Undercover at the Deep End

Marcus wasn't built for pool parties. He was built for hoodies, corners, and disappearing acts. But when Jenna texted her address, he'd thrown on his trunks like they were armor and showed up with a two-liter of Mountain Green like that was somehow normal behavior.

Now he was waist-deep in suburban chlorinated water, pretending to laugh at Tyler's story about almost getting kicked out of summer school. Tyler—Varsity captain, probable future homecoming king, and a total **bull** in every arena that mattered. The guy filled space like it owed him rent.

Marcus's mission: Operation Don't Be Weird for One Continuous Hour. Jenna was floating on an inflatable pizza slice nearby, her hair somehow perfect even wet. He'd been secretly **spy**-ing on her Instagram stories for months, analyzing her memes like they were classified documents, trying to figure out what kind of person matched those vibes. Now here she was, three feet away, and his brain was buffering.

"Yo Marcus, you getting in or what?" Tyler called out, splashing water that somehow deliberately targeted Marcus's face.

The real problem wasn't the water. It was that Marcus couldn't actually **swim**. Not like, drown-in-the-shallow-end couldn't swim, but enough that the deep end might as well be another planet. He'd spent his entire life strategically avoiding exactly this moment.

"I'm good," Marcus said, stepping back. But his heel caught on the pool's underwater ledge.

Jenna laughed, and it was this actual bell sound that made his stomach do something genuinely embarrassing. "Tyler, leave him alone. Not everyone loves demonstrating their masculinity through water violence."

Marcus blinked. That was—she'd just—

"Besides," Jenna continued, paddling her pizza slice closer, "Marcus and I have to finish our conversation about whether cursed memes are actually good or just ironically good. It's important scholarship."

Tyler rolled his eyes and swam off toward the deep end like the reject emoji in human form.

"So," Jenna said, grinning. "You got here before me. That's a bold strategy." She splashed him gently. Like, friend-splashed. He felt the water hit his chest and thought: oh. This is what people do. This is normal. I can be normal.

"Bold," he agreed. "I was hoping to secure the prime pizza-adjacent real estate before the rush."

"Consider it secured." She tilted her head. "You okay? You look like you're waiting for something terrible to happen."

Marcus looked at her really looking at him, not through him or past him, and something unlocked in his chest. He was still in the shallow end with Tyler making cannonball announcements in the distance, still the guy who couldn't swim and spent too much time analyzing Jenna's stories, but suddenly that felt okay. Maybe even good.

"Yeah," he said. "Actually, I think I am."