The Hat Party Protocol

The hat was stupid. A neon-green bucket hat that made me look like I was trying too hard to be chill. But Jordan had dared me to wear it to Tyler's pool party, and if there's one thing sixteen-year-old me couldn't resist, it was a Jordan dare.

"You're not actually wearing that," Maya said, sidling up to me at the snack table. She was one of those friends who roasted you because she loved you, supposedly. "You look like a golf ball."

"It's called having swag, Maya. Look it up."

I adjusted the hat, trying to find an angle that didn't scream I'm insecure about my freshly buzzed hair. The backyard smelled like chlorine and coconut sunscreen. Tyler's house was the kind of place where parents didn't hover but there were always way too many sodas.

Then I saw her. Riley. The new girl from Oregon who had somehow become everyone's obsession in three weeks. She was standing by the pool edge, toes in the water, laughing at something Tyler said. I'd been crushing embarrassingly hard since she'd corrected my pronunciation of "quiche" in bio.

"She's looking at you," Maya whispered. "Or she's looking at the hat. Hard to tell."

"Shut up."

I grabbed a cup from the stack, needing my hands to do something. A friend—some sophomore whose name I definitely knew but couldn't place—bumped my arm. The cup tipped. Soda splashed everywhere, including down the front of my shirt.

And the hat. The stupid neon-green hat was soaked, heavy, dripping orange soda onto my shoulders.

Riley was looking now. Definitely at me.

I made a split-second decision. I whipped off the hat and dropped it on the table. Water from the pool flicked my ankles as someone cannonballed nearby.

"Nice hair," Riley said, appearing beside me. She wasn't laughing. "How long ago?"

"Two days. I'm still not used to it."

"It's cute. My brother did the same thing last summer and cried for a week." She grinned. "I'm Riley."

"Marcus. Obviously."

We spent the next hour talking about nothing, sitting with our feet in the water while the party swirled around us. Eventually I grabbed the hat from the table, wrung it out, and put it on her head.

"It looks better on you anyway," I said.

She left wearing it. I left with her number in my phone and a friend who hadn't stopped teasing me since.

"So," Maya said as we walked home. "About that hat..."

"Don't. Just don't."