Spinach Teeth and Starry Eyes

Maya's palms were sweating so bad she could practically water plants with them. She wiped them on her dress for the third time, leaving dark streaks on the fabric. Great. Now she looked nervous AND messy.

Tyler's party was already way better than she'd expected. The basement was transformed into something resembling a club, with LED strips casting everything in purple and blue. Someone's dog—a golden retriever named Bean—had claimed the corner of the room, watching everyone with judgmental eyes. Maya had already stepped on his paw twice. He was not impressed.

"You good?" Maya's best friend Priya asked, sliding up beside her.

"Just psyching myself up," Maya said, though what she really meant was: *I'm about to humiliate myself in front of my crush.*

The food table was her safe zone. She reached for another spinach artichoke dip cracker, because obviously nervous eating was the answer to all her problems. That's when she saw him.

Evan. The guy she'd been crushing on since September. Standing right there, looking unfairly good in his flannel shirt.

He smiled at her. Actually smiled.

"Hey Maya," he said, and her brain short-circuited. "Having fun?"

She opened her mouth to respond with something normal, something cool. "Yeah! The dip's really... dip-y."

*What.*

Evan's cat, Pickles, chose that exact moment to leap onto the table, knocking into the bowl of spinach dip. Green splattered everywhere. Including on Maya's white dress.

But the real disaster came when she rushed to the bathroom to clean it off, caught her reflection in the mirror, and saw it: a massive piece of spinach wedged between her two front teeth.

She'd been walking around with it all night. Talking to people. Smiling at Evan.

Maya stared at herself, wanting to evaporate. Then she started laughing. Because what else could she do? This was her life now—the girl who showed up to her first real party with spinach in her teeth and dip on her dress.

When she finally came back out, Evan was still there. He gestured to his own teeth.

"You had a little something," he said, grinning. "But honestly? It was kind of adorable."

Maya's palms stopped sweating for the first time all night. Maybe disasters weren't always bad after all.