A/N: You guys are just the best. Ever. That's all I'm gonna say about that. (Thanks for your beautiful reviews. I appreciate them so much.) Some of you put in your reviews that you clearly know who will be accompanying Emily in hers and Spencer's French tutoring session, but don't think just because you know that you know everything. Because trust me, I've got so many twists planned that if you actually see them coming, I'll know you're hiding in my closet. I'll shut up now. Enjoy!


I keep replaying all of the words sent and received in the emails I'd gotten from my chat room buddy, whose gender and furthermore, status as either Romeo or…Juliet number two, I guess, was still unbeknownst to me. The drive over to the Apple Rose Grille to meet Emily and her little French class friend seemed to be one where my head was everywhere it shouldn't have been. It's a good thing I got there when I did, otherwise I could have easily expected to see myself wrapped around a telephone pole or a part of one of those multiple car pileups.

I keep rapping my fingers slowly and rhythmically on the table as I wait for Emily and her friend to come so we can get this tutoring show on the road. It's a Thursday, and Thursdays are always the worst day of the week after Monday. The anticipation of Friday almost being here but not quite yet eats me alive. I'm always eager to shut down the party early on Thursday nights to just get the wait over with but not tonight. Tonight I get to play Professor Hastings.

The bell above the entrance to the restaurant starts jingling, and I look up to see Emily's gratefully smiling face walking towards me. I straighten my shoulders and perk up a little, waving in her direction. She slides into the opposite side of the booth gracefully, diving into her bag and pulling out a French book. "Thank you so much for meeting me," she says.

"No problem," I reply, clasping my hands together and resting them on the table. I realize that it's just Emily, and my eyebrows furrow in confusion. "Didn't you say you were bringing along a friend for this little festivity?" Emily stares back at me blankly and then something clicks in her head.

"Oh! Right! Yeah, he'll be here in a few. He's just caught up with something at home, but don't worry. He wouldn't keep us waiting that long," she says, laying her phone down on the table next to her French book. I nod slowly, before gesturing towards her French book.

"Alright, so what is it that you're having a problem with in French?" I ask; Emily already flipping rapidly through the pages of the book to show me something.

"Conjugating verbs; they make absolutely no sense to me and I feel like I'm trying to translate a bunch of scrambled letters into actual words. I'm sinking Spence; I feel like I'm the Titanic!" she sighs, clearly exasperated as she puts her head in between both of her hands. I can't help but to let out a small chuckle; Emily's frustration is somewhat comical.

"There's four categories of conjugation," I explain. "You've got indicative, conditional, subjunctive, and imperative. There are sixteen tenses in those four categories." I stare at her, although her face is vacant and clueless. Apparently in her world, this is like talking in tongues. I laugh a little. "You might want to write this down, you know."

"Right," she agrees, grabbing a notebook and pen from her evidently bottomless handbag. She begins to jot down what I've told her, and the waiter arrives with my coffee and the water Emily told me to order for her when she called to let me know she was on her way.

I blow on my coffee before taking a sip of it. No matter what the other girls say, I think black coffee is better than whatever it is they choose to drink. Black coffee keeps you going more than some sugary concoction that tastes like a liquid doughnut. As I set it back down on the table, the bell above the door makes another little chiming noise, indicating its opening. I look up to see who it is, and immediately I can feel the coffee scorching my throat desert dry.

Toby.

"What the hell?" I whisper under my breath as he slowly turns and begins to make his way over to the same side of the room Em and I are on. I swear, if he's doing something that he knows will get a rile out of me, Emily will finally see that Toby is not Saint Cavanaugh. He's just as malicious as I can be when it comes to our 'petty disagreement'. For some odd reason, I feel like Emily only sees me doing all the vicious things and Toby having angel wings and a halo above his head. I guess all that light is blinding her from the fact that devil horns are holding that fake halo up.

He turns in the direction of our booth, and I'm actually wanting for him to do something bitchy, so I can prove to Emily that I wasn't making up the time when he almost ran me over, when he ordered all of these pointless products under my name and I had to pay near three-hundred dollars for them even though I didn't want them, and all the times in between. Emily still thinks I'm the one who ordered fifteen boxes of potpourri. She's delusional if she thinks I'd order potpourri in the first place!

Toby walks up, a smile on his face when he sees Emily. "Hey Em!" However, that smile disappears about as quickly as it appeared once his eyes land on me. "What the hell are you doing here?" he says venomously, his eyes icy daggers. I look him up and down judgingly, a snarl forming across my lips.

"I was asking myself the same thing."

"No seriously, Emily," he says, turning to face a now sinking slowly underneath the table Emily. "Why did you invite her?" I can tell that he was just as in the dark as I was about the whole truth to the situation.

"She's in AP French?" Emily squeaks, trying to hide her face with the French book. Toby's face softens and I'm a little shocked by that. Toby's face does not soften when he's around me. If anything, he just squares his jaw and gets ready to lash back at whatever insult I shoot his way. He's about to slip into the booth, when I lock eyes with Emily.

"Outside," I mutter through gritted teeth, sliding out of the booth. Emily slowly follows, but has a white-knuckle grip on the French book. I suppose she's bringing it with her for either two reasons. One, she wants to ask me a question about French away from the devil himself, or two, she's bringing it to defend herself in case I pounce. Smart girl.

Once we're outside, I immediately round on her. "What were you thinking?" I hiss venomously, shooting her daggers. "I thought this was just going to be us!"

"I told you I was bringing a friend."

"He's not a friend though! And besides, haven't you ever heard the saying that three's a crowd? Well tonight, three is most definitely a crowd!" I hiss impatiently.

"Spencer—"

I don't let her finish, as my arms flailing about in many different directions before pointing straight at where Toby's sitting alone in the booth. "No, Em! You know that I can't stand him and that he can't stand me! Do you want the Grille to catch on fire?"

Emily lets out a low sigh. "Spencer, he needs help in French too. You're the smartest person in Rosewood; can't you just put aside your differences for one night? For me?" she pleads. Okay, so maybe my next great investment should be for Emily's hearing aids. I stare at her wide eyed.

"Have you lost your mind? You could give me all the money in the world and I wouldn't sit there and associate with him. I'm telling you Emily, he hates me. You don't see it because he knows better than to show that in front of you, but it is there. When will you understand that?"

"Spencer! He does not hate you!" Emily snaps, glaring at me. "He always tells me how he does nothing but try with you, or at least, he wants to. But you don't even give him the time of day to test run that! He wants to be your friend Spencer, so can you bury whatever hatchet you see to seem to be clinging on to for dear life? Just let it go." Emily turns to walk back inside to accompany Toby, but I don't let her get that far. Instead, I grab her arm and whirl her back around so she's facing me.

"Did you not just see that in there?"

Emily nods. "Yes, I did. But the only reason he's so cold about it is because you are. If you lightened up a little, maybe you'd see that he's trying," she says coolly, before yanking her arm out of my grasp and storming back inside. I let out a long sigh, resting my back against the foundation of the establishment. Emily is being deluded into a sense of false hope. Toby Cavanaugh, the boy who I've hated since the sixth grade, wants things to just be over? It seems too easy. It can't just be that easy.

Emily is my friend though. She means more to me than stupid old Toby Cavanaugh, and I guess as a part of the unwritten best-friend code, your best friend's happiness comes first. So if that means playing nice with Toby, even if it is just an act around Emily, and it makes her happy, then I figure I could take a very excruciating, painful one for the team. I am, however, not in any way saying that this is a ceasefire, or even worse, waving the retched white flag. I'm just…lulling them into a fake sense of wellbeing and calm waters.

I take a couple of extremely deep breaths, before turning on my heel and slowly walking back into the restaurant. It takes a second, but I think of cute bunnies and the elation that awaits me after this one hellish tutoring session in order to splash a fake smile on my face. It's a little too fake, probably, but at least Emily will see the effort I'm putting forth when it comes to pretending Toby's a harmless little kitten.

Then, of course, the nagging, little devil on my shoulder begins prodding and poking me with his little trident. Toby might be a little kitten, but that doesn't mean he doesn't already have his claws. Kittens have claws! And rabies, and sharp teeth, and many other varieties of dangers bestowed in them! Damnit! "Get it together Spence," I mumble, already clenching my teeth to the point where they feel like they might disintegrate in a second.

I round the corner, swiftly making my way into my side of the booth. Toby and Emily both have their eyes dead on me; Toby's face a little shocked, but Emily's glowing. "Alright," I sigh. "So where were we?"

"Conjugating verbs," Emily says, a little proudly. Toby looks over at her, and shrugs. It seems as though he's just going along for the ride. I still haven't heard a peep out of him since Emily piped up earlier, which seems a little safe. Too safe. So of course, being the person that I am, I decide to push his buttons a little.

"What; is that not what you're struggling with?" I ask, grabbing my mug of coffee and taking a long sip. Damn, all that time outside with Emily has let it get cold. I keep my eyes on Toby, watching him closely. He does another one of those one shouldered shrugs, and normally I'd assume he was indifferent as to what we did. However, his jaw's set, and I can tell he's biting back something.

I know I promised Em I'd behave, but I can't help myself.

I set the coffee back down on the table, before leaning back and folding my arms over my chest. "If it's not, you can say so. I'm sure Emily wouldn't mind you speaking up about how you really feel, right Em?" I say, quickly shifting my eyes over to Emily who seems a little stunned. There's something unreadable about Toby; I can't tell if I'm getting under his skin, if he really is putting a good foot forward, or if he just deserves an Oscar. Emily just tilts her head to the side. Guess she didn't get my telepathic memo that this wasn't really about French.

"I don't have a problem with it, though. The way I see it, you're doing me a favor either way, so I might as well just sit back and watch the show," he speaks for the first time since walking up and gladly noticing my presence. The way he says it though, I swear that I can hear that malicious undertone to it. It's there; it's just not…there enough for Emily to pick up. I take another deep breath to keep from lunging across the table and ripping out his vocal cords, but I figure if he wants to play this game, might as well show him whose game he's playing.

"But you're the guest," I insist, holding my arms out in the direction of Emily's French book as a broadcast. "So we'll go from wherever you want to."

"I told you, it doesn't matter to me. We're still going to get the same thing anyways," he says, and it's there in his eyes. He doesn't mean speaking French either; he means something else. The same something I'm talking about. Of course, Emily's staring at the two of us with stars in her eyes, so she doesn't see it. I wonder if she's hearing little wedding bells in her mind. I have to swallow down the gag that I know was coming, and blink rapidly. At least Hanna isn't present; she'd be all over Toby telling him how I obviously want that hot angry sex.

"Then conjugating verbs it is," I say stiffly, forcing a smile back on my face.

Toby smiles back, but this time he's not bathing in Windex. He's hiding behind a concrete wall.


Well well well…looks like they're playing dirty. So let me know what you think! It'll be a bit before my next update; school starts back up tomorrow (sob) but I only have eight more hellacious weeks of it before I'm free, free as a bird. I will, however, always make it up to you, and promise a good chapter next time I update. Do you think Emily was serious about Toby wanting to call it quits with the whole hating Spencer thing, or do you think he's doing the same thing as our beloved heroine and just playing nice for Em's sake? Is Hanna ever going to get the satisfaction of saying she was right in Spencer and Toby having angry sex? The only way you'll find out is if you leave me a lovely review. xo