Service Receive

Maya's palms were sweating. Not the cute glisten, but the full-on slipping-off-your-racquet kind. She stared at the padel court through the chain-link fence, watching Jake laugh at something Chloe said. His hair did that perfect messy thing that probably took twenty minutes.

"You coming?" Priya bumped her shoulder. "Or are you gonna stare at your iphone all day?"

Maya shoved her phone deep in her bag. Like that would help. Her screen time was probably embarassing anyway—four hours just stalking Jake's finsta, calculating which Starbucks he went to after practice.

The cable management situation in her backpack was a disaster. When she'd tried to charge her AirPods that morning, she'd spent ten minutes untangling the knot, only to realize she'd grabbed her dad's ancient charging brick that barely worked. Classic Maya energy.

"I'm going," Maya said, even though her stomach was doing jumping jacks.

Jake spotted them and waved. "Hey! We need a fourth. Chloe twisted her ankle."

Wait. WHAT.

Maya's brain short-circuited. This was NOT the plan. The plan was: observe from safe distance, maybe make eye contact once, survive until her mom picked her up. The plan did NOT involve being on Jake's padel team.

"Uh," Maya said intelligently. "I've literally never played."

"It's fine, we're just messing around." Jake's smile did something to her cardiac rhythm that should be studied by science. "Here, take this racquet."

The first ten minutes were a disaster. Maya tripped over her own feet, missed every ball, and managed to hit the wall instead of the court. At one point she was running backward so fast she nearly collided with the fence. Her face burned.

"Yo, you okay?" Jake asked after her third whiff.

Maya wanted to dissolve into particles. "Yeah, just ... this is harder than it looks."

"Here, let me show you." Jake moved behind her, adjusting her grip. His hands were warm and she could smell his cologne and her brain was just gone. "You gotta stay light on your feet, like you're ready to book it, you know?"

"Right. Book it." Sure. She could definitely form coherent sentences.

Then it happened. Jake served, the ball came at her, and somehow—SOMEHOW—she connected. Perfectly. The ball rocketed past Priya, bouncing once, twice, triple bear cub—wait, that made no sense, her brain was broken—point for Maya.

"YESSS!" Jake actually high-fived her. "That was insane!"

Maya's face hurt from smiling so hard. For the next hour, she played like a different person. Jake kept shouting her name. Priya kept side-eyeing her. Maya kept occasionally forgetting how to breathe.

Afterward, as they were packing up, Jake caught her eye. "Hey, we're doing this again Saturday. You should come."

Maya's heart did that full gymnastics routine. "Yeah. Totally."

"Cool." He grinned. "Oh, and Maya? You looked like a bear out there—wild."

She wasn't sure if that was a compliment but she'd take it.

Walking to her mom's car, Maya pulled out her phone. The cable was still tangled, her AirPods were dead, and she was probably going to replay every moment of the last hour until her brain melted.

But as she buckled her seatbelt, Maya caught her reflection in the side mirror. Sweaty, messy-haired, grinning like an idiot.

She looked happy.

"How was it?" her mom asked.

Maya thought about Jake's hands on hers adjusting her grip. The way he'd shouted her name like she'd actually done something worth noticing. The fact that she'd survived, like, actual social interaction without embarrassing herself too badly.

"It was good," Maya said, and it wasn't even a lie. "Actually, it was kinda great."