Chapter Twenty Griffin #2
“Emotional vandalism, then.”
“Ava.”
“Fine. I will hydrate violently.”
She squeezed Maren once more and moved away with Nate, though she looked back twice.
Carter spoke quietly with Denise near the tents. Doyle walked toward the team, already assigning cleanup like emotional consequences could be organized by task list.
For one minute, Griffin and Maren stood near the edge of the lawn, still holding hands.
Then Maren looked down.
Her thumb brushed his knuckle.
“I should let go,” she said.
He hated that sentence.
“You can.”
“That was not a yes.”
“It was an answer.”
Her mouth wobbled, almost a smile, almost not.
Then she let go.
The absence felt louder than the contact had.
Maren wrapped both arms around herself. Griffin wanted to give her back the towel, the sweatshirt, the entire shoreline if it would help.
Instead, he said, “What do you need?”
She looked at him.
The question worked differently this time.
Less romantic.
More necessary.
Her eyes were bright, but not with tears. Maren did not look like she wanted to cry.
She looked like she wanted to win so badly it was hurting her.
“I need to make the best presentation Carter Vale has ever seen,” she said.
“Okay.”
“And I need to not build it around you.”
“Okay.”
“And I need Paige to choke on the word cute.”
His mouth twitched. “Professionally?”
“Spiritually.”
“Good boundary.”
That got him the real smile.
Small.
Brief.
Worth the entire day.
Then Maren’s phone buzzed.
She glanced down.
The smile disappeared.
Griffin did not ask.
He waited.
She turned the screen toward him.
A text from Paige.
PAIGE: Try not to bring your hockey boyfriend as the business plan.
Griffin went still.
Maren locked the phone, lifted her chin, and looked toward Denise’s office window glowing behind the snack shack.
“Well,” she said, voice bright and dangerous. “Now I definitely need fries.”
Griffin should have laughed.
That was the rhythm they had built all weekend. Maren made the impossible sound funny. Griffin found the flaw. She made the flaw sparkle. He pretended not to enjoy it, failed, and somehow the world became less heavy for half a second.
But Paige’s text sat between them like a cheap shot after the whistle.
Maren turned toward the snack shack with her chin high.
Too high.
“Do not look like that,” she said.
“Like what?”
“Like you are mentally building a very organized list of ways to make Paige regret speaking.”
“I am on item seven.”
Her laugh came quick.
Too quick.
“Efficient.”
“I have been accused of that.”
They started toward the side path, away from the last of the crowd and the folding chairs clacking shut on the lawn.
The lake had gone dark beyond the dock lights.
Music played low from somebody’s speaker, softer now, the kind of end-of-night sound that made every public thing feel suddenly private.
Maren slowed near the snack shack window.
For a second, the bright version of her slipped again.
“I hate that she got to me,” she said.
Griffin stopped beside her. “Why?”
“Because I knew she would.” Maren looked at the dark menu board, at the chalk line that still said emotional support fries. “Paige has always been good at that. She says the thing everyone else is too polite to say. Then if it hurts, you look petty for being hurt.”
Griffin knew that kind of person.
Not Paige specifically.
The type.
The ones who wore concern like clean gloves before picking apart someone else’s confidence.
“You did not look petty,” he said.
“I looked like I held your hand in front of Carter Vale after telling everyone I was not building the campaign around you.”
“You held my hand because she tried to make you smaller.”
Maren turned to him. “And you let me.”
“You chose it.”
“That matters to you.”
“Yes.”
The answer came easy now.
That scared him a little.
Maren studied him like she was trying to decide whether to believe the floor would hold.
Then her shoulders eased.
“Thank you,” she said.
“For what?”
“For not turning into a knight with a jawline.”
His mouth twitched. “Specific.”
“Accurate.”
“I did give a small brand-position speech.”
“You did.”
“I may regret it.”
“You should not. It was hot.”
Griffin went very still.
Maren’s eyes widened.
Apparently the sentence had escaped without clearance.
Tyler’s voice floated from somewhere near the lawn. “I felt a disturbance in the banter!”
“Go away,” Griffin called, not looking away from Maren.
“I am emotionally already gone!”
Maren pressed her lips together.
This time, when she laughed, it was real.
Small, but real.
It moved through Griffin with dangerous force.
The snack shack side door opened, and Denise leaned out with a stack of printed reports tucked under one arm and a laptop charger looped around her wrist.
“There you are,” she said. “I have metrics, cold fries, and the office key. If this is becoming a war room, I need everyone to know I charge extra for drama after ten.”
Maren inhaled.
A working breath.
A ready breath.
The kind of breath Griffin recognized from players before a faceoff, when nerves became action because action was the only way through.
“Good,” Maren said. “I need numbers.”
Denise’s eyes flicked from Maren to Griffin and back again. “You need a plan.”
Maren’s smile came back.
Not fake this time.
Fierce.
“I need both.”
Ava appeared behind Denise with a roll of butcher paper under one arm. “I brought wall space.”
Nate followed with a tray of fries. “And emotional carbohydrates.”
Tyler popped up behind him. “I brought myself.”
Cooper’s voice came from the dark. “Which is why I brought supervision.”
Maren looked at all of them.
For one second, she seemed startled by the fact that the room was gathering around her without being asked.
Then she looked at Griffin.
He did not say anything.
He did not have to.
This was not his plan.
It was hers.
But if she wanted people beside her while she built it, she had them.
Griffin looked at her profile, at the fake brightness, at the steel beginning to show through.
And he realized the real bad idea was not the bet.
It was anyone assuming Maren Brooks needed him to be the plan.