The first day back at school after the winter break was a Wednesday. Tami wore her new cowgirl boots, though she didn't actually tell Mo she was going to walk all over him. In fact, as usual, she generally avoided Mo, but she did notice him leaning against Sue Beth's locker between first and second period, his hand on the cheerleader's hip, making her giggle. And between fourth and fifth period, when Tami ran into Sue Beth in the bathroom, she might have, purely as a matter of kindness, offered her a bit of advice: "You know, Mo's just going to cheat on you, too."

"He's done with Anita," Sue Beth insisted. "He knew that was stupid. He figured it out. He's a great guy at heart, Tami. You shouldn't have thrown him aside so quickly for one mistake."

"One mistake?" asked Kimberley, who was also in the bathroom. "Yeah, I made a mistake this morning. I forgot to lock the front door when I left for school. But I didn't trip and land on some guy's dick on my way here. Is that how Mo mistakenly found his way into Anita?"

Sue Beth gasped.

Tami tried not to laugh as she followed Kimberley out the door, but she burst into gales of giggles once they were in the hall. "I can't believe you said that!"

"Don't tell Jack," Kimberley pleaded. "He doesn't like a potty mouth on a girl." As they walked, Kimberley glanced down at Tami's feet. "Those are really gorgeous boots. I'm jealous. Who gave them to you?"

"You know who." Tami paused with Kimberley by her locker. "Eric said he asked you for my size."

"Quite the gift." Kimberley wiggled her eyebrows and then turned to enter her combination.

"Don't do that," Tami told her. "Don't say it like that. He and I are just friends. Mo's an idiot. Eric was never trying to seduce me away from him, we weren't dating behind his back, there has never been anything like that going on between us."

Kimberley swung open the locker door and grabbed a book. "Maybe Eric wasn't trying to seduce you before, but uh…." She poked Tami's cowgirl boot with her own tennis shoe. "Come on, Tami. Those are I-want-to-take-you-to-bed boots."

"He said he wasn't expecting anything in return."

"I'm sure he's not. He's not that kind of guy." The door to Kimberley's locker clanged shut. "But just because he's not expecting something doesn't mean he's not hoping for something."

"Eric doesn't like me that way," Tami insisted.

Kimberley slung her backpack over her shoulder. "You keep telling yourself that, Tami." She shook her head as she walked off to class.

[*]

During dinner, Tami was preoccupied, wondering if Kimberley was right about Eric's hopes.

"Cat got your tongue?" her father asked.

"Just thinking about an upcoming test," she lied.

"I got the lead in the spring musical!" Shelley announced. "My Fair Lady."

Their father clapped. "Well done, sweet pea. So that's your calling, is it? Are you going to take drama again next year? Or choir? Or both?"

"Neither," Shelley said. "I think I want to take art."

"Art?" Mrs. Hayes asked. "You've never shown any interest in art before."

"Why not stick with the drama?" the Reverend suggested. "You're doing so well. You just got the lead!"

"I bet I'd be good at art, though." Shelley reached for the bread. "And this is the last year Timmy Wilson is going to be in the spring musical. He's graduating. And I do not want have to pretend to kiss Donnie Dougherty in West Side Story next year."

[*]

On Thursday, at lunch, Tami set the shoe box with the cowgirl boots on the cafeteria table beside Eric. "Maybe you can still get your money back," she said. "I just wore them the one day."

Jack looked at the box, and then looked at Eric, and then looked at Tami. "I need to go get some math help," he said, shoveled his unfinished sandwich into his brown paper sack, and left.

When Tami sat down across from Eric, he asked, "What's wrong? They didn't fit after all? You want to exchange them for another size? I'm sure they'll let you."

"They fit, but now people think we're dating. You should take them back."

Eric's hazel eyes flashed with irritation. "And that embarrasses you?" he asked. "That people might think that? Because I'm the guy who screwed up at State?"

"No! It doesn't embarrass me," she insisted. "But we're not dating, and I don't want people getting the wrong idea."

"Fine," he muttered, pulled the box toward himself, and tucked it roughly under his seat.

She felt awful, but she didn't know what else to do. She couldn't keep wearing them, because she'd have to keep answering where she got them. People were going to talk. "I really appreciate the thought that went into it."

"Yeah, I can see that."

"I do," she insisted. "But you know that I don't want to date anyone at all right now. I'm done with dating for a while." Her gut seemed to sink into itself. "Eric, I hope this doesn't ruin our friendship, because I really treasure it."

"Nah," he sighed, his tone softening. "Of course it won't. It's not like I like you like you. I just…I wanted you to have the boots. That's all." He shrugged. He didn't meet her eyes. "I know you just want to be friends. I know that. That's all I want too."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I'm not into you that way," he insisted.

She laughed. "For a minute there Kimberley had me convinced you were. I thought she was being silly, but sometimes I feel like I don't know what to believe about anything anymore. I can hardly trust my own senses."

"You better go get your lunch," he told her. "The line's about to close."

[*]

That night, as she lay in bed trying to fall asleep, Tami found herself strangely bothered by Eric's insistence that he didn't like her like her.

Was there someone he did like like?

And if so, what did that girl have that she didn't have?

And why did she care?

[*]

On Friday, Eric wasn't at the lunch table. Jack was there by himself, reading a note written in Kimberley's flowery handwriting. He folded it when she approached.

"Where's Eric?" Tami asked as she set her tray on the table and slid onto the bench.

"He's skipping school today. He drove to TMU to tour the campus, meet with his future coaches, and sign some kind of early commitment. He'll be home late Saturday morning."

"Why did he go on a school day?" she asked.

"I don't know, Tami. Why did you give him back the boots?"

"He's not still upset about that, is he?"

Jack sighed. "I'm going to get some ketchup. You need anything?'

[*]

After school, Tami cornered Kimberley in the parking lot. "Do you really think Eric likes me that way?"

Kimberley leaned back against her white, Volkswagen Rabbit. "Tami, I know you're having trouble reading guys because of what Mo did to you, but I don't think Eric's regard for you could be any more obvious."

"But…isn't it just…I mean. He's a good friend."

"He is a good friend to you," Kimberley said. "But if you don't think he'd like to take that friendship farther, you're not paying attention."

"Did he say that to you?"

"No, he didn't say that to me."

"To Jack?" Tami asked.

"Not to Jack either. But Jack and I – we both have eyes."

"Well if he didn't say it to you, and he didn't say it to Jack, and he told me he just wants to be friends – "

"- He did?" Kimberley was clearly surprised by this.

"Yeah, he did. Yesterday. He said he didn't like me like me, that he's not into me that way, and that he just wants to be friends."

"Oh. Okay then." Kimberley shrugged. "Could have fooled me." She tilted her head at Tami. "Have you asked yourself how you feel about him? How you really feel about him?"

Tami hadn't. Not really. Not honestly. These days, in the wake of the pain Mo's betrayal had inflicted, she was trying not to ask herself how she felt about much of anything.

[*]

Tami Hayes, even if pressed, would not be able to pinpoint the moment she began to fall in love with Eric Taylor, but she could tell you the precise moment when she finally realized that she was, in fact, already in love with him. It happened on Saturday evening, at 7:57 PM, when she was looking out her father's hospital window.

The machine the doctors had hooked to the Reverend beeped and blipped as the hail clicked and clattered against the building. In the cold and darkened evening, beneath the hazy glow of the street lights, Eric dashed through the parking lot, a coat stretched over his head to shield himself from the quarter-sized ice. He was going to get her mother's car, so he could bring it around to the front door and take the Hayes ladies home. Visiting time was almost over, and they'd been at the ICU for five hours.

Eric had spent every one of those hours alongside her.