Operation Padel Crush

Maya adjusted her backpack, where Barnaby—the family's obese tabby cat—purred like a tiny motor against her spine. "You're my emotional support animal today," she'd whispered to him earlier. "Don't judge me."

The padel courts behind the community center were already buzzing with Friday afternoon energy. Maya spotted *him* immediately: Liam, leaning against the fence with that effortless cool that made her stomach do backflips. He held an orange Gatorade, the bottle catching sunlight like liquid amber.

"You're literally stalking him," her best friend Jaz had texted earlier. "This is unhinged behavior, bestie."

"I'm not stalking," Maya had replied. "I'm ... conducting reconnaissance. Spy work."

Spy work. Right. Because that's so much better.

She ducked behind the equipment shed when Liam looked her way. Barnaby let out a mrrp of protest.

"Shh! We're in stealth mode," she hissed.

Through a crack in the shed's wooden siding, she watched Liam laugh at something someone said. His smile—that genuine, crinkly-eyed smile—hit her like a physical thing. Meanwhile, Maya was literally hiding in a shed with a cat. This was her life now.

Her phone buzzed. Jaz: "Just talk to him????"

Maya: "NO.

Maya: "What would I even SAY"

Jaz: "'Hey, nice padel game, want to get orange juice and talk about feelings?'"

Maya rolled her eyes so hard it hurt. Jaz was useless.

Then Liam started walking toward the shed.

Maya's heart seized. She couldn't let him find her like this—creeping around with a cat in her backpack like some kind of fentanyl-smuggling weirdo. But there was nowhere to go.

The shed door creaked open.

"Maya?"

She froze like a deer in headlights. Which she basically was.

"Is that ... is that a cat?" Liam's expression hovered between concerned and deeply confused.

"His name is Barnaby," she heard herself say. "And I was just ... leaving."

"Wait." He stepped closer. "Were you watching me play?"

The blood rushed to her face. "I was NOT. I was just ... in the area."

"For an hour?" Liam raised an eyebrow. "Jaz texted me. She said you needed 'backup.'"

Maya was going to murder Jaz.

"So," Liam continued, "were you going to talk to me, or just spy on me forever?"

"Option two seemed safer."

Liam laughed. Not mean laughter. Real laughter. "Well, I'm glad you're here. I've been trying to figure out how to ask you to hang out for weeks."

"What."

"You heard me." He held out his orange Gatorade. "Want this? I haven't opened it yet."

Maya stared. Barnaby chose that moment to poke his head out of her backpack and meow.

"Is that a yes?" Liam grinned.

"That's a yes," Maya said, and for the first time in forever, her anxiety was quiet enough to hear herself think.

Maybe being a spy wasn't so bad after all.