Spinach in the Spotlight

Maya's life was officially over. She was sitting in the cafeteria with Noah—the Noah who'd smiled at her in homeroom yesterday—and there was, without a doubt, a piece of **spinach** wedged between her front teeth.

She'd felt it with her tongue two minutes ago: a crunchy, green disaster from the school's "garden fresh" salad that definitely wasn't garden fresh. Now Noah was talking about his gaming setup, something about which HDMI **cable** gave the best refresh rate for Call of Duty, and Maya was just nodding like her brain hadn't short-circuited.

"Are you okay?" Noah asked, tilting his head. "You look... tense."

Maya's palms were sweating. Actually sweating. She wiped her right **palm** on her jeans, probably leaving a gross dark streak on the denim. "Yeah, totally. Just... thinking about... stuff."

Smooth. Real smooth.

Her friends at the next table were definitely **spy**ing on her. She could feel Chloe and Layla's eyes burning into her back like laser beams. They were the ones who'd pushed her to sit with Noah in the first place. "Just talk to him!" they'd said. "What's the worst that could happen?"

Well, now she knew.

Noah kept talking, bless his heart, completely unaware that Maya was currently holding her smile in a way that felt unnatural enough to make her jaw ache. She was basically performing a full-face workout just to hide the spinach situation.

"Anyway," Noah said, leaning in closer, "I was gonna ask if you wanted to come over and play this weekend? My setup's actually pretty good now."

Maya's brain did a full system reboot. He was asking her to come over. HIM. NOAH.

She opened her mouth to say yes, to say literally anything that wasn't weird—and that's when she felt it. The spinach shifted. Loose. Dangerously loose.

Maya made a split-second decision. She grabbed her napkin, fake-coughed into it, and felt the spinach dislodge. Victory.

"Sorry," she said, dropping the napkin like it was nuclear waste. "Allergies. Anyway—yes. Absolutely."

Noah grinned, and Maya swore she saw something green stuck in his own braces.

And somehow? That made everything better.