Chapter Twenty-Four Nate
Nate Brennan had been trained to handle pressure.
Pressure was a defender closing the gap at full speed. Pressure was a tied game with twelve seconds left. Pressure was Coach Doyle saying, “Again,” after the entire team had already skated enough suicides to see their ancestors.
Pressure was not supposed to be a local reporter texting Ava Lane while Tyler shouted about comments and Paulson answered his phone like a man receiving a diagnosis.
Apparently, summer had expanded the definition.
Nate stood at the end of the picnic table with Ava’s phone in his hand, the reporter’s message glowing on the screen.
MARA FROM RIDGEVIEW GAZETTE: We saw posts about Hale Development withdrawing support from the scholarship challenge. Are you willing to comment on reports that a personal dispute caused the funding gap?
Personal dispute.
Nate hated those two words with immediate and specific energy.
Personal dispute made it sound mutual. Messy. Equal. Like Ava and Trevor had tripped into a drama puddle together and splashed five thousand dollars onto the scholarship fund.
It ignored the sponsor station. The prompt. The texts. The recap request. The part where Martin Hale had turned a funding decision into one more message aimed at Ava’s chest.
Nate looked up.
Ava was staring at the phone like it had become another station in the relay.
Not scared.
Not yet.
Calculating.
That almost made it worse.
Ava in pain made him want to move.
Ava planning made him want to follow.
Coach Doyle crossed the grass toward them with Paulson beside him.
Denise came from the snack shack with Ellie on her heels.
Griffin had already taken Tyler’s phone.
Soren stood near the donation table, arms folded, as if guarding the concept of order.
Beckett looked at Nate and mouthed, This has structure.
Nate mouthed back, No.
Beckett nodded like the no had hurt him creatively.
Ava took her phone back from Nate.
Her fingers were steady.
Too steady.
“Useful version,” she said.
Nate exhaled once. “Reporter saw posts about Hale pulling support. She’s asking if you’ll comment on reports that a personal dispute caused the funding gap.”
Ava’s mouth flattened. “Reports. That’s generous. Sounds like Trevor with better punctuation.”
“Probably.”
“No probably.” She looked toward the Hale tent space, now empty except for four stake holes in the grass and one forgotten banner weight. “That is exactly what he wants. He wants the story to be that I cost kids money because I couldn’t be normal around my ex.”
Nate’s jaw tightened.
Ava pointed without looking at him. “Your jaw is entering the chat. Remove it.”
“Trying.”
“Try with your whole face.”
Griffin stopped beside them. “Do not answer that reporter without a plan.”
Ava looked at him. “Good morning to you too, human stop sign.”
“It is afternoon.”
“Then your energy is late.”
Tyler appeared behind Griffin, phoneless and visibly suffering. “I have thoughts.”
“You always do,” Denise said. “That’s why we have supervision.”
Tyler looked around. “Who has my phone?”
Griffin lifted it.
Tyler swallowed. “Right. My thoughts are silent and internal.”
“Historic,” Soren said.
Beckett leaned toward Ava. “For the record, I think a clean counter-narrative is possible.”
Ava’s eyes narrowed. “Do not say counter-narrative near me while I am holding a phone.”
“Clean message,” Beckett amended quickly. “No drama. No defensive spiral. Just mission, money, timeline.”
Coach Doyle reached them. “He’s right. Unfortunately.”
Beckett put one hand over his heart. “I will remember this day.”
“Do not,” Griffin said.
Paulson looked like he had been personally betrayed by every communication device ever invented. “The university media office is not going to move fast enough for this. If the Gazette posts tonight, the rumor gets ahead of the fundraiser.”
Ava nodded. “Then we get ahead without chasing it.”
Nate looked at her.
There it was again.
Fire with direction.
Ava turned her phone around and opened a blank note. “We need one sentence for the reporter. One public post. One donation link. No explanations that sound like begging to be believed.”
Karen Lane arrived beside Ruthie, slightly breathless, holding her purse against her side. “I can call Mara’s editor. I know her from the library board.”
Ava closed her eyes. “Mom. No.”
Karen stopped. “I was helping.”
“I know. But if my mother calls the newspaper, it becomes a bigger thing, and then I become twenty-two years old with maternal legal counsel.”
Ruthie said, “There are worse things.”
“Grandma.”
“There are.”
Nate tried not to smile.
Ava caught him anyway. “Do not enjoy my family’s procedural overreach.”
“I am neutral toward overreach.”
“Your eyes are not.”
Ruthie looked at him over her sunglasses. “His eyes rarely are.”
Nate immediately looked at the grass.
Tyler whispered, “Ruthie sees all.”
“Water,” Griffin said.
Tyler turned toward the lake on instinct, then frowned. “I don’t even have my phone. Why am I being managed?”
“Preventive care,” Soren said.
Ava huffed a laugh.
Nate held on to that sound for half a second, then forced himself back to the problem.
“Ava,” he said carefully, “you don’t have to be the public face of this.”
Her gaze snapped to him.
Wrong sentence.
He knew it immediately.
Her chin lifted. “Because I’m too close to it?”
“No. Because you shouldn’t have to take hits from a reporter because Hale pulled funding.”
“I am already taking hits. At least this way I get a stick.”
Nate stared.
Beckett whispered, “That’s good.”
Ava pointed at him. “Do not brand my anger.”
“Respectfully withdrawing.”
Nate stepped closer. “I am not trying to sideline you.”
“Then don’t.”
Two words.
Clean.
Enough.
Nate nodded once. “Okay.”
Ava’s face softened by the smallest amount. “Good.”
Coach Doyle looked between them, then at the group. “The message is the fund. Not the feud.”
“Exactly,” Ava said. “No Trevor. No Hale. No personal dispute. We do not answer the story they want. We tell the story that matters.”
She typed for thirty seconds, then read aloud.
“The Ridgeview Hockey Charity Summer Challenge has a forty-eight-hour goal to close a five-thousand-dollar scholarship gap by Friday at five. This fundraiser supports local youth athletes. We are focused on the kids, the community, and finishing what we started.”
Silence.
Nate felt it move through the group.
Not flashy.
Not defensive.
Strong.
Denise nodded first. “That’s the post.”
Paulson looked relieved enough to sit down. “Yes. That’s good.”
Coach Doyle nodded. “Use that.”
Ava looked at Nate.
He held her gaze. “That is very good.”
“Not incredible?”
His mouth curved. “I was told to ration emotional trespassing.”
“Smart man.”
“Trying to be.”
Ruthie made a small approving sound.
Ava looked at her grandmother. “Do not encourage him. He collects approval like hockey tape.”
“Better approval than nonsense,” Ruthie said.
“You would think that.”
“Because I am usually correct.”
Tyler leaned toward Miles. “I want to be Ruthie when I grow up.”
Miles looked him up and down. “You need several upgrades.”
“Cruel but useful.”
Paulson sent the post to the Ridgeview Challenge account. Denise taped a fresh sign to the donation table. Ellie wrote the new goal in pink marker so bold it looked like a challenge to the universe.
HOCKEY HELPS: FIVE BY FRIDAY
SCHOLARSHIP GAP: $5,000
CURRENT TOTAL: $0
Ava stared at the zero.
Nate watched her shoulders square.
There was something terrifyingly attractive about a woman looking at a problem like it had insulted her personally.
Bad timing.
Very bad timing.
He leaned closer anyway. “You good?”
“No. But I am useful.”
“You are more than useful.”
Her eyes flicked to his. “Careful.”
“Trying.”
“Still not the same as being.”
“I know. Your grandmother branded it into me.”
Ava’s mouth twitched.
Then her phone buzzed.
Everyone went quiet so fast Tyler looked offended by the group’s discipline.
Ava checked the screen.
“Reporter,” she said.
Nate stayed still.
She read the message aloud.
MARA FROM RIDGEVIEW GAZETTE: Thank you. We can include that. Are you denying that the withdrawal is connected to the incident during the couples relay?
Ava closed her eyes.
Nate felt the old instinct kick hard.
Deflect. Protect. Step in. Take the phone. Answer for her.
He did none of it.
Ava opened her eyes and typed.
AVA: I am saying the story is the scholarship fund. The goal is five thousand dollars by Friday at five. That is where our attention is.
She hit send.
Then she looked at Nate. “Too much?”
“No.”
“Too little?”
“No.”
“You are agreeing suspiciously.”
“Because you are right.”
“That is annoying.”
“Persistent issue.”
Her smile appeared.
Small, but there.
Then the first donation alert hit Paulson’s phone.
He looked down. “Twenty-five dollars.”
Ellie screamed.
Ava spun toward the donation table. “Already?”
“From someone named Briar Bean Mom,” Paulson said.
Denise nodded. “She tips well.”
Another alert.
“Fifty,” Paulson said. “Anonymous.”
Tyler raised his hand. “That was me.”
Everyone looked at him.
He shrugged, suddenly self-conscious. “What? I deleted the spreadsheet. I have extra emotional funds.”
Ava stared at him.
Then, very reluctantly, she said, “Thank you.”
Tyler looked like he had been knighted.
Griffin handed him his phone back. “Do not make me regret this.”
“I will be so responsible you won’t recognize me.”
“I already regret it.”
Within twenty minutes, the total reached four hundred dollars.
Within forty, the snack shack had a line.
Not a normal line.
A Lake Briar line, which meant parents, campers, students, one retired couple with lawn chairs, and three women from Karen’s gardening circle who arrived with checkbooks and the focused expressions of people who considered youth athletics and public manners equally important.
Ava moved behind the counter like a general with a register.
“Would you like to round up for youth scholarships?”
“Donation link is on the sign.”
“Yes, the goalie challenge starts at six.”
“No, Tyler is not allowed near the dunk tank without Griffin.”