Sink or Swim

The pool party was already in full swing when Maya arrived. That was the problem with being late—you missed the casual splash-in and had to perform the Grand Entrance while twenty eyes judged your swimsuit choice.

"Mayyyyya!" Kayla screamed from the deep end, surrounded by her squad. "Get in here! The water's perfect!"

Maya's stomach did that thing it always did around Kayla and friends—a slow, anxious twist. She'd been swimming since she was five, technically. But that was different from whatever Kayla's group did, which involved synchronized hair flips and looking effortless while maintaining perfect makeup.

The real problem wasn't the water. It was Tyler, currently shirtless on the pool deck, messing with a padel racket from someone's backyard court.

Maya had been lowkey crushing on Tyler since seventh period English, when he'd helped her pick up her dropped binder and their hands had brushed for exactly 0.8 seconds. Now he was stretching, arms rippling in a way that made her brain short-circuit, totally casual and unbothered while she was overthinking every possible worst-case scenario.

"You coming in or what?" Tyler called, catching her staring. Great. Perfect. Immediate social suicide.

"Yeah! Just—sunscreen!" Maya fumbled with the bottle, squirting an excessive amount onto her leg like it was personality.

She waded into the pool, each step dialing up her internal panic meter. The water hit her waist, then chest, then shoulders. Just act natural, she told herself. You know how to swim. You've got this.

"WATER VOLLEYBALL!" someone shouted. "Tyler versus Maya!"

The group parted, creating an arena. And that's when Maya saw it floating beside her—the bright yellow padel ball, escaped from Tyler's earlier warm-up.

"Serve it, Maya!" Kayla cheered.

Something snapped in Maya. Not in a bad way. More like a click, like finally understanding a math problem after staring at it for twenty minutes. She grabbed the padel ball from the water, cocked her arm back, and served it so hard it splashed directly into Tyler's surprised face.

There was a moment of stunned silence. Then Tyler burst out laughing. "Okay, that's valid. That's completely valid."

By the end of the party, Maya had lost every water volleyball match but gained something better—Tyler's number, saved as "Padel Ball Assassin" in her phone. She still wasn't part of Kayla's squad, but she figured she was okay with that. Some girls were made for synchronized swimming. Others were made for throwing balls at boys and making them laugh.

She'd take option B.