Chapter 10:
Spencer Hastings pulled her car off the road to the shoulder and once the car came to a complete stop, she turned it off. Sitting in the driver seat, she looked out the window and watched all the different cars blurring past her.
When the traffic seemed to slow, she quickly exited her car and moved towards her trunk. For such a warm day, she felt a cold shiver run over her body and she weakly smiled to the sky. Opening the back of her car, she removed the small arrangement of flowers and held them close to her chest.
Closing the door, she started to make her way to a patch of grass that held all different flowers and some crosses. Another shiver passed over her body when she kneeled down in the grass and gentle placed the flowers against the others.
"Hey," She whispered as she leaned back against her heels. "I'm sorry for not coming by to visit in the last few days," Her hands were picking away leaves that had been stuck in between the flowers and crosses. "My classes have been kicking my butt and the teachers have been throwing projects at us left and right. I've been spending almost every day at the library trying to keep up."
Spencer placed her hands in her lap and let out a sigh when she felt a light breeze touch her cheek. "Okay, so maybe those aren't the only reasons for me not stopping by to talk with you. I met this great guy and we seemed to be hitting it off really well, I just wasn't sure how to tell you about it without feeling guilty."
"I know you'd want me to move on and find someone new to love, I just didn't think it would happen so soon. He reminds me so much of you Scott, from how he talks all the way to his interests. I think that is one of the reasons we are getting along so good, because he is so easy to like, just like you were." A single tear fell from her eye as she starred at the worn out photo of the man who used to hold her heart.
The sound of a car stopping caused her to wipe her face as she turned her body around to see who drove up.
Spencer turned back around to look at his photo. "Hey." She said as Emily walked over and sat down on the grass beside her.
"Thought I'd find you here," Emily sent her friend a small smile. "Hey Scott, I miss you buddy." She said resting her hand on his photo for a few seconds before pulling her hand away.
"I miss him so much Em." Spencer said while leaning her body into her friend. "I lost him so fast, that I didn't have a chance to fix the fight we had before he died. We left everything on such bad terms and I just wish that I had told him I loved him one last time."
Emily wrapped her arm around her body and rubbed her arm. "He knows Spence. Have you talked to him about Toby yet?"
"Was just telling him when you pulled up. Em, I feel guilty about moving on to Toby." She confessed.
"What? Why? It's a good thing that you are moving on; you know that is what Scott would want for you."
Spencer nodded. "I know, I just don't know if I'm ready to have him be replaced."
"That will never happen, you want to know why?" Emily asked.
She shook her head.
"Because he will always be in your heart and even if you end up falling in love with Toby, it won't take any love away that you still have for Scott."
"Thanks Em," Spencer raised her arm up, giving Emily a half hug.
"Anytime Spence, you know I'm always here for you to talk." Emily leaned her head against her friends and the pair fell into a comfortable silence.
Later that evening
"One second." His voice called from the other side of the door.
Spencer smiled as she heard a lot of movement before Toby appeared in front of her. "Hey, come on in." He said moving to the side of the door to let her pass. "Did you have a good study session at the library today?"
Spencer nodded as she entered the apartment. "I did and ended up getting more done than I had originally planned, so I'm very happy."
"That's great Spence," He smiled as he shut the door and then held out his hand to her. "So, would you like the grand tour?"
She took his hand and smiled when he laced their fingers. "I would love the tour."
Toby took the next five minutes walking Spencer throughout the entire apartment. "And last but not least, the kitchen." He said as he walked them over to the counter. "What can I get you to drink? I have water, beer, wine and ice-tea."
"A beer is fine with me." She said as she placed her elbows on the counter top as he made his way to the refrigerator. "So what do you have planned for us this evening?"
Toby walked back over with her beer and placed it down. "I was thinking we could throw on a movie for background noise while we play a board game."
"A board game?" She questioned while taking a sip of her beer. "Which ones do you have?"
"Let's go take a look and you can pick out the game, I'll choose the movie?" He asked grabbing his own beer into his hand.
"Sure, sounds fair." She smiled and followed him into the adjoined room.
"Alright, have a seat on the couch, I'll go grab what I have and be right back."
Spencer nodded as she sat down and once he left, she took the opportunity to gaze around the room. She took in the different sized photos that hung on the walls, most of which were of his father and him. She noticed that he had a decent sized book and music collection that took up different shelves and she made a mental note to check out which books he actually had.
"So some of the pieces might be missing from some of these games, but I'm sure we can still play without them." Toby explained as he walked back into the small living room and took a seat next to her.
Spencer smiled and watched as he laid out the four different games. "You've got Monopoly, Sorry, Scrabble and a checkers/chess board." She picked up each of the games and opened the boxes to see which one had all or most of their pieces. "How's your spelling?" She asked with a teasing smile as she held up the game of Scrabble.
For the next 45 minutes, the pair enjoyed the board game with a bunch of teasing remarks and laughs. "Did you memorize the dictionary or something?" Toby teased as she placed down another word worth 25 points.
They both were sitting on the ground, the board in between them while a Disney movie played in the background. "Even if I didn't, you still would be losing." She teased back as she reached for her beer.
"So you are admitting to memorizing the dictionary?" He questioned with a grin and raised brow.
Spencer just smiled and finished off her beer while Toby placed a few tiles down on the board. "You're getting better, that's an 8 point word." She said with a smile as she wrote down his score.
"Compared to your 15 plus points at your every turn?" Toby let out a small laugh as he stood up. "Want a refill?" He asked as he moved out of the room back into the kitchen.
"Sure and I have not been getting 15 points each turn. My one before my last was only 11 points."
"It's still better than my 5 to 8 points a turn." He said as he returned, sat down and handed her a new beer.
"Thanks," She smiled and looked down at her tiles for her next move. "Well you'll be happy about this; I can only come up with an 8 point word for my turn." She said as she placed the small squares down.
"Only because we are close to finishing the game and all the tiles have been taken. I'm sure if you had the option to switch out, you'd come up with another big word to beat me."
"Maybe, that a tough call to make seeing how we don't have much space left on the board either." She said after taking a long sip of her beer.
Toby fiddled around with his tiles for an extra couple of seconds before picking up his beer. "I guess it's time for me to admit defeat, I have no letters that will work, so you darling are the winner."
"Do you really not having any letters that will work or are you just saying that so we can end the game?" She questioned.
"Take a look yourself," He said as he spun around his holder so she could see his remaining squares. "Can't make a word out of a Z,K,P or W."
"No, I guess not." She laughed softly and began to clean off the board.
"You don't have to clean the game up; I'll take care of it." He smiled and nodded his head towards the couch. "Go relax on the couch and watch the movie, I'll grab us some popcorn."
"Are you sure? I don't mind putting the game away." Spencer offered but Toby shook his head while moving the rest of the tiles away from her with a smile.
"I do mind, there is no way I'm letting the winner of the game have to clean and put it away." Toby leaned forward and placed a quick kiss to her lips. "Now up on the couch you go."
"Fine." She agreed and shifted her body upwards and leaned her back into the cushions while turning her attention to the movie.
Toby piled all the squares on the board and lifted the whole thing to the small coffee table before leaving the room to make the popcorn.
He returned to the room 5 minutes later and sat down next to her. "Have you seen this movie before?" He asked as he held out the large bowl of popcorn for both of them to share.
"I have, but not in a very long time. This was one of my favorite movies growing up." She said as she took a small amount of popcorn into her hand.
"Have you seen the second one they made, where the two of them fly to Australia to save the little boy?"
Spencer nodded. "Do you have a lot of Disney movies in your collection?"
"Not too many, most of the ones I own are ones that I used to watch with my father."
Spencer reached for his hand and gave it a small squeeze. "You both were really close; I noticed that you have a lot more photos of the two of you than of anyone else and you."
Toby moved the bowl of popcorn to sit next to the game of scrabble on the coffee table before answering Spencer.
"Yeah, he was my best friend; I loved spending time with him. Even when I was in high school and most of my friends had the worst relationships with their fathers, ours was still strong as ever. A part of me died the day my mom called me and told me the news. I didn't believe her at first, I wasn't even in town when it happened and broke every law possible while driving just to make sure I was back home before night fall. It finally sunk in when I walked through the front door of our house and my mother was in the living room with tears streaming down her face. I had never seen her cry in my whole life and I knew that my father was really gone."
"What happened to him?" Spencer asked softly as she turned on the couch to face him.
"He had a heart attack while out on a job and fell down a flight of stairs. By the time they got him to the hospital, he had already passed away." Toby said with complete sadness in his voice.
"Toby, I am so sorry if I made you upset by asking, I wasn't thinking."
"It's okay," He started and even let out a smile when he saw that she still had an apologetic look on her face. "Really Spence, I'm okay. I learned a long time ago that his death had happened because it was meant too. There was nothing that I or anyone else would have been able to do to stop it. My mother helped me understand that and it's helped me move on in a way that I can sit here today and talk about his death without having a major breakdown about it."
Spencer nodded and half smiled at him. "Well, I still feel bad for asking no matter how okay you are."
Toby let out a low chuckle, pulled her into his body after wrapping both his arms around her, and kissed the top of her head. "Any better?"
"A little," She leaned her head on his chest and closed her eyes as she listened to his heart beating. "Toby, thank you for tonight, I really needed this." She said shifting more comfortably into his body.
"You're welcome." Toby said and started to run one of his hands up and down on her back slowly as his eyes focused back onto the movie.
When the movie ended, Toby looked down and smiled when he saw that Spencer had fallen asleep on top of him. Gently with his hand, he pushed back a strand of her brown hair that was covering her some of her face and tucked it behind her ear. "Spence." He spoke softly as he moved his hand back to rubbing her back to try to wake her up. "Movie is over, time to wake up."
Spencer let out a small groan, turned her face more into his chest, and brought up one of her hands to help hide. "Do I have too?" She muttered against him.
"If it were up to me, no, I'm enjoying having you sleeping on me way too much to ever want to let you go."
"So why are you waking me up then?"
"Because you have class in the morning and also, it gives me the opportunity to drive you back to your dorms, forcing you to leave your car behind and allowing me another chance to see you this week."
Spencer smiled as she lifted her head off his chest and leaned up to kiss him. "Guess we know who the real winner of the night is huh?"
Toby laughed as she shifted off his body and stood up to stretch. "I'd still say you, I just got lucky enough that you fell asleep and now it's really late and I wouldn't have felt comfortable letting you drive alone."
"That is very thoughtful of you." She smiled again and bent down to pick up the bowl of uneaten popcorn in one hand, her other grabbing their empty beer bottles. "I'll help you clean up and then we can go."
"Sure, if you want to take those, I'll take care of the game."
Spencer nodded and made her way to the kitchen. When she returned, Toby was sitting in the exact same spot on the couch, only difference was he had a goofy grin on his face.
"Do I even want to ask?" She asked with a half smile.
"I placed out some words on the scrabble board that I believe will score me a lot of points. Do you think you could check for me?"
Spencer playfully rolled her eyes at him. "Only way to beat me is after the game is over huh?"
"Something like that." The same grin still present on his face as he stood up and motioned her over to the table.
Spencer moved to stand next to him and leaned down to read the board. The half smile on her face opening up into a full one as she straightened back up and turned to face him. "Really?"
"Yes really," Toby smiled back at her and wrapped both his arms around her waist. "So what's do you say, will you be my girlfriend?"
"Of course I will." Spencer said while putting her arms around his neck as she leaned up on her toes to kiss him.
"You never told me how many points I won for those words." Toby teased when he pulled away from their kiss after a few seconds. "Did I end up beating up for the final score?"
Spencer let out a laugh and muttered a quick, 'Just shut up and kiss me' as she reached back up to join their lips.
A/N: Just a quick note. You guys got a little detail on what happened in Spencer's past and also a little more insight to Toby's relationship with his father. As the chapters go on, more and more details on both of these pasts will surface.
Also, next chapter will not be posted until after Jan 11th. I am going out of state for a week and even though I'll have my laptop with me, I will not be spending my whole trip writing. As I said in my other story, I will try but no promises will be made.
All spelling and grammer mistakes are my own. Sorry for not catching them. ;)
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SpobyTreeganPll and Bellisariobitch: Thank you both so very much for your kind words on this story! I couldn't stop smiling after reading what you both wrote. I promise you that nothing bad will happen in this story. (I will send all my bad ideas to my other Spoby story since that one is a drama. lol) :)
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Hope all you readers had a great New Years Day and thank you in advance for anyone who reviews, follows or favs this love story. :)