Papaya Sunset at Miller's Pool

The **pool** water glowed that weird electric blue that only happens when the sun starts setting. Kai stood at the edge, towel wrapped tight around his waist, clutching a paper plate with slices of **papaya** because his mom insisted he bring something 'sophisticated' to Jordan's end-of-summer party.\n\nEveryone was already in. Even Jordan's little sister.\n\n'You coming in or what?' yelled Maya, his oldest **friend**, doing a cannonball off the diving board. She'd been trying to get him to jump in literally since sixth grade, back when they'd bonded over being the only two kids who brought papaya to school lunch.\n\nKai's heart did that stupid fluttery thing whenever Maya looked at him like that—like she actually gave a damn whether he participated or not. But then his brain supplied the highlight reel: last year's belly flop comp, the time his swim trunks almost fell off, the endless comments about how he moved like a 'spastic seal.'\n\n'In a minute,' he called back.\n\nJordan's cousin Tanya appeared beside him, shaking water from her hair like some kind of sleek **fox** who'd just finished hunting. She was seventeen and had that effortless confidence Kai couldn't figure out how to fake.\n\n'Jordan's being a **bull** about the playlist again,' she said, jerking her thumb toward the bluetooth speaker. 'He thinks playing nothing but SoundCloud rap makes him deep.'\n\nKai laughed despite himself.\n\n'Thanks for the papaya, by the way,' Tanya added, surprising him. 'Actually kind of genius. Everyone else brought basic chips.'\n\nSomething in Kai's chest loosened. Maybe it wasn't about being smooth. Maybe it was about showing up with weird fruit and letting people either dig it or not.\n\nHe dropped his towel on the lounge chair and cannonballed into the deep end, water exploding everywhere. When he surfaced, Maya was high-fiving him and Tanya was stealing a papaya slice from his abandoned plate.\n\nSummer wasn't over yet. Not even close.