Signal Found

Maya's summer job involved crawling under houses and running coaxial cable to strangers' living rooms. It sucked, but $15/hr beat doing nothing while everyone else posted beach pics. Plus, she'd discovered she was weirdly fast at pulling cable through tight spaces—guess all that sprinting away from awkward situations paid off.

"Dude, just move your TV, like, two inches and I can actually reach the outlet."

The guy was cute. Baseball-cute, which Maya didn't even know was a thing until now. Tyler something. They'd had chemistry together last year, and she'd spent exactly 47% of that class staring at the back of his neck.

"My dad says it ruins the feng shui," Tyler said, not looking up from the game on his phone. "You watch baseball?"

"No. It's just old guys spitting and standing around."

"Lowkey accurate." He finally looked at her. "Lightning round: what's your non-negotiable?"

"What?"

"If we were running from zombies, what are you grabbing? Like, actually important."

Maya blinked. This was not cable talk. "My noise-canceling headphones. And, like, three boxes of Fruity Pebbles."

Tyler actually laughed. "Valid. I'd go with my glove collection." He gestured to the corner, where a dozen baseball mitts sat like leather trophies. "Former MVP, current cable installation supervisor."

"You're supervising me? I'm literally doing all the work."

"Emotional supervision. Very taxing."

Outside, thunder cracked. Rain started drumming against the window.

"Great," Maya muttered. "Now I'm trapped in here with a guy who has a weird leather glove obsession."

"You say obsession, I say dedication."

Something shifted. The air felt different—charged, like the moment before lightning strikes.

"You coming to the game Friday?" Tyler asked suddenly, way too casual. "We could use someone who actually knows how to run."

Maya's heart did that annoying fluttery thing. "I don't play baseball."

"Who said anything about playing?" He grinned, and it was devastating. "I'm talking about the snack stand. Their nachos are genuinely life-changing."

"You're asking me on a date to a baseball game for nachos?"

"I mean, if you're gonna say it like that, it sounds bad."

"Yes," Maya said, before she could overthink it into oblivion. "Yes, I will get cable-fast nachos with you."

Later, as she finally finished the installation and Tyler walked her to her car, her phone buzzed. A notification: NEW MESSAGE FROM TYLER: "Next time, I'll teach you how to actually swing."

Maya looked back at his house, cable vanishing into the ground like a promise she hadn't known she was making. Some signals were worth finding.