A/N: I'm posting this a couple days before the holiday b/c I'm going to be offline for a time. This is a Repost/edit of an old/deleted story, being added to the archives for this V-day. Inspired and assisted by an exchange with ICanStopAnytime.

Tami took the remote control out of Eric's hand and turned off the TV. She sat down on the couch. What the hell was that about? He watched her cautiously.

"Sit down on the couch next to me," she demanded. He obeyed just as cautiously, rising from his recliner and coming to take the cushion next to hers. She put a hand on his thigh. "Are you forgetting something?"

He thought. He was quiet. Then he thought some more. "Yes?"

"What?"

"Something important?"

"What?" When he didn't answer, she said, "It's Valentine's Day."

"Oh." He never forgot because, at school, they sold roses to raise money for the band. That would usually remind him, and so he'd buy a dozen of the band roses, and on the way home, he'd stop and get a card. But he hadn't gone to school today. He'd stayed home sick. Now, Coach Taylor never stayed home sick during football season - - no matter how sick he got, he never got sick. Winter was another story altogether. Even if he had a slight cold, sometimes he got sick. "You know, I was home sick today, so I didn't have a chance, really – "

"Yeah, you were really sick. I heard how sick you were when I called at eleven and I heard Dan playing music in the background and laughing and telling you to hang up because the pizza was there. You played hookey today, Coach Taylor. Didn't Dan at least remind you it was Valentine's Day?"

Eric shook his head. "He's probably getting in trouble tonight too." He put a hand over hers and patted it. "Sorry, babe. But you don't really want to celebrate some Hallmark created holiday anyway, do you? It's just a way for card dealers to make money."

"Card dealers? Card dealers?"

"Yeah."

"Actually," Tami informed him, "the holiday has a long and rich tradition that predates Hallmark. It used to be a pagan festival in Rome. The Catholics supplanted the festival it with St. Valentine's Day, but, before that, it was Lupercalia. A fertility festival. The Roman priests would cut a goat's hide into strips, dip it in blood, and slap women with it."

"That sounds really romantic, babe. No wonder you want to celebrate it."

"Well, it's not how we celebrate it in modern America. So sue me if I want flowers from my husband once a year."

"Once? Come on! You get them four times a year without fail," he said. Her birthday. Their anniversary. Valentine's Day. And at least one "I'm sorry" or "It's been a long time since I've been laid" flower gift a year. "Besides, you know what my Valentine's Day gift to you is Tami? Twenty-three years of fidelity. Twenty-three years of not so much as thinking about another woman."

"Ha!" she scoffed. "Now I know that's not true."

"Well twenty-three years of fidelity, anyway. And love. And taking out the trash. Don't I get a few points for that at least?"

"I take out the trash fifty percent of the time."

"Well give me something for the fidelity at least!" he insisted.

"Aw, honey," – she titled her head and pouted sympathetically. "Has it been that hard? Has it been that difficult? Has it been that awful, not having sex with other women?"

"Not really." He shrugged with a slight smile. "You're pretty good at it."

She patted his knee. "Well, since you didn't get me a gift, I'm making you play a game with me." She got up and began walking away.

His eyes brightened. "A sex game?"

"No, a card game."

She disappeared behind the couch and then walked over to the dining room table to dig in her bag.

"Rummy?" he asked.

"No," she called from the dining room. "A conversation card game."

She returned and sat down, showed him the deck. "It's got questions. We take turns asking each other."

"You've got to be kidding me."

"It'll be a good conversation starter," she insisted, opening the box of cards.

"We don't need a conversation starter," he told her. "We converse just fine as is."

She took out the deck and cut in half. "We take turns," she said.

He picked up the box she'd taken the cards out of. "The Cards You Play with Your Heart," he read. "Why don't you just go get my deer rifle and shoot me now?"

"I'll ask a question from my deck, and then you'll ask from yours."

He continued to read the box: "Real questions. Real answers. Real stories." He turned his eyes slowly to her, his expression one of utter condescension and disdain. "The real you."

"That's what it says."

"You have got to be kidding me, Tami. I know I forgot a day that's important to you. And I'm sorry. I'll make it up this weekend. But it's Valentine 's Day now. It's not Lupercalia anymore. You don't get to spank me with a bloody hide. That's not the Christian tradition. That's pagan, baby. The Christian tradition is to turn the other cheek."

"You deserve a little punishment. Now go get a bottle of wine and two glasses."

He sighed and rose. "This punishment sounds unconstitutional. Cruel and unusual both."

"I write the constitution for this relationship, Coach Taylor. And make sure you choose a good bottle. We're staying up late."

/FNL/

Tami settled into the couch with her back to the arm and her feet on the cushions, her good glass of Pinot Noir in her hand. Eric's wine was on the coffee table, and he was leaned forward reading the instruction card. "I don't understand how we keep score," he said.

"There's no score. They're conversation cards."

"Then how do we know who wins and who loses?"

"There are no winners or losers, hon." She wished he would stop grumping about this. She knew the deck was silly, but she thought it would be fun. Of course they didn't need help in the conversation department - - he was really quite a good listener, and they openly talked about all sorts of things, but she thought it might give them something new or funny or different to talk about, that it might serve as a kind of jumping off point for the kinds of deep conversations they usually had when there was some challenge to be tackled. It would be nice to do that without a challenge to tackle. "I like to talk to you."

"I like to talk to you too. I talk to you all the time. Sometimes I even come to you when there's something important to talk about and say let's talk. I'm not the sit around silently and grunt at my wife all evening type. I mean, unless you're interrupting my game film." He points a finger directly at her. "You know this right?"

"Of course I know it. That's why I want to do this." It was only because they could talk to each other that she thought it might actually be fun. If they couldn't already do that, it would just be an uncomfortable, pathetic last ditch effort to salvage an incommunicative relationship. "I think it'll be fun. Just humor me."

"I am humoring you," he insisted. "What does it look like I'm doing?" He tapped his half of the deck. "Although it would be more fun if it were a sex game." He sighed and sat back against the cushion. He looked at the instruction card again. "But there is a way we can make it competitive."

She laughed. "Is that the only way you know how to have fun?"

"Playing a game for fun is not fun. Games are meant to have winners and losers."

"Then how do we make it competitive?" she asked.

"You ask the other person a question, and then you guess what their answer would be. If you get it right – or close enough – you get to keep the card. Whoever has the most cards wins."

She eyed him suspiciously as she brought the wine glass to her mouth. After sipping, she asked, "Then the person could just claim it was the wrong answer. Cheating would be too easy."

"That's why we have to play under the honesty policy. I'm honest, baby. Are you honest?"

"More honest than you."

He put the instruction card down on the coffee table and turned to look at her. "What the hell does that mean?"

"Well, you haven't always been honest with me. You lied about the mailbox. You lied about that check you wrote for the uniforms."

"Two times in twenty-three years and you call me dishonest."

"I didn't call you dishonest!" she insisted. "I just said I was more honest."

"Well you were dishonest about kissing Glenn."

"What?" her wine glass clinked down on the table. "I never lied about that."

"You didn't tell me about it. I had to find out from him. Do you have any idea how awkward that was? He assumed I knew. He assumed you were honest with me and that you had already told me."

"Can we not argue about who is more honest and just play the damn card game?"

He picked up his deck. "You started it."

She turned over the top card of her deck. "Oh, this is a good one for you. And an easy one for me to guess: Which sporting event do you remember the most?" She looked at him over the top of the card. "You've had a lot of memorable sporting events, but I'm pretty sure it's when the Lions won State."

He shook his head.

"No?" she asked in disbelief. "When the Panthers won?"

He shook his head again.

"I don't believe this. Oh, wait, I know," she smiled. "It's kind of sweet actually. When you won that game on that field you built with your own hands, in the rain, in the cow pasture. You were like such a little boy when you showed me that field. You were adorable."

He smiled and shook his head. "That was a memorable one, a very memorable one, but that's not the one."

"When your high school team won state?"

Again, he shook his head. "I was benched half that game."

"Hon, it has to be one of those. You just don't want me to get a point. You're not being honest."

"I'm being perfectly honest," he insisted. "But there's one sporting event that was more memorable than any of those. I wasn't coaching. Or playing. I was just attending."

She looked at him through her wine glass. She peered around it. She narrowed her eyes. "Tell me, because I have no idea what you're talking about."

"That Baylor game," he said.

"What Baylor game?"

"You don't remember?"

She shook her head.

"Our senior year of high school. When you were still dating Mo and your crap car broke down and you begged me to drive you to Baylor to see his game because I was the friend you knew would do anything for you as long as you threw me a bone."

"You wanted to go too! You wanted to see the game too."

"I wanted to be in the car with you there and back. And in the stands with you." He shrugged. "And maybe I wanted to see the game."

"But why would that game be memorable? I mean, they won, but you weren't really a Baylor fan."

"Don't you remember what happened when they won?" he asked as he stood and walked through the living room to the foyer to turn the dead bolt on the door. It was getting late. When he returned, she was shaking her head. "You kissed me," he reminded her. "You were so excited, you threw your arms around me and kissed me."

"I did?"

"Come on!" He sat back down on the couch. "How could you forget our first kiss?"

"That wasn't our first kiss! If I did do that I didn't mean to do it. I was just excited they'd won. It was a slip."

"A Freudian slip."

"No," she insisted. "A regular non-psychological slip."

"It was slip a'ight. You slipped me your tongue."

She leaned forward and smacked his leg. "No I didn't." She sat back.

"Oh yes you did. And the next week you broke up with Mo."

"Because he was cheating on me," she said.

"Because it was a damn good kiss. You already knew I was good-looking and a good friend, but you thought I was boring and unadventurous, until that kiss, and then it was sheer chemistry. You knew I was the one for you."

"Nonsense."

"Then why did you break up with Mo a week later?" He took off his shoes and half watched her out of the corner of his eye.

"I told you. Because he was cheating on me."

"He'd been cheating on you ever since he went to college."

"But I wasn't sure he was cheating on me until after that game."

He smiled and leaned back against the arm of the sofa and put his legs up on the couch on the other side of hers. "That was the day I knew I was going to marry you. I mean, I was already half in love with you for almost a year at that point, but that's when I knew I was going to marry you."

She grabbed his foot and squeezed. "You couldn't possibly know that. We weren't even dating."

"No, I knew. I have that uncanny ability. Sometimes I just know things. Like when Jason Street was in his first year of Pee Wee. And I told you – when that kid's a high school starting quarterback, he's going to make his team the best in Texas. And I was right about that, wasn't I?'

She nodded.

"And I was right about you."

She patted his foot now. "Well, you're a determined man. When you set your mind to something – you usually accomplish it. I guess there wasn't much I could do at that point to resist my inevitable fate."

"Nope."

"But I don't really believe you were thinking of marrying me that early on." She took the card and put it in her keep pile.

"You need to put that back at the bottom of the deck," he said. "You didn't get that point. You guessed wrong."

"As romantic as you answer was, hon, it wasn't entirely honest. There's no way that Baylor game was more memorable to you than the Lions going to State. I'm keeping the card."

"Cheater."

He reached over to the coffee table and drew a card off the deck. With his other hand, he took up his wine glass. "What is the funniest thing that ever happened to you in a restaurant?"

She threw her head back and laughed, her teeth gleaming in the glow of the lamplight.

"I take it something immediately comes to mind."

"You know what comes to mind," she said.

He shook his head.

"At the time it was humiliating. In retrospect it's kind of funny, you and Mo busting down that table in a fancy restaurant. It's so absurd that it's funny. Two grown men. Two men over forty. Tackling each other over a table."

"Well I guess I get to keep that card." He added it to his point pile.

"Wait! But you didn't guess my answer."

"You didn't give me time to," he said. "So I keep it by default. Getting a little competitive, are we, babe?"

She eyed him. She reached for another card and read, "What physical feature do you notice most in the opposite sex?"

He looked up in the air and whistled innocently.

She laughed. "Well at least mine are fairly sizeable."

He looked back down and directly at her. "Yes, Tami, love, you have beautiful, big blue eyes."

She snorted. "I'm keeping the card."

He drew a card and read, "What was the happiest day in your life? Explain." He patted his chin with the card. "I'm going to guess your answer is the day you married me. Am I right?"

"No."

"Come on! What was it then? And this better be damn good." He stuck the card back underneath his half of the deck.

"The day I told you I was pregnant with Gracie. I was so nervous. I had no idea if you still wanted a baby. It was something we hadn't talked about in years. And it was horrible timing, with you having taken that Austin job. I wasn't even sure how I felt, until you laughed, and said you loved me…and then I realized I was happy about it too, and I was so relieved and happy you were happy about it, and so glad I'd picked you to be the father of my children."

"Okay, I'll accept that answer."

She refilled her wine glass before taking the next card. "Do you believe in capital punishment?"

"Yes," he answered. "Because it would be preferable to this ridiculous card game."

She picked up her half deck of cards and threw them across the couch at him. They scattered and filtered down all across his lap. He looked at her, not sure whether to be peeved, worried, or amused. "Hey," he half exclaimed, half asked.

"You're right," she said. "It's a stupid game. But you know what? It's reminded me why I love you so much."

"Why's that?"

"You're romantic. You're sweet. You're funny, and you're devoted to me. And being reminded of all that makes me want to have sex with you. Let's stop playing this stupid game and just have sex."

"Yes, ma'am!" He slammed his wine glass down on the coffee table. When he stood, the cards fell all over the floor.

Tami laughed and rose. He grabbed her hand and started tugging her to the bedroom. When they got inside, he slammed the door shut and toppled her, laughing, onto the bed. She sat up and pulled off her shirt. "You really like my eyes better?" she asked.

Later, when he'd finally steadied his breath, Eric lay on his back and smiling said, "We're playing this card game every night from now on."

/ AND THAT THERE'S THE END /