Chapter Four Nate #2
Paulson clapped. “Team One: Brennan, Lindqvist, Ava Lane. Report Saturday at nine-thirty for check-in. Team shirts will be provided.”
Ava’s eyes widened. “Team shirts?”
Denise nodded. “For uniformity.”
Ava looked at Nate. “I am not wearing a shirt with his name on it.”
Nate stared at her. “Why would it have my name on it?”
“I don’t know how hockey rituals work.”
Soren said, “Usually badly.”
Nate pointed at him. “Not helping.”
Paulson continued drawing names for the other teams, but Nate barely heard. Ava was still watching him, and he had the deeply inconvenient feeling that something had shifted.
Again.
Not into romance.
Definitely not.
Into proximity.
Into inevitability.
Into Saturday morning, shared team shirt, public relay, and every Ridgeview player waiting to see if Nate Brennan would look at Ava Lane too long.
Which he would not.
Obviously.
He had discipline.
Ava lifted a hand and pointed two fingers at her eyes, then at him.
I am watching you.
Nate smiled before he could stop himself.
She immediately looked furious that he found it charming.
That did not help.
Nothing about Ava Lane helped.
Paulson finished the draw, then dismissed the players with instructions about hydration, punctuality, and not turning the relay into “a lawsuit with whistles.”
The crowd broke apart. Kids begged for autographs. Parents asked questions. Players started arguing about which station would matter most.
Nate stayed near the snack shack.
He had another apology forming, but he was starting to worry apologies were just excuses to keep talking to her.
Ava grabbed a towel and wiped the same clean spot on the counter three times.
Soren watched her from beside Nate.
“What?” Nate asked.
“She hates this.”
“Yes.”
“She’ll show up anyway.”
“Yes.”
“She’ll try to pretend she doesn’t care.”
Nate looked at him.
Soren shrugged. “She’s competitive.”
“You got all that from two minutes?”
“She called me goalie instead of my name.”
“That means competitive?”
“That means she prefers distance. Competitive people like distance until there’s a scoreboard.”
Nate stared at him. “You are unsettling sometimes.”
“I know.”
Soren walked away.
Nate was left with the uncomfortable realization that Soren might be right.
Ava Lane did not want to care.
Which meant Saturday would be a problem.
Because Nate wanted to win.
And if Ava wanted to pretend she did not, he had a strong suspicion he would enjoy proving otherwise.
He stepped back to the window.
Ava did not look up. “No.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You approached.”
“That’s not illegal.”
“Give Tyler five minutes. He’ll make it illegal.”
Nate leaned a forearm on the counter, then remembered she noticed forearms and immediately straightened.
Ava noticed that too.
Her mouth twitched.
Small victory.
Dangerous victory.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
She finally looked at him. “You keep saying that.”
“I keep meaning it.”
“That is inconvenient.”
“For me too.”
Ava studied him for a moment. “Did you rig that?”
“No.”
“Did Tyler?”
“If Tyler had rigged it, he would not be able to keep quiet.”
“Good point.”
“He would have made a PowerPoint.”
“With glitter.”
“And theme music.”
Ava sighed. “So this is real.”
“Looks that way.”
“I have to be on your team.”
“And Soren’s.”
“Goalie?”
“Soren.”
“I’ll decide when he earns a name.”
Nate smiled. “He’ll respect that.”
“Why?”
“He’s a goalie. They love emotional distance.”
Ava looked past him toward Soren, who was now silently moving chairs back into place while Beckett narrated the task like a sports commentator.
“He seems less exhausting than the rest of you.”
“He is.”
“Good. I’ll stand near him.”
Something in Nate’s chest tightened.
Not jealousy.
That would be absurd.
This was logistical concern.
Possibly.
“Soren is taken,” Nate said.
Ava’s eyes came back to him immediately. “Taken?”
“Very.”
“By a woman with patience?”
“By a woman with a goalie stick and no fear.”
Ava nodded. “Good for her.”
“And him, frankly.”
“Then I’ll stand near him platonically.”
“You can stand wherever you want.”
“I know.”
“I was agreeing.”
“You sounded territorial.”
Nate froze.
Ava’s eyebrows rose.
He had two options.
Deny it and look guilty.
Make a joke and look guiltier.
Tell the truth and die.
He chose option four.
“I sounded like a guy who knows Tyler will turn any two people standing within ten feet of each other into a poll.”
Ava considered him. “That is believable.”
“Thank you.”
“But not a denial.”
Nate’s pulse hit once.
Ava smiled like she had just found a seam in his defense.
He deserved that.
He had been sloppy.
The problem was the way she said territorial. Like she was testing the word. Like she did not believe it, but she was curious what he would do with it.
He should do nothing with it.
Nothing was safe.
Nothing was disciplined.
Nothing did not get men publicly humiliated by women in NOT IMPRESSED shirts.
So he reached for safe ground.
“Saturday is just a relay,” he said.
Ava looked at him as if he had disappointed her. “Obviously.”
“Public charity event.”
“Obviously.”
“Team requirement.”
“Obviously.”
“No bet.”
Her eyes sharpened. “No bet?”
“Not involving you.”
Ava leaned forward a little. “That’s different.”
“Yes.”
“So the bet continues.”
Nate hesitated.
There it was.
The trap.
He could say no, and then Tyler would spend the next two months claiming Nate was scared. Not of feelings. Of Ava.
He could say yes, and Ava would think he was exactly the pattern she had already diagnosed.
He could say nothing, which was apparently what his brain had chosen.
Ava’s smile grew.
“Oh,” she said.
He did not like that oh.
It had teeth.
“You don’t know what to say,” she added.
“I know several things to say.”
“Are any of them honest?”
That landed.
Nate looked at her.
The deck noise faded a little around the edges.
Ava was not teasing now. Not fully.
She wanted to know.
Not because she cared about the bet.
Because she cared about whether he was the kind of man who hid behind the joke when it mattered.
Nate could feel the easy answer sitting there. The charming answer. The one that would make her roll her eyes and reset the tension.
Instead, he said, “I don’t want the bet to involve you.”
Her expression changed.
“And I don’t want Tyler turning you into entertainment,” he continued. “But if you’re asking whether I think I can go all summer without falling for someone, yes. I do.”
Ava’s face went still.
“Why?” she asked.
“Because I need to.”
That was more than he meant to give her.
He knew it the second the words left his mouth.
Ava knew it too.
Her sarcasm did not come right away.
For once, she let the sentence sit between them.
Then she asked, softer, “Need?”
Nate looked away first.
Bad.
He never looked away first.
He looked toward the lake. Kids were running near the edge. Paulson was corralling players. Tyler was doing something that made Griffin drag him backward by the shoulder. Normal chaos. Safe chaos.
“My fall matters,” Nate said. “Season matters. Captaincy might be on the table. I have things to prove.”
“That doesn’t mean feelings ruin people.”
“No.”
“Then why talk like they do?”
He looked back at her.
Because he had watched his brother blow a scholarship over a girl who loved drama more than him.
Because his father still thought Nate smiled too much and took too little seriously.
Because his coach had told him leadership was not about being liked.
Because the last girl Nate had dated had said, You’re fun until something matters, and he had pretended not to bleed from it.
He said none of that.