A week had passed and she still hadn't been able to contact Twister at all. She usually didn't mind working at the Shack, but it was one of the busiest times of the year since everyone in the world seemed to always plan their beach trips for mid-June. They were swamped and the customers were incredibly rude. Raymundo and Tito had pretty much gone back to normal, but Otto still pestered her whenever he got a chance. She couldn't figure out if he was mad or impressed. He seemed to not be sure himself. At some points, he complained that she ruined his street cred now that he was the good child that didn't get busted. (The fact that he was still grounded from before didn't seem to phase him.) At other times, he got mad in a protective way because (although he didn't blatantly say it), he had been worried about her too. Sometimes he seemed to make up his own story about her and Twister sneaking around the beach when no one was up so they could go pull some elaborate prank over Lieutenant Tice. That day, he had just been bragging about how it was the last day of his grounding and soon he'd be free to shred MadTown.

Reggie couldn't wait till things turned back to normal and they could all go surfing and skating and Otto would (hopefully) drop this whole thing. She wondered if it would be back to normal now that she and Twister were together. Otto didn't know about them. He's gonna freak when he finds out, she thought. Although, she had to admit, it was kind of fun having him out of the loop for once. He was always excluding one of them, making excuses like "it's a Rocket thing" or "it's a bros only secret."

"Otto," Raymundo called out. "You're free to go."

"Score!" he shouted as he grabbed his skateboard and headed for MadTown.

Great, Reggie thought, now I'll have even more work to do. When she stepped into the kitchen, the amount of dishes piled up was overwhelming. After having washed about a fourth of them, Raymundo walked in.

"Hey, Rocket girl, Tito and I are headed out. You okay to lock up?"

"You got it, Raymundo," she said forcing a smile.

He looked around at the stacks of dishes and frowned.

"You need any help with those?"

"No, I'm okay," she tried to say convincingly. "Really."

"Okay, if you're sure. I'll leave you to it. See you at home," he said before walking out.

The next morning Reggie sat confused in the front seat of the car as her dad pulled to the curb in front of the Rodriguez' house.

"Dad, what are we doing?"

"Since Otto won't be joining you anymore, I figured you could use some help" Reggie glanced up and saw Mrs. Rodriguez saying something to Twister and fixing his tag as they stood as he tried to leave. "I talked to Sandy and Raul last night," Raymundo continued, "and it seems their house has gotten pretty clean over the past week. I suggested that if they ran out of chores for Twister, they could send him to the Shack and we'd find plenty for him to do."

Reggie smiled at her father, "thanks, Dad."

Twister hopped in the backseat behind Raymundo.

"Morning, Twister," Raymundo said.

"Morning, Raymundo," Twister responded, looking out the window at his mother who had a stern look on her face. "I mean, uh, sir," he corrected.

Reggie looked over her shoulder and they smiled at one another. Raymundo started telling Twister about the World Surf League competition. He hadn't seen it, due to the television ban that was part of his punishment. Reggie and her dad described it to him as they drove over. She discovered that his punishment had been harsher than hers, (no tv, no computer, no camera, no phone), but she was surprised to find out that he was only grounded for three weeks.

"Nice to see you again, Little Cuz," Tito said when they talked in.

Although the morning had been slow, Reggie and Twister hadn't gotten a moment alone until after the lunch rush. Reggie was walking out of the freezer as Twister was walking in and they bumped into each other.

"Sorry," Twister said as he bent down to pick up some stuff that had fallen off of the shelf.

"Oh, it's okay," she replied, glad to see him.

He reached next to her and grabbed a box. "Listen," he started, "I'm really sorry about all of this. This has caused everyone to freak and I'm just really sorry I got you into this mess."

"Twist, this is not your fault," she said giving him a smile. "We just-"

"Reg!" they heard Raymundo yell. "Where are you with those fries?"

"Coming!" she replied. " I'd better get back," she said to Twister, quickly kissing his cheek as she left.

"Tito, I think the kids can handle it from here," Raymundo said after pulling down the door.

"You got it, Bruddah," Tito replied as he thew his rag on the counter.

Raymundo turned to Reggie as she was wiping down a table. "I expect between the two of you, you should be able to finish by ten. Call me if you think it'll be later than that."

After they left, Reggie walked into the kitchen to help Twister with the dishes.

"Did you see that shoobie that wouldn't leave?" she asked as she picked up a plate.

"Yeah," Twister laughed, "he got mad at me."

"Why?"

"Well he asked me if I knew of any good restaurants in the area. And he was just sitting there with his empty cup and all these maps and notebooks and I asked him why he needed one since he didn't even order food when he came here."

Reggie laughed and replied, "he also hogged that table all through the dinner rush!"

"How'd you manage to finally get him to leave?"

"I very politely told him we were closing."

Twister snickered.

"What?" Reggie replied.

"I was just imagining you 'politely' telling off that lame-o."

"I was nice... enough," Reggie said as Twister started laughing again.

"Well hopefully your 'nice enough' is enough to keep him from coming back. So did Raymundo and Tito head out?"

"Yep. It's just us."

"Cool," he said as the two of them smiled at each other and continued to wash dishes. "So," he said after a minute, "do you think we should tell people?"

Reggie got a panicked look on her face. "After what happened last week? No way. Not yet."

Twister looked a little hurt and wondered if she was embarrassed by him. "Oh."

"I just mean," Reggie started to explain, "we already got in a lot of trouble. And I don't want anyone getting ideas about why we were asleep on the beach at two in the morning."

"But we just fell asleep," Twister pointed out.

"I know, I just... I just think we should lay low for a little while. At least until all of this dies down."

Twister nodded, "yeah that's probably a good call."

"Besides, they probably wouldn't allow this to be our punishment," Reggie said, giving him a wink.

Twister smiled, "I've definitely had worse punishments. Cleaning my whole house, for instance."

They discussed how their weeks had been and how their families had reacted that night. They were talking more about the World Surf Regionals when Twister accidentally splashed Reggie while rinsing off his dish.

"Whoops. Sorry, Reg," he said.

"Ooh, I'm gonna get you for that," she said splashing him back.

They started splashing each other and Reggie armed herself with the soap, squirting it at Twister. Twister grabbed the sprayer hose off of the sink and smiled. Reggie lurched forward to try to stop him. She grabbed it and was able to slightly divert the hose as he sprayed it. She aimed the soap back at him and he grabbed her wrist to keep her from squirting it again. He set down the sprayer and grabbed her other hand so she couldn't switch it. They laughed and she squirmed, but was unable to break her arms free. She gave up and moved to her tip-toes, leaning forward and kissing him.

"Ew," she laughed as she pulled away, "you taste like soap!"

"You squirted me with soap! What did you expect?"

She didn't care, she pulled him forward and kissed him again. He wrapped his arms around her waist and kissed her harder. She felt herself smiling as they kissed, enjoying the added pressure of his lips. Their lips parted, but their faces still remained close as they looked at each other. Reggie blushed and broke eye contact, looking to the side, still smiling.

"We've made quite a mess," she said after a little while. They parted and he looked around at all the soapy water distributed across the floor and nodded in agreement.

"This sure wasn't what I pictured," he stated, then looked away as if realizing what he had said.

"What do you mean?" she asked as he walked over to the sink.

"Oh," he said shaking his hand through his hair, "I just meant... I never imagined us, you know, sneaking around I guess? Like secretly kissing after a soap battle when no one even knows we're together. It's fun though; exciting."

"So what had you pictured?"

"What?"

"You said this wasn't what you had pictured," she reminded him. "So you had thought we'd get together at some point?"

He was definitely starting to get embarrassed. "Well," he said sheepishly, "I didn't really think we actually would. I just kind of... hoped." He kept trying to busy himself, grabbing a stack of clean plates to put away. Reggie followed him.

"So that first night when we went surfing, you didn't plan that or anything?"

"Not really," he said as he put the dishes on the shelf, "I mean, we'd all been wanting to go night surfing since we first heard about it as kids. And I knew Otto was grounded, but I didn't expect anything to happened. I just was enjoying hanging out with you." He paused and she looked at him, waiting for him to continue. "When we were up on the half-pipe, I don't know, it sounds silly. I- it just felt so right. Never, in a million years, would I have thought I'd ever be brave enough to kiss you like that." Reggie blushed and smiled.

"So, you said before that you've liked me for awhile?" Reggie inquired.

"Yeah."

"So what's 'awhile'?"

"It means, like... an amount of time," Twister teased her.

"Twister," she said, giving him a look, but unable to hide her smile.

"We probably should finish these dishes, huh?"

"So you're just not going to tell me then?" Reggie asked.

"Nope," he said, giving her a quick kiss then starting on the rest of the dishes.