Fox Mode at the Padel Court

Maya felt like a zombie as she dragged herself through the school gates. Three hours of sleep finals week would do that to you. Her older brother's Australian shepherd, Buster, had spent the night barking at absolutely nothing outside her window, because apparently the universe wanted her academic failure to be complete.

"You look like you got dragged through a hedge backward," said Chloe, sliding into the desk beside her. "Padel tryouts today? Please tell me you're coming."

Maya groaned. "Chlo, I can barely walk straight, let alone play padel."

"Everyone's going," Chloe pressed. "Even that fox Daniel from AP Calc will be there."

Daniel. The boy who'd sat behind her in homeroom since freshman year, whose name she'd learned sophomore year, whose existence she'd actually noticed this year when he'd started wearing that cologne that smelled like cedar and expensive decisions. She'd catch him watching her sometimes, then looking away fast, like he'd been caught stealing something.

The papaya incident flashed through her mind—the time she'd brought the exotic fruit for lunch because her mom had gone through a "tropical phase" and Daniel had asked what it was, and she'd panicked and said "alien brain" and he'd actually laughed. Not the polite laugh. The real one.

She'd been thinking about that laugh for three weeks.

"Fine," Maya heard herself say. "I'll go."

The padel courts behind the rec center were already crowded with people who seemed way more awake than should be legally possible. Daniel was there, holding a racket like he knew what he was doing. His foxlike grin made something in her chest do a backflip.

"Hey," he said, walking over. "You coming to play?"

"If I don't pass out first," she said, then immediately wanted to die.

He laughed—the real one again. "Same. I've had like two coffees. I'm basically running on caffeine and hope at this point."

They got paired up for mixed doubles, which was either the best or worst thing that had ever happened to her, depending on whether she missed the ball or actually made contact. Their opponents were Chloe and some guy from the football team.

The game was a disaster. Maya kept missing shots, but every time she messed up, Daniel would say something like "solid effort" or "almost had it" in this tone that made her feel like maybe being terrible at padel wasn't the worst thing in the world. Meanwhile, Buster chose that exact moment to escape from his yard and come tearing onto the court, barking at the ball like it had personally offended him.

"Buster!" Maya yelled, chasing him.

Daniel helped her corral the dog. "That's your dog?"

"Yeah, sorry, he's—"

"Awesome," Daniel said. "I love dogs. What's his name?"

"Buster. He's my brother's, technically. I'm just the one who deals with his 3 AM existential crises."

"Mine too," Daniel said. "The existential crises, I mean. Not the dog."

They sat on the bench while everyone else kept playing, Daniel's racket resting against hers. The sun was starting to set, painting everything gold and unignorable.

"Hey," he said, suddenly serious. "You want to get food? There's that boba place—"

"Yes," Maya said, before she could overthink it. "Yes, absolutely."

She wasn't a zombie anymore. She was a girl with fox mode activated, about to get boba with a boy who laughed at her terrible jokes. And somehow, that was enough.