"What do you think you're doing?" Tami asked Eric when he walked into the living room.

"Going to church with y'all," he said.

"Not in those boots you're not." She glanced down at the hiking boots he'd bought yesterday, which he'd tried his best to get the legs of his suit trousers over.

"Tami, Nate and I are hiking one week from today. I've got to break them in."

"Not in church, you don't. Break them in. Church," she muttered as she plucked her high heels off the carpet and pulled them on one by one.

"You look very pretty," he said.

"Well you look like a goofball," she replied through her affectionate laughter. "Please just go put on dress shoes."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Thank you, sweetheart!" she called after him as he clomped down the hall in his hiking boots.

[*]

Julie waited as Nate examined the movie poster she'd pointed out to him. In it, a man stood on a dock, his head hung, the moon full in the background, the water black and rippled, a house burned out on the far horizon. "Nah," Nate said. "Let's watch a comedy. It looks…artsy."

This was new. She thought he liked such films. They'd talked about several via text and in person. "But you like artsy movies," she said.

"Yeah, but Landry said he might want to join us. And he doesn't like this kind of movie. He likes comedies."

"When did you talk to Landry about the movies?" Matt wasn't right, was he? She wasn't about to lose this bet, was she?

"Last night. He said he might join us." He fished his cell phone out of the pocket of his overcoat and looked at the screen. "I think he's still sleeping off his hangover, though. He said he'd text me when he's up."

It was only 10. On the rare occasions when Julie went to the movies, she always caught the first matinee. It saved money and left the day free. She examined Nate. "You don't like him, do you?"

"Landry? Sure. Why not? Don't you? He's your husband's best friend."

"Uh...yeah...sure. I like him." So Matt was wrong. Nate just liked Landry the way she liked Landry - not a shred of attraction there.

"He's smart," Nate said. He smiled. "Funny guy too."

Or maybe Matt was right.

"So can we go to a comedy?" Nate asked.

"Sure."

Nate texted Landry the name and time of the movie, and he and Julie went to grab coffee next door to the theater until it started. Just as Julie was about to sip her cappuccino, Nate's phone buzzed with a text message. He looked down at the screen.

"He can't make it," Nate said, with a tone of disappointment that made Julie think maybe Matt was right after all.

Julie hoped she was misreading this, because now Matt had gotten her seeing things that probably weren't even there. Not that there was anything wrong with that, but she already had someone in mind she wanted to fix Nate up with. She'd run into Lyla Garrity at the Chicago Sun Times last week. Lyla had been in town for an interview for an assistant editor's position, and they'd gone out to lunch. Though they'd never been more than acquaintances in high school, they caught up and reminisced about Dillon, and Julie was impressed and a little jealous. Lyla was already interviewing for an editorial position, when Julie was still slowly finishing her degree and just a part-time proofreader herself. Lyla hadn't even been involved in journalism in high school. Apparently she'd spent the last year working on the Chattanooga Times, however, and she had become editor-in-chief of the Vanderbilt Hustler by her senior year of college. Julie thought that was an odd name for a school newspaper. She was sure Lyla must get a lot of sexual jokes thrown her way when she talked about it. But Lyla had mentioned she was "between boyfriends" (like a man claiming to be "between jobs"), and Julie had immediately thought of Nate.

Her little matchmaking plan wasn't going to have much success if Nate was gay. She nodded over Nate's shoulder at a pretty girl. "That girl over there's totally hot, don't you think?"

Nate turned to follow her gaze. When he looked back at her, he said, "She's kind of thin. I don't know why girls think they need to be that thin."

"So you like a woman with curves?"

His phone buzzed. He looked at the message and texted back.

"Is that Landry again?" Julie asked.

"No, just my assistant."

"He texts you a lot."

"He handles a lot." He put the phone, facing screen down, on the table. "Leak's fixed. Might have to replace the hardwood floors in the dining area, though."

"Do you like having a guy for an assistant better than a girl?"

"I don't guess it matters, as long as they're good at what they do."

Maybe Nate's bisexual, Julie thought. Or maybe his assistant is just his assistant and Nate's not talking in code right now, idiot.

Nate glanced at his watch. "Since Landry's not coming, want to just see that art film?"

[*]

Tami sat down on the edge of the bed and peeled off her high heels. Eric sat next to her, kicked off his dress shoes and began undoing his tie. The bedroom door was open, and they could hear the sound of the television drifting down the hallway from the living room, where Gracie was watching a video.

"Don't take that off all the way," Tami insisted.

He left the tie dangling loosely on his neck and smiled expectantly. "Why?"

"I like you in your suit." She stood, peeled off her pantyhose, and tossed them in the laundry basket in the open closet before shutting and locking the bedroom door. She walked seductively toward him, her dark green dress flattering her form and demanding every ounce of his attention. She took hold of one end of his loose, burgundy tie and slid it slowly from his neck.

"What are you going to do with that?" he asked.

"Whatever I want." She glanced down at his slightly tented pants. "Already? I haven't even touched you yet."

"It's because I know Sabbath sex is the best sex."

"Even better that victory sex?" she asked doubtfully.

"It's a tie."

"Who said we were even having sex?"

"Don't tease, babe."

"Oh, I don't know..." She pushed with one finger against his shoulder until he lay back on the bed, his legs bent and hanging off the edge. She doubled the tie over and zig zagged it like a feather across his chest and down, down… "I think you like it when I tease."

[*]

Nate and Julie left the film halfway through. "I see why Landry doesn't like art films now," Julie muttered.

"There's artistic," Nate said, "and then there's pretentious."

"We should have stuck with the comedy. You heading to the airport?"

"Yeah. I just have to tell my driver where to pick me up. He's got my stuff." He took out his cell phone to arrange his pick up. They walked and stood at the glass door, just inside, while he waited for his ride. "It was really good seeing you again," he told her.

"You, too," she said. "I kind of wish we'd gotten to grow up together. You could have vetted all my boyfriends."

"Didn't our dad?"

"Yeah, but I might have taken your opinion more seriously."

"Looks like you did pretty well on your own. Matt seems like a stand-up guy."

"He is, but we've had our ups and downs. I wish I hadn't been so stupid sometimes."

"But you figured it out. Like your parents did. A lot of people never figure relationships out."

"Have you figured them out?" Julie asked.

"Not even remotely," he said as he pushed the door open. "I think that's my ride."

[*]

Tami jolted awake when the bedroom door shuddered. It was a moment before she realized someone was knocking.

"Are you done napping?" came Gracie's voice. "The movie's been over for half an hour. You said we'd go out for lunch!"

Tami rolled over and looked at the clock. 12:30 PM. They'd gone to the early service, as they often did during football season. "We'll be out in twenty minutes!" she answered.

Eric stirred beside her. His thick, dark hair was a wild mess, and it made her feel suddenly horny again. His eyelids fluttered open, just a moment, and then fell like weights.

"I'm going to take a quick shower," she told him.

When she got back from the master bathroom, he was still asleep. She slid off the hand towel she'd used to bind up her hair and smacked him lightly with it. "We need to go eat," she said.

He snorted, stirred, and looked at her with one eye open. "I'm taking you out?" he asked.

"I think that's the least you can do to thank me, sugar."

He rolled onto his back and held up his hands. "Can you at least untie me first?"

"I don't know how you managed to fall asleep like that." Tami sat down on the bed and undid the tie from around his wrists.

He pulled her down and kissed her, softly at first and then more deeply, as he unraveled the towel around her chest. Her flesh tingled when he caressed her breasts.

She pulled away, even though her nipples had hardened. "We are not going for two."

"Maybe not right now," he said, "but it's a game of inches. I've got a seriously good offense, and I can see a hole in your defense."

She stood, the towel falling completely off of her. "That hole closed in on you, Coach Taylor, before you could penetrate it." She walked to her dresser, feeling his gaze on her naked flesh, and opened the top drawer.

"I bet you give a scary admissions interview, Dean Taylor."

She stepped into a pair of panties and then, holding her bra, turned to face him. He was sitting up in bed now, watching her, one muscular arm crossed over his chest so he could scratch his right shoulder. God she loved those shoulders, loved to massage them, run her fingers all over the sinews of them, bite down on one when the wave ripped through her. But she couldn't think of that right now. Gracie was waiting for them. She slid on her bra.

"Don't do that, babe. Don't cover those up. Those need to feel the light."

She hooked the bra, a front clasp, slowly and deliberately in front of him. "I'm sorry, Coach, but you're going to have to reapply during the next admission period."

"Reapply? I thought my admission had just been deferred."

"Oh, no, you're going to have restart the entire application process, sugar."

She wasn't going to get back in her church dress, not if they were going out to the family-friendly Irish pub, which they usually did on Sundays, so she selected a t-shirt from the dresser and pulled it on. It fit a little tightly across her chest. She liked the hungry look in Eric's eyes as she pulled her jeans on. It felt good to be so deeply desired by her husband, after almost two and a half decades of marriage, after bad hair days and bad mood days, two children, stretch marks, and the first gray hairs.

"Damn, I love you," he muttered.

"I love you too, sugar. Now hurry up and shower and get dressed and take me out to lunch."

[*]

"You're not winning this bet," Julie told Matt over the phone, as she walked from the theater the four blocks to their loft. "He's not gay. He just hasn't figured out relationships. That's what he said. So I want my first backrub tonight."

"You asked if he was gay?" Matt replied. She heard the bells on the gallery door jingle.

"Not directly, no," she admitted.

"Then I'm still right." The muffled voice of a customer drifted through the phone. "I gotta go. This is the woman who showed interest in my sculpture last time."

"Good luck."

[*]

The folk duo at the Irish pub invited Gracie up to the microphone when they heard her singing along, and Tami slid off the wooden seat of the booth to come around to the other side and sit next to Eric so she could watch their daughter. Eric slid his arm around her shoulders. They smiled at one another.

"She's really good," Eric whispered into her ear. "Where'd she get that voice?"

"Are you suggesting I can't sing?" Tami whispered back.

They listened proudly to their daughter and clapped, along with the crowd, when she was done. Gracie literally skipped back to the booth. She slid onto the empty side. "They said I should take voice lesson and improve my gift."

"We'll look into that possibility," Tami told her.

"Can I go play at the park while you finish your beers? It's really nice out! It's not cold!"

Tami looked at Eric. The park was just three storefronts down, between two groups of businesses on this main street of their quiet, safe suburb, and there would be other kids there. Eric shrugged.

"You can run on ahead of us," Tami told Gracie, "but we'll be there in ten to fifteen minutes."

"Hey," Eric said when Gracie jumped up. "What do you do if someone asks you to help him find his puppy?"

"Assume he wants to kidnap me and kick him in the jewels."

"Oh, good Lord," Tami muttered.

"Maybe not immediately," Eric said. "But don't go with him. What if he offers you candy and says it's in his car?"

"Kick him in the - "

"- You know what?" Tami said, and chugged the last three ounces of her pint. "I'm just going to leave now and go with you. Eric, you can stay and pay."

"Does this count as my application fee?" he asked as she followed after the already running Gracie.

When he showed up at the park thirty minutes later and sat down on the bench next to her, she asked, "Get distracted by the game?"

He stretched his arm out across the back of the bench and rested his fingertips on her shoulder. "Little bit. I'm the only one watching football in there. They've got soccer on three of the four TVs."

"I know, but I like that place. I like the hard cider. And the shepherd's pie. They didn't have any Irish pubs in Dillon."

"I know. That's why I take you there." He leaned over and kissed her cheek.

"She's going to kill herself," Tami said.

Eric followed her gaze to where Gracie was crawling across the top of the monkey bars. "She'll be fine," he assured her. "That girl always lands on her feet."

Tami kicked his boot. "These feeling any looser?"

"A little. Think I'll wear them all week."

"On the field?" she asked. "At practice?"

"I've got to get them broken in."

She chuckled. "You nervous, sugar? About your hiking date with Nate?"

"Little bit," he admitted.

"You said you felt like you started to connect in the Ferrari."

"Yeah, but I don't know what the hell to talk to him about for that long, Tami."

"You could read a finance book. Get some discussion starter ideas. I bought a couple for you."

"You did?"

"Yeah, while you were getting those boots."

"You're the best," he told her, and leaned in and kissed her. He only pulled halfway away. His eyes lingered over hers.

It made her smile, his gaze. "What?" she asked.

"I was just thinking how much I love you. I think I love you more every year."

Her smile trembled.

"I mean it," he whispered.

"I know you do."

"I've gotten better at it? Haven't I?" he asked hopefully. "Loving you?"

She put a hand on his cheek. "Yes. Ten more years, and you'll have perfected it, and then I can let you die and marry one of my back-up husbands."

He chuckled, turned his head, and kissed the palm of her hand. "You don't have any back-up husbands."

She let her hand fall down into his on the bench, and they watched Gracie together. "It would be a lot of bother," Tami said, "trying to break in a new one."

"Like these." He stretched out his legs and lifted his feet.

She looked down at the hiking boots. "They sure are pretty when they're brand new. No scuff marks. No frayed laces. No stains."

"No use," he said "when the trail gets rough." He lowered his boots back to the ground.

"It only hurts for a little while," she said, "breaking them in. And when you think of how many years you'll probably wear them…it's worth it, isn't it?"

"Absolutely," he said, and squeezed her hand tightly.