Poolside Confessions

The backyard hummed with that specific energy of a Friday night party—chlorine mixing with cheap cologne, bass thumping from somewhere inside. Maya clutched her red solo cup like a lifeline, standing near the edge of the in-ground pool where it was darker. Cooler. Safer.

"You're not gonna swim?"

She jumped. Jason stood there, shirt already off, cutoffs frayed at the edges. The guy who'd sat behind her in bio since freshman year, who she'd never actually spoken to outside of class.

"Maybe later," she said, which was absolutely not true. Maya in a swimsuit at McKenzie Evans's party? Hard pass.

Jason's golden retriever, Buster, trotted over and nudged her hand with that wet-nose insistence that made her knees weak. "He likes you," Jason grinned. "Buster's an excellent judge of character."

A giggle from the pool deck made them both turn. Chelsea and her squad were doing that thing where they looked at someone while whispering, not even trying to hide it.

"They're so zombie-like sometimes," Jason said quietly. "Just following whatever Chelsea does, no brains required."

Maya snorted before she could stop herself. Jason's eyes crinkled.

Then lightning split the sky—WHITE HOT—followed instantly by thunder that rattled the pool deck.

"EVERYONE OUT OF THE POOL!" McKenzie's brother yelled.

Suddenly it was chaos. Wet bodies scrambling everywhere. Maya and Jason got caught in the crush of people rushing toward the house, and somehow they ended up squeezed together in the gazebo as rain poured down in sheets.

"Great," she muttered. "Now I'm that awkward girl stuck in a gazebo with—"

"With the guy who's been wanting to talk to you all year," Jason finished.

Maya's brain did that thing where it just. Stopped. Processing.

"What?"

"I asked to be your lab partner specifically," he said. "You didn't notice?"

"I thought McKenzie assigned—"

"I asked McKenzie to assign us. But you kept looking at me like I was some kind of sphinx you had to solve." His expression softened. "Maya, you're not as invisible as you think."

Buster shook rain all over both of them and Maya laughed—really laughed—for the first time all night. The rain continued falling around them, the distant party noise fading, everything suddenly and wonderfully smaller.

"So," Jason said, "hypothetically, if I asked you to get food after this storm passes..."

"Hypothically," Maya smiled, "I might say yes."