Electric in the Kitchen

Maya's phone buzzed with the fifth text from her mom in ten minutes. "Remember to eat something healthy!" As if the stuffed mushrooms at this party counted. She was sixteen, not six.

The kitchen was crowded — way more people than Alexa's tiny house could handle. Someone had brought a massive bowl of spinach dip that looked like it had been through a war, and honestly, Maya was low-key impressed. Nobody actually ate the healthy stuff at parties.

Then she saw him. Lucas. The same Lucas who'd sat behind her in bio freshman year, the one whose drawings in the margins of his notes were actually amazing. He was standing alone by the back door, scrolling through his phone like he'd rather be anywhere else.

The air between them felt like lightning. Not the scary kind, but the electric, can't-look-away kind that made Maya's stomach do weird things she didn't want to name.

She grabbed a handful of chips from the spinach dip disaster zone and headed over. "Hey."

Lucas looked up, and for a second, he looked surprised. Then relieved? "Hey. You're Maya, right? From Mr. Harrison's class?"

"Yeah, that's me." She gestured to the dip. "Want some? It's actually not terrible."

He laughed, and something in Maya's chest loosened. "I'm good. My mom would kill me if I came home smelling like processed cheese again."

They talked for twenty minutes about everything and nothing — his art, her obsession with vintage cameras, how both their parents were driving them crazy about grades. It was effortless. Easy. Until Maya's phone lit up again.

"Your mom?" Lucas asked, nodding at the screen.

"Yeah. She's convinced I'm going to starve if I don't eat a vegetable every hour." She rolled her eyes. "She literally bought me a goldfish last month because she said I needed 'something to take care of.'"

Lucas cracked up. "No way. What'd you name it?"

"Pepper. Because apparently I'm responsible enough for a fish that'll probably die in a week."

He looked at her then, really looked at her, and Maya felt that lightning feeling again, stronger this time. "You're funny, Maya."

The back door opened, letting in a rush of cool air and someone's loud voice announcing they'd ordered pizza. Lucas moved slightly closer. "Hey, um, there's this art show downtown next weekend. If you wanted to come. I mean, I'm showing some pieces, and I could use someone who actually gets it."

Maya's heart was doing something completely illegal. "Yeah. Yeah, I'd love to."

As she walked home later, spinach dip in her stomach and Lucas's number in her phone, Maya thought her mom might've been onto something with that whole "eating something healthy" thing. Maybe the best things really did come when you weren't looking for them.