Sweaty Palms & Clever Foxes

Maya's palms were sweating. Like, actually sweating. She wiped them on her denim shorts for the third time, staring at Leo from across the backyard. Leo, whose hair somehow looked perfect even in this humidity. Leo, who had smiled at her in third period yesterday.

"You're being weird," said Jordan, cracking open a soda. "Just go talk to him."

"Easy for you to say," Maya muttered. "You're not the one who literally forgot how to form sentences when he said hey."

Jordan rolled their eyes. "Okay, but you're literally oscillating. It's painful to watch."

The party was in full swing—someone's playlist blasting from portable speakers, clusters of people around the snack table, the occasional shout from the pool area. Maya had spent the last hour pretending to be deeply interested in a bag of chips.

Then Leo started walking toward her.

Maya's brain: *panic.exe has stopped working*

"Hey," Leo said. "You're Maya, right? From Mr. Harrison's class?"

She nodded. Words. She needed words. "Yeah! Hi. Hello. What's up."

Smooth. Totally smooth.

Leo laughed, and it was this annoyingly nice sound. "I was gonna ask if you understood today's homework. The whole vitamin deficiency thing went over my head."

"Oh! Yeah, actually I can send you my notes," Maya said, feeling her palms actually, literally on fire. "I mean, if you want. Not that you need them or anything. You probably have way better notes. I'm just saying—"

"That would be amazing," Leo said, grinning. "You're a lifesaver."

They talked for like twenty minutes. About homework, about how Mr. Harrison's mustache had a mind of its own, about Leo's terrible coffee addiction. Maya's palms stopped sweating somewhere around minute eight.

"You know what you are?" Leo said finally, looking at her with this genuinely soft expression.

Maya's heart did a little flip thing. "What?"

"A fox," Leo said. "You're all low-key and quiet, but you're actually clever. You noticed like five things today that no one else caught."

Jordan, who had been dramatically fake-vomiting in the distance for the past fifteen minutes, gave Maya a thumbs-up from across the yard.

Maya smiled so hard her face hurt. "I'll take it."

Later, when she got home and told her mom about the party, she left out the part where she'd almost thrown up from nerves three times. Some stories were better polished.

"He gave me his number," she said instead, showing her phone. "For homework help."

Her mom raised an eyebrow. "Just homework?"

"Maybe also to study," Maya said, grinning. "A fox never tells all her secrets."