Mr. and Mrs. Deppiesse, and the seven-year itch

July 2078 - Ashlee Deppiesse is 38, Cabe is 36, Natalia is 7.

Natalia is off school for the summer, and with both her parents working, this means she spends her days at her mom's restaurant. Which honestly isn't the worst place to be.

She's curious, but she tries not to get in the way. Ashlee lets her watch if things aren't too busy.

Unfortunately, despite it being summer, they haven't been able to sit guests outside on the deck for most of the month. Lakeside Heights has been plagued with terrible thunderstorms this July, and the lightning scares customers off. But the indoor dining room is nice too.

Ashlee calls in Patrick Nova to play the piano. She thinks he's nice to listen to and nice to look at too!

Cabe and Ashlee have been married seven years now, and they're going through a bit of a stale patch. They each put their extra efforts into their daughter. Cabe likes to give mealtime lessons, and over Lobster Thermidor, he teaches Natalia about the Military's space program. "Did you know Daddy was an astronaut once?" he says.

Cabe and Ashlee have also become quite expert at avoiding each other, or ignoring each other, or both. Cabe wants to talk to her about something, but she's on the phone with Sophie Phoenix trading recipe secrets - not her best secrets, of course. You have to keep some edge on the competition.

Goofing around is about the best they do these days. They're plenty friendly with each other, but there's just no romantic spark like there used to be.

And then there's Natalia. "Oh, hi Baby! Mommy and Daddy were just goofing around." She's so quiet! They didn't even see her there.

Bill Miller is another culinary friend of Ashlee's, and there's always been a little chemistry between them. He tries to flirt with her, and it's not that Ashlee wouldn't... because, she thinks, with him she would. Especially now with what she and Cabe are going through. But man, in front of her daughter and her sister-in-law! Get some sense, dude! And doesn't he have a girlfriend???

And to make matters worse, Cabe brings home a new friend named Jessica, who happens to be going through a divorce at the moment, and also whom he happens to think is very pretty. The two of them stand there, straight from the carpool, chattering away in their military speak and it's like a secret code. It's just work business with Cabe though. He probably wouldn't cheat on his wife. I mean, look at her! His wife is hot!

But Ashlee wants to take Bill over to see the restaurant. She asks if they want to come. Cabe? Cabe??? Can we get some attention here? But he's so interested in making friends with Jessica that he barely even notices Ashlee standing there. It was one of those moments where Ashlee just wanted to see what he would say, if he would notice, if he would care... and he didn't.

She shows Bill the restaurant. "The bar room is still empty at the moment," she says, "But I was thinking about a pool table... what do you think?"

He says, "I think you look cute in that hat."

She says, "I think you're all talk."

"Yeah, about that..." he starts, and they sit down. "Listen, I like you a lot, but I'm not a homewrecker. If you happened to not be married, because you didn't want to be, I think we could be very happy together."

They can still hear Patrick playing while the remaining customers finish their meals, and they dance, because dancing isn't cheating, if you want to be technical about things.

And well, now she's stretching things pretty far in terms of faithfulness, but she just has to know. And she finds out it's not as exciting as she thought it would be.

She takes him outside to sit by the beach and talk. Ashlee thinks about her husband - even if Cabe is a bit of a bumbling husband sometimes, there's just something about him that can't be matched. Ashlee thinks she likes being married.

Meanwhile, back at home, Cabe makes a couple of salads after Natalia is in bed, and he invites his brother over for some older brother kind of advice. Orion and Violet have been very happily married for 15 years now, so they must be doing something right.

But when Orion tries to equate women to advanced video game programming, Cabe is lost. Women are hard enough to understand already! He guesses it boils down simply to that Orion and Violet just can't get enough of each other, because some couples are just like that.

The next morning, Cabe's mealtime lesson to Natalia is about best friends forever, and he emphasizes the forever part. Ashlee takes a bite of cereal and she's thinking, why can't men just come out and say what they're really thinking?

Orion calls Cabe back to say, "Don't wear make-up, women don't like it."

Cabe says, "Thanks, Bro, that helps a lot." He's clearly on his own in this.

Ashlee and Cabe go into their bedroom and have a little fight about it - not about the make-up comment, but about everything else...

And Cabe says he's sorry if he hasn't been paying enough attention to her. There you go, Cabe, that's how you do it.

And so they manage to work things out, for now at least.

LOL, and there's Natalia again. Man, that girl just shows up out of nowhere!

***

notes: Oh man, these two! They basically wanted nothing to do with each other! They actually have a very strong three bolts together (164 ACR!), so I don't know what their problem is. ACR didn't even kick in for them, at all! And ACR always kicks in, lol! Ashlee only has 112 ACR with Bill.

Cabe is just a knowledge sim, doing what knowledge sims do, which is study/work/study. But I guess Ashlee (family/romance) needs more attention than that...

After they fought, Ashlee FINALLY rolled a want to flirt, which then got them both going again. With a 164 together, they really have no reason to be with anyone but each other. I guess it was just a funk.

Oh, and don't worry about Piper, I think she's in the process of flaking out on Bill anyway. He's way too serious for her. She's turned into quite the cute and punky little gamer girl. We may have to visit her soon ;)