Yes.

The gun was exactly where Evelyn had left it. Picking it up Spencer wasn’t even sure how to check if the safety was on or if it was even loaded. He thought it weird to carry it all the way back down to his farmhouse holding it so instead tucked it into his jacket pocket making sure the barrel was facing away from his body. He hurried as fast as he could back home without risking a misfire.

Even with the added haste, Spencer was almost an hour and a half late by the time he got to the school to pick Amy up. There were no cars parked in the pick-and-ride or sign of his daughter so Spencer parked by the administration building and went inside.

At the school reception, Amy was seated in the waiting area idly flicking through one of her school textbooks without any real interest. She looked bored as only a teen girl can manage to look.

“Amy, sweetie. Sorry, I’m so late. I got caught up on the mountain,” he began apologising to her immediately.

“Finally, Dad!” Amy huffed and went to stand up.

From the principles office came the voice of Mary Winters. “Spencer? Is that you at last?”

Spencer would have preferred to pick Amy up from the school’s receptionist Abigail rather than the head of the school. Especially after the principal had trapped him in a cupboard and come onto him last time.

“Yes, Miss Winters,” Spencer called back hoping she wouldn’t come out but she did anyway. “Sorry to have kept you back so long on a Friday afternoon,” he told her now that she was there with them.

“No trouble at all. And call me Mary too. You’re the PTA President now don’t forget. We’d two would make quite the power couple here at Avonwick Junior,” Mary flirted heavily Spencer thought.

“Yes, Mary. Well, thank you once again,” Spencer answered avoiding the other things she’d said entirely.

“No trouble dear. I’m happy to drop Amy out at your farmstead if you ever need to be late again. Or I could have her over and you could… come… to mine,” Mary offered alluringly.

“It won’t happen again I promise,” Spencer said finally as he took Amy by the arm and guided her quickly from the building.

Back in the car, Spencer gave Amy a quick accounting of what had happened for him to be late, minus the part about finding Evelyn Malone naked. Her take on the subject was to ask for a cell phone.

“Dad, can I have an iPhone if you’re going to be late all the time? It was so boring in there waiting for you.”

“It really was a one-time thing, Amy. It won’t happen again. I’ll be more careful with my time in the future,” Spencer told her. He didn’t think she was quite old enough yet to have her own phone.

“Miss Winters really wants to bang you, you know Dad,” Spencer told him in a sudden about turn in the conversation.

“Amy! Dear Lord! We don’t talk like that or about those things,” Spencer admonished his daughter in a shocked tone.

Amy just laughed at her prude of a father. “Miss Winter wouldn’t leave me alone and kept wanting to talk about you until I told her all about Dani.” Another even cheekier laugh. “And how you bang her all the time!”

“Amy! Stop it!” Spencer growled but he was laughing too.

“Maybe you could bang a little sister into Dani for me?”

“My God Amy! When did you get so crude? If you promise to stop saying banging, I’ll look at getting Dani to bring you back an iPhone from New York.”

Satisfied she’d got her way, Amy smiled happily. “I bet you’d two would have such cute babies…”

At Cherryville, Darcie Collins dropped down into her seat on the bleachers next to Spencer and her husband. She had a trio of golden yellow beers in plastic cups that she passed a share of to Spencer and Tony. If Darcie was going to have to get out of bed before eight thirty am on a weekend to make sure Kimberly got to her softball game, she was going to get a beer out of it.

“Let’s go, Kim!” Darcie yelled out and whistled shrilly as Kimberly, Amy and the rest of the Avonwick Junior High School girls’ softball team ran out to start the game.

Spencer and Tony joined her in a tad quieter encouragement of their respective daughters.

Over the course of the seven innings, Spencer and Darcie got to the business of being the President and Vice President of the school’s PTA. They were still hampered from doing anything really significant until they’d had their first PTA meeting which would also have to wait until the PTA bank accounts were passed over to their signatures. That was also on hold until Danielle arrived back at the bank in her role as Customer Service Manager and not Spencer’s girlfriend. Still from Spencer’s dinner with Loren the other night, they came up with areas they thought they could easily improve upon. One of which was Loren’s micro-management of the school’s canteen. Britney Lochlan had worked in the cafeteria for the past half a dozen years. While going through the handover with Loren, Spencer had seen that Britney did 90% of the work there; stocktakes, ordering, cooking and cleaning, and staffing requirements. Everything but set the menu herself and yet Loren Chapman required Britney to run every single little scrap of information past herself before signing off on it. If Spencer was to find a chef willing to help out with creating the dishes they sold and just left the rest to Britney’s management, that would cut out hours of work a week right there. It was a good start.

In the softball game, the Cherryville girls quickly went 1 – 0 up in the first innings with a runner home. Avonwick was able to bring them back in the third with a trio of girls home off a home run making them 1 – 3 and in the lead. Cherryville answered in the very next innings with a double that had them tied but a pair of their own gave Avonwick the lead again 3 – 5 in the sixth that they held off until the end of the game. Amy and Kimberly both played really well in their assigned positions although neither of them managed to make it all the way to home. Amy got off the plate three times with good hits and Kimberly twice. There was much rejoicing from the Avonwick teens at their first win and a successful start to the season. Jessica Wolf led her charges in a round of cheers for their defeated opposition in good sportsmanship.

Another thing for the PTA to look at was noticed by Darcie during the mid-part of the match when she said, “don’t the girls' uniforms look a bit shit in comparison to the others?”

It was true although Spencer hadn’t noticed until Darcie said it. The Avonwick greens were much faded in comparison to the bright red of Cherryville’s uniforms.

“I hadn’t noticed until you said it but your right,” Spencer agreed. He’d seen the older condition of Amy’s own uniform when he’d cleaned it but hadn’t noticed the entire group as a whole.

“What do new uniforms cost?” Tony asked. He’d been following along with Spencer and Darcie’s conversation as well as the game. “Is there a business in town you could ask to help sponsor?”

“There might be,” Spencer said coming up with an idea on who to ask. “Leave it with me and I’ll ask.”

With the game over the three parents came back down from the bleachers to congratulate their children. Amy and Kim were both ruddy-cheeked from the cold as well as the excitement of victory.

“Everyone’s going to Burger Shack to celebrate. Can we go?” the two young women asked in near-perfect unison.

Spencer was happy to stay and for Amy to go but Tony answered quickest, ”I’m happy to stay and bring Amy back to ours for the night if you two wanted to leave now. Maybe get a drink at McClaren’s?”

Spencer could have just as easily stayed but Darcie agreed with her husband’s idea. Darcie dug the keys to their car out of her bag and passed them to Tony before wishing Kimberly congratulations once again. Spencer had dug his hand into his pocket to bring out some money to give to Amy but Tony waved his cash away as if the idea was ridiculous.

Walking towards the car alone, Darcie asked Spencer, “going to let me drive after last time?”

He would have given Darcie the keys if he could. “It’s already a loaner and it’s a sole driver on the insurance, unfortunately.”

Darcie didn’t mind. She was just as happy to be driven around in a BMW as she had been in Spencer’s previous Mercedes.