Sweaty Palms Strategy

My hair was doing that thing again—the frizzy halo of doom that made me look like I'd stuck a fork in an electrical socket. Which, okay, I had done that one time in third grade, but we don't talk about Marcus's birthday party.

"You ready?" Lena asked, popping her head into my room. She looked flawless, naturally, because some people just wake up like that while the rest of us need three different products and a prayer.

"Does my hair say 'I'm fun and approachable' or 'I recently survived a natural disaster'?" I asked.

She grinned. "Somewhere in between. Jake's gonna be there."

My stomach did that traitorous little flip it always did when she said his name. Jake, with his dumb perfect laugh and the way he actually listened when people talked. Jake, who I'd had a crush on since September and had approximately zero game with.

"Cool, cool," I said, doing breathing exercises that were definitely not working. "It's fine. I'm chill. I took that vitamin thing Mom gave me. The one for 'stress relief' which is parent code for 'please stop spiraling about things that haven't happened yet.'"

Lena raised an eyebrow. "Did it work?"

"Ask me in twenty minutes when I'm hiding in the bathroom."

We got to Tyler's house and the music was already thumping through the floorboards. Someone had clearly discovered someone else's parents' liquor cabinet because there was a suspicious amount of fruit punch happening. I grabbed a cup, not drinking it, just holding it like a shield. Social armor.

And there he was. Jake. Standing by the sliding glass door, looking unfairly good in that way where you just know he doesn't even try.

My palms were sweating. Like, actually sweating. I wiped them on my jeans, which was useless because now my jeans were just slightly damp and I was still panicking.

This is fine, I told myself. Just go over there and say words. Words are your friend. You've been using them since you were literally one.

"Hey," someone said, and it took me three full seconds to realize Jake was standing right there.

"Hey," I said back, and wow, my voice went up at the end like a question. Cool. Very cool. "I like your... shoes."

Kill me now.

But he laughed, and not in a mean way. "Thanks. They're my lucky ones."

We talked for twenty minutes about nothing and everything and the whole time I was hyperaware of my hair and my sweaty palms and the fact that I was probably blushing but somehow it didn't matter.

Then his phone buzzed and he checked it, sighed. "I gotta go help my sister. She's got car trouble."

"Oh," I said, trying to keep the disappointment off my face. "Cool. Very heroic of you."

He smiled, and for the first time, he seemed kind of nervous too. "Hey, so, I was gonna ask—do you want to get coffee sometime? Like, not at a party where someone keeps playing the same three songs on repeat?"

My heart stopped. Then restarted. Then did a little kickflip. "Yeah. Yeah, I'd really like that."

"Cool." He held out his hand, palm up. "Let me get your number before I forget and do something dumb like ask Lena for it instead."

I typed my number into his phone, and when I handed it back, our fingers brushed. Just for a second. But it felt like something real.

I walked home with Lena afterward, hair still frizzy, palms still gross, heart still doing gymnastics.

"So," she said. "Did it work?"

"What?"

"The vitamin."

I laughed. "You know what? Maybe it did."