Riddles by the Pool

Maya's summer job at the country club was supposed to be easy—until she met the sphinx.

Not the mythical kind, obviously. Jordan, whose nickname came from his habit of posing riddles before letting anyone use the padel courts, leaned against the fence with his arms crossed, radiating that particular kind of teenage confidence that made Maya's stomach do backflips.

"New girl," he said, not looking up from his phone. "Riddle time. What's always running but never moves?"

Behind her, the pool area erupted in laughter. The popular kids—the ones Maya had watched from her lifeguard chair all summer—were gathered around Tyler, whose bullish personality had earned him both followers and fear. Tyler caught Maya's eye and smirked.

"A... river?" Maya guessed.

Jordan looked up, eyebrows raised. "A river. Seriously?"

"What? I don't know!" Maya felt her face burning. This was exactly why she hated new situations, new people, new anything. Being sixteen was hard enough without sphinx-gatekeepers and whatever was happening with Tyler's crowd.

"It's a nose, obviously," Jordan said, but his lip twitched like he was trying not to smile. "You can use Court 3. But watch out—Tyler and his crew monopolize Courts 1 and 2 like they own the place."

"Thanks," Maya mumbled, grabbing a padel racket from the bin.

She played terribly, distracted by Tyler's loud boasting from the next court and the way Jordan kept glancing over. After her fifth ball into the net, she stomped to the edge of the pool and sat on the deck, feet in the cool water.

"You're holding it wrong," Jordan said from behind her.

Maya jumped. "What?"

"The racket. You're gripping it like a baseball bat." He sat beside her, close enough that their shoulders almost touched. "My dad's a coach. Want me to show you?"

"I'm hopeless at sports," she said.

"Everyone's hopeless until they're not." He stood up, offering a hand. "Besides, watching you try is more entertaining than whatever Tyler's yelling about."

Maya took his hand, feeling that strange electricity of first connections. Maybe the country club wouldn't be so bad after all.

"So," Jordan said as they walked back to the courts. "New riddle. What gets bigger the more you take away?"

Maya grinned. "A hole?"

Jordan actually smiled this time. "See? You're getting it."

By the time her shift ended, Maya had made her first friend, learned something about padel, and realized that sometimes the scariest sphinxes were just teenagers who were good at hiding their own awkwardness behind riddles and posturing.

The bull, as it turned out, was just full of hot air.