Chapter Two Nate #2
Nate set down his cup. “Yeah, buddy. Show me.”
He jogged down the deck steps and crouched beside the kid.
Evan squared up, tongue poking out in concentration.
“Remember,” Nate said, “top hand loose. Bottom hand guides. Don’t murder the puck.”
Evan frowned. “I want to murder it.”
“Understandable. But controlled murder.”
The kid nodded like this was elite coaching.
He shot.
The puck missed the bottom corner by a foot, bounced off the tarp frame, and rolled under a bench.
Evan groaned. “I’m bad.”
“Nope.” Nate stood and retrieved the puck. “You’re new.”
“That means bad.”
“That means early.”
Evan looked unconvinced.
Nate handed back the puck. “You know how many shots I missed at your age?”
“How many?”
“All of them.”
Evan squinted. “That’s not true.”
“It felt true. My dad said I shot like I was trying to apologize to the puck.”
The kid giggled.
Nate adjusted his stick angle. “Try again. This time don’t aim for the hole. Aim through it. Like you’re being rude to the net.”
Evan took a breath and shot.
The puck skimmed the edge of the lower hole and dropped behind the tarp.
His mouth fell open. “I did it!”
“You did.”
“I did it!”
Nate held up both hands for a double high five. Evan smacked them so hard Nate pretended to stagger.
From the snack shack window, someone laughed.
Nate knew before looking.
He still looked.
Ava had one shoulder against the window frame, arms folded, watching with an expression she probably thought was neutral.
It was not neutral.
There was a tiny smile at the corner of her mouth.
Nate’s pulse kicked once.
Then she caught him looking and immediately wiped the smile away.
Too late.
He had seen it.
Dangerous satisfaction moved through him.
Not the usual kind. Not the easy thrill of making someone blush or laugh. This felt sharper. Like finding a door cracked open when he had expected a wall.
Evan tugged on his shirt. “Can I do another?”
Nate looked back quickly. “Absolutely.”
For the next fifteen minutes, he worked with Evan and three other kids who wandered over. He corrected grips, retrieved pucks, demonstrated follow-through, and let a tiny girl named Sophie chirp him because apparently her older brother had taught her that goalies were “emotionally dramatic.”
“True,” Nate said. “But never say that near a goalie unless you have snacks.”
Sophie nodded seriously.
By the time he stood, his shirt clung to his back and his hair had fallen into his eyes. The deck had thinned as families moved toward the beach and picnic tables. The first official welcome event was winding down.
Nate glanced toward the snack shack.
Ava was gone from the window.
He told himself that was good.
Then he wondered where she went.
Which was not good.
He climbed back to the upper deck and found Tyler, Beckett, Miles, and Griffin clustered around a table covered in empty cups and bad decisions.
Griffin looked up first. “You know this has to stop.”
Nate dropped into a chair. “Great. Tell Tyler.”
“I did.”
Tyler raised a finger. “He used captain voice. It was moving.”
Griffin ignored him. “The bet cannot involve lake staff.”
“It doesn’t,” Nate said.
Tyler opened his mouth.
Nate pointed at him. “It does not.”
Tyler closed his mouth, but only because Griffin’s stare could kill houseplants.
Miles slid Nate’s lemonade toward him. “It’s already kind of involved her.”
“It is not.”
Beckett leaned back in his chair. “She called you emotionally immature in front of children.”
“She did not use those exact words.”
“She implied them with strong sentence structure.”
Nate rubbed his jaw. “Why are we analyzing this?”
“Because,” Beckett said, “you’re being weird.”
“I am not.”
Griffin studied him. “You are.”
Nate looked at him. “Not you too.”
“You defended her in the chat.”
“Because Tyler called her Snack Shack Girl.”
“That was good,” Miles said. “Respectful. Bare minimum, but still.”
“Thank you for grading my humanity.”
“You’re welcome.”
Tyler leaned over the table. “Look, all I’m saying is the universe handed us a storyline.”
Nate stared at him. “We are not in a storyline.”
“We’re in a summer charity competition with hockey players, a lake, public events, and a girl wearing a shirt that says NOT IMPRESSED. That is structurally a storyline.”
Beckett nodded. “He’s not wrong.”
“He’s usually wrong,” Griffin said.
“Usually,” Beckett agreed. “But not there.”
Nate leaned back and looked out over the lake.
He should shut it down.
Cleanly.
Publicly.
No bet. No Ava. No group-chat nonsense. He could walk back to the snack shack, apologize for Tyler, assure her he had handled it, and spend the rest of the summer being polite from a distance.
That was the mature option.
The disciplined option.
The option a future captain would choose.
Unfortunately, the memory of Ava saying, I hope you’re better at hockey than you are at bets, replayed in his head.
Her smile.
Her eyes.
The way she had looked at him like she already knew he was going to lose.
Nate was competitive.
This was known.
A character flaw, depending on the witness.
He did not like losing.
He especially did not like losing a bet he had never agreed to against a woman who had known him for ten minutes and somehow already found every button worth pressing.
Tyler watched his face and grinned.
Nate caught it. “Stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you can hear my bad judgment forming.”
“I can. It has a distinct sound.”
Griffin stood. “Do not make this worse.”
Nate looked up. “I’m not.”
“You say that before making things worse.”
“I’m going to apologize.”
Tyler gasped. “Growth.”
Nate ignored him and stood.
Apologize.
That was all.
Apologize, make sure she knew Tyler was an idiot, tell her the bet was dead, then walk away.
Simple.
He crossed the deck toward the snack shack.
The service window was open, but Ava was not there. A different girl, Ellie, according to her name tag, was wiping the counter while humming like she had just witnessed premium entertainment.
She looked up as Nate approached.
Her face lit.
That was not ideal.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hey.” Nate kept his tone careful. “Is Ava around?”
Ellie’s smile grew into something dangerously close to theatrical. “Why?”
“To apologize.”
“For the public bet, the group chat, or the eye contact?”
Nate paused.
Ellie nodded. “That’s what I thought.”
“I’m actually trying to do the right thing.”
“Men say that a lot right before creating an incident.”
“Fair.” He glanced toward the back of the snack shack. “Can you tell her I’m sorry Tyler dragged her into it?”
Ellie leaned both hands on the counter. “I can.”
“Thank you.”
“But she’s taking trash out by the storage shed.”
Nate looked toward the side path that wrapped around the snack shack. “Is that a hint or a warning?”
“Yes.”
He almost smiled. “Helpful.”
“I try.” Ellie’s gaze flicked to his shirt, then his face. “For the record, she hates smug.”
“I’m not smug.”
Ellie stared.
Nate sighed. “I am intermittently smug.”
“She also hates being made into a joke.”
That landed.
Harder than he expected.
Nate’s smile faded. “I know.”
Ellie studied him for a second, as if deciding whether he was worth basic human trust.
Then she nodded toward the path. “Storage shed is around back.”
Nate tapped the counter once. “Thanks.”
“And Nate?”
He looked back.
Ellie’s smile was sweet enough to concern him. “If you make her summer worse, she knows how to operate the fryer.”
“Understood.”
He walked around the snack shack, away from the noise of the deck.
The side path was narrow, lined with tall grass and stacked kayaks.
The sun had dipped lower, turning the gravel gold.
Behind the building, the lake sounds softened into something quieter: water against dock posts, distant laughter, the buzz of insects in the heat.
Ava stood near the storage shed, tying off a trash bag.
For three seconds, Nate forgot the apology.
Not because she was beautiful, although unfortunately, she was.
It was the concentration.
The way she had one knee bent, one hand braced on the trash bin lid, brow furrowed like the bag had personally challenged her. The NOT IMPRESSED shirt looked even more accurate in profile.
Then the bag slipped.
Ava muttered something under her breath and grabbed it before it hit the ground.
Nate stepped forward. “Need help?”
She spun so fast he stopped moving.
“Do you always sneak up on women near trash, or is this charity-specific?”
Nate lifted both hands. “Bad opening. My fault.”
She blew a loose strand of hair from her face. “Are you lost?”
“No.”
“Then why are you back here?”
“To apologize.”
That seemed to surprise her.
Only for a second.
Then she narrowed her eyes. “For which part?”
“The group chat. Tyler. The bet. The line judge thing. The general atmosphere of organized male stupidity.”
Ava stared at him.
Then she looked away like his apology had inconvenienced her.
“That was specific,” she said.
“You told me to bring specific material.”
“I said you gave me specific material.”
“I’m trying to show growth.”
“Already? We met an hour ago.”
“I’m efficient.”
“Or alarming.”
“Both can be true.”
Her mouth twitched.
He felt that almost-smile like a win, which was exactly the kind of thinking that got men turned into cautionary tales.
Nate glanced at the trash bag. “Seriously. Let me take that.”
“I can carry trash.”
“I didn’t say you couldn’t.”
“You implied.”
“I offered.”
“With hockey arms.”
He looked down at himself. “These are just regular arms.”
Ava’s gaze flicked to his forearms.
Fast.
Very fast.
But not fast enough.
Nate decided, heroically, not to smile.
Ava noticed him not smiling and immediately looked furious.
“You look smug internally,” she said.
“That is a wild accusation.”
“Accurate?”
“Maybe.”
She shoved the trash bag toward him. “Fine. Make yourself useful, Internal Smug.”
Nate took the bag.
It was heavier than he expected.
He adjusted his grip. “What’s in here, bricks?”
“Mostly melted popsicles and the crushed dreams of parents who thought lake day would be relaxing.”
“Strong brand.”
“I’m trying to stay consistent.”