Author's Note: For those of you who weren't reading "Impossible" and so missed this shameless plug - I now have out two novels in both paperback and Amazon Kindle editions – OFF TARGET and ROOTS THAT CLUTCH. They are published under the penname MOLLY TAGGART. If you read either and enjoy, please, please leave a review at Amazon! And now, back to Step Together…

Chapter 14

Liam steps back and Eric comes inside. The room is unusually barren. Gracie's room is slathered with posters she's picked up from museums—pictures of artifacts and paintings and historical figures- but Liam's empty walls offer no hint of his interests.

Immediately the boy signs, "I'll try out. I'll try out today if you want. I'll play whatever position you want. I'll learn. I've been reading Football for Dummies."

Eric shakes his head. He takes a deep breath. "No you won't. If you don't want to play…I don't understand that, son. Honestly, I don't. But you're you. You've got your own goals and interests, and…"

What are Liam's goals and interests? Eric doesn't really know. He's tried so hard to share his own with the boy, that he hasn't really found out what Liam likes. He swallows. "Listen. I've got a directory for the whole school. I'll go door to door if I have to. I'll fill this team. I will." His job depends on it. "But it won't be with you."

Eric walks further into the room, slides into Liam's desk chair, and says, "Son, what do you want to do? Is there any sport you do want to play?"

"I really like riding my bike," Liam signs. "For fun, I mean. I don't know if I want to compete at it."

"Well, it's good exercise." Eric drums his fingers on the chair. "Listen. I was an ass. Sorry about that. I'll try not to be in the future." He stands. The apology is out, but he doesn't feel as if anything has actually been resolved. He thinks he should stay longer, but what else is he supposed to say? Tami would know what to do in this situation, but he doesn't.

He pats Liam on the shoulder as he heads for the door. When he turns to nod goodbye, Liam catches his eye and signs, "I disappoint you."

"No. No," Eric insists. "No. You don't." The teenager's hands fall to his back pockets, and he says nothing in return. "Liam, you've become a son to me, and I…" Why is this so hard to say? He never had any trouble at all saying it to Julie, to Gracie. But he's never said it to Liam. Not once. Maybe because his own father never said it to him. "I love you."

/FNL/

Where did Eric escape to? Tami wonders. He went to talk to Liam, but now Liam's lights are out and, from behind his closed door, she can hear the whir of the air purifier he always turns on when he goes to sleep. She looks for her husband in the library, the kitchen, and the living room before finally finding him in the basement.

She leans against the pool table and asks, "What are you doing?" He's got his old bike down, the one he used to ride with Julie when she was about ten, the one he hasn't touched in fifteen years and that she doesn't know why he bothered to move. Liam's pump is out beside it, and Eric is down on his haunches, oiling the chain.

"Thought maybe I'd start riding with Liam. On occasion."

She chuckles. "Well, they say once you learn, you never forget."

She watches him work and thinks how handsome he still is, after all these years. She was certain he was having a heart attack when he clutched at his chest, and she felt as if her heart were dying too. Over the last several hours, she's been thinking about how life can get too comfortable, how relationships grow routine, how you can come to take a person for granted. "I love you," she says.

He stands and wipes his blackened hands on his jeans. The bike creaks as he rolls it over to the side of the room and leans it against a crowded storage shelf that's crammed with boxes of old game tape. He probably can't get the rusted kickstand down. "Maybe I'll just buy a new one."

She comes to him and rests her head against his chest. He holds his hands awkwardly at his side. "I'm dirty," he says, "Or I'd hug you."

"I don't care. Hug me anyway. Sometimes I don't mind when you're dirty."

His arms envelop her. "Yeah?" he murmurs in her ear. The depth of his voice thrills her. How many times have they had sex in the past month? Twice? They've both been so busy. "You're a bit naughty."

They don't make it out of the basement. They end up on the old couch, Tami straddling his lap, tearing at each other's clothes like they haven't already done this a thousand times. She doesn't remember the last time either of them was so hungry.

She recovers faster, as usual. He's still panting as she pulls back on her clothes. She's worried one of the kids might come down. He dresses more slowly, and then she sits beside him and cuddles up. "How did it go with Liam?"

"Not as well as I'd like."

"Are you worried about it? Do you think you should take one of your pills tonight?" He stiffens. She's going to have to drop this, she knows, but he's ashamed, doesn't want to admit he might actually need them.

"I told you I'd take them if and when I need them." She doesn't respond. She feels his muscles grow less tense. His arm tightens around her. "You know, sex is a pretty damn good stress reliever. We could just do this every single night." He says it as though she's been turning him down, but, the truth is, he's only come on to her twice in the past four weeks. Maybe it's just one more way he has to perform these days.

"Hmmmm….." she murmurs. "I'll take it under consideration. I'm available. Most nights." Then she pulls back to look into his eyes. "I thought I was going to lose you. It looked like a heart attack."

"Can't get rid of me that easy. You're stuck, babe. Good and trapped. Like a fly on fly paper."

"Your analogies could use some work."

"I'll keep that under advisement." He pulls her sideways onto his lap and kisses her.

She drapes her arms around his neck. She can feel he's not fully relaxed, the sex notwithstanding. She sees those gears working in his mind. "What's going on in there?" she asks, kissing his forehead.

"Can we possibly afford Liam and Gracie's tuition if I lose my job?"

"You aren't going to lose your job. You're going to fill the team. I know you. I know how convincing you are. You convinced me to marry you, didn't you?"

"You were hard to convince."

Tami hadn't wanted to get married. She'd seen her own parents' marriage dissolve when she was nine. She didn't believe in marriage, she told Eric. They could live together, but she wasn't going to marry him. They did live together in college, but every Valentine's Day, from the time they were 19 until the time they were 21, he proposed, and she said no. She didn't understand why he felt the need to make it official. He'd always been a little oddly old-fashioned in some ways, and she pretended to find it exasperating, but there was a part of her that found it reassuring.

Then there was the oooops. She got pregnant with Julie, and it scared her. She wasn't ready. Neither was Eric, but he was there, like a rock.

When he said, "I don't want my kid to grow up with unmarried parents," she said, "It's just a piece of paper." Eric stood there in his new, stiff bright orange cap and jacket from his first assistant coaching job and crossed his arms over his chest. "This is not a negotiation," he said. "You will marry me." She snorted, and then looked into his determined eyes, and bit her bottom lip. "Or else?" she asked , half amused and half offended by his sudden assertiveness.

"You're on your own."

Tami didn't think he'd meant that. He wouldn't leave his child or the mother of his child. Not Eric. But she married him anyway, and she quickly grew to love her conventional life.

"But you know," she told him now, "you did convince me. And I've never regretted it. Well…almost never."

Eric's lips curved. His eyes closed, and when he leaned his forehead against hers, she could feel him release the tension out of his body, like water rolling down a hill.