The Cafeteria Stakeout

Maya adjusted the brim of her dad's old baseball **hat**, pulling it low over her eyes. The disguise was ridiculous — obviously — but she needed it. She was on a mission.

From her corner table in the cafeteria, she was basically a **spy**. For three days straight, she'd been watching Tyler's table, analyzing his movements, cataloging his interactions. She knew he sat with the soccer crowd. She knew he laughed with his whole body, head thrown back. She knew he had really great **hair** — the kind that looked effortless but probably took fifteen minutes to perfect.

Today was the day. Operation: Talk To Tyler Without Making A Total Fool Of Herself.

The problem was, Tyler was popular. Not like, TikTok famous, but the kind of popular where everyone seemed to know who he was and he always looked comfortable in his own skin. Maya was... not that. Maya was the girl who once spent an entire assembly panicking because she'd worn mismatched socks.

Her best friend Priya slid into the seat across from her, raising an eyebrow. "Still stalking?"

"Not stalking," Maya hissed. "Gathering intel." She picked at the mystery meat on her tray. "What's the play here? Do I walk over? Do I wait for him to come to me? Do I accidentally bump into him like in movies?"

"That's never worked in the history of ever," Priya said. "Just go talk to him. He's in our English class. It's not that deep."

"You don't understand," Maya groaned. "Last week, I walked out of the bathroom with **spinach** in my teeth and smiled at him in the hallway. I can't recover from that. My social capital is literally zero."

Priya cracked up. "He definitely didn't notice. Guys never notice anything."

But that wasn't true. The scary thing was, Tyler noticed everything. He remembered people's birthdays. He asked how your weekend was and actually waited for the answer. Once, when Maya dropped her binder in the hall and papers went everywhere, he'd stopped to help her pick everything up.

Which is why she was psyching herself out.

"Okay," Maya said, taking a breath. "I'm doing it. I'm going over there."

"No you're not."

"Yes I am."

"You're literally shaking."

Maya stood up anyway, her heart hammering. She took one step, two steps —

And then Jackson Miller, linebacker for the football team, came barreling through the cafeteria like a **bull** in a china shop, backpack swinging, and collided directly with her.

Maya's tray went flying. Her lunch splattered everywhere. Her hat flew off.

The entire cafeteria went silent.

Jackson looked horrified. "Oh my god, I am SO sorry —"

But before Maya could even process what had happened, someone was already there, helping her up, handing her the hat.

Tyler.

"You okay?" he asked, and his expression was so genuinely concerned that Maya forgot to be embarrassed.

"Yeah," she said, and then realized her hair was probably a disaster and there was definitely food on her shirt. "I mean. This is super humongously awkward."

Tyler laughed. "Nah, Jackson's a menace. He took out the lunch line last week." He handed her a napkin. "I'm Tyler, by the way. We have English together?"

"Maya," she said, feeling something shift in her chest, something warm and surprised. "We. Yeah. We do."

"Cool." He grinned. "Hey, some of us are going to get boba after school. You want to come?"

Back at her corner table, Priya gave her a thumbs-up.

Maya smiled, spinach-free and hatless, feeling like maybe, just maybe, she didn't need to be a spy after all.