Chapter One Maren #2
DENISE: Please confirm no one has entered the lake with electronics attached to a body part.
Maren looked toward Tyler.
“Mmm,” she said.
Ava peered over. “Is that Denise?”
“Yep.”
“What are you going to tell her?”
“The truth.”
Maren typed.
MAREN: Depends how strictly we are defining entered.
Three dots appeared.
DENISE: Maren.
MAREN: Handled.
DENISE: By whom?
Maren looked at Griffin, who had somehow gotten Tyler seated on the dock with a water bottle and the expression of a man reluctantly accepting hydration.
MAREN: Your favorite wall of disapproval.
DENISE: Griffin?
MAREN: He prefers Aquatic Joy Suppression Officer.
DENISE: Do not put that on the official account.
Maren considered it.
DENISE: I felt that pause.
Maren laughed.
When she looked up, Griffin was watching her again.
Still.
Steady.
As if her laugh had pulled his attention without asking permission.
Her stomach did one quick, stupid flip.
Absolutely not.
She had plans. Real ones. This weekend mattered. Not in the world-saving way people liked to claim things mattered when they wanted free labor and enthusiastic captions, but in the practical way.
Maren needed this portfolio.
She needed clean, strong, high-performing content she could show to people who still thought of her as the girl who could make a party fun but not a project successful. She needed proof that her eye was good, her strategy was sharp, and her work had value beyond being charming in the room.
Because charm was useful.
Until people decided it was all you had.
Her mother still called her social media work “your little internet thing.” Her older cousin Paige had asked last week if Maren planned to “settle into something stable soon,” in the tone people used when they meant before you embarrass everyone.
Even one of the Lake Briar vendors had smiled at her that afternoon and said, “You’re perfect for this. You make everything look cute.”
Cute.
Maren could make cute in her sleep.
She wanted undeniable.
Which meant Griffin Hayes and his joy-killing safety aura were not allowed to ruin her weekend.
She started toward him.
Ava made a small noise.
Maren stopped. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“That was not a nothing noise.”
“That was a woman walking toward a problem while pretending it is a work task noise.”
“I am going to have a professional conversation.”
“Of course.”
“With a colleague.”
“Technically, he is not your colleague.”
“With a walking obstacle.”
“Better.”
Maren ignored her and stepped onto the dock.
The wood was warm beneath her sandals. Music floated from the beach where Miles and two younger players were arguing over a speaker playlist. Someone had started a game of cornhole near the lawn. The lake smelled like sunscreen, fried food, warm wood, and summer about to become a mistake.
Griffin looked up before she reached him.
It was deeply unfair, how good he looked at close range. He had the kind of face that rewarded bad judgment. Strong jaw. Straight nose. Dark brows. A mouth that looked like it had forgotten how to relax and might be excellent at other things if properly encouraged.
Maren did not encourage mouths.
Generally.
“Hayes,” she said.
“Brooks.”
“Do you always answer like you’re taking attendance?”
“Only when I suspect a complaint is approaching.”
“Good instincts.”
Tyler, still seated behind him, pointed at Maren. “Tell him the dock jump was cinema.”
“The dock jump was attempted insurance fraud with lighting,” Maren said.
Tyler frowned. “But did it look good?”
“Unfortunately.”
Griffin made a sound that might have been a laugh if it had not been strangled immediately by discipline.
Maren’s attention snapped to him.
His expression went flat.
Too late.
She had seen it.
A crack.
Tiny. Human. Very annoying.
“Oh,” she said.
Griffin’s eyes narrowed. “What?”
“You almost laughed.”
“I did not.”
“You did.”
“At Tyler’s potential spinal injury? No.”
“At my phrasing.”
“No.”
“Interesting that you knew which phrase.”
Tyler’s gaze bounced between them like he was watching a tennis match he had personally caused. “Is this flirting?”
“No,” Griffin said.
“Not well,” Maren said.
Griffin looked at her.
Maren looked back.
The air changed.
Not dramatically. No violins. No lake breeze suddenly lifting her hair like the whole lake had joined a romance marketing department.
But something tightened between them.
A thin, bright wire.
Challenge.
Curiosity.
The dangerous little thrill of making a controlled man react.
Griffin broke eye contact first, which felt like a victory until Maren realized he did it to look at the phone in her hand.
“Do not post the Tyler clip.”
“It is excellent.”
“It encourages him.”
“Everything encourages him.”
“I do not want the official account promoting reckless behavior.”
“And I do not want the official account to look like a brochure for orthopedic shoes.”
Tyler gasped. “Violent.”
Griffin’s jaw flexed. “The weekend needs to look professional.”
“The weekend needs to look alive.”
“It is a team event.”
“It is a summer challenge weekend at a lake with hockey players and a scoreboard named the Lake Briar Cup. If it looks too professional, we have failed on a spiritual level.”
“Spiritual level.”
“Yes.”
“You are arguing for chaos as a brand strategy.”
“I am arguing for personality.”
“Tyler wearing a shark fin and attempting to launch himself into the lake with electronics attached is not personality.”
Tyler lifted one finger. “I felt alive.”
“You were airborne for half a second,” Griffin said.
“And yet I changed people.”
Maren bit back a laugh.
Griffin noticed.
Of course he did.
His eyes slid back to hers, and there it was again. Focus. Full and direct. Like being under a spotlight without the warmth.
“You think this is funny,” he said.
“I think it is usable.”
“I think you have dangerous standards.”
“I think you confuse safe with interesting.”
His brows lifted.
Maren should have stopped there.
She knew it too. The sentence landed a little too cleanly. Tyler had gone still. Beckett had stopped eating his popsicle. Cooper had emerged from the canoe with the alertness of a man sensing entertainment.
The entire dock seemed to tilt toward them.
Griffin’s voice lowered. “You think I am trying to make the weekend boring.”
“No,” Maren said.
Then smiled.
“I think you are succeeding accidentally.”
Tyler whispered, “Oh my gosh.”
Griffin’s shoulders shifted back half an inch.
Not much.
Enough.
“I am trying to keep the team from embarrassing itself,” he said.
“That is your problem.”
“My problem is wanting the team to avoid embarrassment?”
“No. Your problem is thinking embarrassment is always bad.”
Beckett sat up slowly. “I feel seen.”
Maren pointed toward the beach, where two players were attempting to balance on the same paddleboard while Nate filmed and laughed. “People do not connect with perfect. They connect with real. Funny. Messy. Unplanned. The moment right before someone falls in the lake.”
Griffin looked toward the paddleboard right as both players toppled sideways with a splash.
Maren lifted her phone and captured it.
The beach cheered.
“See?” she said. “Gold.”
“That is not gold. That is wet.”
“That is why you are not in charge of content.”
“I am in charge of making sure content does not become medical documentation.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
“It is.”
The answer came too fast.
Too honest.
Maren’s smile softened before she could stop it.
Griffin looked away.
And there, right there, was the problem.
He was not boring.
He was tired.
Not in the obvious way. Not slumped shoulders and dark circles and dramatic sighs. Griffin Hayes looked like a man who had been holding a door shut for so long he had forgotten he was allowed to walk through it.
That was not content.
That was dangerous.
Because Maren liked finding the hidden thing in people. The angle nobody else caught. The one second of truth between performances. It was why she loved cameras. People thought cameras captured faces. Maren knew they captured leaks.
And Griffin Hayes had just leaked.
Only a little.
But enough.
She forced her voice light. “Maybe you need one bad idea.”
“No.”
“You answered too fast.”
“No is efficient.”
“No is fear wearing a polo.”
“I am not wearing a polo.”
“Spiritual polo.”
Tyler slapped both hands over his mouth.
Beckett whispered, “Spiritual polo.”
Cooper said, “Accurate.”
Griffin turned his head just enough to give Cooper a look.
Cooper returned to his canoe. “Muted.”
“You are not muted,” Nate called from the beach.
“I am emotionally muted.”
Maren grinned.
Griffin did not.
But his eyes were alive now.
That was worse.
“Let me be clear,” he said. “I am not participating in bad ideas for views.”
“Of course not.”
His suspicion deepened. “Why did you say it like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like you are about to manipulate me.”
Maren pressed a hand to her chest. “Manipulate is such an ugly word.”
“Influence?”
“Better.”
“No.”
“You do not even know what I am proposing.”
“I heard enough at bad ideas.”
Maren stepped closer.
Not much. Just enough to make his attention drop to the movement before returning to her face.
A little spark shot through her.
Interesting.
Very interesting.
“You know,” she said, “for a guy surrounded by competitive athletes, you are weirdly scared of losing.”
The dock went silent.
Even the lake seemed to hush, which was rude. Nature should not take sides.
Griffin’s face changed by degrees. Not anger. Not exactly. Something more controlled and more dangerous.
“You think I am scared?”
“I think you are careful.”
“That is different.”
“Is it?”
“Yes.”
“Prove it.”
Tyler made a tiny squeaking sound.
Griffin stared at her.
Maren stared back, pulse kicking a little harder than it should have.
She had not planned this. Not exactly. She had come over to argue for better content, maybe irritate him into allowing the Tyler clip, maybe get one usable post out of his forehead vein and call it a night.
But now Griffin Hayes was looking at her like she had stepped onto thin ice and dared him to follow.