𝑭𝒐𝒐𝒕𝒍𝒐𝒐𝒔𝒊𝒏' 𝑰𝒕 | 𝑹𝒆𝒏 𝑴𝒄𝑪𝒐𝒓𝒎𝒂𝒄𝒌

3

《︎𝘈𝘶𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘳'𝘴 𝘗𝘖𝘝》︎

"Progress. What does progress mean to you?" Reverend Shaw started.

"Here we go.." Chloe huffed to herself. She felt her friend, Rusty nudge her. She sat on the end of a church pew by the girls.

"We have computers in our pockets, telephones in our automobiles, and money on a plastic card. Who here today remembers a time when you had to go inside the bank to get your money? Remember old Mr. Rucker down at Bomont State Bank? Every time you made a deposit, he'd give you a piece of Bazooka gum. Now, I haven't yet met an ATM machine that would give me a piece of Bazooka chewing gum, let alone make me feel special, like Mr. Rucker did."

Chloe could see the girls glancing over at the row beside them but decided to pay attention to the sermon in case Roger tried to quiz her after Service.

Ren glanced over when he felt eyes on him, he saw the girls giggling at him. He looked at Chloe who payed no attention to anything around her accept for the Reverend. He smirked to himself and turned his focus back to the service.

"Now, is that progress? Today more and more, as families, we are tuning each other out. We're either surfing on the Internet, texting on our cell phones, or staring mindlessly at a television set. Now, if that is a portal to the world, I want no part of it. These are the people that we need to tune in to. Everyone in this church." And with that the service ended.

As everyone left the church, Reverend Shaw stood outside saying goodbye to the congregation. Wesley approached him with Ren by his side.

"Nice preaching today, Reverend." Wes says as he shakes Shaw's hand.

"Wes, Good to see you." Shaw replied.

"Yes, sir, you too." He turns and motions to Ren. "This is my sister's son, the one I was telling you about. Ren McCormack."

"Ren, welcome to Bomont." He says with a big charming smile on his face.

"How you doing?" Ren replies in his thick Boston accent.

"We are so happy to have you with us." They smile at the boy. "I think you're gonna like Bomont High School. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, the graduating class this year is the biggest in the school's history." Shaw turns to beckon Roger over. "Hey, Roger, Come on over here! You too, Clover get over here." She smiles and they walk over. "How many seniors we have at Bomont High this year?"

Roger thinks for a second. "About 220."

Chloe scoffs."Yeah, give or take a dropout." Ren scoffs quietly. Their gazes meet, but she quickly turns her attention back to Shaw.

"Roger's the school principal and Clover here is his daughter." He lightly shakes her shoulder. "That's a good kid right there." He says pointing to Chloe.

"Hey." Ren says shaking Roger's hand.

He smiles back. "Wait... Do you play football? 'Cause we really need a good kicker."

Chloe groans and throws her head back. "Oh my gosh, Roger! The kid has only been here for five minutes and you're already trying to recruit him."

Roger shakes his head and ignores his daughter's comments. "Look Ren, if you're gonna play for us, you gonna have to stay clean, keep out of trouble. I heard you already had a little run-in with the law."

Ren looks down as his uncle's eyes widen. "You what?" Wes exclaims.

"I don't know how it is up in Boston, but down here we have rules against playing music too loud." Roger says.