Palm Reader's Secret

Maya pressed her **palm** against the cool window of her bedroom, breath fogging the glass. Down below, the new guy was moving in across the street. Cute. Definitely crush material.

"You're being such a creep," said Jordan, dropping onto her bed and scrolling through TikTok. "Literally just go say hi like a normal person."

"I'm not creeping," Maya lied, reaching for her laptop. "I'm... observing. Gathering intel."

"You're being a total **spy**," Jordan laughed. "But honestly? Valid. He's lowkey fine."

Maya's cat, Mochi, chose that moment to knock over the tangled mess of cords behind her desk. The HDMI **cable** yanked free with a painful *thwack*, and both screens went black.

"Mochi, what the actual—" Maya groaned, kneeling to investigate the disaster. That's when she noticed it: her loose cable had somehow plugged into the neighbor's wifi network. Their unprotected, totally open wifi network.

And on it? A folder labeled "Demo Tracks."

"No way," Maya whispered. Jordan abandoned her phone to peer over Maya's shoulder.

Together, they listened. And holy sh*t, the new guy could SING. Like, actually, unbelievably good. His voice was rough and honest, singing about feeling like an outsider in a small town, about wanting to be seen but being terrified of actually being seen. It was so raw it made Maya's chest hurt.

**Water** pricked the corners of her eyes. She'd been so caught up in whether he was cute that she hadn't stopped to think about who he actually was.

"Okay," Jordan said softly. "That's... that's really good."

The next morning, Maya did it. She walked across the street, heart pounding, and knocked on his door.

"Hey," she said when he answered, looking totally confused. "I'm Maya. I live over there. And I heard you singing."

His face turned bright red. "Oh my god, I—"

"You're really talented," she rushed on. "Like, actually crazy talented. I do this music podcast thing? Could I interview you sometime?"

He stared at her for a second, then smiled—really smiled, like a genuine smile that reached his eyes. "That would be sick," he said. "I'm Leo, by the way."

Back in her room, Maya's **cat** wound around her ankles, purring like a tiny engine. Maya scratched behind her ears, feeling bold and terrifyingly alive.

"Nice work, partner," she told Mochi. "We're gonna need better cable management, though."