Eric leaned against Tami's locker before first period and kissed her. "What do you want to do this Saturday?" he asked.

She smiled impishly. "Besides fool around in your bedroom while your parents are out of town, you mean?"

The Taylors were going to Dallas to see Kathleen and look at a bar Mr. Taylor was considering buying.

Eric grinned. "I was hoping that would be on the agenda. But what do you want to do after?"

Tami shut her locker. "Grab a quick fast food dinner before going to the play, I guess. My sister's play is at 7:30."

"Oh." He walked beside her and held out his arm.

"I know you don't want to see a musical, but it's my sister." She slipped his arm through his. "But I have to go either tonight or Saturday. I'd rather go with you. It'll make it more bearable. Pretty please?"

"A'ight," he muttered. "Sure. But...Is she gonna sing a lot?"

"She's not a bad singer," Tami insisted.

Eric slid his arm away from her when they were near her classroom door. "Enjoy math," he said with a smirk.

"It's so thrilling. How couldn't I?" She tilted her head. "Listen, sorry about my dad saying that thing about...you know...it being all awkward and all at dinner last night."

Eric shrugged. "No worries."

A few kids flirted into class in front of them.

She wanted him to say he wasn't completely freaked out by the idea of some future commitment to her, so his response was disappointing. "I just thought maybe you were embarrassed," she ventured. "Because you looked down at your ice cream so fast."

"I just didn't know what I was supposed to say to that."

The bell rang.

How could she blame, him, really? She'd been embarrassed too. Tami wished her father hadn't said it. Now she couldn't stop thinking about what she wanted to happen in the coming years, and whether or not Eric thought about it happening too.

"Ms. Hayes," came Mr. Boyles voice suddenly from the classroom doorway. He was standing right in the center of the orange door frame. "Do you intend to join us?"

A few giggles arose from within the classroom.

Tami flashed Mr. Boyles her sweetest, most southern smile. "I was just coming in right now."

"Taylor," Mr. Boyles said. "You're already tardy."

"Yes, sir," Eric muttered, and smiled at Tami before hurrying off to class.

[*]

Tami didn't bring up the subject again. She didn't think it would be good form to keep broaching the issue. It was probably best to let her father's implication slide. What could she say, really? "Do you ever think about marrying me?" They were still in high school. That kind of question could terrify your average guy, and not even she was that blunt.

So she let it slide. During lunch, she simply enjoyed her time with Jack and Eric over the cafeteria table, watching the boys rib each other like long-time brothers. Sometimes she took a side and got in a jab of her own, and once she laughed so hard that milk almost came out of her nose.

"I'm going to miss this cafeteria," Jack said wistfully.

Tami snorted, thinking how strange it was to regret leaving behind these worn tables in this smelly, boisterous cafeteria of Rankin High. And then she realized what he meant, what he was really going to miss: these friendships, these rituals, this laughter, this community, and all these simple, shared moments.

"You a'ight?" Eric asked softly as he slid closer to her on the bench to wrap his arm comfortingly around her waist. "You look like you're about to cry."

[*]

On the one hand, the week went by too fast, because Tami was watching her high school days slip away.

On the other hand, it went by too slowly, because she was anxious to be alone with Eric on Saturday.

At night, alone in bed, she thought about his touch, and wondered if he was lying in his bed, thinking of such things too.

[*]

Eric traced a heart shape between Tami's bare breasts with the tip of his finger. He then trailed that same finger down to her naval. He followed the trail with soft kisses, until his lips were at her belly button, where he paused. He looked up at her. "Spread your legs." His voice was gentle but sure. "I want to see you, Tami. I want to taste you."

Tami had given Mo plenty of oral sex, but he'd never suggested repaying the favor. Surely he would have if Tami had asked, but she'd been hesitant to do so. That would have required a certain vulnerability on her part, a more complete exposing of herself. Besides, too much of their sex had taken place in the cramped, back seat of his car. Mo had never explored her in quite the thorough way that Eric did, or perhaps it was more accurate to say that she had never let him explore her.

Eric, however, she trusted more completely. For Eric, her legs fell open.

"Beautiful," he murmured.

Tami squirmed slightly beneath the teasing sensations of his lips on her inner thighs. She gripped the sheets – black, silky ones this week - in her hands, and balled them into fists as he drew tantalizingly closer to her core. When his tongue touched down on the most tender spot, she gasped, and cried, "Please!" and then, a smaller, shier whisper, "Please, Eric. Yes, please." Tami closed her eyes and held tightly to the sheets, feeling like she might just slide off the edge of the world.

Later, when she was still shivering from her orgasm , her eyes still closed beneath the waves of pleasure that were sweeping over hear, she heard him tear open the condom package. He'd drawn himself up beside her now, and his lips were against her ear. "Did you like that?"

She could hear, but not see, what he was doing as he rolled the condom on. She could feel him, too, his weight shifting atop her. "Uh huh," she managed, between breaths. "I liked it."

"Good. Because I like you, Tami." He parted her legs again. "And I really like this." With a low groan, he pushed effortlessly inside.

[*]

Eric was still shivering beside her as Tami looked up at a thin crack in the white plaster of his bedroom ceiling. She marveled at the unfamiliar silence of his house, and wondered, if they ever shared a house together, would it sound more like the parsonage – where her mother's piano drifted through the rooms, and the fire crackled and popped next to her reading father, and Shelley's laughter and songs burst out at random moments – or would it sound more like this, nothing but the sound of breathing?

Eric turned and kissed her bare shoulder and cuddled in close. His hand was warm on her hip. A strangely contrasting set of emotions mingled within her: pleasure and fear, satisfaction and searching, love and longing.

He yawned and then pulled up the comforter over them. "You thinking of getting on the pill again?" he asked.

She shook of the confused jumble of emotions and turned into his embrace. "I probably should. I mean, I will. I guess you probably like it better without condoms."

"It'll probably be better for you too."

"Okay," she said.

"And we're going to be doing it a lot this summer."

"Are we?"

"I mean, I hope. If you want. I hope you want." He winced. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be presumptuous."

She chuckled and kissed him softly. "Of course we are," she whispered. "I love you, Eric."

They kissed awhile longer, and then he settled his head on the pillow, eyes closed.

"You don't get to go to sleep," she warned him. "We have the play to go to."

He tried to stop his face from contorting at the thought, but she saw.

[*]

Eric suffered through Shelley's musical chivalrously enough. Tami sat between Eric and her father. Eric held her hand, but seemed a little tense doing so. She wondered if he was always going to be this tense every time he encountered her father the same day they'd had sex.

When the lights came on after the final act, and all of the seemingly obligatory clapping and bowing was over, the Reverend said to Tami's mother, "Shelley's quite good, isn't she? She has her mother's voice."

"If only she had her father's discipline," Mrs. Hayes said, "she might be able to do this for a living one day."

They brought Shelley flowers backstage, and Eric told her, "That was a lot better than I thought it was going to be."

"Gee, thanks, Eric." Shelley flicked her light, blonde hair over her shoulder and flashed a bright, fake smile at Tami. "You really picked a winner there, Tami. He really knows how to charm a girl."

They all went for ice cream together later, and the Reverend asked, "So what did y'all do this afternoon?"

"Eric's parents are out of town," Shelley said, "what do you think they did?"

Tami hissed "Shelley!" through her teeth, Eric's eyes fell into his cup, and the Reverend cleared his throat.

Every now and then, Tami still wanted to hug her little sister, but more often these days, she wanted to strangle her. Maybe it was good for both of them Tami would soon be leaving home.

"Shelley," their father warned, "perhaps you meant that as a joke, but it wasn't funny."

"There's no reason to be inappropriate!" their mother scolded. "We were having such a delightful evening, too, child. That mouth of yours!" Mrs. Hayes shot Shelley a scalding, scolding look, but then she turned and equally worried one on Tami.

"We went for a hike by the lake," Tami reassured her mother. She hated that Shelley had put her in the position of feeling she needed to lie to her parents, but there were some things that could not be said, not even to her father. The Reverend might possibly know that she and Eric were having sex – he seemed to know things Tami often assumed he didn't – but he'd never said anything about it. If he knew, he didn't want her to know that he knew, and she certainly didn't want him to know that she knew that he might know. Shelley had thrown a monkey wrench into their silent agreement to silence.

"We saw some really pretty blue birds," Eric added. "I think they might have been grosbeak. You think so, Tami?"

"Uh…maybe," she replied, a little surprised by his easy slip into the lie. He must be more accustomed to lying to his own parents than she was to hers. She'd tried to avoid that after her rebellious year, but with a father as demanding as Mr. Taylor, Eric probably still found himself weaving tangled webs from time to time. How much freer their lives would be, when they lived in their own house, she thought, and then realized she had thought house instead of houses. It was almost as if she couldn't think of the future, anymore, without seeing him there.

"So, are you trying out for the musical again next year, Shelley?" the Reverend asked, and Tami felt gratitude for his deflection.

"No, I told you I'm going to be busy with cheerleading. Or maybe the pep squad instead. I want to twirl a flag, I think." Shelley paused with her spoon halfway out of her cup, and stared dreamily into the distance. "I bet I'd be great at twirling flags."