Chapter Twenty-Five

Tami was just drifting off to sleep in the security of Eric's embrace, her bare back pressed against his chest, when she felt his warm breath on her cheek. "You still awake?" he whispered.

She opened one eye. He was usually the one to fall asleep first after sex. "I am now."

"Sorry."

She turned in his arms and kissed his lips.

"Listen," he said, "don't be mad at me – "

Tami tensed. No statement prefaced with those words was ever good news. "Let me guess. Cindy came onto you Saturday even though you said she didn't. What happened? "

"Nah. This isn't about Cindy. I told you. She didn't make any kind of pass at me."

"Didn't try to hug you or anything?"

"Uh…" He pulled back from her a little bit. "Just like Mo did with you. Hug goodbye. Kiss on the cheek. Like Mo did."

Tami narrowed her eyes.

"Tami, she just wanted to say she was sorry. It was a good conversation. It was good closure for me. I didn't even know I needed closure. But I did."

"Okay." She kissed his cheek tenderly. "I'm glad you got that, sugar. So then what am I not supposed to be mad at you about?"

Eric sighed. "Bobby knows. He guessed. About you having had a baby and putting it up for adoption. I don't know how…he just guessed."

"I know how!" Eric often did this. He played dumb when he thought he might be in trouble. He hadn't learned that it just made her angrier than she might have otherwise been. "Because you called him out of the blue and asked how to get adoption records unsealed and then hung up on him when he started asking questions!"

"Yeah, okay," he admitted. Now he was moving into his it's-no-big-deal defense mode, "that's probably why. Anyway, I told him about the blackmail and all that when we talked Saturday night."

"Before you told me!"

"Tami, I waited to tell you because I had to be there for you."

She took a calming breath. She couldn't imagine getting that news hundreds of mile away in Texas and having to rely on Robert and Uncle Raymond for comfort instead of the man who had supported her and slept beside her for over twenty years. "I'm glad you did," she admitted. "I needed you tonight." She winced. "Robert's not going to tell anyone is he?"

Eric shook his head. "Well, except Maria."

"I don't want Maria to know too!"

He shrugged. "Taylors can't keep secrets from their wives. Not for long any way. Not even my dad could do that."

"I know Maria won't tell anyone. I just don't like the idea of people knowing. When it happened…all the judgment, Eric. I can't even begin to describe it. I hate that feeling."

He reached out and caressed her cheek. "Tami, I've never met a man who's less judgmental than Bobby. Hell, he's got me beat there too." He leaned forward and kissed the tip of her nose. "But I have the hottest wife."

Tami frowned. "I can't believe he knew the whole weekend. We spent so much time together, and he never let on in the least."

"Because he doesn't care. And neither will Maria."

"But wasn't he shocked when you confirmed it?"

Eric leaned back against the headboard. "Not really."

"Why? He should have been shocked! I wasn't that sort of girl when he first met me."

"Listen, Bobby was a bit of playboy in high school. He fooled around with a lot of girls before Maria told him steady or nothing. You met him after he was already married and settled, but he was kind of wild before that. He probably figures he's lucky he didn't knock up some girl himself. He probably just thinks you were a normal teenager. Hell, he used to think I was a freak because I just had the one girlfriend for years."

Tami laughed and inched closer. She kissed his earlobe and whispered, "You are a bit of a freak."

She yelped when he grabbed her by the waist and rolled her under himself. Nipping at her neck, he asked, "You want to get freaky with me?"

She giggled as he continued his playful assault, trailing kisses down her collar bone.

[FNL]

Eric was rubbing the sleep dust out of his eyes when he staggered into the kitchen to find Gracie sitting at the kitchen table and writing A+++ in red ink across the top of one of the papers he had left out yesterday afternoon. "No, sweetheart," he said, plucking the pen from her little hand, "you can't grade Daddy's papers. Daddy has to do that."

"But he got an A+++!" she said.

Nobody got an A+++ in Coach Taylor's government class.

The toaster dinged on the counter and four strawberry frosted pop tarts sprung out. Gracie ran and grabbed a plastic plate out of a low cabinet. They'd put all of her dishware in the lowest cabinet, so she could reach it and make her own breakfast. The preschooler was an unnaturally early riser, even on Saturdays. They'd taught her to use the remote control to find her cartoons as well.

Eric gathered the strewn papers into a stack and inserted them in the briefcase he'd left propped against the leg of the table. He'd given all his attention to Tami last night, so he'd have to finish grading them during his first planning period. Now that the Pioneers were out of the running for State, he supposed he could use the time he usually used to watch game tape.

"Gracie," he said. "You can't have four pop tarts. You can only have one, then something healthy. You know the rule."

"But there are four slots in the toaster!" She drew her little neon green step stool closer to the counter and climbed up on it.

"You don't have to fill them all. The toaster will work with one pop tart."

"No it won't. You have to use all four slots." She began to pull the hot pastries from the toaster, saying, "Ow ow!" as she plopped them on the plate.

"No you don't," he insisted.

"Yes you do." She dropped the fourth pop tart on top of two of the others.

"Where's your mother?"

"Reading sad stories in the office."

He put his briefcase in the chair. "What?"

"I asked her why she was crying, and she said she was reading sad stories."

Eric made his way to the fourth bedroom, or what the realtor had called a bedroom. It had no closet, and they'd converted it into a study, which Tami had completely taken over, leaving him to make a corner in the laundry room into his office. Sure enough she was there, sitting in the chair, her arms propped on the desk, her face buried in her hands – crying.

"Hey, hey," he said softly and came and put an arm around her shoulders. She shrugged him off. Sometimes she didn't like to be touched when she was upset. He knew that, and he hated it, because holding her was easy. What else was he supposed to do?

He hovered at the corner of the desk. "This about Josh?"

"Of course it's about Josh!" she shouted.

He stepped back a little. "A'ight," he whispered.

"Sorry," she muttered. "I just feel like such a fool! I was so ready to believe him. I did believe him. I thought I was forgiven for what I did. But he wasn't even my son!" She wiped the tears from her eyes. "I don't know how I'm going to work today."

"Take the day off."

"No! I can't. I've already taken three days off and missed a meeting!"

"A'ight," he said. He didn't like being the target of her anger when he was only trying to help, but he supposed she needed a target at the moment. "Can I get you some…coffee?"

"Coffee? I thought I found a son, and then I lost him. I got screwed over. I made an idiot of myself. And you think coffee is going to fix that?"

"Fine. I'll just leave you alone." He headed for the door.

As he was just through the frame, she said, "Wait." He turned. "I'm sorry. Thank you, sugar, for trying to help. I'm just going to be a wreck for the next week or two. On and off. Just so you know. "

"Well I'll be here. For the next week or two. Just so you know." She smiled weakly. He smiled back. "Probably even for the next decade or two," he said.

"You planning to leave me in your sixties?" she asked.

"Or three or four or five decades." He walked forward and kissed the top of her head. "Just let me know if you need me," he whispered before he disappeared.