*yawwwwnnnn*

He headed over to hold the door open for her. "How does dinner sound to you?"

Spencer mulled it over for a second as she walked out of the classroom then turned to lock the door behind her. "I guess that sounds good. What do you feel like eating?"

He fell instep beside her and shrugged, digging his car keys out of his pocket. "As long as there's red meat, I don't care."

Spencer thought for a minute before beginning to hail a cab. She then realized that he had a car and it would be pointless to take a cab. "There's a really good Italian place off of Broadway."

"Sounds good to me," he said before gesturing her over to where his car was parked. He patted the hood of the '67 Impala lovingly; take his home, his job, and his guns, but if anyone put an unkind hand on his baby, there would be hell to pay. "Let's go."

Spencer's heels clicked on the pavement as she walked over to the car and got in. "Nice car. How'd you get it?"

"A neighbor owned a junkyard and she," he patted the dash lovingly as he got in, "was sitting out there, broken down. He said if I built her back up, I could have her. Took a year and a half." Hiding the grin was hard but he thought he might have pulled it off. He started the engine. "So why'd you decide to be a teacher?"

Spencer smiled and shrugged. "I've always loved English and History. I thought that maybe I could pass that love onto someone else. My parents weren't thrilled about it in fact, my father actually said he was disappointed in me but it was the first time I really made my own decision. They were even more shocked when I told them I was joining cheerleading."

He raised an eyebrow. "What's so shocking about cheerleading?"

She smiled and shook her head. "It wasn't in the 'Hastings' plan'." Spencer looked at him. "My parents are really into tradition and planning. As was I once upon a time." She tucked a piece of hair behind her ears and hesitated before asking, "What did you find in my background check?"

He hedged for a moment, biting back a grin. "Well, it is government information..." He shakes his head with a snort of laughter. "Your name is Spencer Emily Hastings, 28, from California by way of Rosewood, Pennsylvania. In high school, between the grades and the awards, you were the epitome of an academic overachiever as well as the head of the cheerleading squad. A regular Little Miss Susy High School, weren't you," he teased. "What else do you want to know?"

Spencer laughed, "Actually, I was captain of the field hockey team. It wasn't until my junior year of college that I became the captain of the cheerleading squad." She took a deep breath and let it out before saying, "Did it say anything about the incident my junior year of high school?"

He mulled over his options for a moment before deciding that honesty was always the best policy. "Yeah," he said evenly as he pulled into traffic. "So why'd you decide to go from being a player to standing on the sidelines?"