My heart expands. I wasn’t expecting that.

“Thanks,” I whisper.

A beat of silence passes between us, and then the energy shifts again. Quint smiles, easy and relaxed. “Are you hungry?” He juts his thumb toward the staircase. “I’ve got quarters for the vending machine. We could have Pringles by candlelight.”

“How romantic,” I say. “Except, I don’t think vending machines work during a power outage.”

He winces. “Damn. I bet you’re right. I don’t actually know if there are any candles, either.”

I shrug. “Let’s go find out.”

THIRTY-NINE

In the staff break room, we spend some time digging through the drawers jumbled with silverware, offices supplies, and random takeout menus that have probably been buried in here for the past decade. Ultimately, we find two boxes of birthday candles and a book of matches. Quint settles the candles into a decorative bowl full of sand and seashells and lights them. I’ve never seen birthday candles lit for longer than it takes to sing “Happy Birthday,” and I suspect they won’t last long, but for now, their glow is comforting and strangely joyful as the wind and rain rage outside. Plus, both of our phones are getting low on battery life, so we figure it’s best to conserve them as much as possible.

After digging through the cabinets, we pull together something like a picnic. An open bag of stale potato chips, some saltine crackers and peanut butter, a box of Cheerios, some marshmallows.

Even though I’d been joking before, as we settle in at the long conference table, it actually does feel romantic. The storm rattling against the windows. The glow of the candles.

And that we’re pretty much trapped here … together.

“Do you think we’ll be stuck here all night?” I ask, trying not to sound hopeful when I say it. Because it would be awful, right? Who wants to sleep on a cold, hard floor, when they could be safe at home in a cozy, warm bed?

And yet, I’m in no hurry to leave.

“I don’t know. At this rate…” Quint glances at the window. “It’s not looking good. Were your parents worried?”

“I think they’re okay. They said to stay here until the storm passes.”

He nods. “I guess we can use the blankets from downstairs to make a bed of sorts. It may not be the most comfortable thing in the world, but…”

“It could be worse.”

Which is true. We have shelter and food. It’s warm enough. There’s light for the time being, though the candles are burning awfully fast.

“At least we have cereal.” I pop a handful into my mouth.

The first candle flickers out, leaving a trail of dark smoke curling up through the shadows. We both look at our little collection of candles stuck into the sand. They’ve already nearly burned down to nubs.

“Maybe we should have rationed those,” says Quint.

“Isn’t there a flashlight around here somewhere?”

He considers this. “You’d think so.”

We go on a hunt again, risking the battery life of our phones to dig through every cabinet, closet, and cupboard we can find. Finally—success. We find five flashlights stashed away with some of the rescue nets and other supplies, although only three of them have batteries that work. While we’re downstairs, we fill our arms with as many blankets as we can carry before retreating back to the break room. We push the table against one bank of cabinets, clearing out a space large enough that we can spread out the blankets, building them up into something like a mattress. It occurs to me that maybe we should be making two separate beds, but … I don’t say anything, and neither does he.

“What would you be doing right now if you weren’t here?” Quint asks.

“Sleeping?”

“Really? It’s not even midnight.”

“I’m more of a morning person.”

“That does not surprise me.” Quint sits down on the makeshift bed and rolls up a couple of towels to use as a cushion behind his back. I hesitate for a few seconds before sitting down on the opposite side, facing him. We’re close enough that it feels intimate, especially with the dim lighting of the flashlight reflected off the ceiling, but far enough that I can pretend it isn’t totally awkward. “Okay,” he says, “if you weren’t sleeping, then what would you be doing?”

“I don’t know. Planning the gala? Making sure everything will be perfect?”

Quint clicks his tongue, as if chastising me. “Do you ever think you might be too much of an overachiever?”

My nose wrinkles. “Jude keeps me aware of that, yes. I can’t help it though. There’s always more to do, and I don’t want to settle for less than perfect, you know? Why be mediocre? But it can be hard to know when enough is enough, or how to prioritize my time. Like this summer. I’ve been thinking so much about the center that I’ve done hardly any work on our biology project at all.”

“I’ve been wondering about that,” Quint says, his eyes twinkling. “I was sort of hoping you’d forgotten about it.”

“I definitely have not forgotten about it. I still want to do something extraordinary. I actually thought that maybe we could use the gala as a real-world example of how ecotourism can function to help the environment. But I still need to bring more science into it, and that’s got me stumped. So then I set it aside and focus on the center and fundraising … even though I know that by putting it off I’m just creating more stress for myself.”

“What? You? Hold on.” Quint leans toward me conspiratorially. “Are you saying that you, Prudence Barnett … have been … procrastinating?” He says it like it’s a bad word, his face drawn with disbelief.

I can’t help but laugh at the overdramatization, even though it does give me a hiccup of anxiety when I realize the revised project is due in only a few weeks. “Absolutely not,” I say emphatically. “I’ve just been … conducting copious amounts of research.”

“Uh-huh, sure.” He winks at me, sending my heartbeat on another erratic drum solo. “Just so long as you know that when I’m procrastinating, research is my go-to excuse, too.”

“I am not procrastinating. That word is not in my vocabulary. But I will admit that it’s hard to spend my time writing a report about saving wildlife when I could be … you know. Helping to save actual wildlife.”

His teeth flash in a gigantic grin. “I couldn’t agree more.”

As he says this, a thought occurs to me. One I can’t believe hasn’t crossed my mind until now.

I think of the times I tried to cast karmic justice on Quint at the start of the summer. When he refused to help with the biology project because he “had other things to do,” or when he was late to meet me on Main Street. I was so mad at him. So sure he was being selfish and lazy. But he wasn’t. He really did have other things to do. Seals to feed. Sea otters to rescue.

That’s why my attempts kept backfiring. Instead of punishing him, the universe was rewarding him. The extra credit from Mr. Chavez. The twenty-dollar bill.

All that time, I couldn’t see what was right in front of me. But the universe could. The universe knew.

“What?” says Quint, and I realize I’ve been staring at him.

I flush, and shake my head. “Nothing. Just spacing out.” It takes me a second to remember what we were talking about. “Anyway, don’t get the wrong idea. I do still think that revising the report and improving our grade is important. If I’m going to get into one of my top college choices, I can’t let my GPA slip.”

“Where do you want to go?”

“Stanford,” I say, with no hesitation. “Or Berkeley. They both have really good business schools.”

He makes a face. “Business? What, did you look up the most boring majors possible and that one ranked just above political science?”

“Excuse me. Business is fascinating. The psychology of why and how people spend their money, the reasons why some businesses fail and others keep going strong … And I figure, a business degree can be applied to almost every field out there, so no matter what I’m drawn to later, I’ll be able to make it work.” I hum thoughtfully. “Sometimes I think, if either of my parents had any business sense, their lives would be so much easier. I never want to worry about money like they do.”

My thoughts go back to that wad of cash in my backpack. The box of silverware in the pawnshop. I swallow.

“That, I can understand,” says Quint. “I know Mom doesn’t want me to worry, but it’s impossible not to. This center is her passion, but it’s also her livelihood. If it fails…” He doesn’t finish the thought. I wonder what Rosa would do if she couldn’t run the center anymore. “But money isn’t everything. She works really hard here and it’s always a struggle to keep things going, but I don’t think she’d want to do anything else.”

I don’t respond. Sure, money may not be everything … but it is something. I can’t imagine working as hard as Rosa, or my parents for that matter, and still having so little to show for it, no matter how much I love my work.

“Let me guess,” I say, cocking my head speculatively. “You’ve given precisely zero thought to where you want to go to college, or what you want to study.”

“Not zero thought,” he says a little defensively. “I may not be working off a five-year plan like some people…”

“Ten, actually.”

“My mistake.” He rolls his eyes. “But right now, I’m pretty sure I’ll be taking a gap year.”

My gasp is so horrified that Quint looks legitimately concerned for a second.

“A gap year? Oh, come on. That’s just a fancy way of saying you’re either too lazy to go to college or too indecisive to pick one.”

“Whoa. Uh-uh.” He points a finger at me. “Just because it isn’t your plan doesn’t make it a bad one.”