The Fox Hat Summer

Maya's palms were sweating literally dripping as she stood at the edge of the pool party where everyone who mattered at Northwood High was hanging out. Her best friend Kiara had dragged her here, swearing this would be the night Maya finally talked to Devin—the cute junior who'd been liking her Instagram posts for weeks.

"Just go over there," Kiara hissed, pushing Maya toward the shallow end. "You're literally ghosting yourself at your own social coming-out party."

But Maya couldn't move. Because there he was. Devin. And he was wearing the most ridiculous thing she'd ever seen—a bright orange fox hat with actual ears, flopping over his curls as he laughed at something someone said. Like a full-on furry fox situation. At a pool party. In July.

Then someone shouted, "Who's up for padel?" and a group started heading toward the courts behind the pool house. Padel, that tennis-ish sport everyone was suddenly obsessed with because the exchange student from Barcelona had introduced it last semester.

Devin started to follow them, fox hat bouncing, when he caught Maya's eye. Actually caught her staring at him with what she knew was a low-key terrified expression.

He grinned. "Hey, aren't you in my AP English class?"

Maya's brain short-circuited. "Um. Yeah. I sit behind you. Usually."

"Cool." He adjusted his fox hat. "I'm thinking about going swimming but I don't want to mess up the hat. It's lucky. My sister got it for my birthday and I haven't taken it off since. Which is kinda weird, I know."

"A little weird," Maya found herself saying, and then she laughed because Devin was laughing, and suddenly her palms weren't sweating anymore.

"Wanna make it less weird?" he asked. "Like, go swimming with me so I'm not the only one jumping in fully clothed?"

And just like that, Maya was diving into the deep end, fox hat and all, realizing that sometimes the weirdest things—like a boy in a fox hat at a pool party, or padel courts, or her own terrified self—could become exactly what she needed.