A Dare

30

Riley's POV

After the five hours of shopping I still had no idea what to get Maya. But then, a lightbulb went off. Literally. A light bulb for the arts and crafts store in the mall like, exploded while we were in there and when we were rushed out we saw a nice-looking old man outside sitting behind us with all his art tools and whatnot. He called us over and we went over to him he asked if he could paint us a picture of us with character figures, but not ones you see with big heads, and then another lightbulb went off, in my head.

I got a picture out of two thousand on my phone, a recent one, of me, maya, UJ and Lucas, it was a selfie we took on our movie night we had a week or so ago. I know that it was cheesy and crazy but I wanted Farkle to be in the painting too, so I got another picture of me Maya and Lucas and Farkle at Topanga's this one late sleepover night and asked if he could sort of fit him into the painting and he said it was no problem.

The turn out was looking spectacular, it was funny because our original photo was so candid with fake scared faces and Farkle was there looking at his nose that had whipped cream on and was holding his cup of hot cocoa like his life depended on it.

Maya was going to love it, I'm so sure of it. My phone buzzed. It was Maya, again, she left 53 text messages asking where I was and I didn't see them all crap!! She said she was at home and no one was there.

"UJ we need to go! Maya's waiting and it's almost 10 we need to go!!" I anxiously told him

"But Riley what abou-"

"All done!" The man beamed.

We both turned our heads and stared at it, it was so beautiful. And cute.

"This is amazing!" Was all I could let out.

"Thank you, and that would be $9 please." the old man smiled.

I pulled out a 20 dollar bill and gave it to him "Here you go sir, you can keep it all, you deserve it. Thank you so so SO much."

"Thank YOU doll. Have a nice night now." He waved us good bye as did we and we left.

We put all the bags on the bag seats and I carefully held the painting in the passenger seat as Josh drove my car back home. When we arrived to our flat building I realised that if Maya's still waiting isn't she going to see the present I got her?! Oh god.

I texted her to wait in the living room as I was coming up so she could "open the door for me as there were a lot of bags."

She texted back a thumbs up and so my plan was perfect. I climb up the fire escape to my bay window and go inside my room and hide it in my wardrobe somewhere he won't find it and then cilmb ALLL the way back down and come up the normal way to Maya won't suspect a thing. But I had to make Josh take all the bags because if I had made a noise, as I did, Josh could've covered it up AND great niece/best friend points to me for giving them some alone time..

Josh's POV

After Riley had to me what my part of her little plan was and I knew what I had to do.

I stood outside the door and placed a handful of shopping bags on the floor and rung the doorbell.

I heard footsteps coming closer and I stood up straight and picked up the bags of the floor. As the footsteps got louder and closer I get more anxious and the door opened.

"Finally!! Where have you be- oh. Hi Josh." She said, as she moved out of the way and looked at the floor, biting her lip, worriedly.