Fox by the Pool

The chlorine smell hit Maya before she even stepped into the Stone backyard. Her bikini felt wrong—too bright, too everything. Jordan Stone was hosting the last pool party of summer, and somehow Maya had actually been invited. She'd spent forty-five minutes on her hair. Forty-five minutes she'd never get back.

Maya grabbed a paper plate, loading it with spinach artichoke dip and chips. Social lubrication, basically. She was mid-dip when she saw him—Caleb, the new guy with the half-smile that made everyone's brain turn to static. He was climbing out of the pool, water dripping everywhere, and Maya stopped chewing for approximately three years.

That's when she felt it. The piece of spinach, definitely wedged between her front teeth.

She turned away so fast her chips almost went flying. There was no way she was talking to Caleb with spinach in her teeth. That was eighth grade behavior, and they were going into tenth. There were standards now.

Then everyone screamed.

Not the fun kind. The what-is-that-thing kind.

Maya spun around. There, standing at the edge of the pool deck like it owned everything, was a fox. Actual fox. Rusty-red coat, pointy ears, zero fear. It looked at all the wet, screaming teenagers like they were the weird ones.

"That's literally a fox," Caleb said, scrambling backward and grabbing his towel.

The fox trotted toward the food table like it was late for a very important meeting. Maya watched, frozen, as the creature sniffed at the spinach dip, made a face, and then kept walking toward the woods like they were all beneath its notice.

"Did that fox just judge my dip?" Jordan's little sister yelled from the hot tub.

Caleb started laughing. Like, actually laughing. He looked at Maya—still clutching her spinach-laden plate, still practically hyperventilating—and his face softened.

"You have a little—" He gestured to his own teeth.

Maya's soul left her body. But then she was laughing too. Because honestly? What was she supposed to do? There'd been a fox. A fox had walked into this party, looked at them all, decided they weren't worth it, and left.

"Spinach," she said, wiping her teeth with her napkin. "Classic."

"It's fine," Caleb said, and he meant it. "Hey, did you see that fox? It was so unimpressed by us. That's kind of iconic."

The fox. The spinach. The pool. All of it ridiculous, all of it happening at once.

"Yeah," Maya said, finally letting herself exhale. "Pretty iconic."