Palm Reads and Pool Sides

Maya's palms were sweating, which was exactly the opposite of what she needed when she was holding her phone, trying to look casual while simultaneously conducting what was arguably the most low-stakes spy operation in history.

Target: Connor from third-period English.

Location: The community pool, where half the junior class had congregated because someone's parents were out of town and the invitation had spread faster than that rumor about Mr. Henderson's toupee.

"You're being so weird about this," said Jaz, Maya's best friend, currently dangling her feet in the water while Maya crouched behind a cluster of plastic lounge chairs like she was in some low-budget action movie. "Just talk to him."

"I can't just talk to him," Maya hissed. "I have to gather intel first. That's how these things work. You don't just walk up to a baseball god and say hey, what's up, I noticed you in English and I think your hair looks good when you're pretending to understand symbolism."

Connor was, indeed, a baseball god—well, the junior varsity kind, which was still something. He was currently in the deep end with a bunch of other guys, launching what appeared to be a fierce competition to see who could hold their breath the longest. The cable company's van had parked by the entrance earlier, and a couple of workers in hard hats were doing something technical-looking with wires and junction boxes near the pool house, completely ignoring the chaos of teenagers everywhere.

"You're overthinking this," Jaz said, splashing water toward Maya's knees. "He's just a guy. A guy who, might I add, has been looking over here every two minutes like he's trying to figure out why you're hiding behind lawn furniture."

Maya felt her face heat up. "No he hasn't."

"He literally just looked."

"That doesn't count."

A ball—a volleyball, sloppy and waterlogged—came sailing out of nowhere and smacked into the lounge chair next to Maya. Connor's friend Leo came jogging over, looking guilty but also like this was the most exciting thing that had happened all afternoon.

"Sorry about that," Leo said. "Connor was gonna come get it but he got, uh, distracted by a... thing. With a bee? I don't know, man's terrified of bees, it's weird."

Maya's palms were officially sweating at maximum capacity. "It's fine."

"You're Maya, right? From English?" Leo asked, and then he yelled back toward the pool, "Connor! It's Maya from English!"

And then Connor was there, dripping wet and looking at her with those nervous eyes that somehow made his whole face look softer, and Maya realized she'd been spying on the wrong things entirely—she should've been watching how he looked at her when he thought she wasn't looking, how he got flustered and ran a hand through his wet hair and said, "Hey," like it was the most important word in the English language.

"Hey," Maya said back, and somewhere behind them, a cable worker shouted something about a line being connected, and Jaz made an extremely unsubtle thumbs-up, and Maya's palms stopped sweating because she was too busy smiling to remember to be nervous.