Chapter Seven
[August]
Eric and Tami saw each other only three times over the long summer. There were too many miles between them, and they were both working so hard to save up spending money. Tonight, he lay with her in the guest bedroom in Odessa, where he'd snuck after his parents were asleep. She had to leave tomorrow afternoon to get back to North Dillon in time for work. He was leaving next weekend for summer training at UH, and they wouldn't see each other until she returned to MWU the day before classes started.
"I can't wait until we're only twenty miles apart," she said. They would both be living on campus at their respective universities, courtesy of their individual scholarships. Tami would have the same roommate as last year, though Eric had not yet met his.
He rolled her on her side so they could spoon together, and he kissed her bare shoulder. "Me either."
"You're going to be really popular, you know, in college. Mr. Star Quarterback." She said it like a joke, but the truth was, she was a little nervous. She knew that the power structure of their relationship was about to shift. She'd been the older, popular girl in high school - prom queen, homecoming queen, star of the volleyball team - the girl all the boys chased, the fish some couldn't believe Eric had caught. But as a freshman in college, she had been a mediocre volleyball player and a bookworm, struggling to handle the challenging course material after having blown off studying in high school.
"You know I'm not going to be QB1, right? That I'll be second string?"
"At first," she said. "But they'll move you up your sophomore year."
"Probably," he agreed, with a bit more self-assurance than he usually exhibited. "That's one of the reasons I wanted UH instead of UT. It would have taken me until my junior year to become QB1 at UT." He sighed, his breath warm against her shoulder. "I wish my dad got that, but he's all about the prestige of the Longhorns. And that was his old team. He thinks I can't get noticed at UH, but guys get noticed all the time, even from smaller schools."
She rolled over and kissed him. "So you weren't doing it just to be near me?" She'd been feeling a little guilty about that, ever since Mr. Taylor's conversation with her at the state championships.
"I can't say that wasn't a huge, huge plus in the UH column." He smiled and kissed her back. He cupped one of her breasts and began to run a thumb in small circles around her nipple, and she forgot what they were talking about.
[-]
"When do you have to be back to MWU for volleyball training?" Mrs. Taylor asked Tami over breakfast the next morning.
"I uh...I actually quit the team."
Mr. Taylor peered at her over the top of his newspaper.
"Oh," Mrs. Taylor said, a note of surprise in her voice. "And why did you do that?"
"I was good at the high school level, but I don't get much play time in college. And practice and training takes up so much of my time. I really need more time to work and to study."
Eric set a coffee cup in front of her - he'd just refilled hers, and settled into his chair. "I tried to talk her out of it, Mom, but I guess I'm not very persuasive."
Mr. Taylor folded his paper and set it on the table. "It's not as if it's football," he said. "College women's volleyball is hardly a career-building sport. Her time would be better served working and studying."
Tami looked at him over her coffee cup. Somehow, Eric's father had just manged to insult her and support her in the same statement. She'd seen him do that with Eric as well, who was now bristling because of his father's words, though he didn't say anything.
Mr. Taylor rose. "I'm headed to morning mass."
Mrs. Taylor stood also. "I think I'll join you this morning, dear. I can be a little later to work today. We aren't having a nurse's meeting this morning." Mrs. Taylor had finished her refresher classes and begun work in July.
Mr. Taylor held the door open for her and then followed her out.
"Sorry my dad's such a jerk," Eric said.
"Well, compared to my own dad, he's really not that bad."
"You heard from him since your mom officially divorced him?"
She shook her head. "He could be dead and I wouldn't know."
He reached out and took her hand on the table. "Sorry, babe. I know it can't be easy."
She shrugged. "I got over it years ago. I'm just glad my mom finally singed the papers."
Eric looked at her like he didn't believe her. He leaned across the table and kissed her. "I love you," he whispered.
[October]
Tami moaned. Eric's State Championship ring dangled just above her bare breasts from the gold chain he'd given her last Christmas. The springs of the dorm bed creaked and groaned.
"Please...please..." she cried.
"Please what?" breathed Eric, nipping her earlobe. "Tell me, Tami."
"Please!"
The headboard struck the wall. "You like that?"
She was groaning now.
He moved faster, his breath thickening in her ear. "Tell me you like it."
"Yes! Eric...yes! God yes!" She arched her back, clawing a light trail between his shoulder blades as she came.
"Good girl," he whispered, and thrust twice more before moaning out his own release. When he rolled off of her, still half panting, she rolled to her side so they could both fit on his tiny dorm room bed.
She snuggled into him. "That was good," she said. "But I feel bad that your roommate always has to find someplace else to crash on Sundays."
They chose Sunday for their regular sleepover night because Eric sometimes had away games on Saturday and wasn't back in Houston until Sunday, and her first Monday class wasn't until noon.
"Well, he does the same thing to me once a week."
"Really?" She raised herself up on her elbow. "Wait. Where do you stay?"
"At Grady's apartment." His old friend Grady was a college sophomore and wasn't required to live in the campus dorms anymore. They'd played football together at a junior high in Odessa, while Eric was in 7th grade and Grady was in 8th, and they'd remained friends even after Eric moved to Euless for 9th grade, Weslaco for 10th, and then again to North Dillon for 11th. By the time he was back in Odessa for 12th grade, though, Grady was in college. Still, they had hung out together over the years, whenever Eric visited his aunt and uncle and cousins in Odessa, and sometimes they had even squared off against each other in games. Over this past summer in Odessa, they'd formed their own lawn care business together and had worked forty hours a week trimming and mowing and edging.
She raised an eyebrow. "Are there any girls there?"
"Just Grady's. They're living together now. One bedroom. But they let me crash on the couch."
She tugged on the sheet to let him know she wanted to get under. They slithered beneath it and spooned together, front to back, with Eric's back pressed against the dorm room wall.
"So…Grady and his girlfriend are living together, huh?" she asked. "When did that happen?"
"She moved in two weeks ago."
"Maybe we should move in together next summer. Some place between MWU and UH. Ten miles each way. We can commute to class."
"Your scholarship only covers on-campus housing," he said.
"Yeah," she said, "but yours will give you a cash stipend if you want to live off-campus, right?"
"Yeah….I don't know. Houston traffic is bad. I have to get to practice a lot…I work at the bookstore…it'd just be easier for me to live on campus."
"We could live near UH andI could commute the whole twenty miles," she said.
"Yeah…I think it would just be more convenient if we stayed in our dorms."
She was glad she had her back to him. She didn't want him to see the disappointment on her face. But she couldn't help saying, "I guess that's too big a commitment for you."
"Tami, you know I love you."
She slid out of bed and started getting dressed. "Then what's the problem with living together?" she asked as she finished putting on her underwear. "Don't give me that convenience crap." She yanked up her pants. "We're constantly driving back and forth from MWU and UH." She pulled her shirt over her head. "It would all be a lot more convenient to live together."
"Why are you getting dressed?"
"I don't know. Because I'm irritated? Because I don't understand why you don't want to live with me? This isn't exactly a fling." She thought they were headed for marriage, that he would probably propose his senior year – if not her senior year.
"Of course it's not." He sat up. "I love you. Babe, you know how much I love you."
She sat on his desk chair. "Then what's the problem with living together?"
He ran a hand through his hair. "I just…I don't want to…you know….live in sin."
She laughed. "You've got to be kidding." She hooked his boxers off the floor with her foot, lifted them to her hand, and threw them in his face. "You have got to be kidding."
He pulled them on. He took her hand. "I'm not. It's an appearances thing, I guess. I don't want to tell my mother and father I'm living with you."
"They have to know we're having sex."
"Yeah, but it's a completely different thing, Tami. Living together. It's like announcing it to the world. They'd flip. So would your mom. Why should we do that to them?"
"Why should we care what they think?" She pulled her hand out of his.
"I do care, Tami. Your mom actually likes me right now. If we moved in together…" He shook his head.
"Fine," she said. She stood up. "I'm hungry. Get dressed and take me out for something."
"A'ight." He pulled his pants and shirt on while she got her shoes.
As she stood waiting for him at the door, she wondered if he really cared about their parents, or if he just liked his freedom, if he saw living together as too big of a relationship leap, if maybe he still wanted to keep his options open. She knew he wasn't cheating – Eric would never do that – he had too much integrity - but he might break up with her. Maybe this relationship didn't feel like a done deal for him, the way it felt for her.
He'd been head-over-heels for her in high school, but now he was playing college ball, and he was surrounded by beautiful, smart, confident college girls from all over the state – all over the country, even. Maybe now that he was out of high school and out of west Texas, he was beginning to realize that Tami wasn't the be all and end all – that he had good options… and plenty of them.
