Electric Blue

The chlorine smell hit Maya before she even saw the pool. She stood at the edge of the patio, her heart doing that weird flutter thing it always did when Jake was around. Which was ridiculous, because they'd been neighbors since kindergarten, but somewhere between freshman and junior year, he'd transformed from the kid who ate dirt into someone who made her stomach do backflips.

"Yo, Maya! You gonna stand there all day or actually get in?" Jake called from the pool, droplets of water glistening on his chest like diamonds.

Her hand went instinctively to her frizzy hair, which she'd spent forty-five minutes trying to tame. She'd even taken that hair vitamin her mom swore by—nothing. Still a lion's mane, still not quite fitting in with the sleek-haired girls who floated effortlessly in the shallow end, their makeup somehow waterproof.

"I'm good," Maya managed, but then Emma grabbed her hand.

"Nope. You're not doing that thing where you overthink everything and miss out. Come on." Before Maya could protest, Emma yanked her toward the deep end.

Jake's golden retriever, Max, chose that exact moment to streak across the patio, barking at absolutely nothing. The dog launched himself into the pool with a massive splash, landing directly between Jake and Maya. Water everywhere. Everyone laughed, including Jake, who pushed wet hair out of his eyes and grinned at her like she was part of the joke, not the joke itself.

That's when it happened—the kind of moment that would forever be etched into her brain like lightning across a summer sky. Jake swam over, Max paddling happily beside him.

"Your hair," he said, and she felt herself shrinking inside. "It's actually kinda awesome. Like, wild but in a cool way."

The sky chose that moment to crack open. Real lightning this time, brilliant and terrifying, followed immediately by thunder that shook the ground. Someone screamed. Everyone scrambled out of the pool, grabbing towels and phones, but Maya stood there frozen, rain mixing with pool water on her skin, Jake's words echoing in her ears.

"Come on!" Jake grabbed her hand, and they ran toward the house together, Max shaking water everywhere behind them.

They ended up huddled under the porch overhang, shoulders pressed together, watching the storm transform the backyard into something wild and electric. Jake looked at her, really looked at her, like she was someone worth seeing.

"We should do this again," he said. "Minus the dog collision maybe."

Maya smiled, her frizzy hair catching the light from the house. "Yeah. We should."