A/N: This story takes place during Season 2, with some expanded and "missing" scenes.
[*]
Tami felt awful for her husband. So far, the Panthers had scored 0 to their opponent's 37.
"Somebody's not getting laid tonight," Shelley said from next to her in the bleachers.
Shelley had come to watch Gracie Belle while Tami went back to work. As much as Tami appreciated her little sister's help, Shelley was starting to wear on her nerves.
"Oh, would you stop that?" Tami nodded to Gracie. "The baby! Good Lord!"
They sat back down on the bleachers, Gracie in Tami's arms.
"What?" Shelley asked. "Trouble in the bedroom?"
"Honey, I just said shut up."
"Look, this is why Eric's so grouchy all the time."
Eric did get grouchy when he'd gone too long without sex. Grouchier than usual. And the morning after he got laid, he was always in a good mood, humming while he cooked up a hot breakfast, saying I love you twice as often as he usually did, and not even cursing when he couldn't find his keys.
Tami tried to deflect her sister. "You must be real bored if the only thing you can talk about is our sex life."
"Tell me you started up again."
"Well…." Tami admitted. "We did it the once." It had been a beautiful night, but she hadn't been in the mood since.
"You know what they say. Anything less than three times a week – "
" - Stop it!" Three times a week? Good Lord. Shelley didn't know anything about what it was like to have a two-decade-long marriage, two children, a full-time job, a mortgage. "I'm tired, Shelley. I'm tired."
Although… maybe Shelley had a little bit of a point. It couldn't be easy on Eric. He'd suffered quite a drought this past year, between the long-distance job and the baby, and he was crankier than usual. He was as loyal a man as she could hope to find, and, as her Aunt Rita used to say, he was certainly "easy on the eyes."
Tami began to feel that guilt creep in, that guilt she'd sworn would not lead her into duty sex…she forgot it, though, when Shelley pointed out Julie flirting with her young English teacher and told Tami that Julie had called him "cute" and "cultured."
Tami did not like that young man's chumminess with her daughter. She did not like it at all. It was entirely inappropriate. She should tell Eric.
No, she shouldn't tell Eric. Eric was grouchy. Eric was looking for an outlet, and a fight might do.
She should probably just screw her husband hard tonight and handle Mr. Cute and Cultured herself.
Yes, that's what she'd do.
Tami yawned.
[*]
Eric usually got after game sex – either a victory lay, or a pity lay – but either way, he got laid. Friday night, though, Tami fell asleep the second her head hid the pillow.
He sighed. He'd given up trying to woo her into sex. The candles and music hadn't worked. The tulips and book club outing hadn't work. The wake-ups and kitchen cleaning and schedule making hadn't worked. One night, after a game, she'd just up and offered, not because of anything he'd done, he didn't think, but because she herself felt like it. Unfortunately, she hadn't felt like it since. He'd been living on the memory of that one fantastic night.
Eric continued to help out around the house when asked, of course, but he wasn't pushing for sex anymore, not really, not often. At this point, he was just hoping and waiting for her to come to him, and stuffing down his disappointment every night she didn't.
[Saturday]
Shelley stood dancing in the kitchen with Gracie Belle in her arms. Tami yawned at the kitchen bar and glanced through the morning paper as she sipped her coffee.
"I hope you got a shower already this morning," Tami told her little sister. "Because Eric has been in there forever. He's going to use up all the hot water."
Shelley threw back her head and laughed.
"What's so funny?" Tami asked.
"Well you know why he's taking an epic shower, right?"
"What are you talking about?" Tami testily flipped a page of the newspaper.
"Well he's got to get it somewhere."
"O, Lord, Shelley, Eric is not a teenage boy."
"He's a man who's not getting laid is what he is. A grouchy grump of a man."
"Shelly, I told you to stop about that already!"
"I wonder what he thinks about."
"Shelley! I said shut up."
"He's so boring and conventional. He probably just thinks about you."
"You know what?" Tami said, her voice high, slamming her newspaper closed, "He probably does just think about me. Because I'm fantastic. I'm all the woman he can handle."
Footsteps came down the hall.
When Eric drew up behind Tami at the kitchen bar, he was dressed in jeans and a button-down flannel shirt, his hair wet and matted against his head.
Shelley laughed.
"What's so funny?" he asked.
"Nothing," Shelley said. "Good morning. You enjoy your shower? Leave your wife any hot water?"
Tami glared at her.
Eric grimaced. He kissed Tami. "I got that breakfast meeting with Buddy and them guys."
"I know."
He walked around the kitchen bar, grabbed a to-go mug, and filled it with coffee.
"If you're going out to breakfast, why don't you just get coffee there?" Shelley asked.
"Because I've got to get there first." He leaned down and kissed the baby's head where she lay in Shelley's arms. "Love you, Gracie Belle."
Then he went around the bar and kissed Tami again on his way out. "Love you, too, babe. You get some rest this morning. Don't work all morning on those damn files."
After he retreated, they heard, "Damn it all! Where are my damn truck keys?" and then rustling, and then the front door opening and closing.
"He's sweet to you, you know," Shelley said. "For such an utter grouch, he sure is sweet to you sometimes."