Papaya Pretender

Maya stood in front of the bathroom mirror, lip gloss applied just right, outfit approved by three different group chats. Tonight was the night. Leo's party. The Leo she'd been lowkey obsessed with since September.

"You got this," she whispered, then almost jumped when her phone buzzed. Aunt Sarah: "Can you walk Bella? Something came up."

Bella. The chihuahua mix who peed on everything Maya owned. The dog was currently attached to a leash that was tangled around Maya's ankle like a needy ankle bracelet. She was already running fashionably late, and now she was dragging a ten-pound creature with separation anxiety.

"Fine," Maya told the dog, who tilted her head like she understood. "But you're staying in the yard."

Ten minutes later, Maya stood in Leo's kitchen, heart pounding, clutching a red Solo cup she hadn't taken a sip from. The air smelled like expensive cologne and something she couldn't place—herbs, maybe? Laughter spilled from the living room where people cooler than her were being cooler than her.

Then she saw it. On the counter, arranged like something from a Pinterest board she'd never achieve: a fruit platter with the most exotic thing she'd ever seen in real life. Papaya. Sliced open, orange-fleshed and glistening with little black seeds like edible constellations.

"Have you tried it?"

Maya practically choked on air. Leo. Right there. Smelling like sandalwood and confidence.

"The papaya?" she heard herself say. "Oh, yeah. Totally. All the time."

He raised an eyebrow, and Maya realized she might have overdone it.

"It's... actually my first time," she admitted, feeling her face burn. "I don't even know what it tastes like."

Leo's laugh was this warm thing that settled somewhere behind her ribs. "My mom's obsessed with it. She says it's an acquired taste, like... expensive wine or emotional maturity."

Maya giggled before she could stop herself. Outside, through the screen door, she spotted Bella somehow having escaped the yard, now doing something truly horrifying to Leo's mom's hydrangeas.

"Is that your dog?" Leo asked, following her gaze.

"That's... that's not my dog," Maya said desperately. "That's... a very lost dog. That I should definitely go catch."

She bolted outside, straight past the papaya, straight past cool, into the warm night air with her hair already frizzing and her dignity somewhere behind her, dragging a confused Leo by the sleeve because she'd be damned if she was facing this alone.

"I don't even like papaya," she heard herself shouting over Bella's triumphant barking. "I don't even know what papaya is supposed to taste like!"

Leo was laughing, really laughing now, and something in Maya's chest untwisted. Maybe tonight wasn't going according to plan. Maybe she'd just accidentally revealed herself as a fraud who couldn't handle exotic fruit and couldn't properly dog-sit and still had cable at home because her parents refused to get Netflix.

But Leo was crouching down in his nice clothes to help her catch the escape-artist dog, and when their hands brushed reaching for the leash, he didn't pull away.

"Next time," he said, grinning, "I'll teach you about papaya."

Maya's heart did this embarrassingly hopeful little flip. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. But seriously, what's up with your cable situation?"

She groaned, but she was smiling. "Don't even get me started."