Chapter Fourteen Griffin #2
“I wanted to apologize if my earlier comment came across wrong.”
Behind her, Maren had gone very still.
Griffin did not look past Paige.
Not yet.
“Which one?” he asked.
Paige’s smile tightened.
Good.
Specificity made vague cruelty uncomfortable.
“The one by the path,” she said. “About Maren making things look like more than they are. I meant she has a gift.”
“No, you did not.”
Paige blinked.
Around them, the bonfire game carried on, but Griffin felt the edge of attention shifting. Not many people. Ava, definitely. Nate, probably. Cooper, because Cooper noticed everything he claimed not to care about.
Paige’s voice stayed pleasant. “Excuse me?”
“You meant she exaggerates,” Griffin said calmly. “You meant she performs. You meant people should not take what they are seeing too seriously because Maren made it look that way.”
Paige’s cheeks colored. “You do not know our family dynamic.”
“No.”
“Then maybe you should be careful.”
There was the word.
Careful.
Griffin had never liked it less.
He looked at Paige for a long second.
“You are right,” he said. “I do not know your family dynamic.”
Satisfaction flickered across her face too soon.
He continued, “But I know what it looks like when someone calls a cut a correction.”
Paige’s smile vanished.
Griffin held her gaze.
His voice stayed low enough not to become a scene, clear enough that she could not pretend she had missed it.
“If you want to support her, support her. If you want to critique the work, critique the work. But stop dressing up dismissal like concern and acting surprised when she bleeds.”
Paige stared at him.
So did Maren.
He felt her gaze more than anyone else’s.
Paige recovered first, though not cleanly. “That is a dramatic way to talk about a few comments.”
“You should ask yourself why a few comments keep needing defense.”
Her lips parted.
No answer came.
Good.
Griffin did not need to win.
He did not even want to fight.
He wanted the line drawn so clearly that Maren did not have to keep explaining why stepping over it hurt.
Paige looked past him toward Maren.
For the first time all weekend, there was uncertainty in her face.
Not apology.
Not yet.
But uncertainty was better than certainty used as a weapon.
“I did not mean to hurt her,” Paige said quietly.
Griffin believed her.
That was what made people complicated.
“I know,” he said.
Paige looked back at him.
Griffin softened his voice. “You still did.”
The words stayed between them.
Then Paige nodded once, small and stiff, and walked toward the main path.
Griffin let out a slow breath.
Only then did he turn.
Maren stood ten feet away, eyes wide, face unreadable.
Ava was beside her, one hand lightly on her arm. Nate stood near the bench, watching Griffin with a look that said well, that happened.
Tyler, somehow, had sensed the emotional weight and was chewing his marshmallow in silence.
Miracles existed.
Maren stepped toward Griffin.
Ava let her go.
The clearing noise stretched thin around them.
When Maren reached him, she stopped just outside arm’s length.
“That was…”
She stopped.
Griffin waited.
Maren looked toward the path where Paige had disappeared.
Then back at him.
Her smile did not appear.
Thank God.
“I have no idea what that was,” she admitted.
“I am sorry if I overstepped.”
Her laugh came out soft and stunned. “You keep saying that after you do things no one else does.”
He did not know what to say to that.
So he stayed quiet.
Maren crossed her arms, but not defensively. More like she needed somewhere to put her hands.
“You were not wrong,” she said.
“I know.”
Her eyebrows lifted.
“That was not arrogance,” he said. “That was me trying not to minimize it for you.”
Her expression shifted.
That one landed.
He could see it in the softening around her mouth, the brief shine in her eyes before she blinked it away.
“You do not have to keep defending me,” she said.
“I know.”
“I mean it.”
“So do I.”
“I can handle Paige.”
“I know.”
“I handled her before you.”
“I know.”
Her chin tipped up. “Then why?”
Because you should not always have to.
Because I have spent my whole life standing between people and disaster, but this is the first time standing beside someone has felt more important.
Because I think I am falling for you and I have no idea how to say that without making it another problem you have to solve.
He said the clean part.
“Because standing beside you is not the same as thinking you cannot stand alone.”
Maren went still.
The bonfire snapped behind them.
Someone in the crowd laughed at a prompt, but the sound felt far away.
Her eyes searched his face, slower this time. Less like she was looking for a trap. More like she was trying to believe the bridge would hold.
“Who taught you to say things like that?” she asked.
“No one.”
“Really?”
“I am improvising.”
Her mouth curved.
Small.
Real.
“Dangerous.”
“Yes.”
“Are you scared?”
“Yes.”
The answer came before he could stop it.
Maren’s smile faded.
He had not meant to say it so plainly.
But the word was there now, standing between them with all the things he had spent the day pretending he could manage.
Maren’s voice softened. “Of what?”
He looked at her.
Only at her.
“Getting this wrong.”
Her breath caught.
Not dramatically.
Just enough.
Enough to make him want to reach for her.
He did not.
She stepped closer instead.
One step.
Her choice.
“You probably will,” she said.
A laugh moved through him, quiet and surprised.
“Comforting.”
“I mean it. I probably will too. That is the bad idea part.”
He looked down at her, the firelight soft along her cheek.
“And the bet?”
Her eyes held his.
“No idea.”
The honesty of that settled between them.
They were still standing there when Denise called for the next round of Truth Toss, and Nate waved Griffin back toward the benches. The game had continued without them, which was both a relief and concerning.
Maren glanced toward the crowd. “We should go back.”
“Yes.”
Neither moved.
Her hand lifted slightly, then lowered again.
Griffin saw the hesitation.
Public hand-holding had meant something after the video. A choice. A statement. A reclaiming.
This would mean something else.
Maybe too much.
Maybe exactly enough.
He did not reach.
Maren noticed.
Her eyes flicked to his hand.
Then to his face.
A smile touched her mouth, faint and almost shy, which was not a word he had ever thought would belong anywhere near Maren Brooks and yet there it was, wrecking him completely.
She slid her fingers into his.
Griffin’s entire body went quiet.
The good kind.
The dangerous kind.
They walked back together.
No one cheered this time.
Ava saw. Nate saw. Cooper saw and looked away like a decent person. Tyler saw and pressed both hands over his mouth, vibrating with the effort of becoming mature.
For Tyler, it was impressive.
Maren kept her hand in Griffin’s until they reached the edge of the benches.
Then she squeezed once and let go.
Not rejection.
Timing.
He understood.
He wished he did not want more anyway.
The game resumed with a TEAM prompt for Cooper, who had to name the teammate most likely to survive a zombie apocalypse.
“Denise,” Cooper said immediately.
The crowd applauded.
Denise nodded once. “Correct.”
A SUMMER prompt asked Ava for the worst lake food combination, which reignited the pickle and hot fudge scandal. A FUNNY prompt made Nate confess that he once tried to impress Ava by carrying six lemonade cups and dropped five.
Ava corrected him. “You dropped four and wore the fifth.”
“Love remembers differently,” Nate said.
Maren laughed beside Griffin, and the sound settled into him.
Then Tyler hit DANGER.
Again.
Griffin tensed.
Maren saw and nudged his arm lightly with hers.
Barely.
Enough to say, I’m okay.
Or maybe, we said yes to this.
Tyler approached the prompt table like a man handling sacred texts.
“Pick wisely,” Beckett whispered.
“I always do,” Tyler said.
“No,” the entire team answered.
Maren pulled a card and read it to herself first.
Her brows lifted.
Not panic.
Mischief.
Griffin relaxed by exactly none.
She lifted the microphone. “Tyler’s DANGER prompt is: If you had to pick one person here to plan your perfect first date, who would it be and why?”
The crowd ooohed.
Tyler grinned. “Excellent.”
Griffin exhaled.
Safe enough.
Tyler turned in a slow circle, milking the attention like a man born for nonsense. “I choose…”
“Say yourself and lose ten points,” Denise warned.
Tyler changed direction. “Maren.”
The crowd cheered.
Maren blinked. “Me?”
“Yes,” Tyler said. “Because you would make it cinematic, but there would also be snacks, lighting, and emotional pacing.”
Beckett placed a hand over his heart. “That is actually profound.”
Cooper said, “By accident.”
Tyler nodded. “Most of my best work.”
Maren laughed, but Griffin saw the way the answer hit her.
Another person seeing her work.
Another person naming the structure, even if Tyler did it in Tyler language.
She lifted the mic. “Thank you, Tyler. I accept this compliment and fear the implications.”
Tyler bowed.
Then he added, “Also, Griffin would make the date safe.”
The crowd made a sound.
Griffin closed his eyes.
Tyler continued, apparently unable to stop himself. “So really, together, you would be unstoppable.”
Silence.
Then chaos.
The team erupted. Beckett yelled, “CO-DIRECTED ROMANCE.” Ava laughed. Nate looked like he might injure himself trying not to say something. Cooper stood and walked away.
Griffin opened his eyes and looked at Maren.
She was looking at him.
Pink in her cheeks.
Smile helpless.
Beautiful.
That was the word.
He did not let himself look away from it.
Maren lifted the microphone slowly.
“Team Vibes loses one point for making sense,” she said.
The crowd laughed.
Tyler clutched his chest. “Punished for growth.”
But Griffin barely heard any of it.
Because Maren was still looking at him.
Because the night had been hard and strange and public and private in all the wrong ways, and somehow they were still there.
Not fixed.
Not defined.
Not safe.
But there.
The game wound down after that.