Chapter Five Maren #2
It was a mistake.
Because he was not looking at the relay anymore.
He was looking at her.
And the expression on his face was not the one from the photo booth. Not the almost-kiss tension, not the public challenge, not the careful restraint while the crowd waited.
This was quieter.
Worse.
This was Griffin Hayes seeing the joke and looking for the bruise underneath it again.
Maren did not like that.
Mostly.
“You keep doing that,” she said.
“What?”
“Looking like you want to ask a question I already told you not to ask.”
“I am not asking it.”
“But you want to.”
“Yes.”
Honesty again.
The man was reckless in the least convenient ways.
Maren looked toward the relay. “Paige is Paige. She says things. I ignore them. The earth continues spinning.”
“Did you ignore it?”
“Obviously.”
“You went quiet.”
“I am allowed to have volume settings.”
Griffin’s mouth twitched.
Not enough.
But close.
Maren pointed at him. “That almost counted.”
“As what?”
“A smile.”
“No.”
“Coward.”
His eyes sharpened. “Careful.”
She should have stopped.
But the relay had begun, the crowd was yelling, and Maren had just received the first exact compliment on her work all night from the one man who seemed personally offended by her methods.
So naturally, she stepped closer to disaster.
“Or what?” she asked.
The words settled between them.
Griffin went still.
Maren realized, one second too late, that there were different kinds of challenge.
Some were funny.
Some were public.
Some had a crowd and a poll and Tyler screaming like a chaotic town crier.
This one did not.
This one was quiet. Too quiet. It existed in the few inches between her shoulder and Griffin’s arm, in the way his eyes dropped to her mouth and came back slowly, in the sudden awareness that the lawn was loud enough to hide a thousand bad decisions.
“Or,” he said, voice low, “you will say something you can pretend you did not mean.”
Her breath caught.
She hated that.
She hated that he noticed.
She hated, most of all, that for once, she did not have a fast enough comeback.
The crowd exploded to their left as Tyler fell off a paddleboard in ankle-deep water.
Maren turned on instinct, camera up.
Saved.
Mostly.
She filmed Tyler surfacing with both hands raised like a man resurrected by applause. Beckett threw a towel at him. Cooper held up a scorecard he had apparently made out of a paper plate.
Two.
The audience roared.
Maren laughed and moved closer to get the shot.
Griffin followed, but this time he kept a little distance.
Good.
Smart.
Disappointing.
She filmed round one until her phone buzzed again.
Not a notification from the Lake Briar account.
Not Denise.
Paige.
Maren froze before she could stop herself.
The screen lit.
PAIGE: Mom saw the photo too. She said it’s nice you’re having fun, but maybe don’t make the whole weekend about some guy. You know people already don’t take this stuff seriously.
Maren’s hand tightened.
The noise around her seemed to blur.
Not because the text surprised her.
That was the worst part.
Surprise would have been cleaner.
No, Paige’s message slipped easily into the same old groove worn by years of tiny comments.
Fun girl. Cute posts. Flirty photos. Social stuff.
Nice you’re having fun. When will you do something stable?
When will you be more like Paige? Paige with her real job, real office, real heels that clicked across real floors.
Maren had never hated Paige.
That would have been easier too.
Paige was not cruel in a dramatic way. She was helpful. Concerned. Practical. The kind of person who corrected your lipstick before telling you your dreams were adorable but unrealistic.
Maren could handle cruelty.
Concern was harder to argue with.
“Maren.”
Griffin’s voice was beside her.
Not too close.
Close enough.
She locked the phone.
“I need a wide shot of the cones,” she said.
“Maren.”
“Round two is starting.”
“Look at me.”
“No, thanks.”
He stepped into her path, not blocking her fully. Just enough that continuing forward would mean brushing against him.
That was rude.
Effective, but rude.
She lifted her chin. “I am working.”
“I know.”
“Then let me work.”
“I am.”
“You are literally standing in front of me.”
“I am standing here because you looked like someone punched you, and then you tried to film sand cones.”
Maren laughed.
Badly.
“Oh my gosh, it is a text. I am not bleeding.”
“Not visibly.”
The words hit.
Her smile faltered.
Griffin saw it.
His face changed, regret moving through his eyes.
“I should not have said that,” he said.
“No,” she said softly. “You should not have noticed.”
For a second, neither of them moved.
The relay continued behind him. Whistles. Laughter. Sand scattering under sneakers. Tyler yelling that cones were a social construct. Nate ordering him to run the drill correctly. Ava threatening to take away fries.
Life went on around them, bright and easy and loud.
Maren stood inside a quiet pocket with Griffin Hayes and hated how badly she wanted to stay there.
He lowered his voice. “You do not have to tell me.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“I figured.”
“Great.”
“But whoever keeps making you feel like your work is less because you make it look fun is wrong.”
Maren’s chest tightened.
One clean sentence.
Right to the bruise.
She looked away.
“Do not do that.”
“Do what?”
“Be decent in a way that makes it hard to be charming.”
His brows drew together. “Is charm your defense?”
“Yes.”
The answer came before she could stop it.
Well.
Fantastic.
Maybe she had been punched. Internally. By honesty.
Griffin did not smile.
He did not take the opening and tease her. He did not look triumphant because he had gotten a real answer. He just stood there, steady and careful, like the truth was something he could hold without squeezing.
Maren hated that she noticed.
The whistle blew again.
Round two began.
She needed to move.
She needed to work.
She needed this conversation to end before her face betrayed her and before Griffin figured out that one sincere sentence from him had done more damage to her armor than Paige had managed in two texts.
She lifted her phone. “I have content to get.”
“Okay.”
But he did not move.
Maren gave him a look.
He nodded toward her phone. “Your hand is shaking.”
She looked down.
It was.
Barely.
But enough.
Embarrassment flashed hot through her.
She tucked the phone closer. “Too much caffeine.”
“You have been drinking lemonade.”
“Emotional caffeine.”
“Maren.”
“What?”
“Give me the phone.”
Her eyes snapped to his. “Absolutely not.”
“Not to read it. Not to handle anything. I’ll get the cone footage.”
That startled her more than it should have.
“You?”
“I know how to film cones.”
“You once told Tyler vertical video was a threat to civilization.”
“It still is, in some contexts.”
“Griffin.”
“Give me thirty seconds,” he said. “Stand here. Breathe. Pretend it is part of your process.”
It was such a Griffin solution.
Practical.
Contained.
Not pitying.
He was not offering to save her. He was offering to cover the shot.
That should not have felt romantic.
It did.
In an extremely inconvenient way.
Maren studied him. “You will ruin my framing.”
“Probably.”
“You will overcorrect.”
“Definitely.”
“You will make the cones look like evidence.”
“Likely.”
Her mouth twitched.
His eyes warmed, just a little.
“There,” he said.
“What?”
“That was almost a smile.”
“Do not steal my line.”
“I am borrowing it.”
“With poor delivery.”
“Then supervise me.”
Maren should have said no.
She almost did.
Then Paige’s text pulsed in her pocket like an old bruise, and the relay needed footage, and Griffin Hayes was looking at her like her work mattered enough to protect badly for thirty seconds.
She handed him the phone.
Their fingers touched.
Again.
This was becoming ridiculous.
He took the phone carefully, like it belonged to her and not to the moment, and turned toward the relay.
Maren expected him to be terrible.
He was.
The first shot was too low. The second caught mostly Tyler’s shoulder. The third was weirdly focused on Nate’s knees.
“Hayes,” she said, stepping closer, “are you filming a hockey drill or building a legal case against shin guards?”
“I told you I would ruin framing.”
“Move your wrist, not your entire body.”