Chapter Three Maren
Maren Brooks had posted a lot of questionable things in her life.
A slow-motion video of her cousin Paige slipping on a blueberry at a farmers market.
A restaurant reel where the soup looked so emotional that three people commented, Are you okay?
A photo of Ava Lane wearing a snack shack visor with the caption LOCAL WOMAN SURVIVES HOT DOG STEAM AND MALE NONSENSE, which Ava had claimed to hate and then secretly saved to her camera roll.
But she had never posted anything that transformed a group of hockey players into a pack of sugar-high raccoons quite like the Bad Idea Bet.
Within ten minutes, the Lake Briar lawn had become a democracy.
A loud democracy.
A democracy with neon note cards, wet swim trunks, and very little concern for emotional consequences.
Tyler Donovan stood on top of a cooler like a revolutionary leader who had never once read a full paragraph about government.
“Bad ideas go in the bucket!” he shouted, holding up a blue plastic sand pail someone had probably stolen from a child. “Not terrible ideas. Not illegal ideas. Not ideas that make Griffin’s forehead vein become sentient. We want bad. Not prison.”
Griffin Hayes, standing beside Maren with his arms crossed, said, “Inspiring distinction.”
Tyler pointed at him. “Thank you.”
“That was not praise.”
“I receive selectively.”
Beckett Monroe lounged near the cornhole boards with a pink marker tucked behind one ear. “I propose we separate submissions by category. Romantic chaos. Athletic chaos. Emotional chaos. Miscellaneous aquatic regret.”
Cooper Vale, seated in a folding chair beneath a crooked umbrella, lifted one finger. “I vote for silence.”
“You always vote for silence,” Maren said.
“And yet I am always overruled.”
Nate Brennan passed behind him carrying a crate of water bottles. “That’s because you stay in the group chat.”
“I stay informed against my will.”
Ava, walking beside Nate with a stack of towels tucked under one arm, looked at Maren and mouthed, You okay?
Maren gave her a thumbs-up.
Bright. Easy. Automatic.
Ava’s eyes narrowed.
Rude.
Maren turned away before Ava could read her better. Best friends by proximity were dangerous. They observed things. They remembered tone shifts. They asked questions with soft voices, which was worse than interrogation because it made a person want to confess crimes she had not committed yet.
Like noticing Griffin Hayes’s hands.
That was not a crime.
It was also not professional.
Maren glanced down at those hands anyway because apparently she had lost her relationship with dignity sometime between Griffin editing her caption and the way his fingers had brushed hers.
His hands were large, strong, and unfairly competent. One thumb tapped against his bicep in a slow rhythm, the only visible sign that the chaos around him was irritating every organized cell in his body.
Or maybe not irritating.
Not completely.
Because Griffin was watching.
Not just glaring. Watching.
The team. The lawn. The fans lingering near the rope line. The kids trying to peek over shoulders as players scribbled ideas. The way people laughed harder when Tyler read a card aloud and Griffin rejected it in three words or fewer.
Griffin looked like a man studying a fire and deciding whether it needed water or marshmallows.
Maren hated that she liked the image.
Her phone buzzed.
Again.
Again.
Again.
The Challenge One post had exploded faster than the first one.
Comments poured in.
make him wear the flamingo float
Griffin protects joy from poor planning? I fear I am attracted to responsibility now.
Maren please destroy this man respectfully.
Bad idea: Griffin smiles for once.
That one had three hundred likes.
Maren snorted.
Griffin’s gaze slid toward her. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“You laughed at the comments.”
“I laughed near the comments.”
“That is not a meaningful distinction.”
“It is if you believe in plausible deniability.”
“I do not.”
“Tragic.”
He held out his hand. “Show me.”
“No.”
“Maren.”
There it was again.
Her name.
Not Brooks. Not a warning bark. Not the public version.
Maren.
The man needed to stop saying it like that before she started doing something humiliating, like feeling special.
She turned the screen away. “I am the content lead.”
“I am the person being contented.”
“That is not a word.”
“It is tonight.”
“Then you should know the person being contented has limited rights.”
His eyebrows rose. “Limited?”
“Extremely.”
“Bold, coming from the woman who posted a public poll about my emotional relationship with joy.”
“People deserved answers.”
“People deserved better options.”
“You wanted one that said YES, HE FEELS JOY QUIETLY AND WITH APPROPRIATE FOOTWEAR?”
Tyler appeared beside them so suddenly Maren almost dropped her phone.
“I would vote for that,” he said.
Griffin did not even flinch. “Why are you here?”
“I felt excluded from banter.”
“Return to the bucket.”
“I am not a dog.”
“Then stop following sound.”
Tyler blinked. “That was mean but clean. I respect it.”
Maren laughed before she could stop herself.
Griffin’s mouth did that almost thing again.
Not a smile.
The prequel to a smile.
A smile’s emotionally repressed cousin.
Maren wanted to photograph it.
She did not.
Professional.
She was being professional.
Mostly.
Tyler held out the sand pail. It was already half full of neon cards. “We have submissions.”
Griffin looked at the bucket like it contained biological waste.
“Absolutely not.”
“You agreed to approve one.”
“I agreed to approve one after reviewing them.”
“That is what this is.”
“You standing on a cooler yelling at strangers is not a review process.”
“It is crowdsourcing.”
“It is a cry for help.”
Maren reached into the bucket and pulled out a lime-green card. “Let’s hear one.”
Griffin’s head snapped toward her. “You are supposed to be on the side of controlled execution.”
“I am on the side of the weekend not dying of beige poisoning.”
“Beige poisoning,” he repeated.
“Serious condition. Symptoms include forced group photos, lifeless captions, and men named Bryce saying, ‘Let’s circle back.’”
Ava called from a nearby table, “As someone who once dated a Bryce-adjacent man, I support awareness.”
Nate frowned. “What is Bryce-adjacent?”
“Ask me later.”
Nate looked mildly alarmed.
Maren unfolded the card.
Her smile widened.
Griffin stepped closer. “No.”
“You do not know what it says.”
“Your face says no.”
“My face says opportunity.”
“Same thing in worse shoes.”
Maren read aloud, “Challenge: Griffin must let Maren style him for one official team promo photo.”
The lawn erupted.
Beckett shot to his feet. “Fashion arc!”
Miles yelled, “Crop top!”
“No,” Griffin said immediately.
Tyler cupped a hand around his ear. “The people are speaking.”
“The people need supervision.”
Maren looked Griffin over with deliberate slowness.
Mistake.
Immediate mistake.
Because he was very nice to look over.
He wore a faded charcoal Ridgeview Hockey T-shirt that stretched across his shoulders in a way no innocent fabric deserved.
Dark athletic shorts. Bare feet because everyone had ditched shoes near the sand.
His hair was slightly messy from the lake air, and his expression was so grimly prepared for battle that Maren had the sudden, vivid thought of him letting her push his hair back from his forehead.
Bad.
Awful.
Unprofessional.
She cleared her throat. “Actually, he does not need styling.”
Griffin’s eyes narrowed.
Tyler gasped. “Was that a compliment?”
“No,” Maren said.
“It sounded like a compliment.”
“It was an efficiency assessment.”
Griffin tilted his head. “An efficiency assessment.”
“You are already visually coherent.”
Beckett placed a hand over his heart. “Visually coherent. The highest praise.”
Cooper said, “Put it on his tombstone.”
Griffin looked at Maren.
For a second, the noise around them softened.
“Visually coherent,” he said.
“You are welcome.”
“I have never felt less flattered.”
“Then you lack imagination.”
“I lack patience.”
“That too.”
The wire between them pulled tight again.
Maren should have looked away.
She did not.
Looking away was what people did when they were losing, and Maren had not survived twenty-two years of being underestimated just to lose a staring contest to a man whose idea of flirting appeared to be controlled disagreement.
Tyler shoved another card between them. “Next.”
Griffin took it before Maren could.
“No.”
“You did not read it,” Tyler said.
“It is written in Beckett’s handwriting. No.”
Beckett lifted both hands. “My handwriting is expressive.”
“It is a weather event.”
Maren plucked the card from Griffin’s fingers.
There it was again.
That tiny brush of skin.
That stupid spark.
She ignored it with the dignity of a woman who had absolutely noticed.
The card read:
One fake slow-motion beach run. Griffin and Maren. Romantic music. Serious faces.
Maren pressed the card to her chest. “Art.”
“No,” Griffin said.
“I did not even read it aloud.”
“I can see Beckett’s soul on your face.”
“My soul is cinematic,” Beckett said.
Griffin took the card and pocketed it.
Maren stared. “Did you just confiscate a bad idea?”
“I am preserving evidence.”
“That is very spiritual polo of you.”
“I am not wearing a polo.”
“Spiritually.”
His eyes flickered.
Not quite amusement.
Close.
Close was becoming a problem.
Maren’s phone buzzed again, this time with a message from Denise.
DENISE: The crowd near the rope line has doubled. Whatever this is, keep it contained and legal.
Maren looked up.
Denise was right.
The rope line near the lawn had filled with lake guests, local families, a few Ridgeview fans in team hats, and the kind of bored teenagers who could detect public embarrassment from half a mile away. Several phones were out.
Watching.
Recording.
Waiting.
Maren’s stomach dipped.
This was working.
This was actually working.
She should have been thrilled. She was thrilled. Partly.
But success had weight. People liked to pretend it was light, all glitter and applause, but success pressed down too. It said, Now do it again. Now make it better. Now prove the first time was not luck.