Operation Salad Bar

I never signed up to be a spy. But when your best friend has a crisis, you step up.

"He's going to be at the pool party," Maya whispered dramatically across the salad bar. "Which means you need a strategy."

I poked at my spinach. "He literally said hi to me once in homeroom. That's not a love story, that's basic human interaction."

"The salad bar," I mumbled, wishing I'd chosen a seat facing literally anything else.

Maya, being Maya, took matters into her own hands. " accidentally" spilled her Diet Coke near where Lucas stood. I lunged to help, which was heroic, until his cat—who'd apparently wandered in from somewhere—chose that exact moment to weave through my legs and send me sprawling into the pool table.

I caught myself inches from the green felt. Lucas watched, amused. My hair—perfectly curled that morning—now flopped into my eyes like a defeated soufflé.

"You okay?" he asked, and I detected actual concern under the laughter.

"Just practicing for the Olympics," I said, and he laughed. A real laugh, not the polite kind.

Maya mouthed YOU'RE WELCOME from across the room.

I smoothed my hair, grabbing a spinach leaf from where it had fallen onto my shirt. "Want some spinach? It's... nutritious?"

He grinned. "I'll pass. But I will help you clean up."

We spent twenty minutes talking about nothing—music, teachers, how weird pool parties actually were—while his cat purred on the table beside us like she'd engineered the whole thing.

Operation Salad Bar was a disaster. But as Lucas asked for my number afterward, I decided some strategic failures were worth it.