A/N: To the "guest" reviewer who asked about a couple of older stories that are no longer in the archives – I sometimes take down stories that are over a year old and have received no new comments for some time. I then salvage them for parts for original novels. I write original novels under the name of Molly Taggart (they are mostly available at Amazon). The novels do not include FNL characters or take place in the FNL world, but they often grow out of ideas, plots, or original characters I create in my fanfic. For instance, "Off Target" was inspired by my musings on a potential teenage Gracie; "Roots that Clutch" was originally born of a story involving an imagined brother of Eric; "Escaping Venice" grew out of my speculations on Tyra's future and also out of an invented son of Eric's, and so forth. So I take down my fanfiction when I am about to recycle it for a novel. If you were halfway through one of those stories when I took it down, please send me a private message and I will see if I can get you a copy from where you left off reading.
[December 30, 1989]
Eric had made multiple trips between the financial aid office and the housing office, met with his scholarship committee, and had to furnish a certified copy of their wedding certificate and a an official doctor's report about Tami's pregnancy, but, in the end, one cool Saturday morning in late December, they were handed the keys to their new apartment. Tami and Eric now stood on the sidewalk before the dark brick building and looked up to the second of three floors, where their apartment resided. Half of the doors still had Christmas wreaths, and the third floor railing was wrapped with lights.
"Second floor is good," Eric said. "Only one flight of stairs, but not as easy to break into as a ground floor window. Safer."
Tami noticed all the bikes leaned against the metal railings of the balconies on the second and third floors, many of which were not even locked to the rail. "Looks pretty safe already."
They walked up to 29C and Eric handed her the key. "You want to do the honors?"
She did, but when she pushed the door open, he swept her up and carried her over the threshold. She laughed when he put her down on her feet on the light brown carpet. "I didn't think anyone did that anymore. But you do like traditions, don't you?"
"I'm a football player, babe. I love tradition. Tradition builds teams." He kissed her.
As he shut the door, she looked around the unfurnished apartment. The carpet was wall to wall, except in the narrow kitchen, which appeared to be some kind of cheap imitation of tile. The kitchen opened on to the living room, as it had in her and Gretchen's apartment, but here they at least had a breakfast nook (carpeted, just outside the kitchen), another foot of counter space, two extra cabinets, and a built-in microwave above the stove. The living room was a square foot larger than in her old apartment, and as she went on to explore she found the bathroom was also larger. They had a linen closet in the hall (glorious storage space!), the master bedroom was two feet wider than her old room had been (the futon would fit better, and now that she would be sharing it with Eric every night, she was glad it was a double), and the spare bedroom, soon to be the nursery, was about the size of her old bedroom.
"I love it!" she told him, and they made out for a while, standing there in the doorway of their soon to be nursery.
Eric had just begun to slip a hand beneath the tail of her Baylor sweatshirt when a double honk sounded from the parking lot below. He stopped. "I think my dad and Stumpy are here with the truck already."
Mr. Taylor had driven down from Tyler with some furniture from the old house. When he'd married Karen and they'd combined furniture, Mr. Taylor had put a few things in storage, and now Eric and Tami would have a free couch, arm chair, coffee table, TV stand, bookcase, and kitchen table and chairs.
Stumpy had volunteered to help with the move. While Eric and Tami were picking up the keys to the apartment, Stumpy had met Mr. Taylor over at Tami and Gretchen's old apartment to help load up Tami's things. Stumpy would schlep boxes for Gretchen tomorrow when she settled into her new apartment in Crawford. When Tami let them in, each was holding one of her boxes, and she tried to remember why she'd once intensely disliked Stumpy.
"Thank you for doing this," she told him.
"Well, helpful is my middle name," Stumpy said. He set the box down. "I mean literally. It's Cody. And that's what Cody means."
"Cody? That's not a very Italian name," she said.
"It's a mixed marriage. My mom's Irish."
"Well, Cody," Mr. Taylor said, "help me bring up the kitchen table. And Eric, you get the chairs. And Tami…would you mind going to buy us some beer for later?"
"Mr. Taylor, I'm not 21 yet." She wasn't going to admit to him that she and Eric both had fake I.D.'s. Eric had completely stopped using his. He was afraid of getting caught and getting benched at best, kicked off the team at worst, no matter how much Stumpy assured him that would never happen, so Tami had become the designated beer runner.
"Ah, I keep forgetting they raised that. Damn federal government, always meddling with the states. If you can go off and die in a war, I reckon you should be able to buy a drink before you do it."
Stumpy laughed. "Reckon? You really say that here?" Mr. Taylor looked him up and down with slow calculation and Stumpy grew immediately conciliatory. "I…uh…sorry….I just don't think I've heard anyone actually say that word yet."
"It's a useful word," Mr. Taylor told him. "Of German origin. Now c'mon and help me with that table."
Mr. Taylor was the one to go out and buy the beer after all the furniture was set up and arranged (and then rearranged) to Tami's satisfaction. He sat in the arm chair he'd brought from the old house while Tami, Eric, and Stumpy sat on the couch, Tami with a glass of sweet tea. Mr. Taylor had picked up a jug of that as well, along with a jug of milk, a loaf of bread, deli meat (which the book told Tami wasn't safe to eat during pregnancy), apples, Wheaties (Eric's favorite cereal), toilet paper, paper towels, coffee grounds, coffee filters, and a few other things. He'd essentially done their grocery shopping for them, which Tami found simultaneously thoughtful and weird.
"How's Karen?" Tami asked him.
"Working hard. Taking yet another class at Tyler Community. Brushing up on something or another, still looking at medical school catalogs."
"I suppose you're working hard, too," Tami told him. "Thanks for taking the time out to help with the move."
"Not an issue. I've got to burn through a lot of stored-up, paid leave from the carpet store."
"You quitting soon?" Eric asked. "Going full-time at the handyman thing finally?"
"Sometime in the next two years, anyway." Mr. Taylor looked at Stumpy with a smirk. "I reckon this Shiner Bock is pretty good. I reckon I'm illegally contributing to the delinquency of a minor by buying it for you, Cody."
"It's Stumpy, Dad," Eric corrected him.
"I reckon it is. What's the origin of that name do you reckon?"
Stumpy laughed. "I reckon it's because I'm kind of stumpy. Well, stocky anyway."
Mr. Taylor chuckled around the neck of his beer bottle, sipped, and said, "I reckon so." He lowered his beer. "I could throw in a might could or a used to could somewhere in the conversation if it would further amuse you."
"No need."
"Here in Texas, Cody, when a youth is talking to an adult, he says, No need, sir."
"I'm not sure you really do that in Texas," Stumpy said. "I don't hear even half of guys do that. Maybe forty percent."
"Well that's the forty percent that's going to go places," Mr. Taylor told him. "You should start calling yourself Cody. People like names like that for football players. No one wants to draft a Stumpy. Or a Giovanni."
"I don't have a snowball's chance in hell of being drafted."
"I don't know about that. Your coach just hasn't given you enough chance to work both sides of that hybrid position. That last game, when you pretty much acted as a wide receiver? You were impressive. I wonder why he doesn't use you more often that way?"
"I don't know," Stumpy said.
"Maybe you should suggest it," Eric told him.
"Sure, if I want to get chewed out and made to run laps like happened to you the last time you made a suggestion."
"He eventually took my suggestion, though," Eric pointed out.
Mr. Taylor pointed his beer at Eric. "Now, the way that coach is playing Eric, I think if he would just…."
Tami grew bored as they continued to talk on and on about football, and so she eventually excused herself to make up the bed and take a nap.
She was awoken two hours later when Eric slipped in beside her and kissed her cheek. She turned and settled her head on his chest.
"My dad went home to Tyler and Stumpy left to go help Gretchen pack." He stroked her hair and curled a strand tightly around one finger. He smiled lecherously.
"I take it you want to christen our new bedroom?"
He slid down a bit in the bed and snaked a hand beneath her shirt. She'd taken off her bra before she went to sleep. His hands were cold. He must have just walked his father outside. She squirmed away when he cupped a breast.
"Let's start outside the clothes," she told him. "And work our way there."
"A'ight," he said, sliding his hand back out. "I like a slow build."
And it was a slow build….a deliriously gradual escalation of pleasure until a sudden avalanche of need swept them both under.