[January 1, 1992]

At 12:30 AM, Tami brought the remainder of the half-full bottle of red upstairs to Eric. He was sitting up against the headboard, the lights out, but the glow of the TV on. He had on a pair of white athletic shorts and no shirt. Some old, black and white kung fu movie, the volume turned low, played out on the TV. He looked good to Tami, his arm bent behind his head, the muscles of his abdomen stretched tight, the white shorts contrasting with his dark hair. He held the remote in one hand and a glass of water, without any ice, in the other.

"Did you already clean out the minibar?" Tami asked as she sat on the bed next to him. Julie appeared to be soundly asleep in the other bed. She had rolled a bit to one side, fortunately toward the side with the travel rail.

"Turns out there is no minibar. It's just an empty fridge." He muted his show, put the remote on the night stand, and nodded toward the bottle. "What's that?"

"Wine. At least two glasses left. All for you."

He drained his water and held out his empty glass, and she poured.

"I already had a glass of champagne and a glass of chardonnay and a glass of red wine," she said as she leaned in, smiling, and kissed his nose.

He smiled back. It was nice to see him smile. She put the bottle down on her night stand, scooted closer, leaned back against the headboard next to him, and rested a hand on his thigh. "You feeling a little better, sugar?"

"Julie was talking in her sleep a minute ago. Said Daddy drops ball."

"She did not!" Tami insisted. "And you only fumbled the once. You actually played pretty well. You were inching the Bears along, and you would have gotten on the board if you hadn't been pulled."

"According to whom?"

"Your dad," she said.

"Well, I can't say my dad doesn't have confidence in me. It's a bit misplaced but…" He shrugged.

"Hey, you got to be in a bowl game! You had a great season overall. We've just got one semester left, and we'll both have our B.A.'s We've got a healthy, beautiful daughter. I just got a raise at work. Things are good, Eric."

"Well, since you're giving me the state of the union address, what's our savings account look like?" he asked.

"It's empty," Tami admitted.

"And how much do you have in student loans at this point?"

"I'll have $8,800 when we graduate."

"And how much are we carrying on the credit card?" he asked.

"About $250." She sighed. "We're close to done, Eric. We'll pay that all off one way or the other."

"You mean even if I fail to make it to the NFL?"

"Eric – "

"- What do you think my odds are? Honestly? I want to know what you think."

Tami didn't know how to answer that question. Mr. Taylor seemed to think they were 1 in 1, but she thought he was the sort of man who would dare to aim for the moon with a sling shot. Stumpy seemed to think his odds were two in ten, which weren't that great, really, when she thought about it. "I think I don't know, Eric. You know far better than me what your odds are. You understand the process better than I do. What do you think? Honestly?"

He'd never actually told her before. They fantasized, and he made a lot of "if I make it to the NFL" statements, but she didn't know how much of that was wishful thinking, how much was bravado, how much was his father talking, and how much he really believed.

"I think I have a 60% chance of being drafted."

It was a rather specific number, and he said it as though he'd arrived at it through serious thought. Tami felt a sudden surge of excitement. Were his odds really that high?

"But if I'm drafted," he cautioned her, "I don't expect to be picked until toward the end, in the eleventh or twelfth round." By the time Eric was head coach of the Panthers, the draft would consist of only seven rounds, but in the early 90s, there were still twelve. "That means I probably won't get a great contract. I'm not going to be one of these guys who gets a guaranteed salary. I could be cut when they trim the roster down. Then I'd only get my signing bonus and whatever I managed to pocket of the per diem in camp. You understand all that?"

She nodded.

"The signing bonus should be enough to pay off your student loans if I don't make it. If I do make it to the 53-man roster, and we get the big paycheck, then….I know we've been daydreaming, but I'm not going to be one of these guys who expands his lifestyle to fit his income, and then finds himself out of the NFL, no better off than when he went in. Seventy percent of these guys are in financial distress within five years of leaving. I'm not going to get used to spending a quarter million a year. The first year, we bank one-third of my salary, and we put one-third down on a reasonable house. Something nice, but nothing that we can't afford to make payments on if I don't get picked up after my initial contract expires."

"So no pool?"

"Well, depends where we live. You can get a reasonable house with a pool some places in the south. But we aren't actually getting an indoor pool in the north. I'm sorry."

She smiled. "I love how responsible you are, Eric. It's sexy."

He laughed. "Sexy responsibility, huh?"

"It is sexy."

"Yeah?" he asked as he set his wine down on the night table and then leaned in to kiss her. He lowered his voice. "Maybe I'll even draw up a budget then."

She giggled and kissed him, her hand on his cheek. When he slipped a hand beneath her shirt, she drew back and nodded toward Julie's bed.

"She's sound asleep," Eric insisted. "We'll be quiet."

"She has that sex radar all the way from the other room, hon."

Eric slipped out of his shorts. He didn't have any underwear on. He picked up the remote and the room was clothed in darkness as he switched the TV off. "We'll get under the covers. Worse that happens is she wakes up and we don't finish."

Tami shimmied out of her clothes and joined him under the sheets. "Quietly," she whispered to him.

She felt like a teenager, sneaking around, trying not to get caught by a parent, as their lips met and their hands roamed each other in the darkness.

Eventually, he rolled her onto her back, stretched her arms above her head, and laced his fingers through hers. Holding her pinned against the bed, he eased slowly into her.

"You set the pace," he whispered, and she did.

It felt wonderful, to have him pressed so closely against her, his deepening breath in her ear, to feel the strength and power of him, to share quiet sighs and muffled moans. When Tami came, she buried her mouth against his shoulder, so she wouldn't wake Julie. He groaned into the pillow.

Slick and damp and hot, they threw off the comforter and cuddled naked beneath the top sheet. Julie stirred in the other bed, rolled to her side, and muttered, "Daddy drop ball." Then she stilled and was silent.

"I told you," Eric said.

"Well you didn't drop the ball this time," she told him. "You saw that one to completion."