“It’s too dark.”

“I have two flashlights in the car.”

“Okay, let’s go.”

“How come your castle looks so professional and mine looks like a shoddy contractor built it?” Cooper asked as I used a small stick I’d found to carve windows.

“I can’t help it that I’m awesome.”

Cooper’s foot shot out and collapsed the right tower of my castle.

I gasped. “You did not just do that.” He was on his knees leaning over his castle, so I jumped up and landed right on top of it, the damp sand squishing between my toes. Cooper grabbed me around the legs, causing me to collapse onto his shoulder. He picked me up and spun me around. I pounded on his back but couldn’t stop laughing.

“All the blood is going to my head. Let me down.”

He did, but I was dizzy, so I fell to my hands and knees and then flung myself onto my back. I’d need a shower after this to get rid of all the sand that was now in my hair.

Cooper, who stood over me, poked my ribs with his foot. “I’m proud of you, Abby.”

“For what? My amazing sand-castle-building skills?”

“You know what for. You worked hard. You put yourself out there. You deserve it.” He held his hand out for me and I let him help me to my feet, where he pulled me into a hug.

We stood like that, staring out at the waves rolling in, for several long perfect moments. “Thank you,” I said. And in that moment I knew I had to try. I had to put myself out there in another way too. Maybe it would change everything. Maybe, like I knew I’d feared all along, I’d lose him as a friend and nobody would speak to me again and I’d be alone. Or maybe, just maybe, things would change for the better.

That night, still high from my time with Cooper, I texted Lacey: You’re right. Things do change. I’m ready to try with Cooper. Will you help me figure out a plan?

She texted back right away: Absolutely.

TWENTY-SIX

The next week passed by quickly in a flurry of gallery showrooms to lay out and invitations to send. I’d seen Cooper for a couple of hours here and there, but without the list directing our every move, we were back to our normal routine of lazy beach days and Friday night movies and milk shakes on the pier. Lacey had told me to hold off on any admissions while we concocted a brilliant plan.

Now, with only a week left until the showcase, I sat on the floor of Lacey’s bedroom, scheming. She held a notepad in her hand. “This is like a play I once saw,” she said.

I sat next to her, staring at the blank page, feeling like it represented exactly how I felt. I had no idea how I was going to win Cooper over. It wasn’t like I was going into this with no history. Would he still react the same way? It didn’t matter. I had changed. I wasn’t going to run away from something because I was worried it would make things different any longer.

“A play you once saw?” I asked.

“Yes, it was about a girl and a clueless guy.”

“And did it end well?”

“Let’s not talk about the play. This is real life.”

“So it didn’t end well?” I asked, widening my eyes.

She waved her hand through the air. “Oh, you know, typical dramatic ending: death, destruction, heartbreak. But anyway, the point is that she had to show her clueless boy what he was missing.”

I decided to ignore her horrible comparison and asked, “How do I do that?”

“First you have to make him miss it.”

“Huh?”

“Today is Monday. The art show is Sunday. That is six days from now.”

“Yes.”

“You can’t see Cooper until the art show.”

“Why not?” I couldn’t remember the last time I’d gone that many days without seeing Cooper.

“A boy has to miss that which he doesn’t know he desires before he realizes he desires it.”

“Sounds . . .”

“Completely logical.”

“I was going to say, sounds like a lot of head games.”

“Cooper needs a few head games, obviously. You tried the straightforward approach. Time to try something else.”

“Okay, so no seeing him for six days.” That was going to be hard. Cooper just showed up at my house all the time. How was I going to avoid him?

“Text him now. Tell him you’ll be setting up at the museum all week.”

“I will be setting up at the museum all week. Starting tomorrow.”

“There you go. No head games involved then.”

“He’ll stop by the museum. He’ll bring me cheesecake or something.”

“Why will he do that?”

“Because he does that sometimes. We’re friends.”

She growled. “Then you’ll have to keep a lookout for him and hide if you see him.”

“This sounds complicated,” I said. I didn’t like complicated.

“Love is complicated.”

“That should be on a T-shirt.”

“It probably already is.”

I smiled and looked back at her notepad. She hadn’t written any of the plans we’d discussed. She’d just drawn two stick figures holding hands with a heart between them.

“Which one am I?” I asked.

“The shorter one, obviously.” She added a dress onto the stick figure’s body. “You need a new dress. A perfect dress. Something that will make him see you as a woman and not a girl.”

I tried not to laugh, because I knew she was being serious. “That sounds like a line from a play.”

“But it’s a true line, nonetheless. Let’s go shopping this week. When do you get off every day?”

“Probably around sevenish.”

“Okay, we’ll go tomorrow. That way I can be sure you’re not sneaking to see your addiction.”

“I’m not addicted.”

“One time I tried to give up caffeine,” she said, ignoring my statement. “I got a headache. I wonder if you’re going to get a headache this week.”

Lacey may have been new in my life, but now I knew she was teasing me. I took the notepad from her and added a few embellishments to the dress she’d sketched—some small flowers along the neckline, pleats below the waistline, and pockets. I loved a dress with pockets.

“When you can make a stick figure’s dress look nicer than anything I own, you’re a true artist.”

I handed her back the notepad and she studied the dress.

“No flowers,” she said. “We’re ditching the girl and embracing the woman, remember? But I like the rest. And it needs to be red.”

“Red? I was thinking black.”

“Trust me on this one. You are wearing red.”

“Okay, so he sees me at the art show in my new red dress that makes me look more woman than girl and then . . . what?”

“Then you tell him how you feel and you kiss him. You won’t be able to joke your way out of that.”

“You want me to kiss him right in the middle of the art show surrounded by people?”

“No, you don’t want an audience when you kiss him for the first time. It needs to be a life-changing kiss. A kiss that turns stubborn hearts.”