The Fox at Midnight

The pool glowed blue in the backyard darkness, underwater lights turning the water into something otherworldly. Maya sat on the edge, legs dangling in, her phone face-down beside her.

"You gonna come in or what?" Jamie called from the deep end. He'd been her best friend since sixth grade, before everything got weird and complicated and full of feelings nobody talked about.

"In a minute," she said. But the truth was, she couldn't stop thinking about earlier—how Jamie's baseball cap had fallen off when he laughed at something she said, revealing that ridiculous dyed-blue hair he'd been hiding all summer. How her stomach had done that annoying flip thing.

Suddenly, movement near the fence. A fox—actual fox, orange-red and impossibly sleek—padded into the yard, pause-like it owned the place. It stared at them with ancient, knowing eyes.

"No way," Jamie whispered, swimming closer. The fox's gaze locked on something near the patio chairs. Jamie's dog, Buster, a golden retriever who'd been sleeping like a log, suddenly rocketed up, barking like he'd seen a ghost.

The fox didn't run. It watched them, Maya and Jamie and Buster, like it was downloading data for some cosmic report about teenage humans in their natural habitat. Then, just as suddenly, it vanished back through the fence.

"Did that actually happen?" Maya asked.

Jamie hoisted himself out of the pool, water dripping everywhere, and sat beside her. Their shoulders touched. His hair was plastered to his forehead, blue dye bleeding into something softer in the moonlight.

"My hair," he said, like he was reading her mind. "I did it because—I don't know. Wanted to see if anyone would notice. If you'd notice."

Maya's heart did something complicated and wonderful and terrifying. "I noticed," she said softly. "I notice everything about you, you idiot."

Buster flopped down between them, completely over his fox encounter, like: okay, drama over, pets now. Jamie's hand found hers in the dark, wet and warm and real.

"Cool," he said. And then: "Wanna see if the fox comes back?"

"Yeah," Maya said, leaning into his shoulder. "Yeah, I do."

The pool lights flickered, casting underwater ripples across their faces. Somewhere in the distance, summer was ending, but not tonight. Tonight, anything could happen.