Chapter Sixteen Griffin
Griffin Hayes had survived playoff overtime, frozen bus rides, Coach Doyle’s silence, and Tyler Donovan with access to a whistle.
None of that had prepared him for being handed a paddle and publicly labeled one half of a couples canoe course.
Technically, the course was not only for couples.
Denise had made that clear three times.
“This is a partnership challenge,” she said into the microphone from the edge of the dock.
“Pairs will paddle through the buoy course, collect three flags, answer one teamwork question, and return to the finish line. Life jackets stay on. Paddles stay in the boats. People stay in the boats, ideally.”
Tyler lifted one hand. “Define ideally.”
Denise did not look at him. “Tyler Donovan stays in the boat mandatorily.”
The crowd laughed.
Tyler lowered his hand. “That felt targeted.”
“It was,” Cooper said.
Griffin tightened the strap on his life jacket and looked across the dock at Maren.
She was smiling.
Of course she was smiling.
Maren Brooks could smile through a thunderstorm, a lawsuit, and probably an invasive dental procedure if she thought someone might be watching for weakness.
Today the smile was bright enough to bounce off the lake.
Her yellow shorts and white tank top looked careless and cute in the way Griffin had learned meant she had absolutely planned them.
Her hair was pulled up in a messy knot that looked soft and distracting and extremely inconvenient.
Her phone was in her hand.
Her thumb was still.
That was how he knew she was not fine.
The crowd near the dock had grown again.
Families clustered near the rope line. Alumni stood beneath the event tents with lemonade and curious faces.
A few students who had driven in for the weekend held up phones, already recording.
The official Lake Briar account had gained another few thousand followers since morning, and the comments under the fan-voted poll were moving too fast for Griffin to read without developing a headache.
Most of them were harmless.
Some were not.
Post the carry clip.
Make them prove it.
If they win, we deserve the video.
Deserve.
Griffin hated that word most.
He looked at Maren again.
She felt his attention. He knew because her chin lifted half an inch, and her smile became a little more polished.
Armor.
Glittering, pretty, exhausting armor.
He crossed the dock toward her.
Tyler saw him move and sucked in a breath. “Oh, he is striding.”
Beckett turned dramatically. “The responsible man approaches.”
Miles looked up from adjusting the inflatable floaties someone had strapped around his biceps. “Is he mad or romantic?”
Cooper glanced at Griffin. “Historically, those expressions overlap.”
“I can hear all of you,” Griffin said.
“We know,” Tyler said. “That is part of the sport.”
Maren’s mouth twitched, but her eyes stayed on Griffin.
“You okay?” he asked quietly.
“Of course.”
“No.”
Her smile held for one more second.
Then cracked.
Only for him.
Barely.
“I am deciding if I want to make a public statement before we get into a boat,” she said.
Good.
He loved that she had said want instead of should.
“What do you want?” he asked.
Her gaze flicked over his face.
The question landed between them with more weight than a canoe challenge deserved.
The dock noise moved around them. Denise reviewing rules.
Tyler asking if emotional capsizing counted.
Ava laughing at Nate, who was trying to tighten his life jacket while she corrected him with the authority of a woman who had survived one summer of hockey nonsense and intended to survive another.
The water slapped softly against the dock posts.
Maren swallowed.
“I want to tell them the clip stays private,” she said. “I want to say it once, clearly, and then be done.”
“Then do that.”
“What if it kills the momentum?”
“It will not.”
“You do not know that.”
“I know the difference between momentum and a mob.”
Her eyes widened a little.
Not because he had said something dramatic.
Because he meant it.
The smile slipped completely now, and for one second, there she was. Not the content lead. Not the girl turning chaos into engagement. Not the bright, untouchable version everyone loved because she made hard things look easy.
Just Maren.
Tired of being spent.
Griffin’s chest tightened.
He wanted to touch her.
Her hand. Her shoulder. The loose strand of hair near her cheek.
He did none of those things because wanting was not permission, and last night on the dock had taught him something he should have known long before.
The best things were better when they were chosen twice.
Maren looked down at her phone, then back at the crowd.
“Okay,” she said.
She walked toward Denise.
The crowd noise shifted as people noticed her moving. Phones lifted. Conversations lowered. Tyler, somehow sensing a moment that did not belong to him, stopped making canoe puns and went still.
Denise passed Maren the microphone without being asked.
That woman missed nothing.
Maren stood near the edge of the dock with the lake behind her, sun flashing bright across the water, life jacket buckled over her outfit, phone tucked under one arm like she was done letting it make decisions for her.
“Before we start,” she said, “quick clarification from your friendly Lake Briar content lead.”
A few people cheered.
Maren smiled.
This one was real enough to hurt.
“The couples canoe course is happening because you all voted for it, and because apparently democracy has a paddleboard problem.”
Laughter rolled over the dock.
Miles lifted both arms covered in floaties. “Democracy also gave me these.”
“You look brave,” Beckett called.
“I look like a safety duck.”
Maren laughed, then lifted one hand for quiet.
The crowd settled.
“Also, yes, Griffin and I are doing the course,” she said. “Yes, we plan to win because I enjoy being correct, and he enjoys pretending he does not enjoy competition.”
Griffin heard Nate laugh behind him.
He ignored it.
Maren’s eyes found his for one brief second.
Then she looked back at the crowd.
“But the private clip from last night is staying private. It is not a prize. It is not a condition. It is not something anyone earns because we paddle fast in a canoe.”
The silence that followed was sharp.
Griffin felt his spine straighten.
Not with tension.
With pride.
Maren kept going.
“If we win, your prize is watching Griffin Hayes attempt teamwork in open water, which, frankly, is generous. If we lose, your prize is watching me explain to Griffin that losing builds character, which may require medical supervision.”
The laugh came back.
Bigger this time.
Cleaner.
Ava started clapping first.
Then Nate.
Then Coach Doyle, which made half the team stare because Coach Doyle clapped like he was approving a defensive system.
Tyler raised both hands. “Consent is also for content!”
Cooper closed his eyes. “He learned one thing and will now say it forever.”
“He is not wrong,” Griffin said.
Cooper looked personally betrayed.
Maren handed the microphone back to Denise and walked toward Griffin.
Her smile was smaller now.
Unsteady.
“Too much?” she asked.
“No.”
“You did not even think about it.”
“I did.”
“For half a second.”
“That was enough.”
Her eyes searched his.
Griffin had the strange, dangerous sense that Maren was not used to being believed quickly.
He hated that.
He also knew better than to say it on a dock surrounded by people and canoes.
Denise clapped her hands. “Pairs to your boats.”
The dock exploded into motion.
The couples canoe course, as designed by Denise and then mildly vandalized by Tyler’s creativity, consisted of three buoys, three floating flags, one teamwork question, and a final sprint around the dock marker.
Each pair had to collect a red flag at the first buoy, a blue flag at the second, and a gold flag near the final turn.
If anyone capsized, they could continue, provided they were safe, laughing, and not making Denise fill out paperwork.
Tyler and Beckett had teamed up, which everyone agreed was either brilliant or a cry for help.
Nate and Ava had taken the green canoe.
Miles and Cooper were in the orange one, mostly because Cooper had refused to partner with Tyler and Miles had said, “I respect silence, but I cannot provide it.”
Griffin and Maren got the blue canoe.
Of course.
“It matches your emotional availability,” Tyler told him.
Griffin pointed at him. “Boat.”
Tyler saluted with a paddle and nearly hit Beckett in the face.
“See?” Griffin said.
Maren stepped into the canoe first, steadier than he expected.
Then again, he was learning to stop being surprised by her competence.
She settled near the front, adjusted her life jacket, and looked over her shoulder. “You trust me?”
The question hit harder than it should have.
“Yes,” Griffin said.
Her expression softened.
Then Tyler yelled, “KISS FOR LUCK!”
Griffin looked at him. “No.”
Maren’s mouth curved. “Efficient.”
“It has served me well.”
“Has it?”
That was not fair.
He stepped into the back of the canoe and sat carefully, knees braced, paddle across his lap.
The canoe rocked.
Maren glanced back. “Do not look like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like the boat personally failed an interview.”
“It is narrow.”
“It is a canoe.”
“Those are related.”
“We are going to be fine.”
“I know.”
“You said that like someone who has already planned three disaster responses.”
“Four.”
Her laugh came quick and bright.
The real one.
He felt it in his ribs.
Denise raised the microphone. “Ready?”
The crowd counted down.
Five.
Four.
Three.
Maren dipped her paddle into the water.
Two.
Griffin watched the angle of her shoulders, the set of her hands, the quick breath she took before starting something she had chosen on purpose.
One.
“Go!”
The canoes lurched forward.
Tyler and Beckett immediately went sideways.
“Why are we rotating?” Beckett yelled.
“Because you are paddling like a haunted ceiling fan,” Tyler shouted back.
Ava and Nate shot ahead with irritating coordination.