Chapter Six Griffin #2
“I will manage.”
“I thought you were trying not to manage me.”
“I am trying not to let you manage everyone’s opinion of you by bleeding prettily.”
Her face went still.
Too far.
He knew it immediately.
Maren stepped back.
Not much.
Enough.
The air cooled.
“Wow,” she said. “You do love a line, don’t you?”
“Maren.”
“No, it is good. Very intense. Very broody responsible boy sees through the glitter. The comments would love it.”
“That was not for content.”
“I know.”
That was the problem.
She did know.
And because she knew, she looked ready to run.
Griffin forced himself not to reach for her. Not physically. Not verbally. Not with another sentence that tried to fix the first one.
Nate cleared his throat. “I’m going to help Ava with cleanup.”
Tyler pointed at the scoreboard. “I am going to do literally anything else.”
For once, Tyler chose correctly.
They left.
Maren and Griffin stood near the edge of the lawn while the first night of Lake Briar Summer Challenge Weekend began winding down around them.
The sky had gone deep blue, the last orange disappearing behind the trees.
The lights along the dock reflected in the water, broken into gold lines by soft waves.
Maren looked at the lake instead of him.
“You don’t know me well enough to say things like that.”
“I know.”
“Then why did you?”
Because I notice you.
Because you are harder to ignore than you think.
Because someone should have said it before now.
He said none of that.
“I overstepped,” Griffin said.
Maren’s gaze cut to him.
Apparently, an apology had not been what she expected.
Good.
He could still surprise her.
“I am sorry,” he said.
Her fingers tightened around her phone.
Then loosened.
“Accepted,” she said after a moment.
Relief moved through him, quiet but real.
She pointed the phone toward him like a warning. “Do not get smug.”
“I am never smug.”
“You are internally smug.”
“That is called dignity.”
“That is called repressed smugness.”
He almost smiled.
She saw.
Her own mouth curved in answer before she could stop it.
That felt like something.
Small.
Dangerous.
Not for anyone else.
Just them.
Maren looked down at her phone. “Tomorrow needs to be good.”
“It will be.”
“You do not know the plan.”
“I know the person making it.”
Her eyes lifted.
Damn it.
That had come out wrong.
Or right.
He was no longer sure.
Maren’s expression went careful again, but not cold. More like she was trying to decide whether his words were a surface or a door.
Griffin let her decide.
Then her phone buzzed.
She checked it, and this time her face lit with professional focus instead of hurt.
“Denise wants a teaser for tomorrow before we leave.”
“Of course she does.”
“She says, and I quote, ‘Make it clean, make it sharp, make it look like I approved this before it happened.’”
“Denise should run a country.”
“She runs Lake Briar. Bigger challenge.”
Maren opened the camera, then turned the screen toward him. “We need one quick teaser clip.”
“No.”
“You said yes to tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow has not started.”
“Fine. Then this is not a bad idea. It is administrative foreshadowing.”
“That phrase concerns me.”
“Everything concerns you.”
“Because everything keeps earning it.”
Her smile flashed.
Real, maybe.
Close enough to make his chest tighten.
She angled the camera so both of them were in frame. “We just need to say Challenge Two starts tomorrow.”
“I am not doing a scripted video.”
“Great. Do an unscripted one.”
“No.”
“You are already saying words. We are halfway there.”
“Maren.”
“Griffin.”
His name again.
The way she said it should not have made it harder to refuse.
She stepped closer, fitting them both into the phone frame.
Not touching.
Almost.
There was that word again.
The screen showed the two of them side by side under string lights, lake dark behind them, Ridgeview banners blurred in the background. Maren looked bright and golden and alive. Griffin looked like a man bracing for impact.
Accurate.
She tapped record.
“Lake Briar,” she said smoothly, “you voted for chaos.”
“I did not,” Griffin said.
She smiled at the screen. “Griffin Hayes objected professionally.”
“I objected accurately.”
“But tomorrow, he has agreed to twenty-four hours of approved bad ideas.”
“Approved is doing a lot of work.”
“Say goodnight, Hayes.”
“No.”
She laughed.
Real.
Warm.
Not polished.
The camera was still recording.
Griffin forgot that for half a second.
He looked at her instead of the screen.
And because he was apparently making a habit of poor choices in excellent lighting, he said, “Goodnight, Maren.”
Her smile changed.
The recording caught it.
He knew before she even looked down.
The tiny catch. The surprise. The way her eyes softened before she could stop them.
Then she ended the video.
They both stared at the screen.
Neither of them spoke.
The clip was only twelve seconds.
It was also worse than the almost-kiss photo.
Because the photo looked staged enough for denial.
This did not.
This looked like a man saying goodnight to a woman he had no business wanting to say anything to at all.
Maren cleared her throat. “That is usable.”
Griffin should have asked her not to post it.
He did not.
Her thumb hovered over the screen.
“Caption?” she asked.
She was giving him a chance to object.
Or help.
He looked at the video again.
At her smile.
At his own face when he looked at her.
Then he did the one thing he should not have done.
He gave her the line.
“Tomorrow,” he said, “joy gets supervision.”
Maren looked up.
Slowly.
A grin bloomed across her face, and this one was all trouble.
“Oh, Hayes,” she said. “You are getting dangerously good at this.”
She posted it.
The clip went live.
For exactly eight seconds, the world held.
Then the comments began.
The first one appeared almost instantly.
He said goodnight like he meant forever.
Maren read it.
Griffin read it.
The lake went quiet in his head.
Maren’s smile trembled at the edge, almost invisible.
Then she locked the phone.
“Well,” she said, voice too bright. “That escalated.”
Griffin looked at her.
The line between them felt thinner than ever.
Tomorrow, he would spend a full day saying yes to Maren Brooks.
Her plan.
Her camera.
Her chaos.
Her smile.
And for the first time since Tyler had started the Bad Idea Bet, Griffin realized the real danger was not that Maren would make him look reckless.
It was that she might make him honest.