Operation Goldfish

Maya pressed herself against the locker, officially the worst spy in the history of espionage. Her target: Liam, the cute junior who'd somehow become the center of her universe without even noticing her existence. This was peak pathetic behavior, even for her.

"You look like you're about to rob the place," said Jules, appearing beside her with zero warning, because Jules had zero chill.

Maya jumped. "I'm gathering intel. It's called strategy."

"It's called creeping," Jules said, but she was grinning. "Anyway, you coming to padel later? The whole squad's going."

Padel. The sport Maya had pretended to know for three weeks now. She'd watched approximately twelve YouTube tutorials and still couldn't explain the difference between padel and tennis if someone paid her. But Liam would be there, so apparently she was the world's newest padel enthusiast.

"Obviously," Maya said, like her entire soul wasn't currently screaming.

By 4 PM, the court was chaos. Someone's older brother had brought a speaker that was definitely too powerful for a public park. Maya stood awkwardly near the fence, clutching a borrowed racquet like it might bite her.

Then Liam walked over. Actual Liam, in the flesh, wearing that fox-orange hoodie she'd lowkey memorized.

"Hey," he said. "You play?"

Maya's brain short-circuited. She opened her mouth and absolutely nothing came out. Complete system failure. Goldfish mode — that's what her mom called her whenever she blanked like this. A literal three-second memory span whenever someone cute talked to her.

"She's a pro," Jules saved her, swooping in from nowhere. "Maya, show him that killer backhand."

Liam's eyebrows went up. "No way. You should play on my team then."

He wanted her on his team. The world was not real.

They played for two hours. Maya missed approximately 87% of the balls but laughed so hard her stomach hurt. Liam kept making these terrible jokes and didn't even seem to care that she was objectively terrible at padel. At one point, after she somehow managed to hit the ball straight into a tree, he just grinned and said, "That was epic," like he actually meant it.

Afterward, sitting on the grass while everyone else packed up, Liam sat next to her. Close enough that their knees almost touched.

"You're cool," he said, and it wasn't even smooth, which somehow made it better. "We should hang out."

Maya's heart did this absolutely illegal flip thing. She thought about her spy mission from earlier, about how she'd spent weeks watching from the sidelines, gathering courage like it was something that could be learned from YouTube tutorials.

"Yeah," she said, and it came out easy this time. "I'd like that."

No goldfish moments. Just her, actually being brave for once.

Jules caught her eye from across the court and gave her this tiny thumbs-up. Maya smiled back. Sometimes the universe gave you a win. Even if you had to embarrassing yourself at padel first.