The Party Foul Protocol

Chase's legs were literally running on autopilot as he rounded the corner toward Jessica's house. His brain was still processing the fact that THE Jessica Martinez—junior class royalty, undisputed queen of the cafeteria hierarchy—had personally invited him to her end-of-school pool party. Him. Chase Miller, who'd spent freshman year perfecting the art of being invisible.

He adjusted his swim trunks for the twentieth time and practiced his casual entrance face in the reflection of his phone. This was it. His shot at finally ascending the social ladder. No more sitting at the table near the trash cans. No more being the guy everyone forgot was in their homeroom.

The backyard was already buzzing with energy. A Spotify playlist blasted through portable speakers. People were cannonballing into the pool with dramatic flair. Chase spotted Jessica immediately, holding court in a neon pink bikini like she was born to command attention.

"Chase! You made it!" She waved him over, and his stomach did this Olympic gymnast routine. "Perfect timing. We were just talking about baseball. You play, right?"

He'd played exactly zero innings in his life, but in that moment, with Jessica's hazel eyes locked on his and half the popular kids watching, Chase heard himself say, "Yeah, totally. I'm basically the team MVP."

"Dude, that's sick!" Jason, the varsity shortstop, appeared out of nowhere. "We need a fourth for wiffle ball tomorrow. You in?"

"Uh, yeah? Definitely."

Chase spent the next hour running damage control on his lie, nodding along to conversations about ERAs and RBI ratios like he hadn't just Googled "what does ERA stand for" two days ago for a math problem. He was in too deep now. If he admitted he couldn't tell a baseball from a softball, he'd be branded a fraud and ejected from the social stratosphere he'd just crashed.

Then came the moment he'd been both dreading and anticipating: pool time. Chase stripped down to his swim trunks and froze. Because here's the thing about pool parties when you're self-conscious—everyone's looking. Or at least it feels like they are.

He stood there, hyper-aware of his pasty chest, his knobby knees, his everything that was so very not varsity athlete material. Jessica appeared beside him, sunglasses pushed up on her head.

"You coming in or what?"

"Yeah, just, uh, warming up my muscles. Don't want to cramp."

She laughed. "Chase, you're so weird. I like that."

She grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the pool, and in that split second, he realized something that made his chest tight in a completely different way: Jessica Martinez didn't care about baseball. She didn't care about the social hierarchy or the perfect tan or whatever performance everyone else was putting on.

She pulled him into the water with a shriek and a splash, and suddenly he was underwater, the world muffled and peaceful and weightless. When he surfaced, gasping and wiping water from his eyes, the whole backyard was laughing—not at him, with him.

"Okay, but you still have to tell us your position tomorrow," Jason called from the patio.

Chase looked at Jessica, who was already plotting something mischievous.

"Tell them you're a catcher," she whispered. "They'll never know the difference."

And just like that, Chase realized his summer was going to be a lot more complicated—and a whole lot more fun—than he'd planned.