Fox Fire at Midnight

The papaya sunscreen smelled like summer, but honestly? It just made me smell like a walking fruit salad. Which was _not_ the vibe I was going for at Jason's pool party. Not when my crush was literally five feet away, looking perfect in her orange bikini while I stood there awkwardly holding a solo cup like it was a lifeline.

"Yo, Earth to Maya," Zara snapped her fingers in my face. "You good? You've been staring at the water for like five minutes straight."

I jumped, nearly spilling my drink. "Yeah. Just... thinking."

"About how you finally talked to Kai today?" She grinned like she knew everything. Because she _did_ know everything. That was the problem with having a best friend who could read your mind.

Before I could respond, someone shouted, "PYRAMID! Everyone out, we're doing a human pyramid!"

Twenty teenagers scrambled to obey, because that's what we did. We just... followed. And suddenly there I was, third from the bottom, with Kai's hand on my shoulder to steady herself. Her touch was barely there, just fingertips, but my whole brain short-circuited.

That's when I saw the fox.

It was the weirdest thing—an orange fox, standing at the edge of the yard, just... watching us. Like it was judging our terrible human pyramid that was already starting to wobble.

"Does anyone else see that?" I whispered.

"See what?" Kai asked, her mouth weirdly close to my ear.

"The fox. Right there."

She looked, squinting. "No... but there _was_ a fox on TikTok that went viral for stealing people's snacks. Maybe it's that one."

And then we were laughing, and the pyramid collapsed, and we all went down in a tangle of limbs and water and papaya-smelling sunscreen, and somehow Kai ended up next to me, her hair dripping, her orange swimsuit bright against the blue water.

"Nice knowing you," she said, and her smile was like nothing I'd ever seen.

Later, walking home under streetlights, I spotted the fox again. Just for a second, slipping between houses. A flash of orange in the dark. And I thought: maybe this summer wouldn't be terrible after all.