Sweaty Palms Summer

My palms were sweating. Again. Like, actually dripping situation.

"You good, Maya?" Jordan asked from the bleachers, looking entirely too comfortable in his snapback and that fitted jersey that made his shoulders look—okay, focus. This was not the time to be thirsting. This was the time to not humiliate myself in front of half the sophomore class.

"Just allergic to embarrassment," I muttered, wiping my hands on my shorts for the third time. "Which is about to happen in approximately thirty seconds when I attempt to hit that baseball."

The truth? I'd never even held a bat before today. But when Jordan asked if I wanted to join his summer league team, apparently my mouth moved before my brain could process the absolute disaster that would ensue. Now here I was, standing at home plate while thirty people watched like I was about to perform surgery instead of just trying not to whiff completely.

Coach Miller's nephew—who'd been "practically playing since the womb," according to Jordan—wound up on the pitcher's mound. His expression said lunch, not competition. Great.

The first pitch whizzed past so fast I barely registered it.

"Strike one!"

"You got this, Maya!" Jordan yelled. My stomach did that flip thing it always did when he paid attention to me, which was literally never, so this was new and confusing territory.

Second pitch: I swung and missed so spectacularly I almost spun myself into the dirt. Someone's little sister giggled. I wanted to evaporate.

"Strike two!"

Thunder rumbled in the distance. Of course. Of course the weather would coordinate with my personal tragedy.

"Storm coming in," someone shouted. "We gonna call it?"

But the third pitch was already coming, and something shifted. Maybe it was the way the sky lit up behind the backstop, that purple-pink lightning cutting through the clouds like nature's own Instagram filter. Maybe it was Jordan watching, actually watching, like he believed I could do this.

I stopped thinking. My palms weren't sweaty anymore—they were just hands, connected to arms, connected to a body that knew things sometimes even when my brain didn't. The bat met something solid and the sound was perfect. A crack like the world splitting open.

The ball soared toward left field, past everyone who'd stopped moving because lightning had just struck somewhere close enough that the hair on my arms stood up. I stood there, bat still raised, while everyone stared at the sky, then at me, then at the ball rolling into the parking lot.

"Game called on account of weather," the umpire yelled.

Jordan jumped down from the bleachers, grinning like I'd just invented oxygen. "Did you just—was that seriously your first time ever?"

"My palms are sweating again," I said instead of answering. "Like, a lot."

He laughed, and it was better than any home run. "Maya, you just hit the only ball of the game. During a lightning storm. You're literally the coolest person I've ever met."

The storm broke as we ran for cover, rain coming down in sheets. And for the first time all summer, I wasn't thinking about how awkward I was or whether my hair looked decent. I was just running through puddles, baseball cleats clicking against pavement, lightning flashing overhead like the whole sky was putting on a show just for us.

Some moments are just perfect like that. Sweaty palms and all.