Fox at the Deep End

The bass from Olivia's basement speakers thumped against the sliding glass door. I stood at the edge of her inground pool, clutching a lukewarm soda, watching the **water** ripple under the moonlight. Everyone else was already in—laughing, splashing, living their best lives like TikTok come to life. Everyone except me and Fox Harper.

Fox was Olivia's older brother, a junior who'd been held back a year, currently lounging on a pool chair in those ridiculous Vans he never took off, scrolling through his phone like the party was beneath him. He had this rust-colored hair that stuck up in the back and eyes that always looked like he was about to say something devastatingly clever but thought better of it. That's how he got the nickname—Fox moved through high school like he knew all the exits.

My **palm**s were sweating so bad I had to keep wiping them on my dress. This was it—my chance to actually talk to him, just the two of us alone out here, and I was frozen.

"You gonna stand there all night or what?" Fox spoke without looking up from his phone.

I jumped. "What?"

"The water." He finally looked at me, and god, his eyes were annoyingly perfect. "You've been staring at it like it owes you money for twenty minutes."

"I'm thinking."

"About?"

"About how chlorinated water is basically chemical soup and we're all just bathing in someone's pee and—" I stopped. Fox was laughing. Not making fun of me laughing, but actual laughing, head tilted back.

"You're weird," he said.

"I'm socially anxious," I corrected. "There's a difference."

"Same thing." Fox stood up, stretched, and I tried not to notice how his shoulders moved under his black t-shirt. "Watch this." He walked to the pool's edge and did the most perfect cannonball I'd ever seen—minimal splash, maximum impact. When he surfaced, shaking water from his hair like a dog, he grinned at me. "Your turn."

"I hate you."

"No you don't." He swam to the edge and rested his arms on the concrete. "Hey, Maya?"

My heart did something embarrassing. "Yeah?"

"Get in here already. I'm not gonna keep entertaining you from the deep end."

I jumped in clothes and all, and when I surfaced, sputtering and freezing, Fox was still grinning that fox grin of his. And somehow, standing there shivering in my soaked dress, I finally felt like I was exactly where I was supposed to be.