Splash Zone

Maya's hair refused to cooperate that morning, frizzing up like she'd stuck her finger in an electrical socket. Perfect. Exactly the vibe she needed when *he* might actually notice her today.

The community pool was packed—the kind of chaos that happened when temps hit ninety and everyone had the same desperate idea. Jace was there, of course, doing laps like it was his job and not just something he did to make everyone else feel inadequate. Maya positioned herself strategically on the grassy hill, phone angled downward like she was just chilling.

*running* late texts from her blow-up-bestie Chloe: "DUDE WHERE R U"

Maya rolled her eyes. Some people had no chill.

She felt like a total *spy*, lurking behind her oversized sunglasses, watching Jace pull himself out of the water like some Greek god who'd wandered into suburbia. Water droplets ran down his arms, and Maya's stomach did that embarrassing flippy thing it always did when he was within a fifty-foot radius.

Her *iPhone* buzzed again. Chloe: "AARON IS HERE WHY DIDNT U TELL ME"

"Because I'm not your social secretary," Maya muttered, thumbs flying.

That's when it happened. Jace looked up and saw her.

Her brain short-circuited. Should she wave? Pretend to be extremely interested in a text? Suddenly realize she'd left the oven on and flee dramatically?

Instead, she stood there like a deer in headlights, hair still doing its impression of a science experiment gone wrong.

"Hey!" Jace called, jogging over. "You coming in?"

"I—uh—"

"The water's actually decent today."

He was waiting. Like, actually waiting for her answer.

"Yeah," Maya heard herself say, her voice doing that weird cracking thing. "Yeah, I'm just—let me just—"

She shoved her phone under her towel and made her way to the pool's edge. Cold water hit her legs, and suddenly none of it mattered. The anxiety, the overthinking, the fact that her hair was absolutely *not* serving looks. She dove in, and everything got gloriously quiet.

When she resurfaced, Jace was treading water nearby, grinning.

"Took you long enough."

"Shut up," she splashed him, and he laughed—that real laugh, not the fake one he used for teachers and adults.

Her phone buzzed on the grassy hill, forgotten. Chloe could wait. Aaron could wait. The whole carefully constructed social hierarchy of sophomore year could absolutely wait.

Right now, Maya was just *swimming*, and Jace was smiling at her like she was someone worth smiling at, and her frizzy hair could deal with itself later.

Some moments were bigger than a bad hair day.