (a rare occurrence), and begins explaining some cockamamie way in which I would hit the cueball that might sorta-kinda knock a completely different ball in the general direction of a pocket.

Or,” as he casually leans back on his cue, “you could jump the 8 and knock that one in.”

I line up my shot and hit.

The cue strikes the ball lower than I’d intended it to.

The cueball jumps over the 8 and bumps the other ball neatly into the corner pocket.

She landed on her ass laughing almost immediately.

He spit out a string of obscenities I wish I could remember, as it might come in handy someday.

I swaggered back from the table like I owned the world… and proceeded to trip over the cues that were still on the rack, landing on the floor and knocking a cue over onto her head.

He seemed comforted by that, as if he needed reassurance that I was still an airhead.

And I apparently used up all my pool luck at once, as I had trouble even hitting the cueball after that.

But God help me, I will hold that one over his head until he either graduates or shoots me.