Sweaty Palms & Static

My palms were sweating. Again. I wiped them on my jeans for the third time, leaving dark streaks on the denim. Jordan's party started in twenty minutes, and I was still standing in my kitchen, staring at the glass of green sludge my mom had insisted would "give me energy."

"It's got spinach, kale, and every B vitamin known to science," she'd said, already late for her shift. "You'll thank me later."

I chugged it. It tasted like a lawn mower had a mid-life crisis.

The real problem wasn't the smoothie. The problem was Jordan herself. She was the kind of person who could pull off wearing a vintage band tee to a formal event and have everyone suddenly think vintage band tees were formal wear. She had main character energy, and I was... background character at best. NPC energy.

I grabbed my phone and caught my reflection in the dark screen. The vitamin smoothie had left something green stuck between my teeth. Fantastic. This was exactly the kind of thing that happened to me.

At the party, Jordan was in her room, tangled in a mess of cables. She looked up, eyes wide, hair escaping from what must have been a perfect bun five minutes ago.

"Leo! Thank god you're here. My speaker setup is a disaster and you're the only person I know who understands tech."

I froze. She needed me? For something?

"Uh, yeah. I can help."

She scooted over on the floor, making space. "My brother tried to help and made it worse. No offense to him, but his technical expertise extends to pressing the power button and hoping for the best."

I knelt down and started untangling wires. My hands were still kind of sweaty, but focusing on something technical helped. The cables were a nightmare—speaker wire, power cords, HDMI cables all knotted together like they'd been in a fight.

"You're actually good at this," Jordan said, watching me work. "I should've asked you first."

I felt something warm in my chest that had nothing to do with the party lights.

"I'm surprised you even noticed I existed," I said, then immediately regretted it. Why did I say that? That was literally the most loser thing I could've said.

Jordan laughed, but not in a mean way. "Are you kidding? You're the guy who fixed the projector in English class last week when Mr. Harrison was about to have a meltdown. That was highkey impressive."

I stared at her. "You noticed that?"

"Everyone noticed that, Leo. You're lowkey the most capable person in our grade. You just... don't make a big deal about it."

The last cable clicked into place. Music flooded the room—perfect, clear, no static.

Jordan high-fived me. "You literally saved my life. This playlist took me three days to curate."

For a second, our hands touched. Her palm was dry. Cool. Confident. Mine was still gross and sweaty.

"Hey," she said, suddenly serious. "You want to hang out here? Away from the chaos? We could just vibey and critique people's fashion choices from the window."

Something shifted in my chest. Maybe it was the B vitamins kicking in. Maybe it was something else.

"Yeah," I said. "Yeah, I'd like that."

And for the first time all night, my palms finally stopped sweating.