Orange Crush at the Summit

The cafeteria social pyramid was brutal, and Marcus had resigned himself to occupying the base layer—right next to the trash cans. Until today.

Marcus gripped his orange Gatorade so hard his palm sweated. Three tables away, Chloe—the undisputed queen of the sophomore class—laughed at something. That laugh. The one that made his chest do weird backflips.

"You gonna stare all day or actually talk to her?" Ty, his best friend since kindergarten, smirked. Marcus adjusted his baseball cap, trying to look casual. "I'm working up to it."

"Cat's got your tongue?"

"Shut up, man."

The moment fate intervened: Chloe's orange backpack slipped off her chair. Her phone skidded across the floor—straight toward Marcus.

His brain short-circuited. This was it. The scene straight out of every teen movie he'd ever seen. The chance encounter. The meet-cute.

He scrambled to retrieve it, practically diving over two freshman who looked mildly terrified. Marcus scooped up the phone just as Chloe reached for it.

Their fingers brushed.

"Thanks," she said, and her eyes were actually kind. "I'm Chloe."

"Marcus. I mean, I know. Everyone knows you." Immediate regret. That sounded creepy as hell.

But she smiled. "You're in my history class. You made that presentation about ancient Egypt last week?"

"Yeah. The Great Pyramid of Giza." He couldn't believe she remembered.

"It was actually really good," she said. "Better than Jason's boring PowerPoint."

Jason. Her boyfriend. The starting pitcher on the varsity baseball team. The guy who sat comfortably at the pyramid's apex.

Marcus's stomach dropped. But then Chloe said, "We're studying for the history test together after school. You should come."

She wrote her number on his palm with a sparkly orange pen. "Text me."

She walked away, and Marcus stood there like an idiot, grinning so hard his face hurt.

"Dude," Ty said, appearing beside him. "Did that just happen?"

Marcus looked at the numbers fading on his hand. Maybe the pyramid wasn't so fixed after all.

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, it did."