The Hat Trick

My life was officially a disaster zone, and the hat was my only defense.

"You gonna wear that inside? Again?" Marcus asked, barely looking up from his phone.

I tugged the brim of my dad's old trucker hat lower. It was stained, smelled like middle school locker room, but it was my armor. "Leave me alone, bro."

Freshman year had been one giant social experiment gone wrong. I'd tried band, drama club, even academic decathlon (major L). Now here I was, standing at the entrance to the padel club like some lost intern who'd taken a wrong turn.

Padel. The sport your Spanish cousin plays and posts about on Instagram. The sport I'd signed up for because Marcus—my former best friend, current stranger—had joined the club team and actually gotten, like, good at it.

The court smelled like expensive rubber and teenage anxiety. I clutched my rental padel racquet like it was a weapon I didn't know how to use.

"You're up, new kid," someone called out.

A girl with electric blue hair and knee-high socks stood at the net, bouncing a ball like she'd been doing this since birth. "I'm Jules. You swing that thing like you're fighting off a bee, I'm judging you."

I snorted. Weak laugh, but it counted. "I'm Leo. And I have zero idea what I'm doing."

"Obvious," she grinned. "But you're wearing the hat of a depressed dad, so you've got that mysterious vibe going for you."

Something in my chest unlocked. We played. I tripped. I served the ball into the net. Twice. But Jules kept laughing, kept encouraging me like I wasn't completely embarrassing myself.

"You're actually not trash," she said afterward, as I collapsed onto the bench. "You should come back tomorrow."

"Really?"

"Really. Besides," she nodded at Marcus across the court, high-fiving his squad, "someone needs to humble those guys."

I touched my hat—my gross, comfortable, security-blanket hat—and realized I hadn't thought about it once during the game.

"Yeah," I said, already looking forward to tomorrow. "I'll be here."