Eric continued not to ask anyone out. While the Tigers racked up victories in football, Tami's volleyball season was considerably less spectacular. The team was doing better than it had the year before Tami joined, but that wasn't saying much. At least they still had a chance to meet Tami's personal goal of winning four games.

Thanksgiving arrived, and with it a crowd of people spilled into the parsonage. Tami's aunt and uncle and cousins rolled in to town, and, as usual, Tami's parents took in a handful of strays who had nowhere else to go. With a pastor's wife for a mother, Tami had learned to entertain for groups large or small, with planning or on short notice. These skills would one day serve her well as a coach's wife, especially when Eric sprang team barbecues on her.

Tami's mother prepared a spectacular feast that day and had her daughters peeling potatoes, snapping peas, and rolling dough all morning. Some of the company retreated to the living room to watch football after diner, but Tami lingered at the dining room table, where her father and uncle, an English professor at Midland College, were discussing literature. After a few minutes, her mother entered from the kitchen and said, "Tami, what are you doing sitting here? Your sister is helping me clean up in the kitchen."

"Linda, Linda," the Reverend quipped, "you are busy with many things, but Tami has chosen the better part."

Tami's mother leveled her eyes at him. "Tami is not Mary, I am not Martha, and you, Edward, are most certainly not Jesus."

"Go help your mother," Tami's father told her.

"And you know," Mrs. Hayes said, "it wouldn't kill you to pick up a dish rag once and a while either. I've been cooking all day."

Tami followed her mother into the kitchen. Two minutes later, the Reverend entered, kissed the top of his wife's head, and said, "Thank you for cleaning up. Thank you for all of the work you do. You make this place a home. How can I help?"

Mrs. Hayes smiled, snapped him with the dish towel, and said, "Oh, just go back to the dining room and talk to your brother, you big brain."

[*]

Saturday. 10:45 AM. Tami readied herself for the serve. This was not her favorite part of volleyball. She was best as the striker. The game was tied, and this was the last game of their season. The football team was looking forward to the final game of the play-offs next weekend, which would determine whether or not they went to State. Tami's team wouldn't be going to playoffs like Mo's, but she at least wanted her volleyball sisters to end their season with a win.

She glanced once into the stands, which were sparsely populated. Mo was talking to some guy from the football team, who was dating one of her teammates. Tami's mother and father were, as usual, in the third row. Shelley was sitting four rows behind them next to some sophomore boy and chattering away, and Tami's mother kept glancing back at them. Everyone was a predictable regular, except for Eric Taylor and Father Jack. Tami wondered what they were doing in the stands today, and who had brought whom for company. Had Eric come to watch Kimberley, and was he finally going to ask her out?

Tami pulled back her arm and listened to the satisfying smack of fist against ball. An exciting volley erupted that went on long enough to get the few fans oohing and aahing. Mo even stood up and cheered for Tami. She could hear his excited and familiar voice carrying through the acoustics of the gym, over the squeaking of shoes, the aaahs of the spectators, and the thud of the ball, which finally came down on the opponent's side.

"That's my girl!" Tami's father shouted, even though she hadn't been the one to strike it down. Tami's teammates laughed and high fived each other.

Mo kissed Tami on the sidelines afterwards and offered his congratulations. Her father approached them and asked if Mo would be joining the family for lunch, or if he and Tami planned to go out on their own. While Mo and the Reverend chatted, Tami's eyes drifted to the stands, where Kimberley had sat down a row in front of Eric and Jack. She was clearly flirting, and Eric was actually talking to her. Both boys were laughing at whatever Kimberley had said, but it was Eric's face that most struck Tami, because he always seemed so different, so happy, so alive with a smile on a face.

[*]

"Big game coming up on Saturday evening," Mr. Taylor said at the church door the next morning. "If we win this final game, it's off to State. And there will be eyes in the stands. My boy Eric is going to show those scouts a thing or two. Aren't you, son?"

"Yes, sir," Eric said.

"Got to run those routes before church though. Can't sleep in until 9:45 on Sunday mornings like you've been doing, like some lazy bones. Right, Reverend?"

"Do you often read the Bible, John?" the Reverend asked.

"As often as any layman, I suppose," Mr. Taylor answered.

"Do you recall that passage when Jesus says, 'man was not made for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath for man'?"

Mr. Taylor's jaw tightened, as though he understood he was being admonished, and he didn't like it. "I'm familiar with it," he said. He cleared his throat and looked at his wife. "Let's go, dear," and this time he was the one to tug on Mrs. Taylor's hand.

[*]

"Don't walk alone," Eric told Tami. "It's getting dark. I've just got to put something in the storage room."

Tami read the community bulletin board while she waited for him. She saw someone had put up a flyer for the clothing closet. She didn't think poor people often stopped in for overpriced coffee, but who knew. Eric's mother had probably given it to him to post.

When the shop was locked behind them, and they had begun strolling, Tami asked, "So what were you doing at the volleyball game on Saturday?"

"Watching the game," he said.

"Nobody comes to volleyball to watch the game. They come to support someone on the team, or to check out some girl they want to date. Was it Kimberley?"

"You gotta let up on this Kimberley thing, Tami. I'm not asking her out."

"Why not? Have you decided to get back together with your ex?"

"I don't know. I haven't decided not to."

Tami wrapped her scarf around her neck. "But you had to have your eye on someone in the game, just in case things don't pan out with Lisa, right? I mean, it's not like you've ever gone to one before. Tell me who she is." If not Kimberley, then who? "

"There's nothing to tell you. Like I said, I just came to watch the game."

"Dawn Nichols?"

"Drop it!" His voice was so deep when he yelled that she thought the window of the shop they were passing might actually shake.

"All right," she practically whispered, surprised by his sudden anger. She hadn't meant to push his buttons, but maybe she could be too direct and opinionated sometimes.

"Sorry for yelling," Eric said softly.

"It's okay. Sorry for being so...pushy. I just..." I worry about you, she thought, but she didn't think that was a good thing to say out loud. Eric needed to move on from this girl in Houston, Tami thought. He needed to get out from under the cloud of criticism his father cast over his life. He needed to go out, have fun, kiss a girl who admired him, and be happy.

"It was a good game, by the way," he said. "That was an awesome volley toward the end. It must have been some kind of record."

"Thanks."

It was quiet without Tami carrying the conversation. They were almost to the parsonage when he said, "I'm really sorry. I don't usually lose my cool like that. I've just...I'm under a lot of pressure. From my dad. From the team. Hell, from the whole town - to do well in this finals game on Saturday."

"And you didn't need me pressuring you about girls on top of that."

"Exactly." Then, firmly, he said, "I'll date who I want to date when I want to date her."

She knew what he meant, but it struck her as funny, and she chuckled. "Well that's pretty confident. Are you just gonna snap your fingers?"

He frowned. "You know what I meant."

She had image of Eric snapping his fingers and waiting for some girl to run to him, and her chuckle became a chortle.

His frown twitched upward. "It's not funny," he insisted, but soon enough, he was laughing too.

[*]

The pep rally on Friday morning had the rafters of Rankin High shaking. Eric had the biggest grin plastered to his face, as if he were soaking up the encouragement like a parched sponge. The cheerleaders did flips across the gym floor while the band played, and Tami and Kimberley stood next to each other, clapping in the stands.

"Why do they never throw pep rallies like this for us?" Tami asked. Volleyball season was over, but it would have been nice to have received this kind of encouragement.

"It's not football," Kimberley said. Then she leaned a little closer. "He's looking really cute today."

"Eric?" Tami asked with a knowing nod. "Yeah. He's adorable when he smiles, isn't he?"

"Not Eric," Kimberley said. "Jack."

Tami's brow narrowed in puzzlement.

Kimberley had a dreamy look in her eyes. "He danced so well at Homecoming, too."

"You know he only dates Catholic girls, right?" Tami asked.

"I know. But I also know there aren't a lot of Catholic girls at Rankin High."

[*]

Tami hitched a ride to the final play-off game in College Station with Kimberley. They had to leave very early Saturday morning to make the long drive. The pair was planning to share a hotel room that night and drive back on Sunday. It was rare for Tami's father to allow her to skip church, but he knew how important it was to her to support Mo at this game. It didn't hurt that the Reverend knew Kimberley's parents from his joint community ministry with their church and that he considered her to be a well-raised and responsible young lady.

"I know you'll likely be going to some kind of party this weekend," he told her before she left. "And I know there will likely be alcohol. Promise me - "

"- I promise," Tami said. "I won't drink, Daddy. And I won't do anything foolish."

At the game, Eric played well, Mo played a little, and the Tigers won. The visitor's stands thundered with exaltation, to a chorus of stomping and screaming and horns. Sate was in the future of Rankin High, in the future of Tami's entire small town.

After the shaking of hands, as the players were dispersing, Tami noticed Eric running to the stands. A girl clamored down to greet him, his ex, presumably, who had promised to drive from Houston to watch him play. She was a pretty enough brunette, but she wasn't the stunning beauty Tami had imagined she must be. She wondered how such an ordinary girl had captured Eric's heart.

When the girl kissed him, Tami looked away and searched the sidelines for Mo.

[*]

The warmth of Mo's loose embrace mingled with the heat drifting off the bonfire as Tami sat cuddled on his lap. The party was at some player's cousin's girlfriend's brother's house, or something like that. All Tami knew for sure was that they were five miles from the hotel at the moment. After an hour of eating and dancing inside, Tami and Mo had made their way to the front yard, where a number of lawn chairs were set up around the fire.

Kimberley strolled up to them, her hand in Father Jack's. "Jack and I are going to catch a late movie," she told Tami. "Can y'all find a ride back to the hotel?"

"We'll manage," Tami told them.

Kimberley and Jack had gotten into some kind of long conversation in the kitchen at the start of the party, and Tami had seen them smiling and laughing every time she passed by. She'd also seen enough of a glint in Jack's eye to wonder if he might be considering making an exception to his rule of only dating Catholic girls. And now that they were holding hands and headed for the movie, it seemed Kimberley had persuaded him.

Mo noticed the hand holding too. "Hey," he said with a smirk, "who you rooming with tonight?"

"Eric," Jack said.

"Well, send him over to me and Tony's room if you need to." He winked.

Kimberley flushed red, and so did Jack, but he also shot Mo a peeved look, tugged on Kimberley's hand, and said, "Come on. Let's get out of here."

As they were leaving, Tony plopped down in the lawn chair closest the fire. "Send who to my room?"

"Eric."

"I think he's found a roommate already for tonight. Saw him hop in a car with some girl after the game."

"Yeah? What girl?" Mo asked.

"I didn't recognize her. Just some girl."

"His ex from Houston," Tami told them.

"All I know is it's about damn time!" Tony exclaimed. "I told him this morning he had better pop one off before State. That guy needs to relax."

"Pop one off," Tami said. "Lovely, Tony. Just a lovely expression."

"Can't you see there's a lady in your presence," Mo scolded him. He put his hands over her ears and said something to Tony that made him laugh.

Tami swatted Mo's hands away and rolled he eyes at him. He smiled and kissed her. "I love you," he whispered, and she smiled. Even though Mo had only played a few minutes during the third quarter, he had almost scored a rushing touchdown, and she had to admit she was a little worked up by the game. So, a few minutes later, when he asked, "Want to take a private tour of the house?" she slid off his lap and led the way.

Their tour wound its way upstairs, where they found an empty bedroom.

[*]

Sunday morning, as they were packing to leave the hotel, Kimberley said, "I never really got the whole obsession over football. But watching Jack was fun. He's really good. Did you see that catch he made?"

"I saw it," Tami told her. She knew the one Kimberley was talking about, because Eric was under pressure to find an opening, and she'd been impressed at how quickly he'd done it and gotten the ball off. "So how did the movies go?" Tami had been asleep when Kimberley came in.

Kimberley grinned. "It was such a horrible movie," she said, "that we had to make-out just to get through it."

So much for fixing Kimberley up with Eric, Tami thought. Kimberley had moved on, and Eric, it seemed, had moved back.