The Padel Court Conspiracy

The **cable** to my headphones had been fraying for weeks, but today it chose to snap right in the middle of Mr. Henderson's lecture. Great. Now I'd actually have to pay attention.

At least it gave me an excuse to leave early and head to the **padel** courts behind the community center. Jordan would be there — he always was on Fridays, practicing his backhand slice like his life depended on it. I'd been strategically timing my walks past the courts for three weeks now, which sounded pathetic even in my head.

But I wasn't just some creep. I was basically conducting reconnaissance.

"You're practically a **spy** at this point," my best friend Priya had said yesterday, watching me pretend to stretch on the grass nearby. "Just talk to him."

Easy for her to say. She didn't get nervous around people. I got nervous around friendly baristas.

Today I actually had a reason to approach him. My mom had started me on these gummy **vitamin** D supplements because apparently I never saw sunlight anymore, and I'd accidentally grabbed the wrong bottle from her stash. Now I had a bottle of prenatal vitamins sitting in my backpack that I needed to return to Jordan's house — his mom was the one who'd given them to my mom last week.

This was fine. This was normal. This was definitely not the most awkward social interaction of my sixteen years.

Jordan missed his shot and cursed, then spotted me standing there like I'd been planted there by the universe specifically to humiliate myself.

"Hey!" He waved, all smiley and sweat-drenched. "You want to hit a few?"

"I — what?"

"Padel. Want to play? My partner bailed."

Thirty minutes later, I was terrible at padel, sweating through my favorite shirt, and having possibly the best time of my life. Jordan kept laughing at my attempts to serve, but like, in a nice way. In a way that made my stomach feel weird.

"You want to grab something after?" he asked. "There's that smoothie place by the park. They make this **papaya** mango thing that's actually incredible."

"Yeah," I said, trying to sound chill. "That sounds good."

As we walked to his car, I remembered the prenatal vitamins still sitting in my bag. Some things could wait until our second date.

Because this was definitely a date. Right?