Spy at the Net

The country club smelled like expensive sunscreen and privilege, and I was definitely not supposed to be here.

I'd been watching them play padel for three days straight—perched on the grassy hill behind Court 4 like a total creep, my sunglasses on, pretending to scroll through my phone while actually tracking every backhand, every laugh, every perfectly messy hair flip. The popular kids. The ones whose Instagram stories actually got views.

"You need more vitamin D in your system," my mom had said that morning, pressing those giant chalky pills into my hand. "You're too pale. Summer's wasting away." So there I was, chugging nature's little confidence boosters while literally spying on the coolest people in sophomore year.

Then Luna looked right at me.

Luna Chen, whose laugh sounded like wind chimes and whose padel game was apparently lethal. She waved me over.

"You've been sitting there forever," she called out. "You play?"

My brain short-circuited. Me? Play with them? The vitamins were definitely kicking in because I somehow heard myself say, "Uh, yeah. Totally."

"Racket's yours," Luna said, tossing me a worn-in beauty with a neon grip. "Show us what you got."

I stepped onto the court, my heart doing jumping jacks. The first serve came at me like a bullet. I swung, missed completely, and face-planted onto the synthetic turf.

Silence.

Then Luna cracked up. "Dude, that was legendary."

"I meant to do that," I lied, wiping dirt off my chin.

"Sure you did," she grinned. "We need more terrible players like you. Makes us look good. You're in."

Just like that. No interview, no cool-kid exam required. Just one spectacular failure.

We played until sunset. I was awful at padel—like, historically bad—but Luna and the others taught me their serves, their fake-outs, their secret strategies. They told me about the time Luna accidentally hit a ball into the club director's jacuzzi, how Marcus once ripped his shorts during a tournament final.

Turns out, the perfect Instagram angle was just that—an angle. Behind the filter, they were just a bunch of dorks who happened to be good at hitting balls against walls.

"Same time tomorrow?" Luna asked as we packed up.

"Yeah," I said, and it wasn't a lie anymore. "Same time tomorrow."

I walked home, sunglasses pushing back my hair, racket over my shoulder like I owned the place. Those vitamins could wait. I'd found something better.