Max had been sitting on the couch in the living room for the past hour, waiting anxiously for Liz to arrive.

“Geez,” Isabel had teased him, “you’re more excited than I am. And you know how much I love shopping.”

As soon as he heard the doorbell, Max sprang up from his position on the couch and practically sprinted to answer the door. “I’ll get it!” he hollered, although everyone in the house knew that he would.

Liz gave a small cry of surprise as the door was flung open about half a second after she rang the doorbell. She watched with amusement as Max tried to conceal his eagerness, but failing miserably. Finally, he gave up and thought, what the heck. Max seized Liz into arms and crushed her against him, kissing her passionately.

Mr. and Mrs. Evans came to the door, wondering why there hadn’t been one word uttered, yet. They were shocked to see their normally quiet and reserved son making out with his girlfriend right there in their foyer! But then again, they reflected, when had Max ever been quiet and reserved in the past few months when it came to Liz Parker? It was quite evident that the young couple was in love. But, in love or not, they would not have their son dropping everything to kiss a girl, regardless of how wonderful she was, and not even bothering to shut the door behind them!

Mr. Evans cleared his throat loudly.

Max and Liz jumped apart guiltily. They had been so absorbed in each other that they hadn’t even noticed Max’s parents come in, much less Isabel, who was right on their heels.

Liz started to blush. That was the second time this week that she had been embarrassed because of Max!

“Ummm. . . Mr. and Mrs. Evans! Isabel!”

“Liz,” they acknowledged in unison.

Suddenly the doorbell rang again.

Saved by the bell, thought Liz with relief. She was surprised to open the door to reveal a grinning Alex. She glanced at Isabel. Judging from her face, apparently she had known nothing about this.

“Why is Alex here?” Liz questioned Max.

“Oh, I thought the six of us could spend some quality time shopping together. As a little surprise for you three girls.”

Isabel was shocked that they had managed to keep the secret from her. She glanced accusingly at her parents, who grinned back in response.

“Great, I guess we’ll have to wait for both Maria and Michael to get here. And you know how Michael’s never on time for anything,” Isabel groaned.

Surprisingly, they were ready to go half an hour later. Since the six of them couldn’t fit into Max’s Jeep, they decided to leave Max and Liz alone in the Jeep. The rest of them piled into Maria’s Jetta and they were on their way.

After they arrived at the mall, the girls started to drag their defenseless boyfriends from one store to the next.

“Can we please stop and rest?” Michael complained.

“Yeah, how can you girls bear to walk so much?” Max agreed.

“You guys are tired already?” Maria said incredously.

“Wimps!” teased Liz.

“We’ve barely been here for an hour!” Isabel added.

“Since you guys are obviously out of shape, why don’t you go off and rest or do whatever and we’ll meet you in front of the Food Court at noon for lunch?” Liz suggested.

All three of the guys looked relieved to hear this plan and watched as the three girls walked off, chatting excitedly.

Max, Michael, and Alex looked at one another and marveled at how girls could withstand so much shopping.

“Women. We’ll never understand them,” Alex muttered.

“I just don’t get how the heck they can have so much energy,” Max wondered.

“This is all your fault,” Michael accused, looking at Max.

“Me? What’d I do?”

“This whole shopping spree with the girls thing was your idea. You should’ve known that we’d be ready to fall to pieces and be bored out of our minds before long. I mean, you’ve spent your whole life around Isabel, the shopping nut. Yet you still suggested this crazy idea. Now, thanks to you, the girls all think we’re wimps.”

“Hey, I didn’t make you and Alex come. If I remember correctly, you were the one that agreed before I even finished my sentence. Admit it, you wanted to come to see more of Maria. The two of you didn’t think of women’s natural love for shopping, either. So don’t try to push this all on me,” Max defended himself.

Meanwhile, the three girls were having a great time. They were struggling with the difficult task of deciding which dress to try on in the fitting room. Well, actually, Isabel was struggling ‘cause Maria and Liz had already picked out their gowns.

Isabel held up two dresses for inspection, a rose pink sheath or a pale violet strapless floor-length gown with a matching slip. After trying both of them on and consulting her two friends, she decided to go with the strapless one. “Alex is going to faint when he sees you in that,” Liz commented. Isabel smiled, thinking of her incredible boyfriend. His sensitivity to others feelings. His great sense of humor. His adorable. . .

“I. . .sa. . .bel,” Maria chanted. She snapped her fingers in front of Isabel’s face in bring her out of her daydreams and back into reality.

“What? What were you saying?” Isabel asked, slightly flustered that she was getting to be as bad as Max and Liz.

Liz and Maria gave each other knowing smiles. “We said that if we don’t get going, the guys are going to kill us. We’re already 5 minutes late and the Food Court’s on the other side of the mall,” Liz repeated.

“And you know how grumpy guys can get when they’re hungry,” Maria joked.

When they finally reached the Food Court, they were greeted by their three not-so-happy boyfriends.

“You’re forty-five minutes late,” Michael curtly informed them.

“You see, we would have been here half an hour ago, but there was this huge sale at American Eagle and well, we had to check it out because we knew that you guys wouldn’t want to after lunch so we took a little detour. And see, we sorta lost track of time,” Maria said in a rush.

Michael looked slightly amused at Maria’s hurried explanation. “Yeah, whatever. Let’s go eat!”