Poolside Panic

The pool job was supposed to be easy. Scan passes, enforce rules, look moderately competent in a one-piece. But here I was, staring down at Marco—the senior who made my brain do backflips—while clutching a plastic bag containing my newest problem.

"Nice goldfish," he said, nodding at the bag sloshing against my hip. Bubbles had come from the ring toss booth at the club's summer festival, along with a lifetime of regret. "What's his name?"

"Bubbles," I managed, which was honestly humiliating. "I have to take him swimming with me. My mom said no pets inside."

Marco's lips twitched. Like, actually suppressed a laugh. "You're bringing a goldfish swimming? That's... weirdly adorable."

ADORKABLE. I'd officially been branded.

"Whatever," I muttered, but then—because the universe hated me—his friends called him over to the padel courts. "You play?" I asked, desperate to keep him there.

"Want me to teach you?" The way he looked at me made my stomach do that dangerous thing where it forgot how to organs.

But then the pool whistle screamed. Emergency. Someone wasn't moving in the deep end.

I dropped everything—literally everything—and dove in. The water turned my orange bikini into a blur as I hauled some seventh grader to safety. When I surfaced, gasping, everyone was staring. And there, bobbing sadly near the pool edge, was Bubbles's bag.

I'd almost drowned a goldfish I'd had for twelve minutes.

Marco was laughing for real now, but not mean-laughing. "That was actually heroic," he said, handing me a towel. "And RIP Bubbles. He had a good run."

Later, sitting at the snack bar with a papaya smoothie he'd bought me as a peace offering for my goldfish funeral, I realized something. Sometimes the most embarrassing moments become the best stories. And sometimes, just sometimes, someone likes you enough to laugh with you instead of at you.

"So," Marco said, "same time tomorrow? I can teach you padel. No pets required."

Maybe summer wouldn't be so bad after all.