Racket Boy Summer

The country club smelled like money and sunscreen. I tugged at my collar, already sweating through my polo. Mom said I had to come. Dad's boss was hosting this thing, and apparently, networking happened in ninety-degree heat with racquet sports.

"You're up, Jake," Marcus whispered, practically vibrating beside me. Marcus lived for this stuff—LacrosseJake in the group chats, always posting gym selfies and using words like "grind" and "legacy" unironically.

The padel court looked like a tennis court had a baby with a squash court. Glass walls, weird scoring, and everyone acted like they'd known the rules since birth. I stepped onto the court, clutching a borrowed racquet like it might bite me.

My mind flashed to my baseball glove, buried somewhere in my closet since eighth grade. That was the last time I'd felt like an athlete—before growth spurts hit everyone else harder, before my wrists got weirdly bendy, before I realized some bodies were built for sports and some were built for, like, reading and existing near snacks.

The ball whizzed past my ear. Someone laughed—short, sharp, not mean, really, but my face burned anyway.

"You good, man?" It was a girl in a visor, bouncing on the balls of her feet. Pretty, but in that way that made my stomach do little flips of terror. "You're holding it like a tennis racquet. Padel's different—more wrist, less arm."

She demonstrated, her movement fluid and confident. I tried to copy her and promptly face-planted.

Water splashed everywhere—from the nearby fountain, from my sweaty everything, from my eyes, embarrassingly. Everyone went quiet.

But then the girl laughed, and it wasn't mean at all. "Okay, that was dramatic." She extended a hand. "I'm Sofia. You're Jake, right? The governor's kid?"

"My dad's the deputy chief of staff," I mumbled, letting her pull me up. "And yeah, Jake. Also, spectacularly uncoordinated."

"Same." She grinned. "I'm only here because my aunt's a member. I mostly just come for the air conditioning and the mini quesadillas."

We spent the rest of the afternoon sitting by the fountain, talking about everything and nothing. She liked old anime and hated volleyball. I admitted I still listened to fallout boy and had never learned to swim properly.

"We're both frauds," Sofia declared, dipping her fingers in the water. "It's literally fine. Everyone here is pretending anyway."

I looked at the padel court, then at my stupid polo, then at her. Something in my chest loosened.

"Yeah," I said. "But the frauds have more fun."