Thunderstrike at the Mixer

Maya's been **running** from Tyler's texts all week, which is honestly pathetic considering he's just a sophomore who happens to have perfect hair and a smile that makes her forget basic English. Now she's stuck at Rachel's birthday mixer because Jayla literally dragged her out of the house by saying, "You can't just vibe in your room forever, bestie, that's giving recluse energy."

The setup is humiliating enough—Rachel's basement has those LED strips that everyone bought freshman year, and someone's blasting a Spotify playlist that's 40% too much bass. Maya's posted up by the snack table pretending to be deeply invested in a bag of Doritos when something goes wrong with the sound system.

"Yo, someone needs to check the **cable** back there," Tyler says, and suddenly the whole room is looking at her because Jayla just volunteered Maya like she's some kind of tech wizard.

Her hands are literally shaking as she crawls behind the TV stand, but then she hears Rachel in full theater kid mode: "Okay but if you tell anyone, I will **bear** a grudge until graduation, I'm not even playing."

Maya's hand brushes against loose wires, and that's when it happens—**lightning** crackles through her entire nervous system. Not literal lightning (duh), but the kind that makes your stomach do backflips because she realizes Tyler's crouching right beside her, their shoulders practically touching, and he smells like cedar wood and the expensive cologne his mom probably buys him.

"Need help?" he asks, and his voice is doing that low rumble thing that makes her question everything.

"I got it," she says, trying to sound normal and failing.

She fixes the connection, the music bumps back on, and everyone cheers. But the real moment happens later when Tyler finds her on the front porch, both of them pretending to need fresh air from the sweaty basement chaos.

"You saved the party," he says, and there's something in his eyes that makes her think maybe this time she won't be running away from his texts anymore.

Some nights, lightning actually does strike twice.