Spinach Smile at Sunset

Maya's palms were sweating before she even stepped onto the padel court. This was it — her first time hanging out with Lucas outside of school, and she was about to embarrass herself in front of the hottest guy in tenth grade.

"You ready?" Lucas grinned, bouncing on the balls of his feet like he'd been mainlining energy drinks. Maya's heart did this weird flutter thing that she refused to acknowledge.

"Born ready," she lied, ignoring how her hands shook as she gripped the racket.

They'd been playing for twenty minutes when it happened. Maya actually hit a decent shot, and Lucas called out, "Nice!" with genuine enthusiasm. She turned to flash him what she thought was a cool, effortless smile — the kind she'd practiced in her mirror for weeks.

His expression flickered. Confusion, then something like amusement.

"Maya, you have—" He pointed at his own teeth.

Her stomach dropped. She sprinted to the court-side mirror, and yep. There it was. A giant, obvious piece of spinach wedged between her front teeth, probably from the smoothie she'd chugged earlier. She wanted to dissolve into the earth, become one with the pavement, never show her face in public again.

But Lucas just started laughing. Not mean laughing. The genuine kind.

"Dude, it's fine," he said, wiping sweat from his forehead. "Last week, I had chocolate all over my face for three periods before someone told me. I looked like a zombie from The Walking Dead."

Maya groaned. "That's supposed to make me feel better?"

"Little bit." He passed her a bottle of water. "You're actually good at this. Better than me, honestly."

"You're just saying that."

"I'm not." His phone pinged from where it sat, plugged into the wall with a charging cable that was somehow still intact despite people tripping over it all day. "My sister's picking me up in ten. You wanna do this again?"

Maya's brain short-circuited. "Really?"

"Yeah. Maybe somewhere without spinach." He smirked. "See you Monday."

As she watched him walk away, Maya touched her tongue to her teeth. Still smooth, still spinach-free, and somehow her most embarrassing moment had turned into something not terrible at all. Sometimes the universe worked in mysterious ways.