Forward

Boom

Spencer wasn't oblivious. He knew the game Cheyenne was playing. Her calling herself his girlfriend when they weren't together. The extra touches and smiles. She had caught on to something. No matter what she thought had happened between he and Olivia, she felt something.

Cheyenne's hand stayed on Spencer's thigh throughout the dinner. Every once in awhile she'd look across the table at Olivia who stared back with a blank expression.

"So Cheyenne, you said you're a teacher," Frank asked, breaking the awkward silence that had formed between them.

"Assistant right now. I'm finishing up a master's degree in Education so I can teach full-time," she grinned. "But how in the world do you go from being a professional football player to software engineer? That's quite the switch up."

"I've always been passionate about it. I knew I had to have a backup plan after football and here I am. Spence, word of advice...have a plan, man. Too many of us get so involved in this football thing that we don't think about life after the game," Frank explained, tipping his glass to the rookie.

"I think I know what that backup plan may be," Olivia jumped in.

"And what is that," Spencer questioned, noticing the smirk forming on her lips.

"Baking. I think he can beat Martha Stewart in the kitchen if I'm being honest. Remember those cookies you baked when Jordan was home sick," Olivia rattled off, not realizing she was talking a bit too much.

"Oh yeah. Then we all were running back and forth to the bathroom all night. Thank God we didn't share one," Spencer added,  he and Olivia laughing at the memory.

Cheyenne moved her green beans around on her plate, the fork loudly scraping against the glass the harder she pressed.

Frank's eyes darted between the two old friends, "Wait, you two lived together?"

"Uh yeah. I went to Beverly for a year. Her dad was the coach back then," Spencer explained, before Olivia could answer the question. After all this time, he still felt the need to protect her. Even in moments where she clearly could handle herself.

Frank nodded and seemed to think nothing else of the new information. "Never knew that. She just said you and her brother were best friends. But that's dope that your coach cared enough about you to move you into his home."

"Must have been fun having a sister after all those years living with Dillon, huh,"Cheyenne sipped her drink and looked at Olivia who was biting the inside of her jaw. The tension was quite obvious now.

Cheyenne had backed Spencer into a corner to see how he'd react, "Liv actually wasn't that bad," he responded. Cheyenne recoiled at Spencer's tone. There was a slight sarcasm that she wasn't used to receiving from him in that way. She had struck a chord, though she had already annoyed him earlier that night with her pettiness. A part of him knew he should have been honest about him and Olivia's history before Cheyenne came into town. Before now, he never had to share that part of himself. Olivia was far away from Los Angeles and only visited once in a blue moon. Now in close quarters, both of their lovers were caught in the never-ending web. One of them not catching on as fast as the other. Or so Spencer thought.

Man to man, Frank saw the way Spencer looked at Olivia. That wasn't how a man looked at a woman he saw as a friend or sister. But, he chose not to act on it due to his own secrets. He and Olivia weren't official anyway, so was Spencer really a threat?

"Anyway," Olivia cleared her throat and the tension. "What are you guys planning to do for the week while Cheyenne is here?"

"Hoping he has time to show me around with his busy schedule," Cheyenne replied, turning back to her plate. "Maybe you can, Liv. I'm sure with you being a journalist, you have a bunch of free time? It's not a 9-5 type of position. Right?"