Riddle of the Lunch Table Sphinx

Maya's heart did that embarrassing flutter thing whenever Jason looked her way, which was approximately never. She spent forty-five minutes on her eyeliner perfecting the wing, only to have her sphinx cat, Barnaby, knock her makeup bag off the bathroom counter at 7:12 AM. Now she was sitting alone at lunch—again—watching Jason laugh with the volleyball girls who somehow made messy buns look effortless.

"You're staring again," said Chloe, sliding onto the bench across from her. Chloe was Maya's oldest friend, the only person who knew about her Tumblr fanfiction account, and currently vibrating with unspoken news.

"Am not," Maya lied, pushing around the papaya chunks on her tray. Her mom had started buying exotic fruits as part of her 'live, laugh, love' midlife crisis phase. "What's up with you? You look like you're about to explode."

"Jason's party Friday?" Chloe lowered her voice. "Everyone's going. Even the sophomores. But you have to come because—" she paused dramatically "—his cousin is visiting from college and he's apparently built like a Greek god and I need a wingwoman who won't bail."

Maya's stomach did something complicated. "I don't have anything to wear. Also, I'm socially awkward. Also, Barnaby tried to eat my highlighter yesterday and I'm pretty sure that's an omen."

"You're going," Chloe declared. "We'll figure out an outfit. And you're not awkward, you're mysterious and artistic, which is basically the same thing but cooler."

By Friday, Maya had convinced herself that sweating through her outfit was just her body's way of expressing enthusiasm. She'd straightened her hair three times and changed her shirt twice. The party was already loud when they arrived—bas-boosted music vibrating through the floor, red solo cups everywhere, the universal signal that things were about to get incredibly awkward.

And then she saw him.

Jason's cousin wasn't just built like a Greek god. He looked like he'd been carved by one, all sharp jawline and lazy confidence. But it was his cat—this sleek, shadow-black thing weaving through people's legs—that caught her attention first.

"That's Cairo," Jason appeared beside her, making her jump approximately three feet in the air. "My cousin's cat. He's a sphinx mix, rescued from a hoarding situation. Very dramatic backstory." His eyes crinkled when he smiled. "You're Maya, right? You sit near me in English."

Her brain short-circuited. "I. Yes. That's me. Maya. I have a cat too. He's also a sphinx. We're like a sphinx club or something. I'm going to stop talking now."

Jason laughed, and it wasn't mean. "That's actually kinda sick. What's your cat's name?"

"Barnaby," she managed, though she could feel her face heating up. "He tried to eat my highlighter yesterday."

"Classic Barnaby move." His cousin appeared, with the cat and a plate of fruit skewers. "Want a papaya bite? Cairo's obsessed with them. It's weirdly specific."

And just like that, Maya found herself in Jason's kitchen at 11:47 PM on a Friday, feeding papaya to a sphinx cat while the hottest guy in school watched and his ridiculously attractive cousin made terrible puns about sphinxes and riddles.

"Okay, okay," the cousin said, waving a papaya spear dramatically. "What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening? Also, Cairo is judging your answer."

"Man," Maya said without hesitating. "And the cat's name is Cairo because he has no secrets."

Jason's cousin threw his head back and laughed. "You just won the only prize I have available—which is my cousin's number, since he's been too nervous to ask for yours all week."

Jason's face turned approximately the same color as the papaya. "Dude, what the hell."

Maya looked at Jason, who was rubbing the back of his neck and refusing to meet her eyes, and thought about how sometimes the universe worked in mysterious ways. Also how her mom's weird fruit obsession had somehow, impossibly, become the best thing that ever happened to her.

"I'll take it," she said, and Cairo the sphinx cat purred like he'd planned this all along.