Signal Lost

Maya's palms were sweating — like, actually dripping — as she clutched her phone, the fraying charging **cable** dangling dangerously close to the pool edge. "You good?" Tyler asked, flashing that crooked grin that made her brain short-circuit. "Yeah. Totally. Just admiring the... water features." Smooth. Real smooth.

She'd been crushing on Tyler since seventh grade, and now, at this supposedly-epic summer party before freshman year, she was mostly just **spy**-level lurking in the corner, pretending to be deeply fascinated by her playlist while actually watching him over her phone screen. The backyard was chaos: people jumping into the pool, music bumping, someone already crying on the patio.

Tyler slid into the seat beside her, dripping **water** everywhere. "You're not swimming?"

"I'm more of an observer," she said, immediately regretting how pretentious that sounded.

He laughed. "Same. I only came because my mom said I need to 'socialize outside of Discord.'" He gestured at the chaos. "This is, like, overwhelming energy."

Maya's phone buzzed. GROUP CHAT: maya_walker WHERE ARE YOU we've been looking for you for 20 minutes

"Your friends are looking for you," Tyler said.

"They can wait," she said, then immediately panicked. Was that too forward?

But Tyler was smiling. "Good. Because I was gonna say — I think I saw you at that arcade last month? You were playing that rhythm game?"

Maya's face burned. "You saw that? I was having a moment."

"You were killing it though," he said. "I was too nervous to say hi."

Wait. Tyler Cruz got nervous? To talk to HER?

"I was actually gonna **spy** on your game next time," he admitted, "to see if you'd beat my high score."

Maya laughed so hard she almost dropped her phone into the pool. "Your high score? Challenge accepted, Cruz."

"Tomorrow? Same arcade?"

"Deal." Her palms weren't sweating anymore. Sometimes the signal you're waiting for isn't on your phone — it's right beside you, dripping pool water and pretending to be cool.