*~Hey Everyone! I had a lot of time on my hands today, so I figured I'd go ahead and type up the 2nd chapter. Thanks to everyone who has put me and this story on your Alert List! It really means a lot! R&R!~*

"Ferb, I know what we're gonna do today!" The familiar words echoed through my head first thing in the morning as Phineas proceeded to jump on my bed to wake me up. Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I slowly sat up in bed and turned to look at the clock on my night stand. 7:45 am. Well, I had to get up sooner or later. As Phineas discontinued his jumping and returned his feet back to the floor, I proceeded to crawl out of bed and go about my morning chores. Making my bed, choosing a t-shirt or something to wear, cleaning Perry's litter (seeing as Phineas always seemed to wiggle himself out of doing the task), and so on and so forth. It came to no surprise to me when I saw that my step-brother had already finished his tasks and was simply sitting on his bed waiting for me. "I already texted Isabella this morning and she said she was going to bring some ping pong paddles and balls. Buford and Baljeet are gonna bring a few supplies for us to use. Ferb, we're gonna build the best ping pong battle/game ever!" He announced happily as I proceeded to go into the bathroom to change clothes and brush my teeth. As he continued his rant about the game that we were going to build soon, I proceeded to finish up and head to our bedroom door, signaling that I was ready to head downstairs for some grub.

At the breakfast table, I silently ate my usual cold cereal as our Mother and Father told us that they'd be out most of the day at some antique store Party they were hosting down town and it was then that I began to miss our Sister's usual outburst. I wonder how she was doing in college. Perhaps I'd message her later. This summer she was going to spend it with Jeremy at his beach house, so we'd be lucky if we even got to see her for a week. Once we were outside, it wasn't moments later before Isabella and the rest of the gang had arrived. And there it was…the usual question that I had been waiting for.

"Hey Phineas, What Cha' doin?"

I inwardly rolled my eyes as the female walked closer to us, flipping back her raven hair and blinking innocently at my step-brother. Then, I simply waited for it.

"Oh. Hi Isabella, we're building a Ping Pong Battle/Game. Did you bring the materials we needed?" Phineas responded, not even looking up from the wood he was sawing in half. Glancing quickly at Isabella, I saw a faint sign of disappointment cloud her face but it was gone instantly. Not thinking, or really caring much about it, I continued my share of the work. Sometimes, I felt that the young girl really should not set her hopes up so high when it came to my oblivious brother. In all honesty, she just kept hurting herself and it wasn't a sight that I personally liked to see. More so because she'd pull me aside after our days work had been done and rant about how Phineas didn't even notice her new hair doo or how Phineas didn't seem to care that she had added a cool design to one of our inventions. Don't get me wrong, I don't hate listening to her rant. I promised her from the start when we were going around the world in one day, and we had become stranded on that island that no matter what happened, I would listen to her. It was a promise I made and intended to keep for however long she wished for it to stand. A Promise is something that I believe should always be kept. Personally, I liked people who kept their promises. I never broke one, nor do I have the mind to do it. However, I only promised things that could be obtained realistically. It was how I was raised, and perhaps it was a British thing as well.

As the day unfolded, our Ping Pong game had become a hit and we played it 'Girls against Boys'. The old Fireside girls (who were long retired from the girls scout things) joined us in the game as well seeing as they had always been a part of our inventions and at times, even helped us make them as well in the past. There was one Ex-Fireside girl that seemed to desperately grab my attention on some occasions and at school, she even hinted that she wanted to go to the homecoming dance with me. However, I had to decline the offer. I much preferred to stay at home and read up on Shakespeare and such. As mentioned before, I'm not really much of the partying type. Sure, during our past summers we hosted parties in our backyard, and Bloody Hell, I even sang in some of them. But that was simply because it was something Phineas had stirred up and out of respect for my brother, I would go along with whatever it was he wanted. Situations like those are mildly different in my eyes. After all, he is family. As the sun began to set and the Ping Pong Battle came to an end, and everybody proceeded to retire to their own houses once our contraption had magically disappeared once again. By this point in time, it had become natural for things like that to happen to us so we never questioned it. However, I was still surprised that at age 18 and 17, this 'Mysterious Force' as Candace once called it, was still taking our inventions away somewhere.

"Well Ferb, another summer day has been successfully filled with fun! I'm headed inside, you coming?" Phineas asked me however, the moment I was about to open my mouth to speak, my phone had proceeded to vibrate in my pocket. I didn't even have to guess who it was and what it was that person wanted. Flipping the cellular device opened, I quickly scanned the text message and silently closed it, placing it back where I had gotten it from.

"Soon. I'm going to take a walk." I replied and with a nod of my head, I turned to leave through our backyard fenced door. Sure enough, Isabella was sitting on the ground, leaning against our wooden fence simply…waiting for me. For lack of a better way of saying it. Closing the door behind me I took a seat next to her and braced myself for whatever it was she was going to complain about this time.

"Hey Ferb." She greeted me softly as she looked up at the quickly darkening sky. I nodded silently towards though, not truly caring if she saw me or not. I wasn't the one who was going to be doing all the talking anyways.

"I...have a plan." She spoke hesitantly, cautiously, and at this I raised a questioning eyebrow. "I think I know how I'm going to get Phineas to notice me. It's a long shot but I think it'll work." She spoke once more, her voice seeming to trail off (almost unsure) at that last statement she said. I didn't even have to ask to know what she was thinking.

"You wish to date me, in order to make him jealous." I spoke sternly, almost as if I unapproved of this plan. In which case, I did. I never thought that she'd come up with something as idiotic as that. However, she didn't confirm nor deny the plan I guessed she had in mind. It was just silent for a few minutes. I let a sigh of frustration escape my lips as I let my gaze travel to the stars that had appeared so quickly.

"It will just be for at least 3 days! I won't force you to do anything you wouldn't want to do in this 'relationship'. I promise." Ah, the good old 'I Promise' trick. I turned to look at Isabella once more, seeing in her eyes that she was desperately well, desperate. The young girl was one who never asked any favors of anyone and when she promised something. She kept to it. Yes, this was a petty love affair and yes, it was stupid. However, we are just teenagers. I rubbed my temples and proceeded to close my eyes as I let a faint "Sure" escape my lips. To which Isabella hugged and thanked me for. Her face brightened up drastically as she stood up and waved a faint goodbye before heading over to her own house for the night. In all honesty, I wasn't really thinking this plan through. Say Phineas did have feelings for Isabella (Which he told me he did) then all he had to do was get out of his shell and confess to her. Not only that, I had broken so many unspoken rules in just seconds. The 'No dating Isabella, but Phineas' rule. The 'No dating your brothers' crush' rule. Then there was simply a rule I had put up. 'No dating girls out of pity' rule. However, it was what I did with Vanessa a couple years back so Johnny could finally ask her out (which he did and they are currently going on there 3rd year together). I never had any luck when it came to 'love'. I suppose it was because I never truly believed in it seeing as I believe we are too young to truly understand what it is. People our age go around spewing the word 'love' and such only to later be 'heartbroken' when they break up with their partner who they had only been dating a week. Things like that disgusted and annoyed me.

Standing up and going back into our backyard, I went through my head of different ways I could tell Phineas that Isabella and I were…dating. Rolling my eyes slightly I headed for our sliding door that lead us into the house when I was quickly stopped by our pet Platypus who was sitting patiently in front of the door. "Ah. There you are, Perry." I spoke softly to his as I bent down to pick the creature up in my arms. It always amazed me how perfectly he was able to fit in my arms. Chuckling softly, I stepped inside the door and made my way up to our bedroom. I had to tell him sooner or later.