Palm Readings & Pool Parties

Maya's palms were sweating. Again.

"Dude, you got this," Tyler whispered, handing her a yeti-blue Vitaminwater. "Chill. You're like, literally the most interesting person here."

Maya took a sip, the weird blue-berry flavor coating her tongue. Easy for him to say. Tyler was the guy who'd worn a fox onesie to homecoming and somehow made it a legendary moment. She was just Maya, the girl who read tarot cards in the cafeteria and whose mom still packed her those embarrassingly large vitamin gummies in her lunch.

"You doing the palm thing or what?" Chloe appeared, flipping perfect beach waves. Chloe, whose Instagram stories were basically a documentary of How To Be Teenage Girl Goals. "People are literally waiting."

The pool party crowd was gathering around the patio table. Maya's setup: a lace tablecloth from her grandma's closet, some battery-operated fairy lights, and a crystal paperweight she'd totally exaggerated as "ancient."

She nodded, wiped her palms on her shorts, and sat down.

The line formed. First came a nervous freshman whose lifeline Maya pretended to study solemnly. Then a lacrosse player who asked if he'd get drafted. Each reading, she felt more like a fraud, but their eyes—they wanted something to believe in.

Then HE sat down. Lucas. The guy who'd sat behind her in bio since September, whose messy dark hair kept catching the sunlight, who'd loaned her a pen once and she'd still mentally replayed it 47 times.

His hand was warm when she took it. His lifeline was a roadmap of something she couldn't read, but his eyes—

"What do you see?" he asked, voice low. The pool lights danced in the water behind him, casting ripples of blue across his face.

Her throat went dry. The line about seeing a bright future felt stupid on her tongue. Instead, she said, "I see someone who's going to do something that matters."

He smiled, and it wasn't fake. It reached his eyes. "Yeah?"

"Yeah."

Later, when most people had left and the water sparkled under moonlight, Lucas found her by the pool edge. She'd kicked off her sandals and was dangling her feet in the cool water.

"Hey," he said, sitting beside her. "You were wrong about one thing."

Her heart did that stupid flutter thing. "Oh yeah?"

"I already did something that matters." He nudged her shoulder. "I talked to you."

The water lapped against the pool edge. Somewhere in the distance, a fox barked—a weird, wild sound that made them both laugh.

"You're so weird," she said, but she was smiling.

"You're pretty weird yourself, Palm Reader."

He took her hand. His palm against hers. No sweat this time. Just warmth.

"My mom made me bring these," she said, pulling the vitamin gummies from her pocket. "Wanna split?"

"Always."