Bad Hair Day

Maya stared at her reflection, horrified. The hair dye was supposed to be "subtle caramel highlights" but it looked more like "my hair got into a fight with a highlighter pen and lost." Nowhere near the vibe she needed for Ryan's baseball game today.

Her golden retriever, Cooper, chose that exact moment to burst into the bathroom, barking at absolutely nothing.

"Cooper!" she groaned, trying to push him away with her foot. "Not helping!"

Cooper's tail knocked over the cup of hair dye on the counter. Orange splattered everywhere — on the towels, the floor, and somehow on Cooper's nose. Great. Now her dog looked like he'd stuck his face in a bag of Cheetos.

Meanwhile, Luna, her cat, sat on the toilet tank watching with that judgy look cats perfected sometime around ancient Egypt. Luna hopped down and started batting at the puddle of dye like it was a particularly disappointing toy.

"Luna, no — bad kitty!" Maya lunged for her cat but slipped on the spilled dye. She caught herself on the sink, nearly knocking over the goldfish bowl on the windowsill. The goldfish, Bubbles, swam around looking deeply unimpressed with humanity.

"Everybody OUT," Maya ordered, shooing Cooper and Luna from the bathroom. She cleaned up the mess as best she could, which wasn't great, and threw on a beanie to cover her hair disaster. The baseball game started in twenty minutes.

Ryan was the pitcher. He'd notice if she didn't show. He'd notice if she looked like this.

But when she got to the field, Ryan walked right up to her, dirt smudged on his cheek from the last inning. "Hey! You came."

"Wouldn't miss it," she said, tugging her beanie lower.

"Your hair," he said. "You changed it."

Maya froze. "Yeah, it's... new. Is it terrible?"

Ryan smiled, all crooked and genuine. "No, it looks cool. Different. Good different."

Cooper, who'd somehow escaped the house and followed her, chose that moment to streak across the baseball field with Luna chasing him, both animals chaos incarnate. The whole team erupted in laughter.

"That your dog?" Ryan asked.

Maya buried her face in her hands. "That's my dog. And my cat. And my dignity is somewhere over there too."

"At least they're entertaining," Ryan said. "Hey, after the game, want to get ice cream? My treat."

Maya looked up, her weird hair hidden under her beanie, her dog and cat causing a scene, her goldfish probably wondering where all the attention went.

"Yeah," she said. "I'd like that."

Maybe bad hair days weren't so terrible after all.