Stormcrest Summer

The humidity at Stormcrest Summer Camp was thick enough to chew. I was sixteen, sporting a hairline fracture on my confidence and a crush that felt bigger than my entire future.

"You're the fox, Marcus," counselor Jenna announced during the spirit animal ceremony. "Clever, adaptable, always thinking three steps ahead."

I almost laughed out loud. If foxes were supposed to be cunning, I was definitely doing it wrong. I couldn't even figure out if Maya from cabin 7 knew I existed without looking like a total creep.

Then there was Tyler, who everyone called "the bull" behind his back. Not because he was particularly large, but because he charged through every social situation with zero subtlety. Tyler had already cornered Maya twice at the mess hall, and she'd been polite but clearly uncomfortable. Still, I was too chicken to intervene, too busy overthinking every possible outcome.

I found myself spying on them from behind a oak tree near the lake. Not my proudest moment, honestly. Maya sat on the dock, feet dangling in the water, while Tyler paced nearby, apparently mansplaining the camp's canoe system.

Thunder rumbled in the distance. Great. A storm. Perfect for my already dramatic mood.

"Hey, fox," a voice said behind me.

I jumped about three feet. Maya stood there, smirking. "Caught you."

"I wasn't—"

"Spying? Sure you weren't." She sat beside me in the grass. "Tyler's... intense."

"He seems nice?" I offered weakly.

Maya snorted. "He called canoes 'water vehicles' twice in one sentence."

Then the sky opened up. Not rain, but this incredible lightning storm that turned the whole horizon purple and electric. We scrambled toward the mess hall, completely drenched, laughing like we'd known each other for years instead of days.

"So," Maya said later, wrapped in an emergency blanket and holding terrible hot cocoa, "do foxes know how to ask people to watch the storm from the recreation porch tomorrow?"

I grinned. "Absolutely. Three steps ahead, remember?"

Maybe Jenna knew what she was doing after all.