Tess was sleepy the next morning. She had spent nearly two and a half hours with Miguel—so long that her mom had insisted upon feeding him supper. Tess had had to stay up late to get the rest of her homework done, which had left little time for sleep. It had been worth it, though; working with Miguel had made her feel a lot better about her paper, and he'd agreed to come back on Sunday.

She thought she'd struggle to stay awake in Spanish, but the fact that Isaac shared the class with her kept her alert. Every now and then, she would glance his way, and once, she caught his eye and he smiled. She wondered if he was thinking about their plans for that night; they were going on their second date.

At the end of the day, Senior English brought another unwelcome surprise. Ms. Keene was jotting dates up on the board as Tess came into the classroom, and it soon became apparent what the alarmingly brief timeline meant.

"All right; I know you have all referred to your syllabus and course schedule for details around the due dates of your papers, but dates in a syllabus can be very abstract, so I want to talk through the timeline for your first research project just to ensure that everyone is on the same page. Your sources will be due next Wednesday, which is August 30th. I'll expect a rough draft of the paper on Friday the 1st—that's a week from today. And the final draft of this first project will be due no later than September 8th."

Ms. Keene was right. Tess had known these dates in the back of her mind from the course schedule, but seeing them up on the board made it feel like they were looming a lot more urgently than she had thought. She jotted the timeline down in her notebook just to cement the requirements into her brain.

"Does anyone have questions about the requirements for this project? No? Good. You can refer to your notes from our class focused on the anatomy of an essay to help give you structure as you begin to write. The most important thing I can say to you all, and I hope you are listening, is this: do not procrastinate. I'll be able to tell, and the stress you'll put yourself through the night before is not worth the few minutes of downtime you'll get by putting it off. Do not underestimate how much time and effort this paper will take—plan ahead. You'll thank me later."

Tess sighed. She was certainly not underestimating, that was for sure.

***

"I seriously can't believe you haven't been here yet," said Isaac as they pulled into the Pizza Guys parking lot around 5:40 that evening.

"I'm kind of glad. You can show me the ropes." As the car drew to a stop, Tess unbuckled her seat belt.

"Not much to show. It's pretty casual, as you can probably see from their sign." Isaac tipped his head toward the tacky pizza-inspired sign posted above the storefront, pepperonis and all.

They got out of the car and began to walk toward the building. Tess squinted against the sunlight glancing sharply off of the cars in the parking lot. "How was school today?"

"It was school. Hey, you have Senior English too, right?"

"Yeah, I do," said Tess, her heart sinking as she remembered the timeline Ms. Keene had shared with them that day.

"And I thought Spanish was bad." Isaac held open the door to the restaurant, gesturing Tess inside. "That teacher does not mess around."

"You're not wrong." Tess folded her arms; after the sunny, humid weather outside, the restaurant was chilly. "Where do you want to sit?"

"Here's fine," said Isaac, leading the way to a booth with seats padded in bright red vinyl.

The table wobbled as Tess slid into the booth opposite him, and the chili pepper and parmesan shakers appeared not to have been cleaned in a decade, but she told herself to reserve judgment. There had to be something special about the place, even if it seemed a bit run down. "Ms. Keene is intense, but I do think she wants to help people do well."

"What?" Isaac laughed, looking at Tess with surprised amusement. "Okay, sure—if she really wanted that, she'd dumb down the assignments a little, don't you think? Do you guys have the research paper thing?"

"Yes, we do."

"And you think it's easy?"

Now it was Tess's turn to laugh. "God, no. I'm getting help with it, in fact."

"Help from who?"

Tess had spoken too fast; she hadn't been thinking. Now, she regretted saying anything. But she couldn't back track now. "From a tutor."

"Oh. Really?" As Isaac spoke, a server approached their table.

"Hi guys. I'm Samira. What can I get y'all to drink?"

"Do you have iced tea? Unsweetened?" Tess asked.

"Sure do. Do you want lemon with that?"

"Yes, please."

Isaac said, "Coke."

"You got it." Samira raised her eyebrows with a friendly smile. "Do you need a few minutes before ordering?"

"We haven't looked at the menu—" began Tess, ready to ask for more time, but Isaac spoke up, reaching out to place his hand over hers.

"We'll have The Works," he said. He smiled at Tess. "Trust me. I said I'd show you the ropes."

"Good choice. Anything else while you wait?"

Both Tess and Isaac shook their heads.

"Great. I'll put that in for you and get your drinks out here in a minute." Samira smiled at them and headed back toward the kitchen, passing a large stone oven with a fiery glow coming from its mouth.

"Okay, back up," said Isaac. "You were saying you have a tutor?"

"Yeah." Tess looked down at her hands, embarrassed. "I just really need to pass, so I don't have much of a choice. Ms. Keene didn't hold back about my first assignment...it was pretty bad."

"Wow." Isaac smiled. "I guess even the Math Girl needs a little help."

Shrugging one shoulder, Tess said, "Sure, with English. If I were in your shop class I'd need a shop tutor, too."

"Now that, I could help with. We'd have you building bird houses in no time."

Samira arrived to drop off their drinks. Tess picked up the lemon wedge on the rim of her glass and squeezed some juice into her tea.

"This, though—this we're going to have to talk about," said Isaac, after he had taken a healthy swig of Coke. "Is that really unsweetened tea?"

Tess sipped from her straw. "Mmmm. Refreshing."

"Oh, man. I just threw up in my mouth a little." He pretended to gag.

With jokes, banter, and some conversation about school, Tess and Isaac passed the time until Samira brought them their pizza; then, they shared the pie as they talked. It was all together an amazing second date, and by the time they headed back to the car, Tess was feeling just as warm and happy as she had after their first.