Sweaty Palms and Sunset Courts

My palms were literally sweating through my grip on the padel racquet. I'd never even *heard* of padel until Maya invited me to her country club's summer tournament, and suddenly I was standing on this enclosed court feeling like a total fraud.

"You got this!" Chloe yelled from the sidelines, filming me for her TikTok. Classic.

The court was right next to the pool, so there was this constant splash of water and laughter coming from the cool kids who actually knew how to play sports without looking like dying fish. I kept stealing glances at Tyler—the orange sunset was hitting his face perfectly, making his sandy hair glow like he was some kind of golden retriever angel.

Then I missed the ball. Completely whiffed. The tiny padel ball bounced off the wall and clocked me in the shin.

"Yikes," Tyler said, jogging over. "You okay?"

I wanted to evaporate. Just straight-up dissolve into water molecules and float away.

But then—because my life is actually a rom-com written by a sadistic author—my stomach let out the loudest growl in human history. I'd forgotten to eat, distracted by Maya's text about the tournament and my mom's lecture about "trying new experiences" and my spiraling thoughts about how Tyler barely knew I existed.

Tyler cracked up. "Dude, same. I'm starving."

He reached into his bag and pulled out the nastiest-looking orange I'd ever seen—half-peeled, kind of squishy, definitely suspicious.

"Want it?" he asked. "My mom packs them like I'm still eight."

I took it. Because I was desperate and hungry and he was Tyler, the boy who'd sat behind me in bio since freshman year, the one I'd been lowkey running from emotionally because getting rejected would literally kill me.

The orange was surprisingly good. Sweet and messy, juice running down my chin, and Tyler just laughed and tossed me a napkin like it was completely normal that we were sharing fruit on a padel court while everyone else pretended to be cool.

"Hey," he said, wiping orange stickiness off his fingers. "You doing anything after this? There's this taco spot—"

"YES," I said too fast. "I mean, yeah, sure."

Later, as we were leaving the club, my phone buzzed. A TikTok notification. Chloe had posted the video of me getting hit in the shin, but somehow—through the chaos and my desperate attempt at dignity—she'd captured it: Tyler laughing, handing me the orange, the way he looked at me like I wasn't just some awkward girl who couldn't play padel to save her life.

The caption read: new ship just dropped 🚢

My palms were sweating again. But this time, I didn't mind.