Chapter Two Griffin
Griffin Hayes had been accused of many things in his life.
Too serious.
Too careful.
Too quiet when other people wanted noise.
Too intense when everyone else wanted easy.
Once, during freshman year, Beckett had called him “a locked filing cabinet with cheekbones,” which Griffin still considered both inaccurate and unnecessarily specific.
But no one had ever accused him of fearing joy.
Until Maren Brooks put it on the internet.
Griffin stood on the old rental dock at Lake Briar, staring at the poll on Maren’s phone while his teammates reacted with the kind of uncontrolled delight normally reserved for overtime wins and free food.
NO, HE FEARS JOY had climbed to ninety-three percent.
Ninety-three.
The post had been live for less than four minutes.
“This is statistically aggressive,” Cooper said from the canoe.
“You are not helping,” Griffin said.
“I know.”
Tyler was jogging small circles around Beckett, one hand clamped to the shark fin still strapped to his back, the other waving his phone in the air.
“It is moving,” Tyler shouted. “It is moving like a thing that moves fast.”
“Poetry,” Beckett said solemnly.
“Shut up. I am under the influence of virality.”
Nate Brennan came out of the lake with water dripping from his hair, looking entirely too amused for a captain whose team was currently gathering around a social media post like it was a campfire and society had just discovered flames.
Griffin pointed at him. “Fix this.”
Nate squeezed water from the hem of his shirt. “Define fix.”
“Captain.”
“I hear the title. I respect the title. I am asking for actionable clarity.”
“Tell them the bet is not happening.”
Nate looked past Griffin at the dock, where half the team had started chanting “Bad Idea Bet” under their breath while Maren stood in the center of it all, phone in one hand, sunlight behind her, mouth curved like she had just discovered a matchbook in a room full of fireworks.
Nate’s grin widened.
“No,” he said.
Griffin blinked. “No?”
“No.”
“That is your leadership response?”
“My leadership response is that morale has been dragging all day because you have spent the past six hours treating this weekend like a hostage negotiation.”
“I prevented Tyler from launching himself into water with electronics attached to his torso.”
Nate nodded. “And we thank you for your service.”
“This is not funny.”
“It is a little funny.”
“It is bad for the weekend.”
Nate looked at Maren’s phone, then at the cluster of players already sharing the post, then toward the beach where two families had gathered near the rope line to watch Tyler attempt celebratory spins without falling.
“Actually,” Nate said, “it might be great for the weekend.”
Griffin hated that answer because a small, traitorous part of his brain had already considered the same thing.
The post was good.
Worse, the post was very good.
Maren had cut the clip perfectly. Tyler’s ridiculous near-launch.
Griffin stepping in at the exact second before disaster.
The pool noodle slap. Tyler’s sound, which no human man should have been able to produce.
Griffin’s own expression, which looked less like responsible leadership and more like he had been assigned custody of a traveling circus by court order.
Then the caption.
Day one of Lake Briar Summer Challenge Weekend and Griffin Hayes has already saved us from one bad idea.
Or did he?
Comments open. Should Griffin survive one weekend of bad ideas?
YES, HAYES CAN HANDLE IT.
NO, HE FEARS JOY.
It had timing. It had personality. It had a narrative.
It had his humiliation in high definition.
Griffin turned back to Maren.
She was not laughing now.
That was the part that annoyed him most.
If she had posted it just to mess with him, he could have shut it down. If she had done it for cheap attention, he could have called it reckless and moved on.
But Maren was watching the numbers like a strategist.
Her thumb moved quickly over the screen. She checked the comments, the shares, the saves. Her eyes flicked from the phone to the beach to the players and back again, cataloging momentum the way Griffin cataloged risks.
She looked bright and amused and completely unserious.
Except she was not.
That was the problem with Maren Brooks.
She made effort look like accident.
Griffin had spent enough of the summer around Lake Briar to notice, even when he had been trying very hard not to. She laughed easily. Talked fast. Wore color like a dare. Could turn a sentence into a spark and a room into an audience before most people found their footing.
People saw the shine and assumed there was no steel underneath.
Griffin saw the steel.
He wished he did not.
Steel was easier to respect from a distance.
Maren glanced up and caught him looking.
Her smile returned instantly, bright enough to pass inspection.
“Careful, Hayes,” she said. “Your face is doing something almost expressive.”
“My face is considering legal options.”
“For joy?”
“For defamation.”
“Truth is a defense.”
“I do not fear joy.”
“No?”
“No.”
“Then the poll should not bother you.”
“It bothers me because it is inaccurate.”
“It bothers you because ninety-three percent of people took one look at your energy and said, ‘That man alphabetizes disappointment.’”
Tyler skidded to a stop. “Do you?”
“No,” Griffin said.
Beckett tilted his head. “But if you did, where would regret go? Under R, or does it fall under emotional consequences?”
“Do not help her.”
“I am helping art.”
Griffin looked at Cooper. “You are very quiet.”
Cooper held up his phone. “Voting.”
“You voted?”
“Yes.”
Griffin waited.
Cooper did not elaborate.
Griffin’s stomach sank. “Which option?”
Cooper looked at him, expression flat. “I support joy.”
The dock exploded.
Nate had to turn away.
Maren laughed then, the real kind, not the polished kind. It hit Griffin square in the chest before he could brace for it.
That was unacceptable.
He had survived playoff pressure. Angry coaches. Three third-period penalty kills against Briarcrest. Tyler with access to a fog machine and no supervision.
He could survive one laugh.
Probably.
His phone buzzed in his pocket.
Then again.
Then six more times.
He pulled it out, already resigned.
The team group chat had become a crime scene.
TYLER: OFFICIAL BAD IDEA BET RULES COMING SOON.
GRIFFIN: There will be no rules because there will be no bet.
BECKETT: Denial is stage one.
COOPER: Stage two is spreadsheets.
NATE: No spreadsheets.
MILES: What did I miss?
TYLER: Griffin fears joy.
MILES: Honestly, yeah.
GRIFFIN: Miles.
MILES: Respectfully.
AVA: For the record, this is excellent content.
GRIFFIN: I expected better from you.
AVA: Then you have not been paying attention to my growth.
MAREN: Wait, am I in this chat now?
TYLER: You have always been spiritually in this chat.
COOPER: Condolences.
Griffin looked up.
Maren was staring at her phone.
Then she lifted her eyes to him, and he watched the exact second she realized she had access to the main Ridgeview summer group chat.
Her expression turned delighted.
Absolutely not.
“No,” he said.
“I did not say anything.”
“You were about to enjoy having power.”
“I enjoy a lot of things.”
Tyler pointed dramatically between them. “Chemistry.”
Griffin turned. “You are on thin ice.”
“We are at a lake.”
“I can arrange alternatives.”
Nate stepped between them with captainly timing and entirely too much amusement. “Okay. Before Griffin threatens to make Tyler run suicides on sand, let’s reset.”
“Thank you,” Griffin said.
Nate clapped his hands once. “The post is up. It is working. People are commenting, the weekend account is getting engagement, and apparently half the fan base already has strong opinions about Griffin’s relationship with joy.”
“Not helping.”
“I am helping. You just hate the direction.”
Maren shifted, drawing Griffin’s attention without doing much of anything at all.
That was another problem.
Some people needed volume to hold a scene. Maren needed a raised eyebrow and half a smile. Even standing still, she seemed in motion, like she was one thought away from changing the air.
Her phone buzzed again.
She glanced down, and the smile slipped.
Only for a second.
Fast enough that no one else seemed to catch it.
Griffin did.
A small line formed between her brows. Not panic. Not excitement. Calculation, maybe. Or pressure. Something tight and private.
Then she wiped it away and lifted her chin.
“Denise just saw the post,” she said.
Everyone froze.
Even Tyler stopped breathing.
Nate winced. “Scale of one to we are banned from the lake?”
Maren read from the screen. “‘This is either exactly what I hired you for or the beginning of paperwork. Please make sure it is the first one.’”
Tyler put both hands in the air. “Denise supports us.”
“Denise supports insurance,” Griffin said.
Maren’s smile flickered again, smaller this time. “She also says views are up four hundred percent from yesterday’s announcement post.”
The team cheered.
Griffin did not.
Four hundred percent.
That was not minor.
That was not a joke catching a few laughs and disappearing by dinner. That was the kind of immediate spike that changed expectations. The kind that made people ask for more before anyone had time to decide what more would cost.
Griffin knew pressure when he saw it.
Maren had just created it.
And somehow, everyone was looking at him like he was the one standing between the weekend and success.
Because he was.
Of course he was.
That was always where he ended up.
Between.
Between Tyler and the emergency room.
Between Beckett and whatever he called art.
Between Coach Doyle’s expectations and the team’s impulse control.
Between a weekend that needed to feel fun and a dozen ways it could turn into a public embarrassment if no one paid attention.
And now, apparently, between Maren Brooks and whatever dangerous version of unforgettable she thought she could build out of his self-control.
Nate lowered his voice. “Walk with me.”
Griffin looked at him. “I am not leaving Tyler unattended.”
“I am standing right here,” Tyler said.
“That is the concern.”