Chapter Four Griffin
Griffin Hayes had faced breakaways with less pressure than one fake almost-kiss beside a painted wooden photo booth.
At least breakaways made sense.
Puck. Net. Angle. Speed. Read the shooter. Trust the body. Make the play.
This was not that.
This was Maren Brooks standing beneath string lights while half the Ridgeview roster screamed like they had personally invented romance, and Tyler Donovan counted down from five with the solemn intensity of a man launching a rocket.
“Five!”
“No countdown,” Griffin said.
“Four!”
“Tyler.”
“Three!”
Maren looked up at Griffin through her lashes.
That was when his brain, which had been through years of practices, games, conditioning, exams, film sessions, and one horrifying weekend where Beckett had tried to teach the team interpretive stretching, chose to abandon him.
Because Maren looked amused.
Nervous too.
She hid it well. Better than most people would have noticed.
Her smile was bright and teasing, her posture loose, her phone already lifted like she was documenting the moment from the inside.
But her fingers tightened around the edge of the case.
Her left shoulder held half an inch higher than her right.
Her eyes flicked once to the crowd, then back to him.
She was not afraid of the photo.
She was afraid it would work.
That made two of them.
“Two!” Tyler shouted.
Griffin turned his head. “If you say one, you are running tomorrow morning.”
Tyler froze with both hands raised.
The entire lawn went silent.
Even Beckett, who had been arranging two battery-powered lights like a man preparing a moon landing, stopped mid-flourish.
Maren’s mouth twitched.
“Abuse of power,” she said.
“Preventative leadership.”
“That sounds like something printed on a very boring mug.”
“Good. I like mugs.”
“Of course you do.”
Tyler lowered one finger slowly. “Can I whisper one?”
“No.”
“Can Beckett?”
“No.”
“Can the crowd?”
Griffin looked at the rope line, where lake guests, Ridgeview fans, alumni, and several teenagers with phones were waiting like an audience had formed out of the evening air.
“No one is counting down.”
Cooper, who had somehow relocated from the canoe to a folding chair beside the photo booth without appearing to move, said, “I support the absence of countdowns.”
Tyler pointed at him. “You hate magic.”
“I hate yelling.”
“You are yelling right now.”
Cooper looked down at himself. “No.”
Nate stepped in, captain smile firmly in place, which meant he was about to be unhelpful in a socially acceptable way.
“Okay,” Nate said. “No countdown. One photo. Team picks props. Internet picked pose. Griffin survives joy. Everyone wins.”
“I have not agreed to the phrase survives joy,” Griffin said.
“It is baked into the brand now,” Maren said.
“There is no brand.”
Her eyebrows rose. “There are already three fan edits.”
Griffin stared at her.
Maren turned her phone around.
There they were.
Three edits.
One used the clip of Tyler almost diving into disaster with a dramatic zoom on Griffin’s face.
One had freeze-framed Maren and Griffin staring at each other on the dock and added pink hearts around the words HE FEARS JOY.
The third had Griffin catching Tyler by the shirt, then cut to Maren’s poll with the caption: responsible boy vs. chaos girl is my favorite sport.
It had been live for less than thirty minutes.
Griffin felt the weekend shift again.
Not under his feet this time.
Under his skin.
This was no longer a contained moment. It was becoming a story. A public one. A fast one. The kind that people grabbed onto because it gave them roles to play. Comments. Votes. Predictions. Team sides.
And now Maren was inside it with him.
Or he was inside it with Maren.
That distinction seemed important.
He did not have time to figure out why.
Beckett swept toward them with a basket of props held against his chest. “The people have selected accessories.”
Griffin looked into the basket.
“No.”
“You have not seen them.”
“I saw feathers.”
“Feathers are textural.”
“There will be no feathers.”
Beckett sighed. “Artists are so rarely understood in their era.”
Maren reached into the basket and pulled out a pair of oversized heart-shaped sunglasses.
Griffin shook his head. “Absolutely not.”
She set them back without argument.
That was suspicious.
Then she pulled out a small white sign painted with crooked red letters.
BAD IDEA IN PROGRESS.
The lawn cheered.
Maren held the sign against her chest and looked at him.
“That one,” she said.
Of course that one.
It was simple. Funny. Clear at thumbnail size. The kind of prop people understood in half a second.
It was good.
He hated that.
“Fine,” Griffin said.
Tyler punched the air. “Fine is his love language.”
“Running,” Griffin said.
Tyler lowered his hand. “Silence is mine.”
Maren laughed softly.
The sound hit Griffin in a place he preferred not to name.
She stepped into the painted wooden frame, which someone had decorated with fake lake flowers, blue ribbon, and small hockey pucks glued around the corners.
The backdrop behind it caught the best parts of the evening: lake water, sunset, string lights, Ridgeview banners, the blurred shape of the team scoreboard glowing across the lawn.
Maren fit inside the frame like she had been designed for golden hour.
Yellow sundress. Loose hair. Bare legs. One strap sliding slightly toward her shoulder. She held the sign with both hands, smile tilted, eyes bright.
She looked like trouble.
Not the easy kind people liked to joke about.
The real kind.
The kind that made a man question whether his life was too quiet or if he had simply mistaken control for peace.
“Hayes,” she called. “This photo requires two people.”
“I am aware.”
“Then why are you standing over there like a man waiting for a dental procedure?”
Nate coughed into his fist.
Griffin walked forward.
Slowly.
Because rushing toward Maren Brooks felt like admitting something he was not ready to know.
The cheering started again, quieter this time. Not a chant. Worse. A hum of expectation. People lifting phones. Whispering. Waiting.
Griffin stopped beside her inside the frame.
Too close.
Immediately too close.
The booth had looked larger from the outside. Inside, it shrank to a rectangle of string-light heat, painted wood, and Maren’s perfume, something citrus and warm that did not belong anywhere near his ability to think clearly.
Her shoulder almost touched his arm.
Almost was becoming a theme.
Beckett crouched behind the tripod light. “Okay. Romantic almost-kiss, voted by the people. I need longing. I need tension. I need the exact moment before emotional disaster.”
Griffin looked at him. “You need fewer words.”
“I need commitment.”
“You need a hobby.”
“This is my hobby.”
Cooper said, “That explains things.”
Maren turned toward Griffin, still holding the sign between them. “Relax.”
“I am relaxed.”
“You look like someone asked you to slow dance with a grenade.”
“That feels accurate.”
“You think I am a grenade?”
He met her eyes.
Mistake.
They were closer now. Close enough that he could see the flecks of green near the center of her hazel eyes. Close enough to notice one tiny freckle near her cheekbone and the way her smile faltered when the question came out sharper than she meant it.
You think I am a grenade?
There was a joke there.
Several, probably.
He did not take one.
“No,” he said quietly. “I think you are holding one.”
Her expression shifted.
The noise around them thinned again.
Not disappeared. He could still hear Tyler whispering, “That was kind of hot,” and Nate saying, “Please stop narrating,” but they felt farther away.
Maren looked down at the sign between them.
BAD IDEA IN PROGRESS.
Then back at him.
“For the record,” she said, also quiet, “I know what I’m doing.”
“I know.”
Surprise flickered over her face.
“You do?”
“Yes.”
“Then why do you keep acting like I am one caption away from destroying civilization?”
“Because knowing what you are doing and knowing where it will end are not the same thing.”
Her lips parted.
The photographer light glowed warm over her face.
For one alarming second, Griffin imagined closing the distance.
Not for the crowd.
Not for the post.
Not because the internet had picked an almost-kiss and everyone expected a performance.
Because she was right there.
Because her mouth had gone soft around a breath.
Because every no he had used all evening seemed to have led him to this exact yes-shaped mistake.
Beckett clapped once. “Beautiful emotional confusion. Keep that.”
Griffin stepped back half an inch.
Maren noticed.
Of course she noticed.
Her smile returned, but not fully.
“Photo,” she said.
“Photo,” he agreed.
“Try not to look like I’m taking you hostage.”
“That depends on your methods.”
“Hayes.”
“Maren.”
Her lashes flicked.
Good.
No.
Not good.
Terrible.
Beckett adjusted the tripod. “Okay. Griffin, angle toward her.”
Griffin angled.
“Maren, chin up slightly. Perfect. Sign lower. Griffin, one hand on the frame.”
Griffin put one hand on the wooden frame above Maren’s shoulder.
Terrible decision.
The pose boxed her in without touching her. Not deliberately. Not in a way that should have meant anything. But Maren’s eyes lifted to his arm, then to his face, and her expression changed again.
Less performance.
More awareness.
Griffin’s pulse kicked.
“Good,” Beckett said, voice suddenly reverent. “Oh, that is obnoxiously good.”
“Do not say obnoxiously,” Griffin said.
“Then stop being photogenic against my will.”
Maren gave a tiny laugh, but she was still looking at Griffin.
The sign rested between them, low enough now that it did nothing to create distance.
Beckett’s voice softened into full creative-director mode. “Now lean in.”
Griffin did not move.
Maren did.
Only slightly.
A breath closer.
Her smile turned challenging. “Afraid?”
Usually, he hated that word.
From her, it did something worse.
It made him want to prove her wrong in ways that had nothing to do with a photo.
He leaned in.
The lawn inhaled as one organism.
Maren’s breath caught again.
This time, he knew she knew he heard it.