The Friend Code Conspiracy

The notification pinged at 11:47 PM — way past Maya's self-imposed iPhone curfew. Her thumb hovered over the screen, heart doing that stupid flutter thing it always did when *he* posted.

Jordan.

Her best friend since sixth grade, the guy who'd held her hair back when she puked after eating questionable carnival food, the one person who got her weird obsession with true crime documentaries.

Lately, though? Jordan had been acting sketchy as hell. Cancelled plans. Left-read receipts. Secretive phone calls in the hallway.

Maya's brain went straight to the worst-case scenario: he'd replaced her with someone cooler. Someone who didn't wear mismatched socks and accidentally call teachers "mom" when nervous.

"No," she whispered to her ceiling. "I'm not being *that* friend."

But when Jordan posted a story at midnight — some blurry photo of a parking garage captioned "can't believe this is happening" — something snapped.

Maya grabbed her hoodie.

Okay, maybe she was going to be that friend.

The parking garage was three blocks away. She spent the whole walk mentally rehearsing casual opening lines. "Funny running into you here!" "Just thought I'd take a midnight stroll!" Anything that didn't scream "I AM CURRENTLY SPYING ON YOU."

She was still *running* possibilities through her head when she spotted Jordan's faded green hoodie near the entrance, phone raised like he was documenting something important.

Maya ducked behind a pillar, heart hammering. This was it. He was meeting someone. A secret girlfriend? A clandestine fight club?

"You can do this," she whispered. "Just go over there and —"

"Mooo!"

Maya froze.

Slowly, she peeked around the concrete pillar.

Jordan stood beside... a bull. A literal, actual bull, just chilling in the parking garage like it was totally normal. The massive animal was currently nosing Jordan's phone with interest.

"Dude," Jordan was saying, "you can NOT just eat my case. That's so bull."

The bull snorted.

"My grandpa's farm lost its fence," Jordan explained, spotting Maya's horrified expression. "I've been trying to wrangle this guy for *hours* and you're the first person I've seen."

Maya stared.

"You've been ditching me... for a cow?"

"Technically a bull," Jordan corrected, then grinned. "Also, I wasn't ditching you. I was setting this up."

"Setting what —"

Jordan held up his phone, revealing a group chat titled "MAYA'S BIRTHDAY SURPRISE PLANNING SQUAD."

"We're doing an escape room next weekend," Jordan said, scratching the bull behind its ears. "And I needed a witness for when I inevitably have to explain why there's a farm animal in the group chat."