Chapter Seventeen Maren
Maren Brooks had intended to make a splash.
She had not intended to become one.
The lake swallowed her with a cold, bright shock that stole her breath and rearranged every thought in her head into one panicked sentence.
Do not lose the flag.
Which probably said something concerning about her priorities.
She kicked toward the surface, one hand still locked around the little gold flag, the other still gripping Griffin Hayes like the lake had tried to steal him and she had personally objected.
They broke the surface together.
Noise crashed back in.
The crowd yelling.
Tyler apologizing loudly.
Beckett shouting that art had consequences.
Denise saying something into the microphone that sounded a lot like, “Everybody stay where I can see you.”
Griffin’s hand tightened around hers.
“Maren.”
She blinked water from her lashes and turned toward him.
His hair was plastered to his forehead. Water ran down his face. His life jacket floated high around his shoulders, making him look less like Ridgeview’s human stop sign and more like a very handsome man who had been personally defeated by recreational equipment.
Concern sharpened his expression.
Not anger.
Not control.
Her heart did something inconvenient.
Again.
“I am fine,” she said quickly.
His eyes searched hers. “Really fine or content-lead fine?”
The laugh came out of her before she could stop it.
Water got in her mouth.
She coughed.
Griffin moved closer. “Maren.”
“I am fine,” she said, still laughing. “I am wet, betrayed by physics, and emotionally attached to this flag, but fine.”
His face shifted.
There.
The smile.
Small, relieved, real.
“Good,” he said.
She lifted the flag between them. “Also, I got it.”
The crowd exploded.
Griffin looked at the flag.
Then at her.
Then he started laughing.
Not the almost laugh.
Not the one he tried to swallow.
A real one, full and low and surprised, like it had escaped from somewhere he had kept guarded for years.
Maren forgot, for one ridiculous second, that they were floating beside an overturned canoe in front of half of Lake Briar.
Because Griffin Hayes laughing in open water while still holding her hand was the kind of thing a smarter woman would protect herself from.
Maren had never been that smart.
Tyler’s voice carried across the water. “I AM SO SORRY AND ALSO THAT WAS CINEMATIC.”
Denise snapped, “Tyler Donovan.”
“I am sorry in lowercase now.”
Ava paddled nearby in the green canoe, Nate behind her, both looking worried and amused.
“You two okay?” Ava called.
Maren held up the flag. “We have gold.”
Nate grinned. “That is not what she asked.”
Griffin answered, “We are okay.”
Maren glanced at him.
We.
That word had no business feeling warm while she was bobbing in lake water wearing a life jacket that had ridden up under her chin.
Denise’s voice came through the microphone. “Blue canoe team, do you need assistance?”
Griffin looked at Maren. “Do you?”
Not we.
You.
Letting her decide.
She looked at the tipped canoe, the floating paddle, the finish line, and the crowd waiting to see whether the dramatic Bad Idea Bet duo would quit, panic, kiss, or provide whatever next snackable moment the internet thought it deserved.
Then she looked at Griffin.
His eyes were steady.
No pressure.
No public performance.
No silent suggestion that there was only one correct answer.
Just a question.
She tightened her fingers around the flag.
“No,” she called. “We are finishing.”
The dock cheered.
Griffin’s mouth curved. “Of course we are.”
“Do not sound proud. It will make me reckless.”
“You capsized us.”
“Tyler capsized us adjacent.”
“That is not a legal category.”
“It is now.”
He looked toward the floating canoe. “We need to right it.”
“I know.”
“You take the bow. I will push from the side.”
Maren blinked. “Did you just give a calm instruction without making it sound like a court order?”
“I am growing.”
“I am terrified.”
“Reasonable.”
Together, they flipped the canoe upright. It took two tries, one extremely inelegant shove from Maren, and Griffin saying, “On three,” in a tone that made her think inappropriate things about teamwork.
The canoe sloshed but floated.
A volunteer in a kayak retrieved Griffin’s paddle and passed it over.
“Thank you,” Griffin said.
The volunteer, a teenage girl with braces and star stickers on her cheeks, stared at him like he had stepped out of a book cover.
“No problem,” she whispered.
Maren snorted.
Griffin looked at her. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“That was not nothing.”
“I simply witnessed the public reacting to your wet responsible-man energy.”
His ears turned slightly red.
Delightful.
A gift.
A public service.
“Get in the canoe,” he said.
“See? Court order.”
“Maren.”
She grinned.
Getting back into the canoe from the water was not graceful.
Maren knew because she performed the entire operation in front of witnesses, phones, alumni, her best friend, several children, one coach, and a man she had kissed the night before.
Her first attempt failed.
Her second attempt produced a sound from Tyler that suggested he was both rooting for her and legally afraid to comment.
Her third attempt succeeded because Griffin steadied the canoe, braced one arm, and said, very quietly, “I have you,” without touching her until she reached for him.
Then he helped her in.
Not carrying.
Not taking over.
Helping.
The difference was small enough most people would miss it.
Maren did not.
Once she was seated, dripping water into the bottom of the canoe and clutching the gold flag like a tiny national treasure, Griffin hauled himself in behind her with much less drama.
Annoying.
Attractive.
Deeply unfair.
They were far behind now.
Ava and Nate had already rounded the final marker. Tyler and Beckett were somehow moving in a straight line, which felt suspicious. Miles and Cooper had been freed from the buoy and were arguing with it from a respectful distance.
Maren pushed wet hair out of her face.
“We can still catch them,” she said.
Griffin settled his paddle. “No, we cannot.”
She looked over her shoulder. “That is defeatist.”
“That is math.”
“Math is just pessimism with numbers.”
“That explains a lot about your budgeting.”
She gasped. “You take that back.”
“Paddle.”
“Oh, now he wants chaos.”
“I want the finish line.”
“No, you want to win.”
His eyes met hers.
Water dripped from his hair to his jaw.
“Yes,” he said.
The honesty hit her harder than the lake.
Because he was not just talking about the canoe.
Maren knew it.
He knew she knew it.
Then Tyler yelled, “BECKETT, WHY ARE WE GAINING ON THEM BACKWARD?”
The moment snapped.
Maren laughed and dug her paddle into the water.
They moved.
Not perfectly.
Not fast enough to catch Nate and Ava.
But together.
The rhythm came back quicker this time. Griffin matched her without waiting for correction.
When she shifted left, he adjusted right.
When the canoe wobbled, he steadied without barking a warning.
When Tyler and Beckett’s canoe drifted too close again, Griffin said, “No,” so calmly that even the water seemed to listen.
Tyler lifted both hands. “We respect aquatic boundaries.”
Beckett shouted, “We fear Denise!”
“Good,” Denise said through the microphone.
Maren paddled harder, laughing so much her ribs hurt.
This was not the content she had planned.
It was better.
Messier. Wetter. Less polished. More alive.
But this time, she knew where the line was.
This time, she had drawn it.
They crossed the finish line third.
The dock cheered like they had won the whole thing.
Ava and Nate were already standing near the rope line, soaked only from paddling and therefore smug in a way Maren found personally offensive.
Ava cupped her hands around her mouth. “Good form on the capsize.”
Maren pointed the gold flag at her. “You are dead to me until I dry off.”
“You love me.”
“Unfortunately.”
Nate grinned at Griffin. “Nice recovery.”
Griffin stepped out of the canoe and held it steady for Maren. “Thank you.”
Tyler and Beckett crashed softly into the dock behind them.
Not hard.
Just humiliating.
Tyler sat frozen, hands still on the paddle. “I would like the record to show that we finished emotionally second.”
Cooper, still far out on the water with Miles, called, “No one accepts that record.”
Maren stood, legs slightly wobbly, and stepped onto the dock.
Her shoes squished.
Her shorts clung.
Her hair had gone from messy cute to lake creature.
The crowd cheered anyway.
Her phone, sealed in its waterproof pouch, buzzed against the dock bench where Denise had placed it before the race.
Maren looked at it.
So did Griffin.
For a second, neither of them moved.
Then he said, “Your call.”
Again.
Her call.
She picked up the phone and opened the comments.
They were already there.
POST THE CLIP.
They won the flag, now give us the carry clip.
Rules are rules.
But beneath those came others.
She said no. Respect it.
Honestly the capsize was better.
Whoever is filming this better post the canoe fail instead, with permission.
Consent is also for content. Tyler was weirdly right.
Maren stared at that last one.
Then laughed so hard she had to sit on the bench.
Griffin stood beside her, dripping onto the dock. “What?”
She turned the phone.
His mouth twitched.
“Tyler is going to be impossible.”
“He already was.”
“More impossible.”
“That feels illegal.”
Denise approached with a towel over one arm and the microphone in her other hand. Her sharp gaze moved from Maren to Griffin to the phone.
“Everything okay?”
Maren looked at the crowd.
At the phones.
At the people waiting.
Not cruelly now.
Just waiting.
There was a difference.
She had spent so long treating attention like a thing she had to feed before it left. A hungry animal. A bright, needy mouth. Give it the best angle. Give it the joke. Give it the dramatic moment. Give it the almost-kiss, the secret smile, the piece of yourself you were not sure you meant to offer.
But maybe attention could be trained.
Maybe an audience could learn the rules if someone stopped apologizing for having them.
Maren stood and took the microphone from Denise.
The dock quieted fast.