Thunder on the Court

I stood at the edge of the pool, toes curled against the concrete, mentally calculating the exact angle I'd need to enter the water without making a splash. Or waves. Or any movement whatsoever. Just vanish into the chlorine like a ninja.

"You coming in or what?" Jordan called from the deep end, droplets flying from their perfect hair. Jordan, whose presence made my stomach do that annoying fluttery thing, probably because they were technically my friend but I definitely wanted them to be more than that.

"Yeah, just... warming up," I lied, already overheating in the August sun.

A calico cat wandered onto the pool deck, looking entirely unimpressed by everyone's summer vibes. It sat near my towel and started aggressively bathing itself, like, thanks for the confidence boost, random kitty.

The lifeguard blew the whistle. Everyone out. Thunder.

"Perfect," Jordan muttered, grabbing their towel. "Hey, you up for padel? We need a fourth."

Padel. As in, the sport I knew absolutely nothing about. "Sure," I heard myself say, because apparently I enjoyed public embarrassment.

We ended up on the court under darkening skies. I held the oversized racket like a weapon, convinced I would somehow accidentally kill someone with it. Jordan's partner was this intense guy who kept saying things like "CRUSH IT" every time he hit the ball, while Jordan moved with this easy athletic grace that made my chest tight.

First serve — straight into the net. Classic.

"You got this!" Jordan called, and their smile was stupidly encouraging.

Second serve — somehow cleared the fence entirely.

"That's... definitely a way to play," Jordan said, fighting back laughter.

Then it happened — that first crack of lightning, brilliant and terrifying, illuminating everything for a split second. In that flash, I saw Jordan watching me, actually looking at me, not through me or past me, and they were smiling.

"We should probably get inside," Jordan said, but instead of running, they held out a hand. "Race you?"

We ran through the rain, properly poured-on rain, both of us laughing like idiots, and somewhere in that chaos — the lightning overhead, the cat watching from the snack bar roof, my disastrous padel performance — something shifted. Jordan grabbed my hand, and we sprinted toward the cabins together, and I thought, maybe, just maybe, this summer wasn't going to be so terrible after all.

Next time, though, I was definitely learning the rules before agreeing to play.