Storm at the Pool

My hair was doing that weird frizzy thing it always does when I'm nervous, which I definitely was. Jordan's pool party was basically social suicide waiting to happen, but Maya had dragged me along anyway.

"You're not gonna spy on Tyler all night, are you?" Maya asked, flopping onto a lounge chair.

"I'm not spying," I protested, though I'd been watching him across the pool for exactly twenty-three minutes. "I'm observing. From a tactical distance."

She rolled her eyes. "You're such a disaster."

The sky chose that moment to open up—first this scary purple lightning streaking across the clouds like cracks in a windshield, then thunder that rattled the patio furniture. Everyone screamed and scrambled for the covered porch.

Everyone except Tyler.

He was still in the pool, treading water like an idiot, grinning up at the storm like it was the best thing that ever happened to him.

"What are you doing?" I called from the edge of the pool deck.

"Living a little," he said. "You should try it."

My brain was screaming absolutely not but suddenly I was kicking off my flip-flops and jumping in. The water was shockingly cold, and when I surfaced, Tyler was laughing.

"Your friend hair," he said, gesturing at my head. "It's everywhere now."

I wanted to die, but instead I splashed him.

"Fight me, Evans."

And that's how I ended up in the middle of a thunderstorm, in a pool with my longtime crush, my hair a mess, no makeup left, somehow not caring about any of it. The lightning kept flashing, turning everything into this strobe-light movie moment.

Later, wrapped in a beach towel with hot chocolate (Jordan's mom was unexpectedly amazing), Maya found me.

"So," she said. "Did your spy mission work?"

"Better," I said, watching Tyler laugh with his friends across the room. "I think I made an actual friend."