Hat Trick

The backward cap stayed glued to Maya's head even in ninety-degree heat. It was her armor—half-hidden hair, half attitude, fully necessary at Riverside Country Club where everyone else's outfits probably cost more than her entire wardrobe.

"You coming to padel?" Jake asked, bouncing a tennis ball off his racket.

Maya's stomach did that annoying flip-flop thing. "I was just gonna... you know, swim."

"C'mon, doubles! We need a fourth."

Padel. What even was padel? Some tennis-squash hybrid that rich people played in enclosed courts with glass walls. Maya had barely held a racket in her life. But Jake was looking at her with those eyes that made her brain short-circuit, and suddenly she was nodding.

The court was an oven. Within five minutes, sweat trickled down Maya's back, her hat was practically radiating heat, and she'd missed three easy shots.

"You good?" Jake asked, wiping his forehead.

"Yeah, just—" Maya ripped off her hat. Her curly hair exploded in all directions, frizzy and wild and completely unmanageable. "Hot."

For a second, she wanted to die. Everyone would stare. Someone would say something weird.

Jake just grinned. "About time. That hat was hiding the good stuff."

Her brain short-circuited again.

After losing 6-2 (she'd actually gotten two points!), the group dragged themselves to the pool. Maya stood at the edge while everyone cannonballed and screamed. She hadn't brought a suit. Hadn't planned on this day turning into... whatever this was.

"You coming?" Jake was already treading water, shirt plastered to his chest.

"I don't have—"

"So?" He splashed water at her. "Jump in what you're wearing."

Maya looked at her cutoffs and tank top. Looked at the pool, sparkling and inviting. Looked at Jake, who was still grinning like he knew something she didn't.

She jumped.

The water swallowed her whole—cool and shocking and perfect. When she broke the surface, gasping, Jake was laughing. Everyone was laughing. Her hair was a wet disaster, her makeup was definitely gone, her clothes were ruined.

But when Jake tossed her sopping-wet hat back across the water, she caught it without thinking, then dropped it on the pool deck.

"Keep it," she said. "I'm done hiding."