Page 46 of A Future in the Bay

ISAIAH: Hey! Are we still on for painting tomorrow morning?

“This is good,” he muttered. “She likes scheduling. She’ll like that I’m thinking about scheduling too.” Then he groaned, realizing how much he sounded like a lovesick puppy.

He took a few more steps, continuing to pace, and then his phone buzzed. Delighted and surprised, he checked the screen and saw that Gwen had sent an almost immediate response.

GWEN: We’re still on. Why? Are you getting chicken?

He grinned, chuckling to himself, and texted her back quickly.

ISAIAH: Gosh, no. I’m an excellent painter. You should be feeling nervous, because you’re about to lose tomorrow’s painting competition.

In only a few more seconds, his phone buzzed with another reply.

GWEN: You might be good, but you’re not better than me. I’m efficiency incarnate.

He laughed, finding that he was grinning from ear to ear like a goof. He hadn’t expected her to be so funny, and he couldn’t stop chuckling as they continued to banter back and forth over texting.

Finally, he took a deep breath, deciding that now was the moment—now before he lost his nerve. He carefully typed out his next text.

ISAIAH: Would you be up for another jet boat ride with me, even after a long day of painting?

He waited, no longer pacing, staring at the screen as he waited for her response. He hadn’t made it entirely obvious that he was asking her out, but considering the flirtatious energy that had been happening between them, he felt as if she must have some inkling that he liked her. What if she read his invitation, and told him no? Wouldn’t that imply that she was telling him she wasn’t interested in him like that?

He swallowed, feeling his blood rush in his veins. He started to pace again, telling himself to take it easy, but he felt nervous as he waited for her to reply. Finally, almost five minutes later, his phone buzzed.

GWEN: Sounds great to me.

His eyebrows lifted, and the goofy grin returned to his face. He felt a rush of surprise that she’d said yes—he’d been telling himself that she was going to turn him down. He let out a huge sigh, his heart thumping.

All of a sudden, he couldn’t wait for tomorrow.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Gwen smoothed down her hair as she walked up to the front entrance to Little Clams. It was a beautiful Saturday morning, and although she felt a little jittery, her spirits were high. She was excited to spend the day painting, something she enjoyed, and even more than that, she was looking forward to going out on the boat with Isaiah when their work was done. She’d been thrilled when he’d started texting her the night before, and even though she’d had to wrestle with herself before agreeing to go out on the boat with him again, by that time she was feeling great about her decision.

She stepped inside the cool, dim building and began to make her way toward the classroom where she knew they were planning to start painting. As she turned down one of the hallways, she froze.

“What on earth?” she muttered, staring at the line of paint cans that was stretched along the wall.

She continued to walk, her confusion growing as the line of paint cans just kept going. She followed it all the way to the classroom where she was planning on meeting Isaiah.

He was already inside, whistling as he scrubbed the walls of the room, preparing them to be painted. He appearedperfectly calm and cheerful, something she couldn’t understand considering the army of unwanted paint cans that was marching down the hallway.

“Good morning!” he said, his face lighting up into a grin when he saw her. “How are you this morning?”

“Confused,” she said honestly. “What on earth is all the paint for?”

He laughed. “Well, we asked people to donate it, didn’t we?”

“But—” She shook her head, feeling a wave of frustration over how inefficient their plan had turned out to be. This was why she always liked to plan things carefully! Because otherwise, things like this could go wrong. She should have thought more carefully about the whole situation once she’d realized how much paint was being donated. “This is too much. It’s extremely inefficient. What are we going to do with all this extra paint?”

He shrugged, grinning at her. “We’ll think of something.”

“But—in the meantime, there’s paint cans all over the school! Those will have to be cleared out, and we need somewhere to store them before we can find somewhere to donate them, if anyone could even possibly want that much paint?—”

“Well, we do. We want lots of paint.”

“Not this much!”

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