Gracie is at the top of the slide, looking with disdain at the child crawling up it toward her – Katrina's boy. Eric knows that look in Gracie's eyes well – he's seen it on Tami's face many times. But Tami also has a smile that breaks out and transforms the disdain into sheer southern sweetness, and then she has that tone where it's not quite clear to strangers whether she's insulting them or complimenting them. Gracie doesn't have any of that. She's a bull in a china shop, as direct as a master archer's arrow: "Get. Off. The. Slide. Can't you see I'm coming down?"

"Edward now, let Gracie come down," Katrina says. Edward obeys his mother, turning around halfway up the slide, but then inching down ever so slowly, his legs spread wide and his feet against the edges. Gracie heaves herself down, her shoes landing on the boy's shoulders and pushing him the rest of the way to the ground.

"Gracie, don't do that again," Eric says halfheartedly. The truth is that little Edward prick deserved a good smash down the slide. But he doesn't want any hard feelings with Edward's mother because…"Hey, Katrina," he says as the kids now rush off to another piece of equipment. He leans his arm against the bars that surround the stand at the top of the slide. "Your brother-in-law….does he still need advice about getting that football program started? I haven't heard from him."

The gaggle of stay-at-home moms isn't at the park today. They apparently all signed up for "Mommy and Me" music classes, but Katrina missed the deadline. Eric figures this is a good chance to "network" as Tami calls it.

Katrina looks him over – at least, he feels like he's being looked over. "Why don't we go out to lunch and discuss it when the kids are done playing."

"Uh…"

"Take them to McDonald's."

Eric's muscles tense instinctively. He's not quite sure what to make of this suggestion. He can't remember the last time he went to lunch with a woman that wasn't Tami. In his line of work, he usually ends up at sports bars with men. It's never really been necessary to lunch alone with a woman, so he hasn't had to worry about appearances. But it's not as if they'll be completely alone. The kids will be there. Still, he feels weird about it for some reason. Maybe because he's aware that Katrina is attractive – or, at least that most men would find her figure attractive. Not that he does. Well, objectively speaking maybe he does. If he wasn't married and she wasn't married…God, he can't even imagine not being married. He's not sure what he would do if he wasn't married. But he's pretty sure he wouldn't be micro-analyzing the potential implications of a lunch at McDonald's. "Sure."

[*]

Edward and Gracie have disappeared up inside the indoor, plastic play structure at the back of the McDonald's, and left the adults – and a tsunami of paper wrappers - at the table. Katrina is talking. And talking. About…well, Eric's not quite listening. But he tunes back in when she says, "Do you have that problem with Gracie?"

"Uh…sometimes, yeah."

"So what's your solution? You seem like a really capable dad." She smiles.

He's not sure about that smile. He's getting the vague impression that Katrina might be flirting with him. He's not really sure what that looks like these days. He hasn't been flirting, but some women don't need much encouragement. He remembers that much from college. And he's also found that by simply acting reflexively like a Texan in Pennsylvania, he attracts a lot of female smiles. Or female rage. There was that one woman who sneered at him for opening the door to the coffee shop for her and told him she was quite capable of opening doors herself, thank you very much. But mostly they smile. Sometimes, when he says, "Excuse me, ma'am …." (you dropped your credit card, is that your order, or whatever), they even giggle a little. He isn't trying to flirt. He's just being…normal.

"I usually let my wife handle that stuff." he says finally. "Tami's great with that stuff." There. Kill two birds with one stone. Vaguely answer her question and remind her he's married.

Katrina laughs. "You weren't listening to a word I said, were you? You just want to know if my brother will give you business?" He opens his mouth, scrambling to think of a response that will appease her, but thankfully she carries on. "I'll call him today and see why he hasn't followed through, and I'll let you know. How's that sound?"

Eric nods. "Thank you."

Gracie flies out of the bottom of the blue covered slide. "Edward is stuck," she announces when she walks over to the table. She pops one of the last two remaining fries into her mouth.

"Oh dear," Katrina says. She looks at Eric. "Would you come to his rescue? There's no way I'm climbing up at that thing."

[*]

It's breakfast for dinner tonight – pancakes, bacon, and scrambled eggs. "Hon, this is delicious," Tami tells Eric, "but eventually you're going to have to expand your repertoire." He's done pretty well with the Mr. Mom thing, but given that he's only working a few hours a week currently at his new business, she expects him to accomplish a bit more. Like maybe he could have vacuumed the living room today. It certainly could have used it.

"What do you mean?" he asks. "My repertoire is expansive, babe. Expansive."

Tami chuckles. "Chili. Brisket. Frozen lasagna. Frozen pizza. Hamburgers and hot dogs. And breakfast food. And not a vegetable in sight. Am I missing anything?"

"I can make spaghetti," he insists. "With a salad on the side. A vegetable salad. And I make a mean Mac N' Cheese. Isn't that right, Gracie?"

"It's okay," Gracie replies, and Tami snorts at Eric's expression.

Forks and knives rustle and scrape as they resume eating. Gracie puts down her fork and picks up her last strip of bacon with her hands and pops it into her mouth. When she's done, she announces, "Daddy unstuck Edward from the rocket today. And he paid for Mrs. Moretti's lunch because Mrs. Moretti forgot her cash."

Tami blinks. She sets down her glass of orange juice and, elbows now on the table, laces her fingers together as she looks at Eric. "Who is Mrs. Moretti, and why can't she pay for her own lunch?"

"That woman I told you about!" Eric says defensively. A little too defensively, in Tami's opinion. "The one with the brother-in-law who might need my advice with getting a football team going at that private school."

"Who might need your advice? But he hasn't called?"

"Not yet, no."

"So you bought her lunch."

"I didn't buy her lunch," Eric insists. "She didn't have cash on her. I loaned her lunch."

"Oh," Tami says, catching his eyes with hers. "So she's going to pay you back? By taking you out to lunch sometime?"

"Tami. It was McDonald's. We were getting the kids a bite to eat after the park to talk about why her brother-in-law hasn't called me yet."

Tami unlaces her fingers and slides her orange juice closer. "And why hasn't he?"

"I don't know. She says she's going to ask him."

"You had to take her out to lunch to find out that she's going to ask him why he hasn't called? You couldn't find that out when you were at the park?"

"I didn't take her out to lunch," Eric insists testily.

"It sounds like you took her out to lunch to me. You went to lunch with her and you paid for her. What? She didn't have a credit card?"

Gracie looks from her father to her mother. "Is Daddy in trouble?"

"No," Tami tells her. "Daddy is not in trouble. Daddy and Mommy are just having a conversation. Why don't you clear your plate and go watch your show? We'll be in the living room in a bit."

Gracie does as she's told, and when the T.V. goes on in the living room, the muffled sound drifting to the half closed-off kitchen, Eric says, "It sounds like I'm in trouble. In fact, it sounds like you're a little jealous, Tami. It sounds like maybe the green-eyed mo - "

"- Eric," she interrupts sternly, and he bites down on his bottom lip. He gets that annoyed look in his hazel eyes that she knows very well – the one he gets when he's angry because he's worried that maybe he's wrong about something. "You're not in trouble. But this woman…she sounds like trouble. And you can be adorably naïve at times. I think she's playing you, hon."

"Playing me? What's that even mean?"

"How do you even know she has a brother-in-law?"

"What, do you think she's really a Nigerian princess?"

Tami chuckles. "I'm not saying she's working a long con, sweetheart, I'm just saying maybe…maybe she thinks you're a good-looking man and she was making conversation. And she doesn't really have work for you, but she's trying to get close to you."

"I thought you weren't worried about any of those park ladies because I can't flirt."

"Well, I wasn't," she admits. "Until you took one to lunch."

"I did not take her out to lunch! And I have to network! Isn't that what you told me? I have to network. I kept the receipts."

"Oh," Tami mutters, "you kept the receipts, that's good. You kept the receipts from your lunch out with Ms. MILF."

"It's Moretti. Not Milf."

Tami points across the table at him. "See, this is exactly what I mean about you being naïve."

Eric throws up his hands. "What do you want me to say, Tami? Give me my script so I can say what you want, and we can stop arguing about a damn McDonald's lunch!"

"Oh, no, no. We don't play that way, Eric. We have a conversation."

"You have a conversation and I try to figure out what the hell you're so upset about."

"I am not upset," she insists calmly. "Do I sound upset?"

"You seem upset."

"And you seem unnecessarily defensive," she points out. "When all I'm trying to do is have a conversation."

He shakes his head in disbelief.

"Is she pretty?" Tami asks.

"Pretty? What's that even mean?"

"Pretty, Eric. I think you know what pretty means."

"I guess."

Now Tami shakes her head. "You guess."

"Tami, I wasn't coming on to this woman. I – "

"- I'm sure you weren't. I'm a rational human being, Eric. I've been married to you for twenty-five years. I know you're not coming on to some random woman at the park."

"So what's the problem?" he asks in frustration.

"The problem is, I think she's coming onto you, and I don't want you to leave her with the mistaken impression that you're receptive to the possibility."

"She's married."

"So are you. But, hon, I guarantee you there are women who are not stopped by either fact." She looks him over. "And look at you. I can read you like a book. You're feeling guilty for some reason. Why?"

He shrugs. He pulls his juice glass toward himself and drains the last ounce of orange juice before setting it down. "Okay, I did sort of kind of get the impression maybe she was flirting with me."

"Aha!" Tami exclaims triumphantly. "Well, if you got that impression, she must have been holding a billboard."

"I am not as oblivious as you think I am. I knew you were flirting with me our senior year of high school, didn't I?"

She pushes her plate aside. "I was not flirting with you, Eric. That was wishful thinking on your part."

"Oh, I'm pretty sure you were."

"I was with Mo."

"Well, I hear that doesn't stop some women." He smiles.

She chuckles. "Maybe I was flirting just a little tiny bit. Possibly." Her tone grows serious. "Listen, please don't take that woman to lunch again."

"Well, hell, why didn't you just say that from the start, and I'd say okay, and we'd have been done with this?"

Tami sighs. "I don't know. But we resolved it pretty quickly, didn't we? We're pretty good at this marriage thing."

On the counter by the stove, his phone honks to indicate a text message. Eric goes to pick it up and sits back down as he reads the message.

"Anything important?" she asks.

He clicks the phone off and slides it into his pocket. "It was Katrina."

Tami's eyebrow shoots up.

He looks at her with a hint of self-satisfaction. "She said she talked to her brother-in-law, and he's going to call me later this evening. So he does exist."

"Well, I'm glad to hear that." Tami stands and scoops up her plate. "I still think she's trying to get her talons in you, though, so watch out." She saunters over to the sink and sets the plate down inside it.

Eric comes up behind her, wraps his arms around her, and draws her back against himself before nuzzling her neck. "You must think I'm pretty sexy if women are trying to get their talons in me."

She smiles and squirms away from his little nips on her flesh, turning in his arms to face him. "You aren't bad looking," she admits.

He leans in and kisses her, and she wraps her arms around his neck and responds playfully, teasing his tongue with hers. His mouth crushes down on hers. It feels like high school under the bleachers all over again. Their breath deepens as they kiss, and he slides a hand from her hip up toward her breast, but then his phone rings. "Shit," he mutters.

"It's probably your girlfriend's brother-in-law," Tami says. She slips away from him, giving one teasing stroke to the hard-on that is now pressing against the inside of his jeans. "You better answer it." She slaps him on the ass before she slips from the kitchen.

"Eric Taylor speaking," she can hear him answer as she disappears through the entry way and across the hall to join Gracie in the living room.