That evening.

Tim was playing Go Fish with Gracie and Tami at the dinner table, while Eric was in his chair watching tape, Eric occasionally glancing over and frowning when he saw Payton sitting at Tim's feet.

"So, beside a couple of walks and a nap what else happened here today?"

"I read through the catalog and talked to Julie for a little while."

"Julie called? Is everything ok?"

"Yeah. I mean, I asked her how she and Seven were doing, I didn't know they broke up. I told her about maybe taking a class and working for Coach and at Buddy's. She said she was looking forward to playing dress up with me and G Belle. As long as there aren't any cameras around."

Tami laughed. "Hey now, you and Smash and Matt dressed up as cheerleaders that one time, you even had pigtails."

"Yeah, well Coach kind of yelled us into doing that, said we needed to support the cheerleaders and stuff."

"I did not 'yell you' into doing that. I had to raise my voice 'cause we were out on the field and those tractors kept going back and forth."

"Anyway, did Julie have any advice for you on a class?

"She told me to avoid this one guy in the art department, kinda wild looking; said Seven was like an apprentice to him and the guy treated him like garbage. But I've never gone much for drawing and painting so…" Tim reached down and scratched Payton's stomach which caused her to sigh contentedly, which caused Eric to scowl.

"What about a class?"

"Woodworking. I think most people in the class would be making little tables or chest of drawers and I'd be fine with that, but I'd like to talk to the teacher about building a house, what type of wood and such."

"I think that's a fine idea," Eric said as he walked to the kitchen and poured a glass of ice tea, then joined them at the table. "But do you have any idea on how big you want the house to be, what it'll look like?

"Three stories including the attic, with a storm shelter. I want a porch going all the way around the house, with half of it enclosed, but I have no idea about blue prints or anything like that."

"I'm sure you could ask the teacher about that or they could recommend someone, or you could ask Buddy, he has to know someone. And Buddy could probably get you a little discount in exchange for something; there isn't a better deal maker this side of Houston. It sounds like you want to get started on the house soon."

Tim pushed his hair out of his eyes. "Yeah. I mean I appreciate you letting me stay here, but this isn't a long term thing, at least I hope it's not."

"It's the first day. There isn't any deadline for you to move out or anything like that. You need to get used to not being behind a razor wire fence."

Eric put his index card in the book and closed it. "Do you still have that academic conference coming up?"

"Counseling and academic conference. Yup, next week. Why?"

"There's gonna be networking and such right? That seems to be the only thing worthwhile at any conference these days. And what do you call them headhunters, there's gonna be some of them there."

Tami furrowed her brow. "Yes, there is networking, but some of the panels actually look interesting including the one I'm on. As for headhunters, I have seen people hand out resumes. Wha-?"

"Is this just a Texas thing or are there people there from around the country?"

"Mostly Texas but there's always some provosts and such from school districts and colleges from other states. Look, is this a long winded way of saying I need to start looking for another job?"

Eric sighed as he ran his hand over his face. "I-Levi came into my office which he's never done and we talked for nearly an hour today. He's got feelers and contacts with both high schools and both sets of boosters and the district board. He's heard that Dillon boosters are pushing for east Dillon to be closed or at least for the football program to be shut down, because it loses money and East Dillon is a wreck. They want to consolidate back to just Dillon."

"Are you sure?"

"He hasn't seen anything in writing, but something is gonna happen. He's right about the football program losing money; we've never had a sellout at a home game this season or last, even with the much smaller bleachers. And yeah I don't have as many players as there are at Dillon so equipment costs aren't as high, but I've got a fair number that play both sides, which means more injuries which costs more. Buddy and the boosters have been great subsidizing the program, but we don't have a Joe McCoy with a blank check. Levi thinks that even if we win State we're gonna get shut down and the school closed. Now I don't know if that means you'd be fired or what, but—"

"But what? I'd go back to counseling at Dillon."

"You would, huh, just like that?" Eric snapped his finger. "If it wasn't for Buddy neither of us would be working at east Dillon, we might not even be in Texas."

"Are you trying to say that I burned all my bridges at Dillon with Joe McCoy? Cause he's not there anymore."

"He isn't but almost every other booster who was there when you sashayed into their meeting and told them if Joe didn't back off about the mailbox you were gonna go to Def Con One and start the nukes flying is still there. I'm not saying you couldn't get a job at Dillon again, but it'd probably involve a fair bit of groveling." There was a faint whining followed by a scratching at the bedroom door. Eric got up and opened it and Jordan walked in jumped on the bed and started licking Tami's face. Eric grumbled under his breath as he got a glass of water from the bathroom. "And before you ask, yes the position of head football coach at Dillon is going to be open and I know I'll get asked about it even if East Dillon keeps the team going."

"Would you take it if it was offered to you?"

"The Dillon job?" Eric ran his hand up and down Jordan's chest. "I don't know if I could go back, no matter what they offered me."

"What if they offered you $400,000 a year?"

"Just to be football coach? No being a study hall proctor or teaching drivers ed or gym. Just coaching."

"Yup. Just coaching."

"$400,000? Where did you hear that?"

"I was talking with a counselor over at Dillon and of course things drifted to football and they said they'd seen a memo about the football coach's job and that was the salary."

"Were there any names of possible coaches on this memo?"

"You're on it and Mac McGill, along with Dean Grainly from Carter Finlay in Dallas."

"$400,000."

"$400,000."

"That's college coaching money."

"Yes it is."

"And you aren't going to get started on how outrageous that would be when East Dillon doesn't have enough money for chalk for the chalkboards, let alone whiteboards."

"Or fixing the ventilation system at Dillon so more than the athletic department gets working air conditioning. No, I'm not gonna vent about it. But I think that $400,000 is just for you. You're the first choice, then Mac then Dean. But they aren't gonna pay Mac or Dean $400,000 not even if they teach six classes in addition to coaching."

"But none of this is official, not the $400,000, not East Dillon closing, none of it."

"Not yet."

Eric took a sip of water. "Why's Julie calling here in the middle of the day, what's that all about?"

"She knew Tim was going to be getting out soon and staying with us. She cares about him and wanted to see if he was here."

"And if he wasn't she'd have left a message for him?"

"I don't know, maybe. What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"Hey." Tami leaned over and kissed Eric. "What's wrong?"

"Julie."

"What? She's back at school, she's going to be home in about a month, sh—"

"Why doesn't she talk to me?"

"When?"

"When she calls?"

"Are you saying she called here in the middle of the day because she knew you wouldn't be here? C'mon now."

"No but—when she calls at night she talks to you, then to Gracie then to me but she hardly says anything, it's all short sentences."

"Seriously Eric you think Julie is the one being short? When I called about Tim last week she wanted to know why you didn't want to talk to her. She said that you never call her it's always me and you only talk to her for a couple of minutes and even then it's like you'd rather be anywhere than on the phone with her. She thinks you still blame her for Derrick."

It was quiet except for a soft sigh from Jordan.

"She's not wrong."

"Eric!"

"He's married. And she knew he was married. She mentioned it to both of us when we talked on the phone and in a couple of emails. Not that he and his wife were separated or in the middle of a divorce and he was free to—"Eric waved his hands in the air. "She knew he was married."

"That's what she told us and I believe her. But I also think that marriage was in trouble, Julie wasn't the first affair for him, but it might have been the last straw for his wife. My guess is that he kept on laying out this sob story to her about how he and his wife were having problems and he wanted to keep the marriage together but she was out of town a lot. You make it sound like Julie seduced him. I think it was the other way around."

"You think Julie is that naïve?"

"Well you've tried your hardest to scare off any boyfriends she might have, you almost scared off Matt, I wish you'd been around to scare off The Swede. Going to college, going away to college is a huge thing for kids. It isn't like the '70's and '80's when you'd take a year and hitchhike across Europe after graduation, now you have to get into college and out in four years, less if you can cram it in. So you go away from your parents for more than two weeks for the first time in your life and mom and dad might be kind of glad that the house is empty and the kid is really off the leash at college. Your roommate isn't going to make sure you get up every morning and get to class, that's on you. Mom and ad aren't there to scowl at you if you walk in at three in the morning and they can't ground you if you stay out all night. It's a lot of freedom, maybe too much."

"Well how is hitchhiking across Europe for a year any less off the leash than going away to school. Seems to me there's a lot more chances for getting in trouble doing something stupid there than in college."

"Well, the people I knew who did it or had done it did it with someone, they didn't go alone. Now in some cases it was a couple and they broke up along the way but, look, Julie feels that you're still punishing her for this."

"Still? It happened less than three months ago. So yes I'm still upset and angry about it and angry with her. The guy came to our house."

"You think Julie invited him to come over? It was clear she was just as upset as you were about him showing up here, or didn't you hear her saying, 'What are you doing here? You have to leave.' What did you expect her to do?"

"She never said anything to you that this guy was flirting with her or anything like that?"

Tami sighed. "I really wish we had gone with her and dropped her off. I'm not saying that would have prevented this but—I don't know. What do you want her to do? What does she have to do to earn back your respect and your forgiveness?"

"I almost want to blame Matt Saracen for it. If he hadn't up and left the—"

"You think they'd still be together? You think that if Matt was still here in Dillon and Julie was at college, maybe not where she is now but somewhere else that something like this wouldn't have happened? Not that she'd have slept with a married man, but hooking up and casual sex is even more common in college than in high school, thanks to easier access to alcohol. Now I'm not saying I wanted anything like that to happen, but if she was a thousand miles away from here and lonely, sometimes a phone call or Skype isn't enough. And Matt was more invested in their relationship than Julie was. She kept fending him off when he first got interested in her, and she's broken up with him twice." Tami rubbed Jordan's ear which earned her two wags of his tail. "If you want to be angry with her about deliberately crashing her car I can understand that, but she was terrified of going back to school. She had no idea if Derrick's wife was going to be waiting for her with a baseball bat or a gun."

Eric sighed. "I know, I can't protect her forever, I can't even really talk to her about boys and what they're like, I mean I talked with her about it but," he shook his head. "I keep thinking back to three years ago, the day before I had to go back to Austin early and she called me to come pick her up at this club. I had no idea how she got into the place, she doesn't have a fake ID, does she?" Tami shook her head. "Guess if you're a pretty girl a lot of doors open for you. Anyway, this place just looked, I guess sleazy, ten people standing around the door smoking, people drinking how does she end up there?"

"Is that really any different than one of the football parties she's been to?"

"The people at the club were a lot older?"

"Well aside from her being out so late I'd think the club was better, I believe the people there were at least a little more mature and responsible than a bunch of drunk high school kids and teenagers. And there's another difference, yes there were people drinking at the club, and a few of them were probably drunk, but most of them were there to see and hear the band, but at the football parties the most important is how drunk you get and how fast. She's made some mistakes and done some stupid things. But in her heart Julie is a good girl with good intentions.