When Eric sat down, Tami looked up from the book that had engrossed her. The chairs (except theirs) were up, the freshly mopped floor sparkled, and it was quiet except for a sound of humming from the refrigerator behind the counter.

"Is that a diet book?" he asked. "You don't need to diet, babe. You're gorgeous just the way you are."

The title was Thinner, but her hand was masking the author, Stephen King, so she slid it away. "This is certainly not a diet I want to go on."

"I was kidding. I know what it's about. My dad was reading it."

"What?" she asked. "Your dad, who reads reports for fun?"

"My dad doesn't read anything for fun. I think he wanted to know why you like Stephen King."

"Oh, God, he's not going to judge me based on my taste in Stephen King novels, is he?" She peered over the book at him. "What did he say?"

"You don't want to know that."

"I do want to know that," she insisted.

"He's not your problem to deal with."

But he might be, one day, if they ended up married after college. He'd be her father-in-law. Didn't Eric realize that? Or did Eric never think about their potential future? Didn't he want this relationship to last through college as much as she did?

"Tell me, Eric."

"He said you must have been lucky to live a sheltered life if this sort of thing entertains you, because real life can be horrifying enough."

She closed the book and put it on the table. "Well I have been lucky to lead a sheltered life. I hope my kids get to lead a sheltered life someday." Maybe it was her imagination, but she thought he looked uncomfortable after she'd said it. She hadn't meant to imply that she thought they might have kids together one day, but even if she had, what was so disturbing about that? Did he really never think about it?

When Tami was in sixth grade, like many girls her age, during boring moments in class, she would write out the names of her potential future children, followed by the last name of whatever boy she happened to have a crush on at the moment. She didn't do that now, of course, but a name did pop into her mind from time to time, and she did try out a Taylor after it.

"Ready to go?" he asked.

The walk, hand-in-hand, through the thick and warm May evening, was quiet. Eric had on khaki shorts and short sleeve polo, while Tami wore a light spring dress. Their footsteps – hers in sandals and his in loafers - made only light sounds on the pavement. The cars wooshed softly by on Main Street, though occasionally the roar of a motorcycle or and old engine penetrated the quietude.

Tami wondered what Eric was thinking. His father had asked if he could envision them married that night she came to dinner. Eric hadn't said no. Lately, Tami had speculated about a future married to Eric more often than she cared to admit, even to herself. She didn't understand why she did. She'd hardly ever thought about such a future with Mo, and she'd loved Mo too. This was a deeper love, certainly, but that couldn't explain why her mind kept straying to something so final and concrete. Maybe it was the respect she had for Eric, and not merely the love, that sent her mind there.

"Where do you see yourself five years from now?" she asked.

"Is this a job interview? Because I thought I already got the job." He smiled at her, raised her hand in his to her lips, and kissed it.

"What job?" she asked, smiling at his contagious smile.

He lowered her hand again. "The job of being your boyfriend."

"Oh, is that a difficult job?" she asked.

"Sometimes," he smirked. "You can be a lot of work."

She laughed and pushed into his shoulder with hers, causing him to veer from their straight path for a moment. "I'm just curious where you see yourself," she said when they were back on track again.

"Well, I'll have my B.A. by then, and, if I'm lucky, a Division II Championship under my belt as a college quarterback. I'll probably be teaching full-time at a high school in the Dallas Fort-Worth area, you know, where all my family will be, maybe P.E. or Health or something,"

"Or Home Ec?" she asked.

"Yeah, sure, I could teach Home Ec," he said, and she giggled. "And I'll be one several assistant coaches of the school's football team, making peanuts for a stipend. How about you?"

Tami tried not to be deeply bothered by the fact that he nowhere mentioned her in that picture. The how about you suggested to her separate lives, and she felt a sudden disconnectedness, as if she were floating in space without an anchor – not to home, not to any future object.

"Well?" Eric asked, while her mind and heart were still reeling. "How about you? Where do you see us?"

His question spun her whirling mind once more, until it tilted, and then settled, and grasped his words. "Us?" she asked.

"I...uh..." he stuttered. He looked embarrassed and a little worried. "Well...Don't you ever think about it?" he asked quietly, and suddenly his awkwardness around these conversations took on another light. He'd been thinking about it and been afraid she hadn't been.

"Yeah," she confessed. "I do sometimes think about it."

He smiled weakly, a smile of relief more than joy. "So...where do you see us? In Dallas or some other city?"

She let go of his hand, laced her arm through his, and rested her head on his shoulder. "I don't see any specific city," she said, the smile growing on her face. "I just see us happy. And Kimberley got me thinking, maybe I won't go into private practice. Maybe I'll be a high school guidance counselor. God knows I could have used a better one my sophomore year."

They walked and talked a while longer, and she said, "You sure lied easily about that blue bird thing."

"I thought you might want back up. Seemed you didn't want your parents to think we were...you know. I didn't want them to think it either."

"Yeah, it's just..." She shrugged. "You were pretty convincing. I don't know if I'd know if you were lying to me."

"I've never lied to you, Tami. And you lied to them first. I was just backing you up."

"I know."

He stopped walking and twirled her to face him. There was no one else on the sidewalk. "You'd know if I lied to you. You'd figure it out soon enough. You're perceptive like that. And I know how pissed off you'd be if I lied to you, and I wouldn't take that risk."

She smiled lightly.

"What do I have to lie to you about anyway? You're not my father."

"Have you lied to your father a lot?"

He took her hand and they started walking again. "I'm not proud of it, but sometimes it just felt easier than admitting I hadn't met his expectations. I forged a report card once, until I could bring my grades up. My freshman year, if I went to hang out with a girl that didn't meet his criteria, I told him I was with a guy friend of mine, who covered for me. He used to have me do these ridiculously long morning runs, and sometimes I'd stop halfway through and just lie on the grass and look at the clouds, but tell him I'd been running the whole time. That sort of thing."

"I guess everyone lies to their parents. I try not to. I probably lie more to my mother than my father."

"Because she makes it harder for you to tell the truth?"

"Yeah, maybe that's it." She smiled. "So I guess we shouldn't it make it hard for each other to tell the truth, huh?"

"Sounds good to me." He squeezed her hand. "I feel bad about lying to your dad, you know. He told me once that the little lies I tell my father are a cowardly way of avoiding confrontation, and that I need to meet more of those disagreements head on. That's what I've been trying to do since. But that situation the other night...I mean...that situation needed deflecting. You seemed to think so too."

"Yeah, I did think so."

"What the hell is wrong with your sister?"

Tami sighed. "She has absolutely no filter between her brain and her mouth. She's always been like that. It was even worse when she was younger. Blurting things out, interrupting people, flitting from one activity to the next, no impulse control. Once she got in trouble in 2nd grade because she stood up while the teacher was talking and started running laps around the desks. My Dad thinks she has Hyperkinetic Reaction of Childhood. Well, it's called ADHD now."

"What?"

"Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder."

Eric shook his head. "Never heard of it."

"ADHD has been in the DSM for about five years now. "

"Sounds like an excuse for being a pain in the butt to me."

"She is a pain in the butt. But I also know it's really hard for her to control her impulses. It doesn't come easily to her. I just try to keep that in mind and be compassionate. But what she said yesterday - I wanted to throttle her. And I don't think that had less to do with her ADHD and more to do with the fact that she's jealous of me for having such an awesome boyfriend."

Eric chuckled.

"I'm serious. My parents won't let her really date until next year. And she also used to think you were hot. But then I went and snatched you up."

"She didn't ever really think she had a chance with me, did she? I mean, she's a kid." Three years was a long time in high school. "I didn't even know she existed before I was interested in you."

"Shelley thinks she has a chance with everyone." They came to a stop in front of the parsonage. "I worry about her, when I'm gone. I could see her getting into a nest of trouble. And she's my baby sister, you know?"

He nodded. "Well, she's got a good dad, right?"

"You really like my father, don't you?"

"Yeah," he said. "I do. I'd love to have a father like that."

Tami kissed him gently and then lay her head on his chest while she hugged him. She wondered if, when he thought of possibly marrying her one day, he was thinking not just of marrying her, but of making her father his own, of being adopted into the family.

'"You two love birds fancy some dinner?" came the Reverend's voice on the street behind them, and Tami pulled away from Eric. The Reverend shifted the briefcase he'd been carrying, in which he kept his counseling files, from one hand to the other. "Your mother called and told me she's making corned beef."

"God, I love her corned beef," Eric said. "Let me check with my mom if it's okay for me to stay.'