Operation Chlorine

Maya's mouth tasted like mint and desperation. The spinach dip had seemed like such a good idea at TJ's party—until she caught her reflection in the patio glass. Green flecks. Every. Single. Tooth.

Of course. Because the universe had perfect timing like that.

She'd been psyching herself up to talk to Cameron all afternoon. He was by the pool, laughing with his friends, water dripping from his hair like he'd just stepped out of a movie. Maya had hovered near the snack table for twenty minutes, pretending to be deeply fascinated by a bag of chips while strategically planning her approach.

Now her teeth looked like a salad.

"I'm going to die," she muttered to Liam, who'd just appeared beside her with an empty soda can.

"Dramatic."

"There's spinach in my teeth, Cameron is five feet away, and I'm supposed to be casually swimming over there like a normal human being who doesn't have food stuck in their face."

Liam squinted. "Oh yeah. That's... impressive, actually."

"Help. Me."

She grabbed his arm and dragged him toward the pool house bathroom, but before they made it three steps, Cameron turned. Their eyes locked. Maya froze. This was it. The moment every teen movie warned about.

Then she did something absolutely, incredibly stupid.

She dropped her phone into the pool.

"Whoops," Maya said, while her brain screamed WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU.

But then—Cameron was already moving, diving smoothly into the water. He surfaced a second later, holding her dripping phone. "Smooth," he said, grinning.

And there it was. Her chance.

"I was actually... spying on you," Maya blurted out, then immediately wanted to evaporate. "I mean, NOT spying. That sounds creepy. I was—"

"Spying?" Cameron's eyebrow went up. "On what? My legendary backstroke?"

"Your terrible dive," Maya recovered smoothly. "Total zero out of ten."

"Oh, you think you can do better?" He waded toward the edge.

"I'm on the swim team, Cameron. I literally can."

"Prove it."

Twenty minutes later, Maya had forgotten all about the spinach incident. She'd challenged Cameron to a race (lost gracefully), accidentally splashed his entire friend group (accidentally on purpose), and learned that he'd been trying to talk to HER all afternoon but thought SHE was stuck-up.

"You looked intense," he said later, as they sat on the pool edge, feet in the water. "Like you were calculating something important."

"I was," Maya said. "Whether spinach dip was worth destroying my social life."

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

Maya groaned and covered her face. "And you didn't say anything?"

"I thought it was endearing."

"Endearing?"

"Yeah." Cameron bumped her shoulder with his. "Made you seem less perfect."

Maya lowered her hands. "I'm about as far from perfect as it gets."

"Good." He stood up, offering her a hand. "Because I was going to ask if you wanted to come to my meet next Friday, but I was worried you'd say no."

She took his hand. "Only if you promise not to spy on my strokes."

"No promises."

Later, Maya would remember it as the day she learned that sometimes the most embarrassing moments aren't dead ends—they're just plot twists. And that spinach dip, surprisingly, wasn't the villain of the story.

It was the wingman.