First Day Sweats

Leo's palms won't stop sweating. Not ideal when you're nineteen and your summer job involves climbing strangers' ladders with expensive equipment.

"Dude, you got this," Marcus insisted that morning, slapping his shoulder. "It's literally just reconnecting cables. Easy money."

Easy money. Right.

His first solo assignment is house number 42 - and that's when the universe decides to completely screw him. Because Maya answers the door. Maya from AP Calc, who sits two rows back and wears oversized hoodies and never talks to anyone.

"Leo?" Her eyes widen. "You're the cable guy?"

His face flames hot. "Yeah. Just here to fix the... cable thing."

Smooth. Real smooth.

"OMG, please hurry," she says, actually sounding relieved. "My brother's been running around screaming for twenty minutes. The baseball game starts in like, ten minutes, and the cable's totally dead."

Baseball. OF COURSE it's baseball. Because his crush's brother couldn't be obsessed with something normal, like anime or K-pop.

He follows her inside, heart hammering so hard he's surprised she can't hear it. A younger kid - maybe twelve - is dramatically draped across the couch, like someone just told him Fortnite got deleted from existence.

"YOU'RE HERE," the kid intones, sitting up. "Please tell me you're a miracle worker."

"Working on it," Leo manages, kneeling by the TV. His hands are suddenly useless - clammy and shaking and why is this happening NOW?

The problem's obvious: the cable's loose, wiggled free from who knows what. He reaches to reconnect it, but his palm is so sweaty he almost drops the connector.

Maya's watching. She's definitely watching.

He takes a breath, focuses, and the cable clicks into place. The TV flickers - then blazes to life, mid-inning commentary flooding the room.

"YES!" Her brother pumps both fists. "You're literally the GOAT."

"Thanks," Leo says, standing up and trying not to look like he just ran a marathon. Maya's still leaning against the doorframe, something unreadable in her expression.

"Hey," she says, pushing off the doorframe. "Want to stay for the rest of the game? We ordered pizza."

The universe, it turns out, has a way of fixing things too.

"Yeah," Leo says, and for the first time all day, his palms are finally dry. "Yeah, I'd like that."