The Fox Hat Summer

The nacho cheese machine was gurgling ominously when my crush walked in. Finn. Seventeen, with that lazy grin that made my stomach do that jittery thing it had no business doing.

"You good with the cables?" he asked, leaning against the counter like he owned the place.

Cables. Right. The projector had been acting up all week, and Manager Steve had left me—Maya, sixteen and deeply unqualified—to fix it. "Totally," I lied. "Got it handled."

My hat—it was this vintage fedora thing I'd found at a thrift store, part of my whole reinvent-myself-this-summer phase—slipped over my eyes. I pushed it back, trying to look capable. Competent. Someone Finn might actually notice.

The nacho cheese chose that moment to explode.

I don't mean a little burp. I mean full-on volcanic eruption, cheese everywhere, including all over my favorite vintage tee and somehow inside my hat. I stood frozen, cheese dripping down my face, while Finn stared.

Then he laughed. Not mean-laughed, but actually laughed, and I felt my face burning hotter than the cheese machine.

"You're something else, Foxy," he said, grabbing a towel. "Here."

Foxy. He'd called me Foxy. My heart did this illegal little maneuver.

We spent the next hour cleaning up cheese, his shoulder brushing mine, talking about nothing and everything. He told me about his band, I told him about mysecret dream to be a writer (which I'd never admitted to anyone). When he mentioned he'd been running cross country since middle school, I nodded like I hadn't spent the past three nights stalking his Instagram and already knew.

The real disaster happened at lunch break. I'd packed this fancy spinach salad because I was trying to be healthy and impress nobody because Finn definitely wouldn't care what I ate, except when I smiled at him afterward, he gave me this weird look.

"You've got..." He gestured at his teeth. "Like, a lot."

I ran to the bathroom. A lot. Like, an embarrassing amount of spinach lodged in my braces, and I'd been smiling at Finn for twenty minutes.

I emerged from the bathroom ready to quit, move to another state, change my name. But Finn was waiting by the exit, holding something.

"Forgot this," he said, handing me my cheese-stained hat.

Our fingers touched. Just for a second. But it was enough.

"Hey," he said, looking almost nervous. "My band's playing tomorrow. You should come. Bring the hat—it's got character."

I walked home with spinach-free teeth, cheese-stained clothes, and Finn's number in my phone. The summer wasn't over yet, and something told me the fox hat was only the beginning.