Chapter 3

I couldn't take it any longer. She was following me around everywhere I went. She wasn't that bad, but she started to talk to her loser boyfriend Andrew in the morning, and he irritated me. The little fucker thought he could threaten me that day we met? He had nothing on me! He was obviously insecure about his relationship with virgin Spencer.

No offense to Andrew, but the guy was a stupid idiot. Dating Spencer, but wouldn't do her? I actually meant for total offense towards him, but whatever. A girlfriend like that, but he still wouldn't have sex with her... He was either gay or psycho! Girl's a stuck up, rich, goody-good, but that didn't mean she wasn't hot, because she totally was.

"Lights out, Toby," Dad said, switching off my bedroom lights and walking back to his own room.

I sighed before getting out of bed and shutting the door. He honestly thought I was going to go to sleep when Jacob's party was going on? I'd been sober too long! I didn't even remember the last time I had a drink or smoked anything, and it felt weird. That stuff had always been in my nature, since I got so used to it.

I climbed out of my window, carefully getting out. I kept my balance pretty well when I walked down the roof. I jumped off, and the impact was a little painful, but it wasn't that bad. I'd jumped off my roof so many times that I became a master at it.

I walked down a few blocks until I reached Jacob's house. There were flashy lights and people yelling and screaming. How did the neighbors never report him? Anyways, I rang his doorbell, and this other guy named Robert opened the door. We were sort of friends from school, but we weren't that close.

"Aye, Cavanaugh!" Robert exclaimed, patting my back. "Ya actually made it, huh? People thought you died or somethin'. You ain't been around much lately. What's with that?"

"Got busted for some shit the other day, and my parents put me on lockdown," I explained, sighing. "It's been hell for me."

"Oh man, I can only imagine," Robert said, grinning. "You gotta find a way out of it, 'cause we've been missing ya, kid. Get on in here. The boys will be damn happy to see you again!"

I nodded my head, but walked right past him. His fake friendliness was a bit annoying. He didn't even know me well! I walked to the backyard, where people were actually hanging. I looked around and spotted Jacob talking to Noel Kahn and... Spencer?

"Jacob," I said, butting into their conversation so I could see if the brunette was actually her. "Hey, bro. What's up?"

"Cavanaugh!" Jacob exclaimed, grinning. "Welcome back. We thought you fell off the face of the earth. It's good to have you back."

"Toby, you're not supposed to be here!" Spencer yelled. "Noel, Jacob, I need to talk to him alone. Could you guys just get out of here for a quick moment?"

"What's up, cupcake?" I asked, grinning, and leaning back against the wall.

"Don't do that!" Spencer yelled. "You're supposed to be at home, sleeping."

"Oh, so I can't come to this party, but good girl Spencer can?" I asked, raising my eyebrows. "I never thought you were the party kind, so I wasn't expecting to see you here. I certainly didn't think you were buddies with Jacob or Noel, either."

"Well, I am, and Noel has a crush on my friend Aria, so he always wants to be around me to get more information about her," she said, shrugging. "Besides, I don't do bad stuff at parties. Your parents don't want you here. How did you get out of your room?"

"How do you think I did? I snuck out, genius!" I said like it was obvious. "You gonna go rat me out to my folks or what?"

"I won't, but you need to leave and get home right now!" Spencer cried. "Go home, Toby."

"Spencer, w-we need to talk!" Andrew Campbell shouted, grabbing her arm.

Holy crap, was the nerd boy drunk? He was! His words sounded slurred and weird, so it was almost obvious. She gave me a look before grabbing his hand and walking off with him somewhere. I knew she would be back to continue scolding me and telling me how what I did was wrong and stupid. But, I figured that whatever was going on with Andrew was going to escalate in no time, so I followed her.

I didn't mean to spy on her or anything, I just had a gut feeling that it was gonna go wrong. Come on, the dude was drunk! I wasn't going to let him be alone with Spencer. She kept looking out for me, so I owed it to her, even if she was forced to look out for me. No matter how much of a pain in the ass she could be, I wouldn't let somebody hurt her.

"I am fucking sick of you spending all your time with that low life loser!" Andrew screamed. "He's got nothing! You're going to ruin your life if you keep hanging around him!"

"Andrew, calm down, you're drunk," Spencer said calmly. "You know that this Toby thing is just my assignment. I'm not besties with him, if that's what you're thinking."

Bad move. You never tell a drunk guy that he's drunk!

"Listen here," he said angrily. "I can't stop thinking about the thought of you screwing him. It's killing me. Spencer, I love you! I don't want to lose you to him, baby!"

"There's nothing going on between us!" Spencer frantically tried to defend herself. "Andrew, if anything, he hates my guts. He thinks I'm some kind of nerd who's always on his case. You don't have any competition. You're making this a bigger deal than it is, and the only thing that's driving me away from you is your constant jealousy! If we just stay the way we always have been, we wouldn't have any conflict at all."

"But things have to change, don't you understand? My friends make fun of me for being a virgin when I've got a girlfriend. We need to go to the next level, Spence!" Andre cried, and tried to kiss her.

"No, not when you're drunk," Spencer refused, yanking herself away.

"It's not because of how many fucking drinks I've had, is it?" Andrew challenged, folding his arms. "We have been going out for a long time, so it shouldn't be so hard if you really love me! Sex shouldn't be so hard when it's with the person you love, and I love you!"

"Stop it, Andrew, I don't want to do this right now," Spencer said, shaking her head. "We can talk about this tomorrow. Now isn't the time."

"We're not finished here!" Andrew yelled, and grabbed her wrist. "Let's finish this. It'll be good." He started kissing her neck.

"No, not like this!" Spencer cried. "Can't we at least wait until you're sober?"

"I need you now," Andrew whispered.

"Get off of me, please!" Spencer pleaded.

Okay, I knew there was gonna be trouble at that moment. I didn't mean to play the hero, but that was the way it looked when I ran in and tried to break it up. I didn't care at all if Spencer kept going out with that monkey (though the thought of him leaving my life made me happier), but would anybody stand there while somebody was about to get raped?

If I walked away, I would have had to live knowing that I let Andrew rape her, and that wasn't something I wanted to live with. So, I stopped it.

"Hey, idiot, when a girl tells you to get off, you fucking get off!" I yelled, punching him as hard as I could. "Get out of here, you douchebag. I thought I was a douche, and then I met you. Did you enjoy trying to hurt her?"

"Of course, Toby comes out here and plays the hero!" Andrew cried, clenching his teeth. "This is just brilliant, isn't it? The guy who's trying to steal my girlfriend."

"The only reason you're having problems with Spencer is because you're so insecure about the relationship that you keep bugging her about it. Touch her again, and I'll call the police," I threatened, standing in front of Spencer. "You tried to assault her, man. That's low."

"She's my girlfriend! I wasn't raping her," Andrew denied.

"You tried to force her into having sex when she told you to back off!" I yelled, glaring at him. "It wasn't consensual, so it's technically rape. Don't even try to justify the crap you just pulled, rapist. Get out of here, and don't you dare ever come close to Spencer again!"

I was surprised to see that Andrew left without putting up another fight. Spencer was staring at the floor, clearly traumatized.

"Spencer," I mumbled, biting my lip. "I'm sorry you had to deal with that. He's a jerk."

"I don't want things to be over with him!" Spencer cried, sobbing clearly. "I don't want our relationship to be over. How could you come in here and ruin everything, Toby?"

"He's not a good guy!" I cried. "Spencer, you can't honestly say you regret the end of your relationship when he tried to rape you. If I didn't come here, imagine what terrible things he would have made you do."

"How did you know he was doing this?" she asked.

"Gut instinct," I responded, grinning. "I had a feeling he was drunk, so I followed you here, and when he tried to go in, I had to do something about it. I know we're not amazingly close friends or anything, but I would never let him do that to you, you know."

"You're not a bad guy, and I'm sorry for judging you," she whispered.

To my surprise, she hugged me out of the blue. I hugged her back. I couldn't believe that whatever that was just happened! Andrew was a bigger idiot than I thought. There was always something that made me hate him, and my hatred grew stronger knowing that he just tried to pull that off.

"You still wanna yell at me and take me to my parents?" I asked.

"Toby, I wasn't going to do that," she responded, pulling away from me. "I was going to help you sneak back in. Do you want to get out of here now?"

"Yeah, this party sucks anyways," I said, nodding my head.

The car ride back to my house was quiet. I couldn't believe Spencer actually was helping me get back to my house. She pulled the car up, and was going to devise a plan for me to sneak back in, but before we could finish developing the plan, somebody started banging on the window of the car!

I turned my head, and my dad was standing here. Oh crap, I was gonna get in huge trouble! Plus, Spencer would probably be fired for helping me get away. Or she could turn me in and say that she was dropping me back.

"Toby!" Dad yelled, banging on the window again. "Get out of the car, son!"

My mother was behind him, and I could tell that they were both angry. Spencer gave me an apologetic look, and then we got out of her car. I betted that I would be grounded for life. My parents probably wouldn't hesitate since I broke their trust for the second time.

"What the hell are you doing?" Dad asked me, folding his arms. "You cannot leave this house for any reason, unless I tell you that you can! Where did you even go?"

I was going to confess to him about Jacob's party, but it seemed Spencer had my back because she stepped up and spoke.

"Mr. Cavanaugh, don't be mad at Toby," she said. "Somebody was trying to assault me at a party, and I texted Toby to come help me, because he was the most recent person I had texted. Sir, he saved my life tonight! Your son is a hero. I was stupid and went to this party that my boyfriend dragged me to. I'm lucky Toby swooped in."

"Oh, honey!" My mom cried, hugging Spencer. "I am so sorry you had to go through that! Toby, is this true?"

"I wanna be modest, but that's what happened," I said, shrugging. "It sounded serious, and I wasn't going to let her get hurt."

"If this happens again, all you have to do is alert us instead of sneaking off!" Dad cried. "What if you had gotten hurt? I could have brought more adults to the scene to handle that assaulter. Do you know who the person was?"

"We don't have to worry about that," Spencer said quickly. "Toby took care of everything. I owe him a huge thank you. So, um... thank you."

"No problem..." I mumbled.

Even though the story wasn't a total lie, did Spencer Hastings just cover for me?