Serve and Connection

Jordan's life was basically over.

"You'll love padel!" her mom had said. "It's all the rage at the country club."

Now Jordan stood on court #4, wearing a skirt that felt too short and holding a racquet like it might bite her. The spinach smoothie she'd been forced to drink for breakfast was doing somersaults in her stomach. Being sixteen meant lots of things—driver's permit, kinda sorta dating, high school drama—but it did NOT mean playing fancy paddle sports with kids whose parents owned yachts.

"You ready, new girl?" called Chase from the other side of the net. He was gorgeous, annoyingly so, with that messy-though-definitely-styled hair that belonged in a TikTok.

Jordan's iphone buzzed in her bag on the sidelines. Probably her best friend Riley with another crisis about her crush. Or maybe Instagram notifications from the story she'd posted that morning: *forced into social death, wish me luck*.

"Whatever," Jordan mumbled, serving.

The ball hit the net. Of course.

Chase laughed, but not mean. "You're gripping it wrong. Here." He actually walked around the net to show her. Up close, he smelled like coconut sunscreen and expensive gum.

"My mom made me drink a liter of spinach for this," Jordan blurted out. Why did her brain have zero filter?

Chase paused. Then he cracked up. "Dude, same. My dad's got me on this 'athlete's diet' kick. I haven't had a real pizza in, like, three weeks."

They ended up sitting on the bench during water break, ignoring the game completely. Chase showed her his iphone wallpaper—a dumb picture of his dog wearing sunglasses. Jordan confessed she'd never played sports in her life, she was more of an art kid, and this whole country club thing was her parents' midlife crisis playing out through her.

"So why'd you post about it if you hate it?" Chase asked.

Jordan shrugged. "Gotta keep the aesthetic, right?"

"Or," Chase said, "you could just... not. My little sister's always on my case about posting everything. She says it's like performing for an audience that doesn't care."

Jordan looked at him—really looked at him. He wasn't just the cute athlete guy. He was a person who missed pizza and had a cringey dog wallpaper and gave surprisingly good advice.

"Hey," he said, pulling her from her thoughts. "You want to get out of here? There's a place down the road that serves real pizza. With actual cheese, not, like, kale nonsense."

Jordan's heart did that stupid fluttery thing. "But our match—"

"My parents already think I'm at practice. They won't know." He grinned. "Live a little, Jordan."

She grabbed her bag, iphone still buzzing with notifications she suddenly didn't care about. The spinach smoothie's aftertaste didn't seem so bad anymore.

Sometimes the best serves aren't the ones that land in bounds. Sometimes they're the ones that change the game entirely.