Chapter Eight Griffin
Griffin Hayes knew better than to touch someone else’s phone.
He knew better than to read a comment that was not meant for him, even if it was glowing on a screen inches from his face.
He definitely knew better than to feel the kind of anger that made his body go still and his voice go quiet, because that version of anger had always been the one most likely to turn into a mistake.
But Maren Brooks stood beside him on the old rental dock with the morning sun in her hair, a smile trying too hard on her mouth, and her iced coffee trembling just enough that he had taken it from her hand without thinking.
So maybe knowing better was not always the point.
The comment sat between them like something spilled.
Cute, but I hope people remember this is supposed to be about the team, not her little romance storyline.
Her little romance storyline.
Griffin had seen cheap hits in games. Sticks left out half a second too long. Shoulders angled wrong. Words muttered just softly enough for the ref to miss them. Things designed to look accidental while landing exactly where they were supposed to hurt.
Paige’s comment had that same precision.
Maren’s smile widened.
That was how he knew it hurt.
“First bad idea of the day,” she said brightly. “We ignore that.”
“No,” Griffin said. “First bad idea of the day is pretending that did not hurt.”
Her eyes lifted to his.
For once, no comeback arrived immediately.
The lake shifted softly against the dock posts.
Somewhere behind them, Tyler yelled that a whistle was a public trust. Ava responded that trust could be revoked.
A golf cart beeped near the snack shack as Denise backed it toward the supply shed with the energy of a woman who would run over nonsense if given legal clearance.
Life kept moving.
Maren did not.
Her hand stayed half-curled where the coffee had been.
Then she dropped it to her side, fingers flexing once.
“It is a comment,” she said.
“It is a hit.”
Her mouth tilted. “Sports metaphor. Very on-brand.”
“Maren.”
“What do you want me to say?” She took the coffee back from him, careful not to let their fingers touch.
“That my cousin thinks my work is a cute hobby with eyeliner? That my family hears social media and immediately pictures me taking selfies with hockey players instead of running strategy, scheduling posts, analyzing engagement, directing shots, and making this whole weekend look like something people want to be part of?”
Griffin said nothing.
Because yes.
That was exactly what he wanted her to say.
Not because he wanted the words to hurt her again, but because he wanted them out where they could stop sitting under her skin alone.
Maren took a sharp sip of coffee.
“Congratulations,” she said. “You got the summary.”
“I am sorry.”
She waved that away immediately. “Do not be sorry. You did not write it.”
“No. But I saw it.”
Her expression flickered.
There it was.
The exposed nerve.
Maren could handle being hurt. Griffin suspected she had handled it often enough to become good at it. What she hated was being seen while it happened.
He knew something about that too.
Being seen at the wrong moment felt too much like being caught. Like someone had walked into a room you thought you locked.
Maren turned toward the beach. “We have a plan to shoot.”
“Not yet.”
“We do.”
“Five minutes.”
Her head snapped back. “I am not taking a five-minute feelings break because Paige made a comment.”
“Good. Take a five-minute strategy break because your hands are shaking and the opening clip can wait.”
“They are not shaking.”
He looked at her coffee cup.
She looked too.
A small ripple moved across the plastic lid.
Her jaw tightened.
“Humidity,” she said.
“It is not humid enough for emotional physics.”
That surprised a laugh out of her.
Small.
Real.
Gone.
But there.
Griffin felt absurdly victorious.
Then she narrowed her eyes. “Did you just make a joke?”
“No.”
“You did.”
“It was an observation.”
“With timing.”
“I have timing.”
“You have scheduling.”
“That is a kind of timing.”
The corner of her mouth twitched.
He wanted to keep that.
The thought should have alarmed him more than it did.
Maren looked away first, toward the far end of the dock where sunlight caught the water in bright white flashes. “I cannot start the day by getting rattled.”
“You can start the day however you want.”
“No, I can’t.”
The answer came too fast.
Too honest.
Her face changed as soon as she heard herself say it, like she wanted to snatch the words out of the air.
Griffin let the silence hold.
He had learned, after years of dealing with Tyler, Beckett, teammates, coaches, and his own younger sister when she was determined not to cry, that people filled silence when they needed to. Pushing usually made them build walls faster.
Maren stared at the lake.
Then she sighed.
“I get one shot at this weekend,” she said quietly.
“One. Denise hiring me was already a stretch. She knows me, so she trusts me, but that does not mean other people do. There are alumni here today. Local business owners. Sponsors. Parents. People with budgets. People who hire real agencies and say influencer like it tastes bad.”
Her fingers tightened around the cup.
“If this works, I have something. A case study. Numbers. Proof. Not just cute posts. Proof that I can build a story people follow.”
Griffin’s chest tightened.
There it was.
The point.
Not the public one. Not the polished one. The real one under the captions and glitter.
“And if it fails?” he asked.
She laughed once.
No humor in it.
“Then Paige is right.”
Anger moved through him again, low and controlled.
“No,” he said.
Her gaze cut to his. “You do not get to decide that.”
“No. But neither does Paige.”
That landed.
He saw it.
Maren swallowed, then looked down at the coffee like it had become deeply interesting.
“She is not evil,” she said, softer now.
“I did not say she was.”
“She thinks she is helping.”
“People can hurt you while thinking they are helping.”
Her mouth pressed together.
Griffin knew he had found something there.
Not victory.
Something quieter and more dangerous.
Understanding.
Maren turned the cup slowly in her hands. “You say things like a man who knows that from experience.”
He looked out over the water.
There it was.
The door opening in the other direction.
He could close it.
Normally, he would.
Maren did not owe him an explanation about Paige. He did not owe her one about his family, about responsibility, about the way being useful had become a role and then a habit and then something that looked a lot like identity if he squinted.
But last night she had handed him her phone when her hand shook.
This morning she had built a plan around the parts of him most people teased and called it the good stuff.
That deserved something.
Maybe not the whole truth.
But a piece.
“My dad left when I was thirteen,” Griffin said.
Maren went still.
He kept his eyes on the lake because looking at her would make the words harder.
“My mom worked two jobs for a while. My sister was seven. I was not in charge, not officially, but…” He stopped, then exhaled. “There are things people never say out loud and still expect you to understand.”
Maren’s voice changed.
Softened.
No performance.
“You became the person who understood.”
He nodded once.
“She needed rides. Dinner. Homework. Someone to remember picture day and medication and which bills made Mom quiet. I was not good at all of it.”
“You were thirteen.”
“I know.”
But knowing it and feeling it were different things.
He hated that.
Maren turned toward him fully now. “Does your sister know?”
His mouth twitched without humor. “She tells me all the time. Usually while threatening to block me if I remind her to check her tire pressure again.”
“That sounds fair.”
“She is brutal.”
“I like her.”
“You would.”
Maren smiled faintly.
Griffin held on to the sight for half a second longer than he should have.
Then he looked back at the lake.
“The point is, I know what it feels like when people call it concern but what they mean is please keep being the version of you that makes my life easier.”
Maren was quiet for a long moment.
When she spoke, her voice was careful.
“Is that what people do to you?”
He shrugged. “Not on purpose.”
“That was not an answer.”
He glanced at her.
There was no teasing in her face now.
No glittering armor.
Just Maren, hair loose around her shoulders, coffee in hand, eyes steady on his like she was seeing him too clearly and choosing not to turn it into a joke.
His throat tightened.
“Yes,” he said.
The word felt larger than it should have.
Maren’s expression softened, and he immediately understood why she hated sympathy.
It made a person want things.
Comfort. Recognition. A hand reaching across the space between.
He did not move.
Neither did she.
Then a whistle blasted from the beach.
Both of them turned.
Tyler stood on a picnic table with a whistle between his teeth and both hands on his hips.
Ava was pointing a spatula at him from the snack shack window.
“Spit it out!” she yelled.
Tyler removed the whistle. “It has been sanitized by destiny!”
“That is not a cleaning product!”
Griffin closed his eyes.
Maren made a sound beside him.
Not a bright laugh.
A helpless one.
The tension cracked.
Thank God.
Or Tyler.
No, definitely not Tyler.
Maren lifted her phone. “See? Content waits for no trauma.”
“Please do not use that as a caption.”
“No promises.”
She filmed Tyler leaping off the picnic table before Ava could reach him, then sprinting across the sand while yelling that he was being oppressed by snack shack authority.
The clip was good.
Annoyingly good.
Maren turned the camera toward herself, smile back but less forced now.
“Bad Idea Makeover Day begins with the discovery that Tyler has acquired a whistle,” she said to the camera. “Griffin Hayes is already experiencing symptoms.”
She turned the camera toward him.
His instinct was to say no.
Instead, he looked into the lens and said, “Symptoms include concern, regret, and a strong belief that whistles should require licensing.”
Maren’s face lit.