“Sometime before six, I think.”  Clay offered.  Spencer gave Clay a rancid look, and Clay pursed her lips. 

            “Good.  I expect you both down by five to help me with dinner.”  Spencer said nothing, and Clay smiled.

            “Sure.”

            “I’ll be in my room.”  Spencer offered with a cold smile.  Stomping up the stairs like a herd of angry elephants, Spencer went to her room.  Slamming the door, she grabbed the phone.  Dialing Ashley’s number.  This could not be happening, her mother hadn’t done this to her, she couldn’t be this desperate, the phone rang.

            “Hello Lucy, I’m home…”  Ashley answered with a giggle and a Ricky Ricardo accent, having seen Spencer’s number on her cell phone id caller. 

            “Oh my god, you in a mood today.”  Spencer said, “You’ll never guess what my mother did.”

            “She put bars on the windows?  No, wait!  She bought you a chastity belt?”

            “Almost as bad, she brought my Grandmother here from Ohio.  To watch over me, I’m sure.”

            “Okay, you are paranoid.  Hello?  Your brother just messed up his knee royally and your ‘rents are having domestic problems, chill out girl.  Not everything is about you being a big, bad dyke…”  Ashley laughed, taking the DVD from the burner and putting gently into the case.

            “You chill out.  Ash…”  Spencer lamented, throwing herself on the bed with a long, deep, hot sigh.  “I want things to back to the way they were.  I want my parents to trust me again.”

            “You want things to go back…”  Ashley said softly, hurt in her voice.  Wanting Spencer to be with her, and not locked up behind her own bedroom doors.  Ashley had finally found herself in a relationship that she wanted, one that she had desperately needed in her life, in a life that was usually spent alone.  Now, Spencer was saying she wanted to end it?

            “I don’t mean like that, stop being so silly.”  Spencer stated.  She was quickly learning that Ashley was very ill at ease about the status of their relationship.  Second guessing and taking things out of context.