The Summer I Stopped Spying

Maya's summer wasn't supposed to be spent trailing her uncle on cable repair calls, but here she was, seventeen and officially the most uncool person in the tri-state area. The cherry on top? Their next job was at Chloe Martinez's house—Chloe, whose Instagram stories Maya studied with the dedication of a professional spy.

"You can wait in the truck," her uncle said, already grabbing his toolkit.

"No, I'll come." Maya needed the bathroom anyway. Her hair had gone full zombie in the humidity—frizzy, flat, and definitely not vibe-check approved.

The house was huge. Two-story, perfect lawn, the kind where people definitely didn't watch Netflix on cracked screens in their bedrooms. Through the sliding glass doors, Maya spotted it: the pool. And the pool party. Chloe, laughing with her perfect friends. Tyler from swim team, shirtless. People from school who'd never acknowledged Maya's existence in the hallways.

Her uncle disappeared upstairs to check the cable connection in the master bedroom. That left Maya alone in the hallway, with a direct line of sight to everything she'd been spying on from afar for three years.

"Hey."

Maya practically jumped out of her skin.

Grayson. Swim captain, AP Calc GOD, unfairly cute even in swim trunks dripping wet. He'd slipped inside through a side door.

"You're the cable girl, right?" He smiled, and Maya's brain short-circuited. "Chloe said you guys would be here."

"I... yeah?" Smooth. Truly.

"Cool." He leaned against the wall, water dripping from his hair onto the floor. "You should come out after. Tyler's doing this trick where he—"

"GRAYSON!" someone yelled from outside. "PIZZA'S HERE!"

He rolled his eyes but didn't move. "So anyway. You coming?"

Maya glanced at her reflection in the hallway mirror—hair still halfway to zombie territory, totally not prepared for pool parties with popular people who mattered. But then she looked at Grayson, who was actually waiting for an answer like she was someone worth talking to.

"Yeah," she heard herself say. "Yeah, I'm coming."

Her uncle found her twenty minutes later, pizza in one hand, new phone number in her pocket, Chloe laughing at something she'd said. Some summers weren't supposed to be cool. Until they were.