Chapter Twenty-Four Nate #2
Nate should have been helping at the player table.
He was.
Mostly.
But every few minutes, his attention went to the snack shack window.
Ava was everywhere. Pouring lemonade. Taking donations. Updating Ellie. Smiling at kids. Giving Tyler a look so severe he backed away from the napkin dispenser. Laughing when Ruthie corrected a donor’s check memo from hockey thing to youth scholarships.
She was not smaller.
Not today.
Not even close.
Nate felt something shift in him while he watched her.
Something that had been moving for days but finally found its name.
He was proud of her, yes.
He wanted her, obviously.
He liked her so much it made his chest feel too small.
But under all of that was something steadier.
He believed in her.
Not in the shiny way people believed in winners after they had already won.
In the before way.
The way that looked at a zero on a sign and said, yes, that is a scoreboard, and yes, she is about to make it regret existing.
“You are staring again,” Soren said beside him.
Nate did not look away. “I know.”
“At least you’re honest now.”
“Growth.”
“Dangerous word. Tyler uses it often.”
Nate glanced at him. “Are you here to help or critique?”
“Both. The goalie challenge raised three hundred dollars in twenty minutes.”
“Because nobody can score on you?”
“Because children are optimistic and parents are generous when their children miss.”
Nate laughed.
Soren looked toward the snack shack. “She is good at this.”
“Yes.”
“Do not make her fundraising competence about your feelings.”
Nate stared at him. “Did Ava send you?”
“No. This is personal growth from me.”
“I don’t like it.”
“Few do.”
A shout went up near the speed shot booth. Beckett had apparently let a twelve-year-old beat his recorded shot by one mile per hour and was now lying on the grass in theatrical defeat.
Tyler ran by yelling, “UPSET OF THE CENTURY. FIVE DOLLARS TO MOCK BECKETT. ALL PROCEEDS TO SCHOLARSHIPS.”
Griffin chased him with a clipboard.
Nate looked at Soren. “Should we stop that?”
Soren watched a parent hand Tyler five dollars. “No. Revenue.”
By seven, the total had passed eighteen hundred dollars.
By eight, the Ridgeview Gazette posted its story.
Nate saw it because the entire lawn seemed to get the notification at once.
His phone buzzed.
Then Griffin’s.
Then Paul’s.
Then Ava’s.
Ava stood behind the snack shack counter, phone in hand, the line briefly gone. Nate was twenty feet away when she opened the article.
He could not see the screen.
He could see her face.
That was enough.
He crossed the grass, not running, but fast.
Ava looked up when he reached the window.
“Useful version?” he asked.
Her mouth twisted. “Depends on your definition of useful.”
She turned the phone.
The headline read:
RIDGEVIEW CHALLENGE RALLIES AFTER SPONSOR WITHDRAWAL, SEEKS $5,000 FOR YOUTH SCHOLARSHIPS
Good.
Nate breathed once.
Then Ava scrolled.
The article included her statement. Paulson’s statement. A quote from Coach Doyle about scholarships and participant respect. A mention that Hale Development had withdrawn after concerns about a relay station, but the article did not name Trevor’s texts or Ava’s history.
Clean.
Mostly.
Then came Martin Hale’s quote.
Martin Hale, president of Hale Development, said the company believes charitable events should remain professional and free of personal distractions.
Ava stared at that sentence.
Personal distractions.
Nate hated the phrase so much his vision sharpened.
Ava went still.
Then she laughed.
Not hurt.
Not shaky.
A real laugh.
Nate blinked. “Ava?”
She covered her mouth with one hand, still laughing. “Personal distractions.”
Ellie leaned over the counter to read. “Oh, that is rich.”
Ava’s laugh grew. “He pulled five thousand dollars from children because his son couldn’t survive a woman saying no in public, and I am the personal distraction.”
Nate stared at her.
The laugh had edges, but it was not breaking.
It was freeing.
Ava wiped under one eye. “That’s so absurd it lost power.”
Nate felt the sentence settle through him.
Lost power.
Good.
Good.
Ava looked at him through the service window. “Do not look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you’re proud and relieved and about to say something emotionally inconvenient.”
“That is a very specific face.”
“You have specific faces.”
He smiled. “I’m proud and relieved.”
“Do not say the third thing.”
“Okay.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You are learning restraint.”
“Soren said it builds character.”
“Soren would.”
Her phone buzzed again.
Ava looked down.
This time, she froze.
Nate’s stomach dropped.
“What?”
She turned the phone.
A donation alert from the official fundraiser page.
$1,000
Anonymous donor.
Note: For Ava Lane, who should never have been called a distraction.
Ava’s face crumpled for half a second.
Then she turned away from the window.
Nate’s hand lifted toward the counter before he stopped himself.
Not his moment to take.
Ellie moved first, wrapping an arm around Ava’s shoulders.
Karen appeared behind them because the Lane family surveillance network remained undefeated.
Ruthie stood in the snack shack doorway and said, “Well. That person has sense.”
Ava laughed through a breath that sounded dangerously close to a sob.
Nate stood on the customer side of the window and felt helpless in the cleanest way.
Not useless.
Just not the answer.
Sometimes loving someone, or whatever terrifying almost-word lived under his ribs, meant not needing to be the answer while she found her feet.
Ava turned back after a minute, eyes bright.
She looked at Nate first.
His chest went tight.
“Total?” she asked.
Paulson checked his phone from the table. “Three thousand twenty-five.”