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It was harder than Isabella expected to get Phineas to come along. He’d never been a shy person, and he always made friends easily, so when she asked if he wanted to go to a party with her, Isabella expected an easy yes. And she may have gotten one if he weren’t in the middle of a project.
Classes hadn’t even officially started yet and already he was working on something that Isabella didn’t have the mental energy to parse. She’d already had to remind Phineas three times that he couldn’t modify his dorm room since he didn’t actually own any of the furniture in it. She was sure he would manage to obtain whatever permission he needed within the next week, but until then, no motorized bunk beds or expanding desk-lab.
But back to the issue at hand. “Please, Phineas? You know networking is an important part of the college experience. You need to go out and meet people.”
”I will meet people,” came the indignant voice from behind a mountain of notes and at least one trifold. “In classes and clubs. Ooh, which reminds me; I need your help deciding which ones to sign up for.”
Isabella reached over and snatched the pencil her boyfriend was scribbling with. “And I’ll be happy to help with that, but later. Right now, I want you to go to this party with me. It should be small and really low-key, and a good way to get to know the people we’ll be living with this year.”
Phineas made a grab for the pencil, but Isabella had always been the more athletic of the two and dodged easily. With a sigh, Phineas leaned back in his chair and finally looked up to meet Isabella’s eyes. “Why do you want me to go so bad? You know I’ll have other chances to make a good first impression on these people.”
”True. But maybe,” she booped Phineas on the nose with his own pencil, “it’s less that I want you to go, and more that I want to go, but I don’t want to go alone.”
At that, Isabella knew she had him. His face softened and a small breath puffed from his lips. If it was something Phineas was doing for her, he’d do it. “Promise I won’t have to drink any alcohol?”
Isabella wasn’t surprised by the question. She had been there for the very long lecture on the adverse effects of pre-mature drinking when Phineas found out Ferb had been drinking beer with Vanessa on a semi-regular basis. (When Isabella asked him about it later, Ferb simply shrugged and said, “I’m English.”) Phineas refused to do anything that may impair his ability to function at 100%. “I promise no one will make you drink, eat, or do anything you don’t want to.”
Finally conceding, Phineas began organizing his notes and put his books away. Isabella gave a little hop of excitement before going over to his closet and pulling out one of his shirts. “You should wear this one, it looks good on you,” she said as she laid the yellow shirt with the orange stripe across his bed. And if it also happened to be the shirt Phineas was wearing when he asked Isabella out, well, no one could prove it was anything more than a coincidence.
Isabella had been right when she said the party would be small. There were about ten people there, all from the same floor, and all friendly, as far as she could tell. The rooms on their floor were suites, with two bedrooms to one bathroom and kitchen, so there was enough space for everyone to mingle. Phineas was talking with another engineering student while Isabella was chatting with a girl who had also been a Fireside Girl growing up.
The girl, whose name was Nancy, was hanging on to Isabella’s every word. Apparently no one in her troop had earned anywhere near the number of patches Isabella had by the time she aged out. And when she mentioned helping Candace break the record for number of patches earned in a day, Nancy gasped. “I remember reading about that! You know her?”
”Oh, yeah. She’s actually Phineas’ sister so I saw her a lot growing up.”
Nancy tilted her head. “Who’s Phineas?”
”Oh, sorry!” Isabella reached into the crowd until she found the hand she was searching for, and pulled. “This is my boyfriend, Phineas. We grew up together. Phineas, this is Nancy. She was a Fireside Girl too.”
Phineas smiled. “Hi! Great to meet you. Always good to have more Fireside Girls around. They’ve saved my butt more than once.”
”We were just talking about when Candace got 50 patches in one day,” Isabella intercepted before Nancy could ask just what kind of situations the Fireside Girls had to save him from.
”Oh yeah, that was a fun day. I think she still has alligator wrestling on her resume.”
Isabella blinked. “She’s in law.”
”I know.”
Before Nancy could start asking more excited questions, someone called from the other side of the room. “Hey, who wants to play Never Have I Ever?”
It took a few minutes to get everyone settled in a circle on the floor, red solo cups in hand, but they got there. The rules were quickly explained - go around the circle saying something you’ve never done, if you’ve done the thing take a drink - and they were off. They quickly got through all the sex and drug questions, and Isabella would have been more annoyed about not being able to sip at her orange Fanta if it wasn’t so fun to watch Phineas blush.
When it got to them, Isabella turned and gave Phineas a long look before saying, “Never have I ever put Jell-O mix in my neighbor’s pool.” Phineas gave a playful glare but dutifully drank from his cup of root beer. He was quick to respond with, “Never have I ever worked three simultaneous jobs.” Isabella rolled her eyes but finally got to enjoy some of that sweet orange fizziness.
The night continued like that, the rest of the circle coming up with progressively more creative things they’d never done while Phineas and Isabella switched between picking on each other and choosing more broad statements. It was tough; there wasn’t a lot they hadn’t done at this point. At least they weren’t required to expand on why they were drinking. When the others said “never have I ever been to the circus” or “never have I ever built a treehouse,” all Isabella and Phineas had to do was tip back their cup for another sip.
As the night went on, people were having a harder time coming up with things they hadn’t done. The person on Phineas’ other side, a boy named Derek, was having an especially difficult time. His chosen drink was quite a bit stronger than Isabella’s, and he’d had to drink a fair amount of it at the beginning of the game. The group watched him struggle for a second before someone else said, “Dude, you can say anything, it just has to be something you haven’t done.”
Derek waved a limp hand back and forth. “A’right, a’right, uhhh… ok, never have I ever been to space.” The group began to laugh while next to her, Isabella felt Phineas lift his arm, bringing his cup to his lips for a sip. The circle froze, all eyes firmly on the person who had just implied he’d been to space. Isabella, being much more aware of how odd their childhood had been then her boyfriend, took a tiny discreet sip of her drink while everyone’s attention was elsewhere.
Phineas, clocking the silence, looked up and was met with eight pairs of very wide eyes. “What?”
”You’ve been to space?”
”Uh, yeah? A few times, actually.”
This did not seem to help with people’s shock. Nancy looked at Isabella. “Did you know this?”
”Um…”
Phineas gave her a strange look. “Of course she did,” he answered once he realized Isabella wasn’t going to continue. “She was with me most of the time.” Unable to deny it, Isabella gave a gesture that was half nod, half shrug.
”How is that not the first thing you tell people when you meet them?”
Isabella couldn’t help but twirl her hair in a nervous tick, blushing slightly. Phineas, however, just looked flummoxed. “Wouldn’t that be kinda rude? Besides, it’s not like going to space is representative of who I am as a person.” He paused, head tilted in thought. “Nor is it the coolest thing I’ve ever done.”
There was immediate uproar. Everyone was talking over each other, demanding to know what could possibly be cooler than being an astronaut multiple times over. Isabella watched in horror as Phineas opened his mouth to answer before slapping a hand down on his shoulder. “Wait!” All eyes turned to her, eyebrows raised. “How about, we keep playing the game. You know,” she glanced sideways, “see what you guys can guess. It’ll be fun.”
There was the general murmur of agreement and Phineas shrugged, lifting the hand still on his shoulder. “Sure, why not?”
Everyone settled back into their spots and looked to the next person in the circle, a girl Isabella was pretty sure was named Jane. “Ok, um… never have I ever flown around the world.”
There was a pause as everyone looked expectantly at Phineas. “Oh! Is that it? Ok, sure.” He took a swig of his drink while Isabella rolled her eyes and sipped at her own.
”What do you mean ‘is that it?’”
”I was just expecting there to be more to the statement. We did it in a day.”
And so it began.
”Never have I ever had a Billboard #1 hit.”
”Did we actually make it to number one, Iz?”
”Only for an hour.”
Drink.
”Never have I ever created a fashion line.”
”I mean, we had help.”
Drink.
”Never have I ever discovered a cryptozoological creature!”
Phineas narrowed his eyes, hesitating. He turned to his girlfriend. “We don’t have to say which one,” she comforted softly. He nodded.
Drink.
”Never have I ever been cursed!”
”—discovered Atlantis!”
”—time-traveled!”
Drink, drink, drink.
”Um, I think this is the last of the root beer,” Phineas said, upturning the last of the two liter bottle into his solo cup. Isabelle had given up on using her own cup and was just holding the bottle of Fanta which was also, at this point, little more than dregs. She was trying very hard not to look at all the flabbergasted faces around her.
It was Nancy who eventually broke the silence. “This is stupid, is there anything you guys haven’t done?”
The couple glanced at each other. “Well, sure,” Phineas shrugged, retaking his spot in the circle. “No one’s done everything. If we had, there would be nothing left to do.” He gave an exaggerated shiver, although Isabella knew it was at least partially genuine. “I can’t think of anything worse than that.”
The circle sat in contemplative silence for a moment. Isabella knew her boyfriend could be incredibly thought-provoking without even trying, but it still caught her by surprise now and then, filling her with a sparkling warmth. It was one of the reasons she loved him, after all.
”Ok, well, in that case,” said Derek, seeming to have sobered slightly from the prolonged period of not having to drink, “it’s your guys’ turn. What haven’t you done?”
That was the question, wasn’t it? Or at least part of it.
She turned to see Phineas grinning at her and couldn’t help but smile back. She knew that they were on the same page here, that there was the most excitement in the unknown. “I think the better question is, what haven’t we done yet?” The answers flashed before her eyes: find a career I love, get married, have a family, never stop trying new things. “Yeah, what haven’t we done yet?”
And whatever she couldn’t think of, she knew Phineas would be there with his own ideas, always ready to bring her along for the ride.