Zombie Smoothie Summer

The cables behind the counter at Tropical Blendz were a tangled mess, kind of like my brain after three weeks of summer school. I'd been fighting off zombie mode all morning—thanks to pulling an all-nighter finishing that English essay—and now I had to figure out how to make a papaya spinach detox smoothie for the girl who'd barely given me a second look all semester.

"You got this, Marcus," I muttered, fumbling with the blender as my coworkers watched. My first day, and naturally I'd get the most complicated order on the menu.

The papaya sat on the counter like an alien orange grenade. I'd never actually worked with one before. I sliced it open, revealing bright orange flesh and tiny black seeds that looked suspiciously like something that should NOT go in a smoothie.

"Don't forget the spinach," Kayla, my trainer, called out while juggling three customer orders. "It's literally in the name of the drink."

Right. The spinach. I shoved a handful into the blender, feeling ridiculous. Who puts spinach in fruit smoothies? Apparently, everyone who came to this place.

The worst part wasn't the ingredients—it was that stupid cable management situation. The blender cord kept tangling with the phone charger cable, and I'd already nearly tripped twice. Corporate's solution? A wad of duct tape and a "we'll fix it eventually" note.

Just as I hit blend, the papaya spinach monstrosity exploded everywhere. Green-orange sludge coated my apron, the counter, and unfortunately, the cable mess behind me. The three popular girls from school—including Her—burst into laughter.

But then something weird happened. Instead of getting mad or embarrassed like I usually would, I started laughing too. Hard. Like, genuinely, couldn't-stop laughing.

"That's actually kind of metal," one of them said, grinning. "Like a zombie smoothie attack."

I wiped orange slime from my forehead. "I think I'll call it the Zombie Special. Available for a limited time only."

They ordered three. Turns out, even zombie-mode, exhausted, covered-in-papaya Marcus could accidentally start something cool. Maybe summer wasn't going to be so bad after all.