CHAPTER NINE

I wake up the next morning in a rush of excitement and just lie there, basking for a moment, taking it in. Mel and I, chatting in the pool, exchanging our info. The strategy is working. At least, that’s if she messages me. She didn’t last night, and the thought of another rejection is looming like clouds on the horizon of this perfect summer day.

The message notifications on my social media are lit up red, but that’s normal; it’s probably memes from my friends. I tap the number and squeeze my eyes shut while my DMs load, then open them.

There are messages from Talia and Kev, a couple replies from randoms at school and girls on the basketball teams, and—

One from Mel.

Oh my god.

I open it. The time stamp on the message is from just a few minutes ago.

Yesterday was rly fun, she wrote. What u up to today?

Just woke up, heading to bball practice soon, I say. How about you?

I hit send before I remember to analyze it. But that’s a pretty good message. Casual but conversational.

I don’t have much time to overthink before her reply pops up: Nice! My day is pretty chill. Hangin with a friend later.

I squeal and hug the phone to my chest. Maybe she’s lying in bed right now, too. Maybe I was the first thing she thought of. I wonder what her room looks like, if it’s small or big, what color the walls are, what kinds of posters she has up.

My phone pings, and I look at the message. It’s a picture of the cutest dog I’ve ever seen, a golden pit bull puppy with its tongue hanging out, gazing up at the camera.

Midas is ready for his breakfast, Mel writes.

OMG he’s SO CUTE! That’s a perfect name. How old is he?

Three months old, she says. My dad’s friend’s dog had puppies!

Amazing!

Hope you get to meet him soon ;)

I shriek and throw the phone down. She wants me to meet him? SHE SENT A WINKY FACE EMOJI?

I screenshot the message and text it to Talia. So this just happened.

O M F G, she says, each letter in its own message, with a line of emojis to follow it: double exclamations, levitating man, screaming face, heart eyes, puppy face.

I reopen the message with Mel. I’d love that, I say, with a halo emoji.

I gather my stuff in a daze and float downstairs to grab a snack bar before heading out.

Is this my life? I not only met a cute girl, but she’s flirting with me, too?

It’s finally happening. I can’t believe I was so frustrated a few days ago. I know it’s only been a day, but I’m feeling really good about Mel. About . . . us?

There’s not an us yet.

But if this keeps up . . .

Maybe there will be.

We DM back and forth the whole rest of the day, sending each other videos, memes, and pics of what we’re doing. I learn she’s the youngest of five siblings, her dad is a pastor, her mom is a teacher, and she’s a huge fan of Lizzo. (Which, same.)

We’re still going strong on Friday, and during practice, I make Mariah take a video of me sinking a three pointer from the top of the key.

After practice, I send Mel the video before I can stop myself. This one’s for you, I say. It’s the boldest thing I’ve ever said to a crush—which isn’t saying much, since I don’t usually talk to my crushes. But still. Sending it lights up my body with adrenaline, and the wait for a response is agonizing. The minutes tick by as I stand at my bus stop staring at the thread.

But it doesn’t take long.

Basketball QUEEN! She replies, with a crown emoji and a heart eyes emoji.

Oh my god. Hearts have entered the chat.

I send an emoji blowing a kiss.

Am I . . . flirting back? And doing it pretty well?

I don’t know who this Hayley is, but I like being her.

So . . . when do I get to see you again? she says.

My whole body warms, and I grin down at my phone.

When are you free? I ask.

On Sunday morning, I’m up early, my body buzzing with crush energy. It’s never felt like this before, though. Nobody’s ever liked me back. And I didn’t even have to make the first move.

When I come into the kitchen, Dad is at the stove tending the sizzling hash browns, and Sam is mixing the batter, the waffle maker plugged in and warming on the counter beside her. She looks up and her eyebrows almost fly off her head.

“Who are you and what have you done with Hayley?” she shrieks.

Dad shushes her, laughing.

“I get up early sometimes,” I say.

She snorts. “No, you don’t.”

I open my mouth, then close it again. She’s right. I beeline for the fridge and grab the orange juice.

“Hayley.” I turn around, carton in hand. Dad’s watching me with an amused look on his face. “What’s up?”

“Um.” I can’t hold back my smile. “I met someone.”

“Really?” Dad holds up a hand. “Put ’er there.”

I roll my eyes, but high-five him anyway, and go pour myself a glass of juice.

“So tell us about her,” Dad says. “They? What’s this kid’s pronouns?”

“She/her,” I say, and launch into the story, beginning with the moment Jacob pointed her out to me in the pool. When I get to the part where Mel asked for my social, Dad fist-pumps.

“Way to go, Mel,” he says. “Wow, you kids have so much more confidence than I did at your age.”

I shrug. “I guess.”

“So, do you have a date?”

“Well . . .” I pull my phone out of my hoodie pocket and open our DMs. There it is: the time Mel can meet up. “We’re hanging out Wednesday at two.”

“Where?”

“Caffe Vita on the Hill.”

“You’ll text us when you get there and when you leave, right?”

“Dad, it’s fine.”

“Look, I trust you, kid, but I don’t know her. Safety first.”

I sigh. “OK, I will.”

“Wow, you’re up early,” Mom says, coming into the kitchen.

“Hayley got a date,” Sam says.

“Sam!” I glare at her.

“What?”

“It’s my news.”

Sam shrugs.

I make a face at her and tell the whole story again. Mom listens raptly. “That is a meet-cute if I’ve ever heard one,” she says when I finish.

“I know, right?” I smile. “She’s really cool. I can’t wait for you all to meet her. I think she’s going to get along with my friends really well, too. And if Talia dates her person—”

“Talia got a date, too?” Dad exclaims.

So then I have to tell the whole story of the salon and the summer love strategy—because even though Mom has told Dad, Sam doesn’t know about it—and by that time, breakfast is ready. I finish telling them everything just as Ella shuffles in, hair a mess.

“Why are you all so excited?” she mumbles, sliding into the open seat at the table.

Dad and Mom look at each other and laugh. Sam opens her mouth but this time, I beat her to it.

“I have a date!”

Ella nods. “Cool.” She takes the plate Dad hands her.

“Do you want to hear the story?” I ask.

She just shakes her head.

“Thank god,” Sam says. “Can we please eat?”

I huff, but it’s short-lived. The waffles smell too good, and Dad brings out his homemade strawberry compote, and all I can focus on is breakfast.

Mostly.

I can feel my phone buzz as notifications come in, and I can’t help smiling.

I have a date.

Caffe Vita sits on Pike Street in Capitol Hill, in the square of blocks that form the core of the neighborhood. The whole area has this midsummer glaze, the sun beating down from the clear blue sky, the businesses teeming with people out to enjoy the warm weather. Pride flags for all the different letters of the gay alphabet hang in every window I pass.

The coffee shop is sandwiched between a few other small businesses. There are a few tiny bistro tables out front, and there she is as I walk up that afternoon: Mel, a grin lighting up her round face.

“Hey there,” she says, standing up to greet me.

“Hi.” I giggle. I’m nervous.

She smiles. I smile. She sticks her hands in her pockets. “So, you wanna . . .” she jerks her head at the door.

“Yes. Definitely.”

She holds the door for me—this is not a drill, SHE HOLDS THE DOOR FOR ME!—and I walk into the cozy, cool interior of Caffe Vita. Everything is dark wood, the north-facing windows keeping it dimly lit. Soft indie pop music plays on the sound system.

“What can I get for ya?” The barista looks between us.

“I’ll have an iced chai,” I say, and look over at Mel. “What about you?”

“No, no.” She waves a hand and pulls out a wallet. “I’ve got this.”

Oh my god.

This is, like, a real date.

“Are you sure?”

She nods. “Of course.” She places her order for a vanilla Italian soda. Classy.

Once she’s paid, I go outside to grab a table while she waits for our drinks (another thing she volunteers to do. Swoon).

She joins me and we both sip our drinks and then start talking at the same time. We stop and laugh.

“You first,” she says.

So I answer her question: how was my day? She laughs when I tell her I got home from practice with only an hour to spare before our date.

“I’m impressed,” she says. “It took me that long to figure out which sneakers to wear today.”

“How many sneakers do you have?” I ask.

“Ten pairs so far.” She grins at my wide-eyed look. “I’m kind of a sneaker head.”

“I can see that.”

“I work at Starbucks, and whatever I don’t use to help the fam, I spend on me. I save some of it, and the rest . . .” She gestures at her perfectly white Adidas.

“Wow. That’s really cool.” I like that her family is so important to her. And she already has a job? I feel a little self-conscious; I could work if I wanted to, but I don’t have to, and I know that’s a privilege. Maybe I should have paid. But she offered.

“I also get to treat pretty girls,” she says as if she read my mind.

I feel the blush instantly.

“Aw, cute! You are so red.” She laughs.

“You are so confident,” I blurt out before I can stop myself.

She rubs a hand over the back of her head, wrinkling her nose. “Is it too much?”

“No. It’s just . . .” I fiddle with my cup. “I just don’t have that at all. I’ve never . . . This is my first date.” Oh no. I didn’t want to say that; my words are going faster than my filter, like usual.

“Ever?” Her eyebrows raise.

I’m cringing inside. Could I be any more awkward? It’s too late now, though. “Yeah.”

She puts a hand over her heart. “I’m honored.”

I hide my face.

“Hey, don’t be embarrassed! It’s cool. We all gotta start somewhere.”

“When did you . . . start?” I peek at her through my fingers.

She chuckles. “Seventh grade.”

“Seventh grade?!”

“Yeah, I was a li’l player.”

“Were you out?”

“Oh, from jump. I always knew I liked girls.”

“How was your family with it?”

“They were fine. Dad took a minute, but he came around.” She shrugged. “My older brother came out around the same time, and one of my dad’s friend’s kids, Ronnie, had been out forever, since I was little, so that helped. What about you?”

“Well, the first person I told was my friend Talia in sixth grade. She told me she was trans pretty soon after that. And then we told our parents. It was kind of like a pact, actually.” I laugh, remembering what we did. I guess it makes sense that we made another pact for finding love this summer, too. “We made this whole official document, a Certificate of Coming Out, and a presentation for each of our parents. Once we each did our presentations, we signed the certificate and had our parents sign it, too.”

“Whaaat? That’s so cute.” Mel grins.

“Right? It was super nerve-racking at the time, more for Talia than me because my parents have gay friends, so I figured they’d probably be cool with it. Her parents do, too, but you know . . . it’s different for trans people.”

Mel nods. “Yeah, my cousin is trans. There’s a lot of visibility now but a long way to go for acceptance. It’s kind of like, trans folks are where queer folks were ten or twenty years ago. And things aren’t even guaranteed good for queer folks still!”

“Totally!”

Mel takes a long drink of her soda. “How did it turn out?”

“Talia’s parents definitely needed some time to absorb it, but they made an effort to educate themselves.” I turn my cup around in my fingers. “Her dad said something pretty cool, actually. That he doesn’t have to totally get it to love his own kid; all he has to do is listen, learn, and support her. That he’s not trans, so he can’t actually understand fully, but it doesn’t matter.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah.” I can still hear Talia’s voice, hushed on the phone as she told me that night. “And Talia’s amazing like that, too. She’s just so smart, and her own person, and funny in this dry way. She’s got an amazing mind. She can absorb new information really quickly, so she’s super accepting and open, and she knows me . . . sometimes it feels like she knows me better than I do.”

“She sees you.” Mel’s eyes are on me, her gaze warm and gentle.

I nod, my heart fluttering.

She leans back in her chair. “Talia sounds dope.”

I smile. “Yeah. She’s my best friend for life.”

“Nice.” Mel looks up and down the street. “It’s so nice out today. You want to go for a walk?”

“I’d love to.”

The air is warm, the breeze only slightly cooler. It’s a perfect summer day. We weave through the tourists and families and neighborhood residents out walking their dogs, past Elliott Bay Books with their Pride display up in the front window, across to Cal Anderson Park. On our left is a set of tennis courts now used for skating and other random activities. Today there’s a girl doing hula hoop tricks while music blasts from her portable speaker. To our right is a huge Astroturf field with groups of people scattered across it, picnicking and tossing Frisbees. We stroll up toward the other end of the park, past the community garden, along the walkway next to the reflecting pools. The benches along it are full of people, and so is the grass behind them. We chat about everything and nothing: her friends, my friends, school, random stories from childhood, our favorite movies, politics, and more.

“Man, I feel like I could talk to you forever, but I should head home,” Mel says finally. “Which way you going?”

“I’m just walking that way,” I say, pointing back in the direction we came. “I live pretty close.”

“I’m taking the light rail back to Rainier Beach,” she says, naming the area of South Seattle where she lives, which means she has to walk in the exact opposite direction to get to the train station. “So I’ll see you soon?”

“Yeah, sounds great!”

We stand up and smile at each other. This feels like the moment you usually kiss a date, and part of me wants to, but I don’t know if I’m ready to kiss her. It’s only been one date.

“Can I hug you?” she asks.

My body relaxes. She’s so easy to be around. I don’t feel any pressure. “Yes, absolutely.”

The hug is brief but warm; her arms feel strong, and she smells like spicy cologne. Then she’s backing up, flashing me that peace sign again, and I wave goodbye. As I walk through the neighborhood back home, my steps feel light, like I drank a double shot Americano instead of a chai.

I pull my phone out a few blocks later. Maybe it’s too soon to text her, but I don’t really care. Rules are silly, and we just had a perfect date.

That was so fun, I type. Wanna do it again sometime?