Chapter Four Griffin #2
Their faces were inches apart.
Too close for jokes.
Too close for the crowd to matter as much as it should.
Too close for Griffin to ignore the fact that Maren Brooks smelled like citrus and summer heat, and her eyes were not laughing anymore.
His hand tightened on the frame.
Do not kiss her.
It was not difficult because kissing Maren would be wrong.
That would have been easier.
It was difficult because kissing her would be easy.
Terrifyingly easy.
Like his body had already decided where his mouth should go and was merely waiting for permission his brain refused to provide.
Maren’s gaze dropped to his mouth.
For one second.
One.
The photographer light flashed.
Then again.
Then again.
Beckett made a strangled sound. “That’s it. That’s the shot. We are done. I retire.”
The lawn exploded.
Griffin stepped back immediately.
Maren did not.
She stayed there, eyes on him, sign hanging loosely from her fingers. Her smile returned slowly, but it was not the same one she had worn before.
This one looked like she had touched a hot stove and was deciding whether to blame the stove or her own hand.
Griffin knew the feeling.
Tyler ran over and shoved his phone between them. “Look. Look. Look.”
“No,” Griffin said.
“Yes,” Maren said.
He looked.
Another mistake.
The photo was very good.
Too good.
Griffin stood over Maren with one hand braced on the frame, body angled toward hers, expression locked somewhere between restraint and surrender.
Maren looked up at him from beneath the warm string lights, lips parted, one hand pressed to the BAD IDEA IN PROGRESS sign like a warning neither of them had bothered to read.
It looked romantic.
Not fake romantic.
That was the problem.
The photo looked like two people who had forgotten the camera existed.
Maren stared at the screen.
Her mouth opened.
Closed.
No joke came out.
That was how Griffin knew they were in trouble.
Tyler whispered, “I think my phone is blushing.”
Nate took the phone from him. “Do not make it weird.”
“It was born weird.”
Ava appeared beside Maren, took one look at the photo, and blinked.
“Oh,” she said.
Maren’s head whipped toward her. “Do not oh.”
“I did not say it with punctuation.”
“You said it with entire paragraphs.”
Ava pressed her lips together.
Maren turned to Griffin, too bright again. “Well. Congratulations. You survived one bad idea.”
Griffin forced his voice level. “It was a photo.”
“Barely.”
The word landed between them.
Barely.
He should have let it pass.
He did not.
“Was that a complaint?”
Maren’s eyes flashed. “Was what a complaint?”
“Barely.”
“I meant the photo was barely a bad idea.”
“No, you did not.”
The team noise dimmed in Griffin’s head.
Maren took a tiny step closer, chin tilted, spark back in place. “Careful.”
“There it is again.”
“What?”
“That thing you do when something almost gets honest.”
Her expression shut.
Fast.
Too fast.
Regret tugged at him, but he held his ground because the sentence was true and because every part of him wanted to know why the truth made her reach for a smile like a weapon.
Maren’s smile appeared.
Polished.
Pretty.
Sharp enough to draw blood.
“You have known me for one summer, Hayes. I would be careful pretending you can read me.”
He had pushed too far.
He knew it.
But before he could answer, Denise’s voice cut across the lawn.
“Photo is posted!”
Everyone turned.
Maren looked at her phone.
Griffin felt the sinking sensation before he even saw the screen.
The official Lake Briar account had posted the photo.
Caption:
BAD IDEA BET, CHALLENGE ONE: COMPLETE.
Griffin Hayes survived the almost-kiss.
Maren Brooks appears unconvinced.
Vote for Challenge Two tomorrow morning.
The comments started flooding in before Griffin could blink.
Okay but why did that look REAL real?
The way he is looking at her. Sir???
Maren girl do not fold unless he earns it.
Griffin Hayes fears joy but maybe not Maren Brooks.
I am suddenly invested in lake hockey romance.
Tyler screamed, “WE HAVE A SHIP NAME!”
“No,” Griffin said immediately.
“Marriffin?”
“Absolutely not,” Maren said.
“Graren?”
“That sounds like a rash,” Cooper said.
Beckett studied the photo on Nate’s phone. “No ship name. Some romances are too powerful for syllables.”
“There is no romance,” Griffin said.
Again, too fast.
Maren looked at him.
The bright mask was still there, but something behind it dimmed.
Not hurt exactly.
Worse.
Recognition.
Like she had expected him to say it.
Like some part of her had already filed him under men who stepped close in private moments and stepped back the second anyone named what they saw.
His chest tightened.
“Maren,” he said.
She lifted one hand. “Relax. I know what this is.”
The words were light.
The meaning was not.
He wanted to ask what she thought this was.
He wanted to tell her she was wrong before he knew what she believed.
He wanted, irrationally, to take the words there is no romance and shove them back into his own mouth before they could become another thing she used as proof.
But the team surged around them, Tyler shouting about engagement, Beckett demanding a photo review, Nate trying and failing to restore order, Ava watching Griffin with the kind of narrowed eyes that suggested she had noticed every single mistake he had just made.
Griffin stepped toward Maren anyway.
She stepped back.
Just once.
Small.
Decisive.
Then she lifted her phone and turned to the crowd with a smile bright enough to convince almost everyone.
“Okay,” she called. “Challenge One is done. Opening night continues. If anyone jumps off anything, I want good lighting and plausible deniability.”
The team cheered.
Maren moved with them.
Away from Griffin.
He stood under the string lights, one hand still flexing like it remembered the wooden frame above her shoulder, his body still tuned to the almost of her.
Nate came up beside him.
For once, he did not grin.
“That was smooth,” Nate said.
Griffin stared at the crowd where Maren was already laughing with Ava, already working, already making herself look untouchable.
“It was a photo,” Griffin said.
Nate gave him a look.
Griffin hated that look.
“What?”
Nate folded his arms. “You know, for a guy who claims he does not fear joy, you looked pretty terrified the second everyone saw yours.”
Griffin had no answer.
Because across the lawn, Maren glanced back.
Only once.
Their eyes met through the blur of string lights and moving bodies.
Then her phone buzzed, and she looked down.
Her expression changed.
Not much.
But enough.
The smile faded.
Her shoulders tightened.
She turned the screen away from Ava before Ava could see it.
Griffin noticed.
He was moving before he decided to.
By the time he reached her, Maren had already locked the phone and tucked it against her chest.
The bright smile came back.
Too late.
He had seen the crack.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
“Perfect.”
“Try again.”
Her eyes lifted to his.
The spark was there, but thinner now.
“Careful, Hayes,” she said. “That almost sounded like concern.”
“It was.”
She blinked.
He did not soften it.
He did not joke.
He did not step back.
For once, neither did she.
Then her phone buzzed again between them.
This time, Griffin saw the name on the screen before she could hide it.
Paige.
And the message preview underneath.
Cute photo. Very on-brand for you. Just don’t let people confuse flirting with actual work.
Maren’s face went still.
Griffin’s chest filled with a slow, unfamiliar heat.
Not attraction.
Anger.
Maren shoved the phone into her pocket and smiled like the words had not landed.
“Well,” she said brightly. “At least Challenge One performed.”
Griffin looked at her.
At the smile.
At the armor.
At the exact spot where the joke ended and the bruise began.
And for the first time all night, Griffin Hayes did not want to stop a bad idea.
He wanted to find whoever had made Maren Brooks believe she was one.