amazaynz

[amazaynz]

you’re just a man

here’s an incredibly insightful blurb for the kook king himself!! let me know what you think of this little creation, and if you’d want more. all love <3

rafe was stuck.

he felt insufferable– trapped in some fucking cycle that wouldn’t seem to end. a series of bad habits grew into routine, ones that he had helplessly created. no one was really to blame here, besides himself, of course. it was all his doing, his actions and his deep rooted flaws. these questionable life choices were quickly spiraling into detrimental costs that rafe would never be able to fix. they were too damaging to recover from. he wouldn’t be able to pay his way out of the hole he’d dug for himself this time— no amount of his daddy’s money would ultimately help him, and that sheer reality scared rafe more than he wanted to admit.

but like the young, ignorant man he had slowly become– and despite all the pain and destruction he had caused– rafe truthfully didn’t want to break out of this cycle anytime soon. it was crazy that he let himself act this way, and he knew that. yet, instead of stopping himself, he continued to egg it on. he entertained the pain, he enticed the consequences.

rafe was highly addicted to the feeling of being wanted. it was a powerful emotion, unbeatable amongst any other thing he’d ever felt, and he unchained himself because of this. any morals left behind in that tainted soul of his had vanished into thin air. he sickenly thrived off of the unjust thrills and freedom he created for himself. all of this mayhem, just because he selfishly loved to feel loved. he breathed for that indescribable adrenaline that ran through his veins when a woman showed him care, intimacy, and attention: the kind of things he never received in his youth from his parents, like a young boy should.

because of his incredibly careless actions, rafe mindlessly began to hurt the ones he loved most, the people who he held so dearly to his fragile, little heart. he baited these loved ones, manipulated them, and then finally, ruined them. time and time again.

until it was too late.

you were the prime victim in all of this destruction. you had been incredibly naive. so clueless to rafe’s frightening abilities to gaslight and persuade, while also horribly oblivious to his possessive and controlling nature. yet, like almost all of his other victims that had once been wronged by the arrogant, self-proclaimed “kook king”, you would soon find that he was nothing short of a monster. he was everything you didn’t want to believe; he was simply a product of all the horrible qualities that you had tried to hide from yourself, because deep down inside, you were too scared to admit that it was true. that he had, in fact, tricked you. your pure stupidity and gullibility had been the main reason why you let it continue for so long.

it all started out so innocently in the beginning. he was always so sweet to you, always knocking on the door and greeting your parents with an impressionable charm. writing silly little notes to you in class, staring longingly at you from across any room you were both in with those beautiful, blue eyes. he even went out of his way to drive you to school and back everyday, and quite literally anywhere else you wanted to go. your wish was his command. he didn’t want his precious girl to have to go anywhere, at any time, without him coming along. without him being right by your side.

it was all so overwhelming and exciting. the attention he would give you was intense, and it made you feel so gooey and warm inside. you felt completely wanted and cared for by the young boy; in your eyes, he could do no wrong. he was your sweet rafe, the one person who would do literally anything for you, no matter what the cost may be. he was a romantic, never letting you pay for a thing, always making sure you had the best jewelry and clothes in town, because he solely only wanted the very best for his girl. he thought the world of you, and would never let anyone hurt you. if anyone ever dared to test you, rafe would always get involved; he always reminded you that he would protect you from harm. in the late hours of night, when no one else was around, rafe would confess his deepest and darkest secrets to you. the biggest one being that he believed he would never be able to live without you.

which was all quite ironic, and absolute bullshit, if you think about it now. looking back, the silly boy ended up being the complete opposite of what he once promised. yet, you came to realize those lies a bit too late, unfortunately.

you’d known rafe since elementary school– back in the good ol’ days when he would stubbornly demand rose to pack him goldfish in his lunch everyday, because he knew that they were your favorite. or the times when he’d follow you around the playground like a lost puppy, looking for only but a sliver of your worthy attention. you were so adorable to him, and pretty, and sweet, and just so fucking addicting that he couldn’t get enough of you. he couldn’t bring himself to let you go once he had sunken his claws into you.

although rafe had made it known in the early years of middle school that you were completely off limits, his animalistic claim didn’t help deter those brave tourons that trekked your way in your later years, when piles of booze and clouds of weed became the new norm of partying in high school. bonfires were the absolute worst for rafe, because you were always so damn attractive, and those idiot tourons always found themselves bothering you, pathetically begging for a chance. it pissed him off, the way you’d dance so provocatively without even trying, laughing along with your friends whilst completely oblivious to the lustful stares thrown your way. he didn’t want you near any of those assholes. you were his, and that meant only he could watch you as you danced. only he could kiss you in the ungodly hours of night, in the bed of his truck, as the bright stars lit up your face so deliciously that he couldn't help but stare. 

god, he loved you so fucking much that it hurt. you were everything to him. his whole world, the very reason that he dared to live on this forsaken earth.

well, that had all been true, you suppose. until, on some incredibly strange and tumultuous day, you suddenly weren’t the only one.

one random day, at some trivial kook party that topper volunteered to throw– a summer bash that had all the youth in town buzzing in excitement– was the very moment when everything had changed. rafe was hastily introduced to the culprit that would equally destroy, expose and enhance his world.

this lovely suspect ended up being the slippery slope of drugs– but, more specifically, his infatuation for cocaine.

for the first time in both of your lives, you were now no longer the most important thing to him. and, although incredibly shocking to most of the island, you were especially not the only muse that could make his world spin ‘round. rafe didn’t look forward to seeing you as much as he used to. he didn’t desperately wait for your presence to cheer him up anymore, because ignorantly enough, the boy turned to drugs for comfort. rafe chose to fill the gap of missing you between breaks in his life with the craving of another bump, another line, another gram. quickly, the only thing that began to start mattering was whatever and whenever he could get some fucking drugs in the grasps of his hands. the ecstasy of it all, the way his traumatic past would simply just disappear, making him feel so fucking good and finally at peace with himself. it was disgustingly addicting, but rafe couldn’t seem to get enough of it.

sooner or later, here you were. caught in the crossfire of this burning bridge. you felt guilty, as if you were voluntarily letting him transform into this shell of a man you once knew. he was no longer the boy you grew up beside, the boy you once loved, the boy you trusted your heart with. before you could even seem to get a clue, and to realize his massive problem, the damage had already been done. he was an addict, he was obsessive, and he was completely out of control. it seemed like no one could stop him, and to be honest, no one cared. no one would even make an effort to try and weakly reach out to rafe, contacting him from the planet he had landed himself on. well, no one except for you, of course. he was given up on by almost everyone you knew, as they easily wrote him off to be “just another druggie” in town. they didn't want to waste their time on a lost cause, you suppose. 

yet, here you stupidly were, the last one left. the last passenger on rafe’s crazy train, desperately holding on for dear life. naively hoping that maybe, just maybe, your love could somehow change him back to how it was.

that somehow, someday, you and your sweet rafe would be okay again.

A/N: thank you so much for reading if you’ve gotten thus far!! possible more parts to come if requested <3

[amazaynz]

why does typing 1500 word essays take so much more effort than a 1500 word fan fiction ... like 1500 is LIGHTWORK when it comes to anything but school.

[amazaynz]

I’m glad I can laugh at this now … because back in the day these tweets made me depressed 🤣🤣

You had to be there fr

[amazaynz]

sooo when HS3 tour tickets come out, can we all collectively agree to order ourselves in the checkout lines by how long we’ve been here?? like oldest fans get to pick their seats first type-beat??? (and it’d be nice if we got an OG discount‼️ but that’s another battle to fight…)

and before u get mad or angry, hear me out, LISTEN!! i love our newer fans and expanding fanbase, don’t get me wrong!! it’s amazing that harry has been getting the attention he deserves these past years, and i wouldn’t want it any other way :)

…. but …. i nEED to get pit for this tour🥹🥹 or at least some VIP arrangements ya feel?? i have NOT been obsessed with this man (and the rest of the boys) for 11 years now just to sit in some nosebleeds for yet another concert (technically they haven’t been the worst seats in the world but they definitely weren’t front row either) 😳 i think i finally deserve the recognition of my labor and loyalty to these british lads.

okay, now that I’ve said my peace, i would like to thank you (the fanbase) for your cooperation Xx 💞

[amazaynz]

Why does this make me so emo & happy at the same time? It’s been a pleasure to watch this man grow and support him in each stage of his music career 💞

HARRY STYLES ALBUM COVERS: Harry Styles / Fine Line / Harry’s House

[amazaynz]

sooo adorable and cute !!! I can't wait for their future together <3

new light: better man — rafe cameron

new light series masterlist

summary: rafe meets the first boy that ever broke your heart.

wc: 28k+

warnings: swearing, drinking, alcohol, misogyny, familial problems, a guy being kinda scary for a sec, minor violence, lazy massachusetts geography and complete disregard for winter weather in new england and an under-researched portrayal of the publishing industry

a/n: this is so long. so so so long. i almost feel bad about posting it all at once but here she is! i’ve been working on this for a solid month and i had a lot of fun taking on something this big for new light. you might catch up on this and this if you haven’t been keeping up with the blurbs or just want a refresher :) enjoyyy

“What’re you reading?”

Rafe’s soft questioning is complemented by a light hand on the top of your head, his ringed fingers sifting through the tresses of your hair gently as he comes to stand behind the arm of the couch you’ve rested your head upon in the early afternoon.

“Article about maritime laws. Really interesting—I should probably email it to Agnes,” you murmur, your finger holding the spot in the magazine splayed across your lap as you crane your neck to look back up at him.

Rafe smiles at you, still stroking your hair. “How are they?”

“Good,” you answer, nodding and turning back to the page you were on. You finger the flimsy page between your pointer and middle fingertips, trying to resume your reading momentarily before tilting your head back again. A smile stretches across your face that matches Rafe’s own as you think about your old job. “Beckham looks so tall from the pictures she’s sent. Barron’s gonna hate it, but I think Becks will outgrow him when they’re a bit older.”

“Y’know, I see that. Totally,” Rafe agrees. A kiss is pressed into your hair, and then Rafe is moving past you to sit down near where your feet lay, a book soon perched in his lap. One you passed off to him—you devoured it in less than a week, and Rafe had asked to read it, too. He was about half as fast as you, still stuck in the first few chapters, but committed nonetheless.

You read a bit further into your chosen article, taking breaks to sip your coffee that was freshly refilled by your boyfriend before he sat down. You enjoy the peace and quiet, and that sunlight that streams in through the glass door to your backyard, hitting the strip of skin on your shoulders that’s exposed by your low-cut sweater. Your socked toes dig into Rafe’s thigh but you both just keep on reading, until his left hand falls from his book to encircle your ankle instead, giving it a squeeze to signal that he wants your attention.

“Y/n Y/l/n, did you know that we’ve never been away together?” he suddenly asks.

You flip your magazine over immediately, bookmarked on your place. “Rafe, that’s ridiculous.”

He just keeps reading, even flipping a page. His right leg bounces up and down. “Think about it.”

“You used to come to California all the time. I visited you in Georgia, too,” you say, your foot pushing into his thigh.

“Okay, but like. Away,” he elaborates, book still open in his lap.

“Hold on, stop that,” you demand. “I hate that you can read and carry a conversation at the same time.”

“I can’t—I’m gonna have to re-read these pages later,” he admits, the book snapping shut in his hand. He sets it down on the arm of the couch, turning to face you slightly. “Keep going.”

“We did St. Barts for New Years’ last year.”

“With the guys and Blythe,” Rafe adds.

“Okay, well—we went to Aspen a little bit after that, remember?”

“Oh, right. How could I forget sharing a bed with you and Davis?” he jokes.

You level Rafe with a look at the mention of that. “That’s not fair, he was going through a really rough time after that guy—”

“Baby, I’m not—you know I hated that guy, too. Wren and I kicked him out of your birthday party, remember?” Rafe asks. “Just saying, Aspen wasn’t the most… romantic trip we’ve ever been on.”

“Well, what about Vegas? I know you don’t remember much of that one, but—”

“We went with my friends that time,” he explains. “But this is what I’m getting at—we’ve never gone somewhere where one of us didn’t live, just the two of us. Ever.”

That gives you pause, and you fully close your magazine now, the glossy cover page slapping loudly onto the coffee table in front of the couch where you toss it. You cross your arms over your chest, looking at Rafe in confusion. “That can’t be right. We’ve been dating for a year now.”

“Year and a half,” he corrects, scoffing.

“Oh, are we skipping over the break-up this time?”

Rafe flicks your leg. “I know you love to tease me about that, but you’re the one who prefers our original anniversary, anyway.”

“Well yeah, because that makes our relationship a Cancer,” you explain.

“Plus,” Rafe agrees, past the point of arguing with you about the merits of astrology. “Having an anniversary around Thanksgiving is too much for our social calendar.”

“That’s not even—hush, you,” you say, reaching over to push his shoulder while he grins. “I just… if we keep the original, then our anniversary is right around wedding season. Was that your plan all along?”

Rafe came into the living room with a purpose this morning, you know that much. But he’s derailed by you and your subtle insinuation, suddenly leaning over and pressing his red cheeks into your face, getting kisses in wherever he can. “Actually, the plan all along would’ve been asking you out years and years ago.”

You ignore the beat of your heart to match his tone and mess with him right back. “Imagine us dating in high school, just for a second.”

“Uh. I have, and I did, for years,” Rafe reminds you. He sifts a heavy hand back through your hair again, smoothing the same strands he’d mussed up just seconds ago.

“Okay, so, a year and a half,” you finally agree, giving him a peck before leaning back into your end of the couch. “And we’ve never gone anywhere together, just the two of us?”

“Nope.”

“Well… wait. We have to go somewhere, then,” you decide.

“Why do you think I brought this up, Y/l/n?” Rafe smiles, talking out of the side of his mouth as he pretends to turn back to his book again. His head hangs to the side momentarily, catching your waiting, adoring gaze. “What are you doing this weekend?”

“Absolutely nothing. I’m all yours.”

“How do you feel about Massachusetts?”

You shouldn’t feel your body’s frame lock-up in anxiousness—Rafe knows about your family up there, of course he does—but you do anyway. You reach for your coffee cup on the table, taking a long sip. “That would be… fun.”

“Yeah? I was thinking we could go through Boston, then maybe drive out a ways—I was looking at some Airbnbs already, I can show you some right now,” Rafe says, hopping up to retrieve his laptop, his book finally forgotten for good. You stare into your coffee as you hear him poking around in the bedroom, your mind racing with the prospect of being that close to family you haven’t seen in years—family Rafe has never met in all of the time you’ve dated.

Your dad’s side of the family wasn’t one to come visit very often, and nobody in your immediate family was rather inclined to make the trip up. Except for your mom, whose passion to impress her in-laws had never faded, not since you could begin to notice it. Your mom’s family, on the other hand, lived in North Carolina, so you saw them all the time, and they were way more present in your life. Her parents came to your college graduation, they hosted dinners at their house almost every other week, and most importantly—they loved Rafe.

But your dad’s parents—your dad’s dad—that was an entirely different animal. And visiting their home state almost felt like entering the lion’s den, bringing your boyfriend along as unsuspecting prey.

“Topper actually had some recommendations, I guess he and Blythe kinda went all over when they were in school up there,” Rafe announces, coming back into the room with his laptop open. He’s typing rapidly with one hand, eyes reflecting the LED screen as he scans over the pages. Rafe looks really excited, and if you know him like you do, he’s probably had a Google Doc going for at least a few weeks.

You quickly shake your head to snap yourself out of those thoughts and set the coffee back down, making room for Rafe to come sit in between your legs.

Your boyfriend that you love worked very hard to do something nice for the two of you. And that’s the only way you had to look at it, for now. You can deal with the trickier emotions about your extended family and a certain family friend from your past later.

“Show them to me.”

—

Although you felt confident you were playing it cool about the entire thing, you forgot to clue Rafe in on one crucial detail: under no circumstances could your mother find out that the two of you were going to be anywhere within a one-hundred-mile radius of her in-laws.

To be fair, Rafe hadn’t really given you the opportunity to mention it. He knew your relationship with that side of the family was slightly strained—not unlike how he dealt with Ward—and nothing like that of your mom’s side. So you weren’t surprised that he didn’t ask if you wanted to visit them while you were up that way. Therefore, you never had the chance to tell him that he should keep a tight lid on it around your mother—who was the only person in your family that liked going up there.

And Rafe, the perfect boyfriend that he is, gave her the perfect opportunity to do just that when the two of you joined your parents for brunch the following morning.

“You didn’t tell me you were going to Massachusetts,” your mother accused from behind the kitchen island. You froze in the doorway, eyes shifting to where Rafe sat at the breakfast bar sipping his coffee with a small smile on his face. It quickly dropped once he saw your own expression—and your father’s from where he’d been following behind you from the garage, where he’d been asking your opinion on a Christmas gift for Rafe.

“Massachusetts?” your dad asks slowly.

“Yes, Will. Rafe says they’re going up this weekend. They’re staying only an hour from your parents,” your mom says, a glint forming in her eye.

“Oh no,” you mutter under your breath, head dropping back as you practically stalk over to take a seat beside Rafe at the counter.

“What?” he asks you, looking worried. But your mother steams ahead.

“Y/n Y/m/n, I can’t believe you didn’t tell us. You know Grandpa Ellis and Grandma DeeDee would love to see you. See all of us,” she amends, looking at your father again.

“Mom, we just planned it—like yesterday, and—”

“And I bet you weren’t even planning to see them, were you?”

“Shan, give her a break—”

You wince. “Well—”

“Nonsense. This is the perfect opportunity,” she says, cutting both you and your dad off with one word.

“Oh god, Shan,” your dad pleads.

“What?” Rafe repeats in a whisper, tugging on the bottom of your shirt like a child.

“This is perfect, Rafe can finally meet your side of the family—we can all take the jet. I’ll call Mel to see if they’ll want to fly out, too—I’m sure they will, we never make it up there anymore—god knows this is an occasion,” your mom says, already pacing around the kitchen, reaching for her cell phone. “The twins will have to come over, too. Dylan can come up from school for the weekend, can’t he?”

“Oh my god,” you groan, slipping down in your seat.

“Sit up straight, dear. The three of you can wrap up breakfast, I have phone calls to make. This will be such fun, Rafe—what a great idea!” she says, patting him on the shoulder on her way out. Rafe finds the composure to smile at that, but quickly returns to his perpetual confusion, gulping as he looks between you and your dad.

“Rafe…”

“You’ve done it now, kid,” your dad sighs, hands dug into his pocket as he stares at the same spot on the counter, his mind racing probably as fast as your own.

“I—what—I don’t… what did I do?” Rafe pleads. “Y/n/n, what?”

Your protective instinct kicks in, and you’re quickly soothing him, going on the defensive with your father.

“Dad, he didn’t know,” you say, your hand slipping to Rafe’s knee. He grabs your hand immediately, squeezing your fingers like a lifeline as he looks between the two of you, still hopelessly confused.

“I know,” your dad sighs, pouring a fresh cup of coffee. “You’re fine, Rafe. It’s fine.”

“I’m sorry—what just happened?”

“Well it looks like our trip just got hijacked, and now you get to meet Ellis and DeeDee, my dad’s parents,” you sigh, mentally preparing yourself for the weekend that now lies ahead. Your first weekend away with your boyfriend, gone in the blink of an eye—and replaced with something so unfavorable. “And probably all of the cousins, and—yeah.”

Rafe catches the awkward way your sentence cuts off but doesn’t question it in front of your father, even though you know he sees the two of you making eye contact again. You don’t know why that last part even came out of your mouth, there’s only a slim chance who you’re thinking of would actually be there anyway. But Theo wasn’t someone you’d ever be able to disassociate from your dad’s side of the family in your mind, it seems.

“I’m sorry—is that bad?” Rafe asks, still looking lost for words.

“Define bad,” your dad says.

“Dad,” you scold. “Don’t make him feel worse.”

“I am literally just so confused right now,” Rafe says. “Do we—is it… do we not like this side of the family?”

Your dad laughs at that, full and hearty. “Define like.”

You finally crack a smile despite your nerves, especially when you see how red Rafe’s cheeks are. Your dad laughs his way out of the kitchen, leaving you alone with Rafe and Wilbur, who’s been laying at your boyfriend’s feet this entire time, waiting for table scraps. “Hey, smooth guy.”

“Quick question: does your dad hate me now?” Rafe asks.

“No,” you chuckle, smiling sadly. “My dad hates his dad.”

You catch the way Rafe’s eyebrow furrows at that, wishing you could take the words back immediately—not taking a second to think it through from Rafe’s perspective. “Oh.”

“It’s not—he’s… it’s just complicated. Family, you know?” you explain, stroking his forearm where it rests on the counter. “It’s gonna be fine. It’ll be a lot, but fine.”

“I’m sorry it’s happening like this, sweetheart. But, I’d love to meet them all,” he says. “If they’re your family, it’s important to me. No matter what.”

You catch his earnest gaze, wishing you hadn’t kept this part of your past hidden for so long—because it was about to come surface whether you liked it or not.

“Well, good. Because it’s not like we have a choice now anyway,” you declare, standing up. Rafe tugs you into his personal space with his hands on the small of your back, his eyes still pleading for reassurance. You lean into him, practically eye level in this position, kissing his cheek. “They’re gonna love you. C’mon, help me clear these plates. I want to get home before Dylan calls to cuss you the fuck out in approximately twenty minutes.”

You smile as Rafe sputters again, before walking to the sink with hands full of plates and a sick feeling settling in your stomach.

—

A few nights later, you’d fallen asleep in the middle of your Y/l/n family tree crash course session with Rafe. He lets you snooze on his chest, it was late after all—but that doesn’t stop him from scrolling through the list of names he’d made on his phone, flipping between that and the picture you’d sent him from a few years back. (‘We like Aunt Mel—we love Aunt Mel. And EJ and Tiffany, her kids. We tolerate twin Uncles Charles and Zachary. They’re the ones fighting to take over for my grandpa when he passes. It was supposed to be my dad but he got out, and Aunt Mel was never given the chance. Uncle Zach is always dating someone my age—don’t call him Zach, he hates it. And Uncle Charlie’s kids from his first marriage, Michael, Dale, and Ingrid—the worst. Absolute worst, ask Dylan.) He keeps getting distracted as he zooms in and navigates around the photo, pausing every time he catches your smiling face among your family members, nestled between who he now knows are your Aunt Mel and your cousin Tiffany.

You told him that the picture is from high school—like he wouldn’t be able to recognize the girl he first fell in love with. If he stares for too long, before glancing down to where your head rests on his chest, one of his college shirts loose around your body—in the bed the two of you share, on the frame he built, wrapped up in the sheets you picked out, his head starts to spin.

The sound of your ringtone breaks Rafe’s reverie, his brow furrowing when he checks his watch to see how late it is. You stir just as he’s reaching over to answer it for you, shuffling around and accepting your phone from his hand. Your tired eyes widen and you roll over to turn on the light, holding the phone to your ear.

“Dyl? Y’okay?” you murmur into the receiver. Rafe’s hand falls to your side and you lay flat on your back again, your hand sliding over his own as an annoyed groan leaves your lips. “Seriously?”

“Everything okay?” Rafe whispers, his study session long forgotten as he watches you.

You nod at him, closing your eyes in resignation.

“Alright. Where are you?” Rafe watches you roll out of bed then, standing up and stretching your tired body. “Okay, don’t move. I can be there in fifteen—no, don’t be ungrateful. You know I hate driving on the island at night, Dylan. I’ll get there when I get there.”

You pad into the bathroom with a soft click of the door cutting off your next rebuttal (‘well, maybe you shouldn’t have gotten drunk on a Wednesday night—’) but Rafe doesn’t even wait to ask you, pulling on a hoodie and shoving a beanie over his pillow-messy hair before coming into the bathroom after you.

You’re off the phone now, your tired eyes barely open in the reflection of the mirror as you brush your teeth. Rafe’s not sure exactly why, but he knew you weren’t sleeping well these days.

“Hey, where’s he at?”

“What?” you ask, pink toothbrush hanging out of your mouth. Your eyes catch his new attire in the mirror, your shoulders sagging. “No, Rafe. You don’t have to go.”

“C’mon, go back to sleep. I’ve got him,” Rafe assures you. “Where is he?”

You turn around after spitting out your toothpaste in the sink and rinsing out your mouth, crossing your arms over your chest. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, baby. I wasn’t even sleeping yet,” he tells you, leaning in to kiss your forehead. “Want me to text him and ask?”

“No, his phone died. I’ll send you the pin he dropped for me—hopefully he doesn’t move.”

Rafe’s reassured in his choice to take over for you once he sees how far Dylan had ended up, at the strip of dive bars on the Cut that was over a fifteen-minute drive from your house—even further from your parents, where he’d have to drop Dylan off.

The boy in question is standing under a streetlight, thankfully unmoved by the time Rafe arrives, and he sees his face light up in surprise.

“Well if it isn’t the man himself,” Dylan slurs in greeting, unceremoniously throwing open the door of Rafe’s truck. “Sup, Rafester?”

“Get in the truck, bud,” Rafe says, resisting an eye roll at the nickname your brother had been calling him for over a year now. “C’mon, it’s late. Wanna get home to your sister.”

“I didn’t need to hear that.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“Shh,” Dylan shushes, thankfully getting in the car and buckling himself in immediately. “Y’know what, I’m glad she sent you. Got a bone to pick with you, my friend.”

“You picked it pretty well already. So did your dad and your sister,” Rafe sighs, sick of hearing it at this point.

“How’s Y/n/n?”

“Fine?” Rafe says immediately, before pausing to think about it. “Well…”

“Is she listening to her depression music?”

“What, Death Cab?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah,” Rafe confirms.

“Oof,” Dylan groans. “Unsurprising.”

Rafe clenches his jaw involuntarily, trying to focus on the drive back to Figure 8. But he just can’t, and part of him wonders if your younger brother’s lessened filter (not that he ever had one to begin with) was a prime opportunity. “Can I ask you something?”

“Shoot.”

“Why does she get like this? What’s so bad about this half of the family?”

“Wow,” Dylan breathes, sliding down into his seat. “Heavy hitter. Just—okay. You know how Y/n gets really nervous every time she has to see your dad?”

Rafe clears his throat, pointedly ignoring the way that makes him feel. “Yeah.”

“Probably shouldn’t have said that. Anyway,” Dylan continues. “That’s like my mom and my dad’s family. And my dad hates it—he got out, moved here and said ‘fuck the family business,’ yadayadayada, now Y/n and I are here, where was I going with this… oh! Yeah, man. I dunno, it’s just family bullshit. Stresses her out. Stresses us all out.”

“And that’s all it is?”

Dylan waves a hand in dismissal, and Rafe isn’t sure what to make of that, if he’s honest. “You’ll be fine, Rafe. You’re actually the first guy who’s ever even made it up there, has to mean something. Well, I guess, besides… oof.”

That pique’s Rafe’s interest. “What?”

Dylan mumbles something unintelligible, but Rafe is pretty sure he hears ‘sibling code.’

“Dude, what are you saying? You’ve got a flight in the morning—are you gonna be straight for tomorrow?”

“Bloody Mary on the PJ, baby. We’re all gonna need some alcohol to get through this weekend alive, trust me,” Dylan scoffs, throwing his phone on the floor of Rafe’s car when he realizes it’s dead. “Listen, man. Very important question for you—my sister’s honor depends on it.”

“Uh… shoot?”

“What are the odds you hang a left up here and take me to Papi’s?”

Rafe rolls his eyes again, still shifting into the turn lane anyway. “You know, you really take after your sister in all of the worst ways.”

“Uh, excuse you. I’m an athlete, I gotta eat,” Dylan huffs. “And you love my sister, so if I take after her—Rafe, bro. Do you love me?”

“Mm, an athlete who’s getting wasted in his hometown on a weeknight.”

“Fuck off, Cameron,” Dylan says, laughing gleefully. “I’m only here because of your dumbass, and the season’s over anyway.”

“Let me guess,” Rafe says, pulling into the parking lot. “Veggie nachos.”

“Yep. Should be $8.50,” Dylan prompts. Rafe would never let the kid pay for his own food anyway, but decides to mess with him just a little, giving him a blank stare. Dylan’s eyebrows furrow just like yours do, but looking the slightest bit more fierce. “Dude.”

“The worst ways,” Rafe repeats, handing over a crisp twenty. “Make sure you leave a tip.”

“Duh.”

—

Your sanity for this entire weekend hinges solely on the fact that you somehow convinced your mother to let you and Rafe keep your original flight into Boston. The two of you would leave the Outer Banks on Friday as you’d intended, and drive out to meet them at your grandparents’ house while the rest of them took the plane to a smaller, regional airport in the area on Thursday. You and Rafe would stay the night, then be on your way to your AirBnb, an entire blessed hour and fourteen minutes away, by Saturday morning.

As the weekend drew nearer, you just had to keep reminding yourself that this was supposed to be your trip with Rafe. Flying with Rafe, road tripping with Rafe; Rafe, Rafe, Rafe. Which was moot, because then you’d just start to think about Rafe meeting your snooty, old grandfather, Rafe meeting your rude uncles, Rafe meeting the Caldecotts—nonsense, you have to remind yourself.

There’s no way the one weekend you all make the trip up to Massachusetts, your grandfather would invite family friends to come by. Last you heard, Theo was living out in Boston, anyway.

Then again, you stopped keeping up with him senior year of high school, when you couldn’t bear to even come across a stray Instagram post after everything that he’d said to you.

Rafe, Rafe, Rafe. Focus on Rafe—getting him through this weekend, enjoying the rest of your trip alone with him. Rafe.

“Baby?”

“What?”

The boy in question smiles sleepily, his eyes only half-open at the early hour. He nudges your hands away from where you’d been angrily tugging on your suitcase zipper, closing it with ease. “I said, Top just left to come get us.”

“Okay, we’re gonna give him money to buy a coffee on his way home, right?”

“Yes.”

“And you packed that one white button-down, right? That looks good with your hair?”

“Yes. Although—still offended you don’t think I can dress myself for a family dinner.”

“It’s not—Rafe, my mother will literally make you change. I’m not kidding.”

“I packed it, I packed it,” he assures you. “In our garment bag so it won’t get wrinkled. Along with two other options… and your four back-up dresses.”

You don’t even register his dig, plowing ahead. “And did you—”

“Yes, yes, yes,” Rafe answers, punctuating each word with a kiss, his hands gripping your cheeks tightly. “We did everything. I love you, and you have to calm down.”

“I’m trying,” you sigh, letting your hands drop from your hips as he rubs your shoulders. “I promise.”

“Try harder for me. It’s, like, sixteen hours with your family. We survived a week in the Bahamas with mine, this is nothing,” Rafe reminds you. “Alright?”

“Alright,” you agree.

Just in time, too, because Topper’s Jeep honks loudly outside of your home at that moment. You finish watering all your plants and leave them in the sink to drain, following Rafe out of the house and into the driveway, bypassing where he’s fitting the luggage into the hatch to sit up front with Topper.

“Hey, Y/n/n,” he says as you slip in, looking a little lively for this time of the morning. Even in your school days, Topper always seemed to be one of those people that lived for mornings, annoying absolutely everyone around him in an endearing way, like an un-trained golden retriever. “You excited?”

“Top,” you groan. “What are the chances I convince you to wreck your car on the way to the ferry right now?”

“Okay, jeez,” Topper laughs. “It can’t be that bad. Wasn’t this the family that used to come down all the time?”

You bite your lip, hoping if you change the subject Topper will stop exploring the memories he has. “Yep. By the way, did you find out if Blythe—”

“Wait,” Topper says, shifting in his seat toward you. “This isn’t that family that tried to set you up with that one guy, right? God—what was that kid’s name…”

“Can you not speak loud enough for the entire neighborhood to hear?” you groan, smacking his arm lightly. You glance through the car to where Rafe is still working on configuring the luggage, grateful you’d overpacked as you always do. Topper’s looking at you, waiting for an answer, and you sigh. “Yes. Theo.”

“Theo,” Topper says, nodding in recognition. “Are you gonna see him, too?”

“No,” you say. “No.”

“Wow,” he laughs. “I think I’d actually pay for a front-row seat to Rafe seeing him again for the first time. He’d probably kick his ass.”

You close your eyes, heaving a tortured sigh. “Top, I think I fucked up.”

“Huh?”

“Rafe doesn’t know.”

“Doesn’t know what?”

“Anything about that, about Theo. Honestly, I’m surprised you do—ah, Kelce?”

“Guilty,” Topper shrugs. “And what do you mean Rafe doesn’t know? You dated that guy—”

“We didn’t date.”

“Okay, whatever. But it was summer before senior year, right? Trust me—Rafe knew, moped about it all summer.”

“What?”

Topper looks caught out. “Uh… I feel like we’re talking about two different things right now.”

“I barely saw Rafe that summer,” you remind him. “I barely saw any of you—how would he… I begged Kelce not to tell him about this.”

“Okay, slow down,” Topper says. “If you asked Kelce not to, I’m sure he didn’t. I just meant Rafe knew you two were a thing—like, very much knew. But judging by the look on your face—I’m guessing he never got all of the details.”

“I dunno what Kelce told you—but, no. He doesn’t know anything, really,” you admit.

“Why not?”

“It wasn’t that big of a deal,” you lie through your teeth. “Like, Rafe and Chloe. It was high school, it doesn’t matter.”

Topper looks uneasy, glancing back at his friend at the trunk. “Y/n. That guy was a dick to you, and you were extremely upset, for really a long time. Isn’t that why Kelce started dragging you to Rafe’s games in the first place? I thought—I dunno. That’s when I started to think that you two would go for it.”

The look in Topper’s eyes mirrors one you can recall from that summer, when you ran into him for the first time after Theo left the Outer Banks. Topper had been grocery shopping with his mom while you were with yours, waving awkwardly to you while they dished island gossip. It clicks now that you know he knew what happened with Theo back then—at least the Kelce version.

Things were weird between you two at the time, the same way they were weird between you and most of your friends. You spent the summer essentially isolated from all of them, chasing after a guy who’d never really want a girl like you in the end. Who, at your older age, you now realize you never really wanted in the first place either—not as anything more than a distraction from another. Who broke your heart and then left town like he was always going to—like your friends saw he would from a mile away, after meeting him one time. But you didn’t listen.

“Yeah,” you clear your throat. “Well, I was 17. And I’m 22 now, and really happy with my current boyfriend, so.”

“He deserves to know, Y/n/n,” Topper says. “Especially if that kid ever pops up again.”

“He won’t,” you insist. “We hardly see this half of the family, and it’s not like he stays in my guest house anymore.”

“Y/n/n—”

“Top,” you warn.

“What are you afraid of?”

“You’re afraid of what?” Rafe says, suddenly slipping into the backseat, eyes glancing between the two of you. “Y/n/n?”

You watch Topper shake his head and start his engine, dropping the subject now that Rafe’s back.

“Missing our flight,” you fib, leaning further into the back section of the car.

Rafe smiles and rolls his eyes, leaning forward to kiss you before he puts his seatbelt on. “Stop worrying. Everything’s gonna be fine.”

—

The airport and the flight pass with little fanfare. Rafe, nonchalant as ever, nods off on your shoulder for most of the plane ride. He put up the seat rest in between the two of you so he could crowd into your space, snuffling into your shoulder while you binged shitty coffee from the beverage cart and the in-flight entertainment. You were grateful he slept through most of it, because the way you didn’t shed a tear at the John Hughes movie playing would’ve been a dead giveaway that your emotions were out of whack. You weren’t sure how long you’d be able to hide that from Rafe, but you can’t say it’ll be a while given his track record for reading you.

“Okay,” you sigh, shivering as you wait on the airport curb. “I’m gonna text my dad that they can send the car.”

“They were gonna send us a car?” Rafe says, looking impressed. You quirk an eyebrow as he takes your phone out of your hand and puts it in his pocket. “Jeez, sweetheart. Hands are freezing.”

He cups them between his own, blowing hot air on your frozen fingers.

“Uh. They are going to send us a car. If you’d let me text them.”

“Oh,” Rafe says, smiling, dropping your hands. “No, that won’t be necessary. We’re driving. I didn’t tell you?”

“What?”

Rafe looks around the exterior of the airport, pointing behind his shoulder when he spots the rental car area. “C’mon, this way.”

A million questions pop into your head but you follow him anyway, holding the garment bag in both arms, casting your boyfriend sideways glances. “We’re renting a car?”

“I already rented us a car,” he amends.

“What—why? I told you I’d handle getting us there.”

“Yeah, well. I didn’t listen to you,” Rafe shrugs, pushing both of your suitcases along with one hand, still smirking. “Keep up, Y/l/n.”

“Rafe…” you trail off, smiling despite yourself at his chipper mood.

He checks you in at the counter while you just look on at him, trying to figure out what he was playing at. Rafe didn’t know the area at all, and it’d be ten times easier to take the town car your grandpa would send for you. That’s what you usually did the few times you’d fly into this airport as a teenager or a young adult.

“What?” he asks after you’ve been staring for a while.

“What do you mean what? Why did you rent us a car?” you ask, following the agent through the garage.

“Here you are, Mr. Cameron. Should have a full tank. You can call us if you have any questions.”

“Thank you, will do,” Rafe says, accepting the keys and bidding her goodbye. You stay rooted to your spot, blinking slowly at the white Jeep you were standing in front of. “Baby?”

“It’s my Jeep,” you say, your bottom lip jutting out as you survey the car—the exact one you’d sold before you moved back to the Outer Banks. You loved that car, to the extent that you complained to Rafe about missing it every time you saw one around town.

“It’s not your Jeep. But it basically is,” he shrugs. “You like it?”

“Rafe—can I drive it?”

“You up for it?” he wonders, his grin widening. “I can drive, I know you weren’t anticipating a road trip today.”

“No,” you say, holding your hands out for the keys. “I wanna drive, there are places I wanna show you. And it’s my car. You rented my car.”

A small part of you remembers that Rafe drives way faster than you do, and your control of the vehicle will possibly help delay your arrival time even more. You’d tick down the minutes in just about any way you could at this point.

He runs a hand through your hair, letting it settle behind your neck so he can bring you in to kiss your forehead. “I knew you were stressed, just wanted to do something for you. And this way, we have about three extra hours of alone time. On what was supposed to be our weekend trip.”

“You sap,” you accuse, pushing on his chest. “I love you. And I’m really sorry about our trip.”

“It’s not your fault. It’s technically mine,” he reminds you. “So let’s make the most of it, yeah? And I love you, too.”

—

Focusing on the road is a welcome distraction for you, even though it’s a drive you know well by this point. Rafe is your eager passenger as you point things out to him, hyping you up when you’re first driving out of the city—he definitely flipped someone off for you and pretended he didn’t, laughed while he told you to ‘pay attention to the road.’

You smile and roll your eyes when Rafe tells you he needs to make a stop at a florist on the way over, picking out two bouquets for your mother and grandmother, plucking one singular peony out of one of the arrangements and presenting it to you dramatically. It sits on the dash now, the pink hue reflecting in the front windshield and making you a little giddy every time you spot it again. But it doesn’t completely calm the storm inside your head, and you go relatively quiet after the third pit stop, the scenery indicating to you that you were under an hour away.

“Are you alright?” Rafe finally asks.

“Yeah. M’just stressed, Rafe.”

“I know. But are you alright?” he repeats.

“Fine,” you tell him, turning the music up louder.

“Okay. ’Cause this is the second time we’ve looped Transatlanticism, and we’ve stopped at three different coffee shops so far.”

Your face screws up. “Well, I’m sorry you’re having such an awful time.”

“Don’t give me lip, Y/n/n,” Rafe grits out. “Come on. How can you still think I don’t have you figured out? I know something’s wrong.”

“Nothing is wrong, Rafe. Can you drop it?”

“Are you afraid they won’t like me?” Rafe wonders.

“What? No, stop. I know for a fact they’re gonna love you,” you tell him truthfully.

“Well, you said your grandpa is like my dad, so—”

“Rafe,” you chastise quietly, tearing your eyes away from the fall foliage to spare a glance over at him. “What?”

He grins sheepishly, and it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Sorry, thought my daddy issues might lighten the mood.”

“Rafe.”

“Y/n. Why are you freaking out right now?” he asks, unrelenting because he knows you’re off.

“It’s just a lot, okay? My dad gets really stressed out, and that stresses my mom out, and Dylan and I just… I don’t know. But I promise I’m excited for you to meet the cousins and everything.”

“You’re sure? ‘Cause you’re making it sound like Succession over there…” Rafe trails off, hanging his head to the side when you don’t respond. “Oh, come on.”

“No, no. you’re right—it isn’t that bad, it’ll be fine,” you tell him and yourself, blowing out a breath of air. Half an hour to go.

Your phone starts ringing, interrupting the song playing on the car’s bluetooth radio. The display reads Dylan.

“Hey, we’re half an hour away,” you say, by way of greeting.

“Yeah, have your location, Y/n/n. Rafe with you?”

“Hi,” Rafe answers.

“No, I left him in the Outer Banks,” you say, rolling your eyes even though Dylan can’t see you. “Of course he’s here.”

“You’re a brave man, Cameron.”

You grimace. “Dylan. Was there a point to this phone call, or can I hang up?”

“Alright,” he says, tone dropping. “Yeah, um… Grandpa just told me that the Caldecotts are coming to dinner tonight. Thought you’d like the heads up.”

The nagging feeling in your stomach suddenly makes sense, like you could almost sense something like this coming. You take notice of the way Rafe’s staring at the side of your face, carefully and slowly blinking in what you hope comes across as indifference. “All of them?”

“All of them,” Dylan confirms quietly.

“Alright, thanks Dyl. See you soon,” you say, ending the call before he can reply.

You wait for Rafe to ask who the Caldecotts are, but it’s quiet save for the music that continued playing when the phone call ended.

“Caldecott…” he trails off, the name on his lips hitting you like a shock to the system. “I know that name. Why do I know that name?”

You should’ve known he’d remember. You’re stuck then—between keeping up the act and finally fessing up. But you have thirty minutes alone with Rafe before you’re both swept up in the awkward dinners and the subtle digs and the fake smiles. And Top’s words had been on repeat in your head all morning: he deserves to know.

“Okay, um. Do you remember the summer before senior year?”

“Best summer ever,” Rafe says, throwing you off until you realize he thought you’d meant the summer before senior year of college. The summer you fell in love with him.

“No,” you say quietly. “Um, not—not that senior year. I mean senior year of high school.”

“Oh. Yeah,” he breathes, and you can practically see the smile slipping off of his face as all of the cheek leaves his tone. “Yeah, I do. Why?”

Now you just have to wait for him to put it together—you know he will soon enough. It’d taken Topper two seconds flat.

“Why?” he repeats when you don’t answer. “I mean… it was kind of weird, wasn’t it? You and Kelce were in that fight, and you didn’t even hang around with any of us, not Margot and Gretchen. Or Topper, or… me—um. Yeah, and you were… oh. That’s why I know that name.”

—

Summer, 5 years ago

“Y/n, you remember our son, Theodore, don’t you?”

You’d known Theodore Caldecott for probably as long as you’d known Rafe. It’s the kind of knowing that has always existed in your mind, with no memory of ever not knowing each other. Coming up as kids together, with no actual first meeting pinpointed in your history.

“Of course,” you said. “Hi, Theo. It’s nice to see you again.”

It’s been a few years since you’d seen him last, maybe when you were both around the age of twelve if your memory serves you. And he’s grown since then—towering over you now, but from your shorter height you can still make out the faintest twinkle in his eyes, the way they scan your face and then the bare skin on your shoulders.

“You too, Y/n,” he says, name falling off of his tongue with that out-of-town accent.

“Since the Caldecotts are joining us for the summer,” your mom interrupts, addressing Theo’s mother, June, “we thought it’d be a nice idea for Y/n to show him around. She can introduce him to some kids their age.”

You pretend not to notice the tone of her voice, or the way your grandmother’s eyes light up from where she’s sat at the dining table on the back patio.

“I’m sure Theodore would love that,” June says, turning to her son. “Wouldn’t you?”

“Of course,” Theo says, nodding his head. “Show me around your slice of paradise, Y/n.”

And show him, you did.

Theo and his family—you understood that to some extent they were involved in business with your grandfather, but didn’t care much of how—came down with your grandparents every once in a while over the years, and you’d seen him plenty of times on trips the other way around. So there was that sense of familiarity, but it came along with that awkward re-establishment when you both got a little older. But Theo didn’t let that last long.

You found yourselves on familiar footing—the same age, coming from similar families. Theo always came across a little aloof, maybe pretentious at times, but nothing you didn’t think you could see past once you started to notice he was kind of cute. Not very funny, but interesting enough to keep you company all summer.

He was a breath of fresh air in the humid and suffocating southern heat—he wasn’t your best friend, not even your friend. He was someone new, someone different, someone that didn’t remind you at all of Rafe Cameron.

Where Theo was brash and confident, Rafe had newly mellowed, downplaying that reputation he’d come to hold over the years, unearthing that welcoming side of him you’d always known as his best one. Where Rafe was years of history and feelings, Theo felt like a blank slate. Where Theo was loved by your parents and everyone in your family, for that matter—besides Dylan, for why you could never work out—Rafe had always been the island troublemaker to them, even if your grandfather had always admired Cameron Development from a business standpoint.

Theo liked the music you liked, even put you onto some bands that you still can’t really listen to the same way anymore, but it wasn’t the old crooners or vintage country you’d become used to listening to in a certain silver pick-up truck on occasion. He couldn’t change your tire when he ran over a nail, but he called Triple-A and made out with you in the backseat while you waited for your rescue.

Theo Caldecott played lacrosse, not water polo—and he hated golf, too. He wanted to go to school and be a lawyer, not follow footsteps into a family business. Dark curly hair and even darker brown eyes that you could see right through, not silky, light brown strands offset by baby blues that swam with all kinds of emotions you found yourself delighted to decipher.

Theo wasn’t friends with all of your friends, he hadn’t dated any of your classmates—you didn’t know anything about his friends or who he had dated, for that matter. You only knew him in this bubble the two of you had created away from both of your separate lives.

So you did the Island Club dinners with your families, you gave him the grand tour of Kildare and all it had to offer, and somewhere along the way, started sneaking into his bedroom in the guest house late at night when everyone else had gone to sleep. Theo would never climb the vined lattice to your second-story window or dare to sneak up the main staircase, not after Wilbur barked at him for the third straight time.

Behind closed doors or in secluded areas of whatever Figure 8 backyard, you reciprocated the harmless flirtations and the weighted glances; hidden in back hallways of fancy mainland restaurants, you leaned into the weighted touches. You let Theo drive your car to nowhere with his hand on your thigh, or steer your dad’s boat off the coast while you sat in his lap.

Theo held every door and pulled out every chair, but he’d drop your hand anytime a parent looked your way. The pet names reverted to your full name, he’d sit on the opposite side of the table or at least scoot his chair away when you were sat together. And Theo was a gentleman that way, you supposed—wanted to act proper in front of your dad and grandfather. And before you knew the truth, that just made you admire him more.

It made you think that this could be something—this could be someone new, someone you’d never thought of before. Someone who wasn’t Rafe.

You’d been straight up ignoring your friends for a few weeks before you decided it was time to bring Theo around to something resembling a party. You were gunning for that Midsummers escort coming a few weeks down the line and figured now was as good a time as any to bring him into the mix with your friends if they were going to meet him there. Margot and Gretchen had seen bits and pieces of you two, caught glimpses here and there from coy Snapchats. They had shrugged it off like good best friends do when you promised Theo was coming to brunch then awkwardly stumbled over an excuse when he told you he was sleeping in and you showed up by yourself.

But Rafe, Kelce, and Topper had no idea about Theo. You felt weird hiding it from Kelce, but they came as a package deal, and telling one told all.

Which you didn’t feel inclined to do.

Gretchen’s parents go out of town and it’s the perfect opportunity—Theo takes some coaxing but you get him with a pouted bottom lip. “Fine, show me what possible kind of fun you could get up to on this strip of sand.”

You’re nervous of what he’ll think of the party, of the drinks, of your friends and your life. He seems pretty disinterested by it all, bobbing his head to the music and nudging you out of the way when you ask what he wants to drink.

“As I live and breathe,” Topper says at your arrival, causing you to duck your head and cringe slightly as the two of you approach your group of friends. You wait for Theo to drop your hand and so you squeeze it tighter. And he does but it’s to throw that arm around your shoulders instead, bringing you closer to him while he sips his drink, looking around the house in appraisal. “Look who finally decided to show up.”

“Ha, ha,” you say sarcastically, but Topper’s words sting a little when they’re combined with Margot and Gretchen’s uneasy smiles, not to mention the blank stares from Rafe and Kelce. “Guys, um. This is Theo. He’s the one staying in my guest house this summer.”

Theo unwinds from around you but only to go down the line and shake hands as you rattle off everyone’s names for him. “That’s Gretchen and Margot, and this is Topper, Kelce, and Rafe.”

Theo unexpectedly chuckles before settling back into your side, throwing the rest of his drink back. “Those are definitely… names.”

“What was that?” Kelce says immediately, eyebrows furrowed.

Theo raises his hands in surrender before looking down at you. “Nothing. Gonna go get another drink, d’you need one, love?”

“Um, yeah,” you agree, accepting the kiss dropped to your cheek before you send him off, almost wishing you could follow him.

“Some guy you got there, Y/n/n,” Kelce says bitterly, barely waiting for Theo to be out of earshot.

The timid smile that was already a struggle to maintain completely slips off of your face. “What do you mean?”

Kelce scoffs. “He’s a total douche—”

“Cut it out, Kelce,” Margot says. “He’s really cute, Y/n/n.”

“Oh, well, thank god for that.” Kelce says, looking at you significantly. Kelce can read you better than anyone, and you feel transparent under his gaze. And the way you’ve avoided addressing Rafe at all besides when introducing him to Theo is a dead giveaway to your best friend. “You’ve been ghosting us all summer for that dude? Fuckin’ Young Republicans club president? Nice one.”

“Hey. Back off of her, man,” Rafe says sternly, speaking for the first time. You finally look at him then, realizing this might be the first time you’ve properly seen him in a month now. He hadn’t changed a bit, and you still yearned to understand what he meant with those eyes.

“Whatever,” Kelce says.

“You know what, Kelce? Fuck you,” you say, as surprised by it as your entire friend group is. Your anger is misdirected, and probably confusing to everyone else, but you know Kelce is on your wavelength. “I’m sorry that you both just went through breakups and suddenly remember I exist, but—”

“Oh, bullshit, Y/n/n,” Kelce says. “We’ve been inviting you to hang out for weeks now. Radio silence.”

“Yeah,” you agree, not backing down. “After months of ‘sorry, it’s a couples thing’ or whatever—which is fine, I don’t care. But that’s how it works when you date people—”

“Don’t tell me you’re dating that dickhead,” Kelce spits.

“Kelce,” Gretchen warns.

“I think this was a mistake,” you decide, biting your lip and nodding your head as you make yourself believe it. “We’re gonna head home. Gretch, thanks for the invite.”

“Y/n/n, wait,” you hear Rafe say as you turn your back on him. He must turn back to your friends because you can just make out his hurt confession: “I was literally just sitting here doing nothing.”

“That’s all you ever fucking do, Rafe. Nothing.” Margot’s words are the last you hear of that interaction before you spot Theo in the kitchen, pouring a drink way heavier than you’d normally make for yourself.

A suggestion to head home leaves your lips and Theo practically lights up, kisses you in response, goading you to chug your drink before the two of you exit this ‘lame-ass party.’ You make eye contact with Rafe across the living room one more time as Theo tugs you outside with a hand in yours, and you ignore his text asking if you were alright later that night.

The summer passed in much the same way, shirking the texts from your friends while you focused on all things Theo. You got the Midsummers date you wanted, even though he didn’t want to match his pocket square to your dress when you offered to help him pick one out on the mainland, and even though he spent the entire night whispering snide comments into your ear about the decorations and the drinks and the people you’d known all your life. You ignored the curious looks cast toward you from your friends when Theo twirled you around the dance floor for exactly one song he deemed worthy, especially the disapproving one from Kelce.

And then August comes and Theo’s leaving with the heat of the summer. You sit on his guest bed and twirl a strand of hair as he packs his things, wondering why the pit in your stomach is heavier than you’d thought it'd be as you watch him squeeze the rest of his clothing into his suitcase. He hadn’t let you keep the Cape Cod sweatshirt you’d stolen for most of the summer.

You’re smarter now, but at the time you thought you loved him, or at least could love him one day. What wasn’t to love? He ticked every box you’d ever had.

“M’gonna miss you, y’know?” you tell him, kicking his shin softly.

Theo hums noncommittally, turning his back to rifle through the drawer in the bedside table. “Yeah, we had a fun run this summer, didn’t we?”

Your heart sank immediately, your mouth drying before you cleared your throat. “I was thinking, like… I go up to see my grandparents enough. And you could always come down here for a weekend or something. And then if we end up at school together next year, y’know… wouldn’t that be cool?”

“Oh,” Theo starts, standing up straight. He smiles sadly, an air of condescension permeating his tone as he stalks toward you, a hand falling under your chin. “Y/n, you know that we’re not… I live in Massachusetts. You live here.”

“I know, Theo. But like I just said—”

“I heard you,” he interrupts. “But, love. We’re not really… this wasn’t anything serious for us, right? At least not for me.”

You think back to all the times he distanced himself from you the second you were in front of his parents, everything clicking in your mind. But you were young and naive, and you’d never been able to wear your heart anywhere but on your sleeve—the initial reason you’d ran from your friend and into the arms of this guy who was about to break your heart, a guy who never should’ve had it in the first place. “But, Theo…”

“I really thought we were on the same page about this, Y/n,” he starts. “We don’t… we’re not meant to be together-together, you know?”

“Why not?”

“Because, I’m gonna be at university next year,” he says. “You maybe are, too. But, it’s different y’know? You’re gonna be president of some SEC sorority, some running back is gonna ring you by spring. And then you’ll be back here, raising a ton of kids and going to those country club meetings with your mom. But I need—I’ll be with someone more my pace, you know?”

You feel dizzy with every comment he’s just thrown at you, your cheeks burning like you’d been slapped. “Y-your pace?”

“Someone serious,” he clarifies, his hand still cupping your chin. You realize then that you’ve started crying, because his calloused thumb swipes along your cheek. You shove his touch away. “I really am sorry, love. Thought that was obvious.”

“Then why did you… why did we—” you cut yourself off. “This whole summer Theo, I thought—”

“What, that we’d make it out of here?” he says, eyes glimmering slightly as he shakes his head. “Y/n, come on. You’re sweet as hell, but you’re not dumb.”

“I feel like it right now,” you announce standing up. “I feel like an idiot.”

“You’re not an idiot.”

“Are you sure? Because I think that’s what you basically just said,” you accuse.

“I should’ve known you’d be like this,” he admits. “It’s those eyes, Y/n. You couldn’t hide anything with those, love.”

“Don’t call me that,” you cry, letting him pull you into his arms in a moment of weakness. He kisses your forehead and it feels wrong and you feel worse.

“You can text me whenever you’re in Massachusetts, alright? I loved this summer thing we had going, but… time to get back to real life.”

He sends you on your way and you hide in your room as the Caldecotts and your grandparents make their grand exit, begging your little brother to cover for you. Dylan does, looking not the least bit surprised at your red-rimmed eyes after he watched you head out to the guest house that evening. Your hands shake as you delete Theo’s number immediately, scrolling to another one that you hadn’t called in a while on pure instinct. It only rings twice.

Kelce’s tone is slightly hesitant, like he knows you’re calling for a reason and it’s not a good one. “Y/n? Are you okay?”

“C-Can I come over?”

—

Rafe’s thoughts are going a mile a minute at the sound of a name he hadn’t heard in years. One that meant virtually nothing to him now, but for one summer was literally all he could wonder about. About the guy that had pulled you away from all of them and from him, who drove a wedge between you and Kelce like he’d never seen before and never thought he would, the two of you thick as thieves for as long as Rafe could remember. Who seemed like your perfect match in every possible way, who Rafe couldn’t help but compare himself to even though he told himself he shouldn’t care.

Rafe looks over when you speak again, turning the music down so he can hear you properly.

“How much do you remember from that summer?”

—

Fall, 5 years ago

Rafe formally met Theo when you brought him along to Gretchen’s party. But that wasn’t the first time he’d seen the two of you together.

He’d tuned out any murmurs about some guy you were hanging around with about as soon as they started, like there was some part of his brain that he just decided to shut down. He was fresh off of a break-up with Chloe, and he didn’t realize why it wasn’t getting to him like he thought it might. Rafe suddenly had way more time to hang out with his friends that he didn’t before, he didn’t have to wonder about if he was a bad boyfriend or if he was more into it than she was or if he wasn’t doing anything right or if it was supposed to feel like that—he felt like he could breathe again for a second, that first time he saw you at the Island Club after the break-up. And then things went to shit with Kelce and Sidney, and then suddenly… you weren’t around anymore. Ever.

He worried about you enough to drive by your house exactly twice, never stopping to knock on your door like he planned. Rafe never fully worked himself up to it, would always convince himself he was just overreacting. It wasn’t like you were dead. You just hadn’t answered his last few texts, or Kelce’s. It was strange, and then it all made sense when he heard about the touron from New England that was staying in the guest house. You’d told him about Theo the day he arrived—of course that’s what it was, how could he forget so easily?

But everything really made sense the time he saw you at the Kildare co-op, alone at first. His feet were already in a path toward where you stood checking every container of strawberries for freshness as he contemplated how much longer your hair had grown in the last month—and you weren’t alone. A guy Rafe had never seen before was appearing at your side with a jar of Nutella. You smiled up at him when you saw it in his hands, finally settling on the container of strawberries you were holding.

Rafe left the grocery store before he could see the guy kiss you, peeling out of the parking lot after leaving every item he was holding on a random shelf.

Of course you’re ignoring Rafe—all of them—but him especially. Hadn’t that been what he’d done for the last six months, while he was taken? Hadn’t the realization that Rafe had missed you, really missed you all those months practically smacked him across the face the first time he saw you after his break-up?

Rafe doesn’t ask anyone what they know—he doesn’t want to know. He cares, but he doesn’t want to know if Theo almost kissing you by the strawberries means he’s your boyfriend when just last week he contemplated inviting you to a round of golf for over an hour before finally doing it, only for you to read it three hours later and never respond.

Rafe spends the summer working part-time for his dad, fucking around at SAT prep with Kelce and Topper, and conveniently exiting any conversation that devolved to you as the main subject. He keeps his head down, works on his golf game, takes the long way around Figure 8 so he doesn’t have to drive by your house anymore. He goes to twice as many water polo summer workouts as he’d originally planned to when school let out, leaves Midsummers early after a record low, forty-five-minute stint at the Island Club that involved seeing you and what’s-his-face and your family and his family all smiling and laughing.

He plans to get wasted at the Boneyard every weekend but his heart is just never fully in it; Rafe gets super invested in some baking show with Wheez one day when we just can’t push his own thoughts away while he’s alone in his room. He scolds Sarah the first time she almost gets herself caught drunkenly stumbling into the house in the middle of the night, then feels bad when he almost makes her cry. And Rafe thinks about what you would’ve done in that situation, what you would’ve told him to do, and fixes it immediately and makes sure Sarah knows she should always call him, always.

He narrows down his list of colleges while wondering where you’ll end up; he starts drafting his application essays but he can’t not hear what you’d be telling him to take out or re-work and then that’s no longer a viable distraction, either.

And he decidedly does not give himself time to think about what any of that means.

If Top and Kelce notice they don’t say anything—Kelce too preoccupied with his own residual heartbreak and some weird tiff he has with you for ignoring all of them, and Top probably because he’s Top.

So the summer you asked Rafe about—that passed by in a blur for him. What Rafe does remember, when he formed some of the core memories of his adolescence, what to this day can be brought back to him in an instant the first time he sees a leaf turn orange or feels that long-awaited autumn chill on the first real cloudy day that isn’t just a summer day in disguise hidden under a storm—is that fall.

Summer was slipping away but Rafe didn’t find himself caring as much this particular August. He was ready to get back into his routine, get his senior season started, not have any time to work for his dad. And he knew for sure he’d finally be seeing more of you.

But he threw his end-of-the-summer party like he had been doing for the last few years anyway, making the trip out to the liquor store on the Cut that didn’t card with Topper and Kelce on the day of.

While they’re picking up, Rafe briefly wonders how much alcohol he should consume in order to forget that you had viewed the invite and never responded. He doesn’t know why it surprises him anymore or why it can still bring him down but at this point it just does.

“Do you think Y/n/n is coming?” he finally asks Kelce, about three drinks deep and beginning to grow annoyed by the number of people in his house.

“Fucking doubt it,” Kelce deadpans, a water bottle crinkling in his hand. “I haven’t heard from her in weeks.”

“Me either,” Rafe agrees. He knows you’re closer to Kelce than you are to him, and it gives him the smallest sense of solace that it’s all of them you’re giving the cold shoulder. “Should we be worried?”

“You aren’t?”

Rafe sips more of his beer, contemplating admitting that. “I mean, yeah. A little. Just figured she needed space or something after Gretchen’s party.”

“Space,” Kelce laughs. “Yeah. Okay.”

“You’re kinda harsh on her, man,” Rafe says instinctively, leaping to your defense when you’ve ignored him for an entire summer for some Ivy League shoo-in staying in your guest house. When Kelce is absolutely the last guy he’d ever need to protect you from.

His friend must agree, leveling him with a look before rolling his eyes. “I just hate it when my friends are being idiots.”

“Don’t fucking call her that, Kelce—”

“Oh, I didn’t mean just her.”

“What does that mean?”

Kelce opens his mouth to speak again but his phone starts ringing, drawing his attention to the screen. “Look at that. It’s Y/n/n.”

Rafe swallows down a desperate ‘answer it’ because of course Kelce already is; Rafe sensed the worry in his tone when he saw it was you finally calling after all this time. His face fully transforms from confusion to concern, and he’s slipping off of the counter in Rafe’s kitchen. “I’m at Tanneyhill, do you wanna come here?”

Rafe perks up immediately, looking around and wondering how quickly he could clear out a very intoxicated, large portion of Kildare Academy’s incoming senior class currently occupying his downstairs.

“Yeah, no. Yeah—you’re probably not good to drive. I can be there in five.”

Rafe follows Kelce to his front door, begging with his eyes for any hints as to what’s going on—if you’re hurt or if anything happened or if he can help. But Kelce is on a mission, and Rafe can merely listen in on the rest of Kelce’s half of the conversation. “What do you have to be sorry for?” Kelce asks.

And then before he shuts the front door to Tanneyhill for good, car keys in hand, Rafe hears the kicker. “I’ll kill him.”

And that was that on Theo. Rafe never heard about him again, nobody ever brought him up or asked what happened, and you never offered anything. Rafe wondered for a while but he’d never go seeking information from you, and eventually, it was in the past.

School started then, and you were back but for a while, you weren’t you. Rafe had to nudge you every time you fell asleep in AP Calc before your teacher saw, sending you pictures of his notes or homework whenever you needed. You seemed off in every way and you seemed tired all the time. You spoke softer than you already did and hardly at all unless spoken to. But you started coming to Rafe’s games—started coming to his games in his shirt.

He pressed Kelce, who said you were just stressed and drowning in your college applications, still unsure of where you even wanted to go.

Rafe didn’t get that part, he knew you’d literally end up wherever you could dream of.

One November day, as soon as Rafe sees you crossing the Island Club parking lot, he thanks the past version of himself profusely for deciding to shower at the gym instead of waiting until he got home. He doesn’t know when he became so conscious of how he appeared when you were around, but he can’t help but check his hair in his car window before he calls out to you.

“Y/n? What’s up?” he says, smiling and waving when you actually see him. But even when you wave and start making your way toward him, your features don’t indicate at all that you’re happy to see him.

“Hey, Rafe. Kelce is inside, right?” you ask, pointing back to the club.

“Oh, shit, Y/n/n. He just left, something with his mom,” Rafe tells you.

“Oh,” you say, wrapping your arms around your midsection and exhaling a shaky breath. “Okay. Uh, thanks. I should—”

“Y/n/n,” he begins nervously, taking in your wrinkled sweatshirt and messy hair. “Are you okay?”

“No.”

“No?”

“No, I’m not,” you breathe, shaking your head. “Can I—sorry, I’m gonna go.”

“No, hey, hey, hey,” Rafe says, bending at the knees slightly so he can look directly in your eyes, his stomach twisting when he can see they’re completely bloodshot and punctuated by the bags beneath them—covered in a light sheen of tears that look like they’re ready to fall at any second. “Talk to me, Y/l/n.”

“Rafe, no,” you sigh, blinking rapidly with your head tipped up at the sky. “It’s so stupid.”

“I’m sure it’s not,” he says, stepping forward hesitantly, retracting his hand when it reaches out of its own accord. “Do you—uh. Do you need a hug?”

You look a little taken aback at first, and Rafe almost regrets whatever stupid instinct in his body compelled him to say something like that—what he’d say to Wheezie or Sarah, but you? Why the fuck would he—but a second later you’re stepping forward, right into his arms that circle around you on autopilot.

“Whatever it is, I’m sure you’ll work it out,” he says quietly, his hand rubbing between your shoulder blades. He’s worried to all hell about you like he has been since June, but for the life of him, he can’t stop thinking about how your head fits right in his chest, tucked under his chin. Feels his cheeks flush red when you squeeze him around his waist.

“These college apps are just ruining my life, Rafe,” you say, finally pulling back, hand wiping under your eyes furiously. “I’m so ready for them to be over.”

“That’s what you’re crying about?” Rafe asks incredulously.

You rear back slightly. “Um… yeah?”

“Y/n—you know you’re gonna get into whatever school you want, don’t you? You’re the smartest person I know,” he says, feeling his cheeks heat up as soon as the words leave his mouth. “Um, I mean—no. Yeah. You’re gonna be fine, seriously.”

“Rafe,” you sigh. “Stop.”

“I’m serious!” he laughs. “And you’re also the only reason any of the rest of us are going to get into any good schools.”

Your lips quirk up a little at that. “Rafe, your personal statement was amazing. I read it like five times before I even took out a pen.”

“Yeah?” Rafe says, voice pitched high, blush coming roaring back. “I didn’t think it was anything special. And you marked it up enough.”

“No, don’t. It was great,” you say, smiling softly before he recognizes that familiar glint in your eye. “You’re just bad at sentence structure. If you tell Kelce or Top this I’ll deny it, but it was the best one I’ve read.”

“Oh, I’m telling them,” Rafe scoffs. He goes to pull out his phone, trying to downplay the butterflies he feels at your praise. “Actually, let me text them right now—”

“God, never mind,” you groan. “It was awful. Worst thing I’ve read. And you still owe me a coffee for that one, Cameron.”

Rafe nudges your shoulder with his knuckles. “I told you I’d bring it to school, any day you asked.”

“Tomorrow, please. I’m gonna need it,” you sigh, leaning up against his truck, finally looking relaxed. “These deadlines are kicking my ass.”

“Where are you applying to that’s taking applications so early?” he wonders.

“My top choices are all out west,” you say. “I think I give myself the best chance if I apply early action.”

Rafe furrows his eyebrows. “Out west? Like…”

“California, mostly,” you say quietly. “A few in Washington, too. One in Oregon.”

“Oh.” That’s far. Very far, Rafe realizes. Far from home, far from wherever he’ll end up. Far from him.

“Yeah.”

“I thought… you don’t wanna apply anywhere closer? Or what about your dad’s alma mater—what was it?”

Your features downturn immediately, and you shake your head definitively. “No. Doesn’t really seem like my scene anymore.”

“I’m sure your parents loved that one,” Rafe jokes off-handedly, mind racing thinking about just how many times a year he’ll even be able to see you anymore when you’re that far away.

“Thought we were creating a safe space here, Cameron,” you tell him, smiling where you’re leaned up against his truck. The sun had just started setting behind you, and Rafe would call this moment his safe space.

—

Rafe fumbles momentarily as he gets caught up in the past, clearing his throat before speaking again. “Um… well you dated him, didn’t you?”

“I wouldn’t call it that,” you mumble. “I know he wouldn’t.”

“Okay,” Rafe says, nodding his head. “Okay. But, I mean. Y/n/n, I saw you guys—you definitely had a thing.”

“Yeah, Rafe. A thing. Like, a stupid summer fling over five years ago,” you say. “I’ve seen him maybe three times since then.”

“Babe, I wasn’t—”

“I know, fuck, I’m sorry.”

The harsh exhale puts Rafe on high alert, and he’s searching for that pulse. “Don’t be sorry, sweetheart. I’m just—I wanna figure out why you’re…”

Your eyebrows pinch together. “Why I’m what?”

Rafe clucks his tongue, suddenly sitting up and surveying the area. “Nothing. Hey, do you think there’s another coffee shop we can stop at before we get there?”

“Yeah,” you nod, looking confused. “There’s one in town right before we go up the hill. Why?”

“Really gotta use the restroom,” Rafe lies, and you nod silently, not putting up a fight.

The drive is quiet from then on, and Rafe focuses on what he’s going to say next. But you’re nervous and he’s nervous but more than that he’s worried about you, and he can’t stop thinking about what you said to him last week. About there being boys before, boys who he knew hurt you and made you doubt your worth but not how or to what extent or even when—and you pull into a parking spot in the very back of some tiny, little parking lot in front of an unassuming coffee shop and Rafe makes no move to go inside. He waits for you to kill the engine and then gently takes the keys out of the ignition, dropping them in his lap.

“Rafe, what are you—”

“Theo was one of them, wasn’t he?”

I’ll kill him. That’s what Kelce had said that night.

“One of—what do you mean?” But you’re shrinking into your seat, angling your body away from Rafe’s accusation.

“When you said you’d dated those kinds of guys.”

The words hang awkwardly in the air between you. It was a topic neither of you had approached since the fight, Rafe waiting for you to bring it up of your own volition and you never doing so. He was always hesitant to push you on anything that made you this upset, but a lot of things were clicking like they hadn’t been before and now he just really needed to know.

“Am I wrong? You were talking about this guy we’re about to see at dinner tonight, weren’t you?”

One of your nails picks at the seem of the steering wheel, your hand shaking slightly. “Rafe, I really didn’t think he’d be here.”

“That’s not—I’m not upset about that, sweetheart. I’m not—I’m worried. About you,” he says, his voice falling into a hush. He licks his lips, gathering his thoughts while things start to slide into place for him. Theo was like a missing puzzle piece that had been right in front of him all along. Rafe had been there. “I’ve been trying to figure out all week why you’ve been so upset about this trip. And I thought it was me, but then you said it was all about your family, but you still… this was actually why though, wasn’t it?”

You suck your teeth at that, your head turning away slightly. “Okay. Maybe I thought there was a slight possibility we’d have to see him.”

Rafe nods, his ears ringing. You’ve been in shambles for an entire week because of an ex-boyfriend. “Okay. And… what?”

“What?”

Rafe tries not to let his frustration seep through, because he’s confident in himself and he’s confident in you, but as much as he knows this is putting your deepest insecurities out into the open, it’s putting a megawatt spotlight on his, the fact that he was hours away from meeting an ex-boyfriend that was apparently still well-enough into the fold to be invited to family dinners—by family Rafe had never even met—and Rafe knew literally nothing about him.

And on top of that, Theo had hurt you, and Rafe was there when it was happening, and not only was he too stupid at that age to tell you how he was feeling but you were hardly even friends at the time—Rafe couldn’t have protected you from it if he wanted to, because he had no idea what was even going on. And he still doesn’t. Because you never told him. “You didn’t tell me about him, because…”

“Because it’s so stupid, Rafe. It was so long ago and it shouldn’t even matter anymore,” you say, finally casting a sideways glance at him.

“But it does matter, clearly,” he urges, his hand reaching over to grip your elbow lightly. “And if it matters to you, then it matters to me.”

“Rafe… I really don’t wanna—”

“You gotta let me in, Y/n/n. I’m right here,” he says, the backs of his fingers dragging over your upper arm, a chunk of your knit sweater caught between his two middle finger knuckles. “I’m right here, baby.”

Your arm shies away from his touch and Rafe drops his hand, falling back into his seat in dejection while he listens. “We were kids. I liked him, and he liked me but not in the same way and we weren’t on the same page. And he went back to Massachusetts at the end of the summer and that was it. End of story.”

Rafe fingers the rental car keys where they sit in his lap, reminding you that he has the power to leave. “I could’ve deduced that version on my own, Y/n/n.”

“Okay, well, fucking deduce it then, Rafe,” you snap. “I don’t care.”

“I care.”

“Why? It was five years ago!” you say, holding your hands out for the keys.

He holds strong. “Then just tell me about him.”

Your hand falls back into your lap and you let out a frustrated groan. “Y’know what? Fine. I spent the entire summer following him around like a puppy and then he broke up with me—but according to him we weren’t ever really dating. And we never would be, because he needed someone serious who wasn’t destined to be some dumb southern belle housewife like me.”

“Y/n/n—what?”

“It was stupid, I thought we might’ve… I dunno. But he just didn’t see it like that at all and I don’t know why I even—that doesn’t matter. I should’ve seen it coming, it’s the same shit just coming from different people my entire life. The guys I dated before you were all the same, they had the same assumptions about me. The only difference was Theo didn’t want that version of me. It wasn’t good enough for him.”

Rafe feels like his brain just exploded—all of his nerves are on fire and his hands are clammy but on top of everything he’s just angry. He’s confused and he’s worried and he’s upset with himself for pushing you because your hands are shaking and the last half of your spiel was interspersed with stray tears, but above all else, he’s just fucking mad.

You let out a watery laugh and shake your head at his silence. “Not what you wanted to hear?”

You throw open the car door and slam it just as forcefully, and Rafe’s body follows yours before his mind can even tell it too. He grabs his jacket out of the backseat on his way because he saw you forget yours, and wraps it around your shoulders as they tremor.

There’s nobody around and even if there was he knows he wouldn’t care about how crazy the two of you must look, his arms locked around you and pressing you back against the car while you shake like a leaf against him, your hands grasping at his t-shirt.

“So, I guess that’s why Kelce wanted to kill this kid.”

He gets you to laugh a little, the feeling of the vibration against his chest warming him down to his toes even as he wears a t-shirt in the December chill. “M’honestly surprised he never told you any of this. I told him not to, but he knows everything.”

“I think Kelce is a better friend than either of us ever give him credit for,” Rafe admits. “I mean, I knew something went down with the two of you. But what a fucking tool.”

“Rafe.”

“No, I gotta get it out now. I probably can’t beat him up in front of your grandfather, can I?” Rafe sighs.

“Uh, absolutely not.”

“Okay,” he nods. “Piece of shit, numbskull fucking douchebag—”

“Rafe,” you warn again, laughing this time.

“Alright, alright. More coming later. I’ll think about them during dinner.”

“Y’know, Top said you’d wanna fight him.”

Rafe clears his throat, looking down at you, ignoring the goosebumps raised on his arms where they encase your shoulders. “Topper knew?”

“Might wanna rethink that comment about Kelce. I think we give him the exact amount of credit he deserves,” you say. Your elbows dig into his stomach as you wipe under your eyes, seeming to have cried yourself out for now.

Rafe would probably keep his comment about Kelce on the record. There are treasure troves of information his friend kept from you over the years. Shit that would embarrass Rafe to his once sixteen-year-old core.

“Is that why…” Rafe trails off, feeling his jaw clench. “Is Theo why you were having a rough time senior year?”

“Ugh,” you groan, your head falling into his chest. “This is so embarrassing. I knew you’d remember what a mess I was then.”

“Y/n/n.”

“Kind of,” you admit. “I don’t think it was him—just what he said. I was already unsure about what I wanted to do and the fact that he had my life planned out in his head just really threw me for a loop.”

“Do I even want to know the verbatim?”

“No,” you sigh. “Maybe once he’s no longer within hand-throwing distance.”

“Alright,” Rafe concedes.

“This is pathetic,” you murmur. “S’why I didn’t wanna tell you.”

“Hey,” he warns. “Who are you talking about? Him?”

“No. Me,” you correct. “I let it affect me so much, through some really big decisions, and he… Theo probably doesn’t even remember it the same way. I’m pretty sure he’s engaged.”

“You’re not pathetic,” Rafe says. He holds steady even when you roll your eyes at him. “I’m serious. If this guy was a dick to you, you’re allowed to be upset about it. Doesn’t matter when it happened or what you did after.”

“Yeah, but—”

“No, Y/n/n. No,” he says. “It doesn’t matter how you got there—you ended up exactly where you were supposed to anyway.”

With me. You ended up with me, he thinks.

“I did?”

“Of course. And you’re killing it, baby,” he says.

Your bottom lip pouts slightly, and Rafe has to lean down and kiss it. “I am?”

“You are.”

“Okay,” you nod, still not looking like you fully agree.

“Hey. Look at me for a second, and then we have to get back in the car before we freeze to death,” he says, holding your chin in between his thumb and forefinger. Your still slightly teary eyes blink up at him, and he can’t believe he has to sit through an entire dinner with the guy who did this to you without strangling him. “I know I don’t need to tell you that he was wrong. Because I know it, and you know it. That guy will know it one day, too. But you’re my best friend, you’re still the smartest person I know, and I don’t think I could do half the things I’m able to do without you. I’m never gonna stop protecting you, but when I can’t, I need to know that you know all of those things. And that I love you, and that you’re one thousand percent way too good for me. Too good for any of the fucking idiots that had you before me—but I’m not letting you go.”

Your eyes are wide, and you nod slowly. “I know.”

“I love you,” he repeats, pressing his lips into your hairline. “And I know it took a lot to tell me this, so thank you.”

“Y-you’re welcome?” you wonder, eyebrows furrowed. “Rafe I-I, I feel so bad. I should’ve told you earlier…”

Rafe shrugs, his shoulders twitching into a shiver. “You told me now. It’s alright.”

“You’re too good for me,” you counter, turning Rafe’s words on him.

“None of that,” he decides. “Now get back in the car. You look cute in my jacket, but I am not built for this weather.”

—

After an odyssey of coffees and tears and confessions and Death Cab for Cutie albums, you and Rafe finally pull into your grandparents’ driveway, the crunch of the gravel under your tires a familiar and almost foreboding sound.

“I didn’t know he was coming,” Rafe says. You can practically hear the smile in your boyfriend’s voice and it eases a little tension out of your body, and you’re able to give him a matching grin as you shrug.

“Might’ve slipped my mind to tell you,” you say coyly, pulling the car to a stop.

Dylan stands on the sprawling porch with Wilbur at his side, waving you over when the two of you get out of the car. “Ah, there’s the love birds. Finally.”

“Wilbur!” your boyfriend calls, kneeling when your dog trots up to him. You roll your eyes fondly at the display, turning back to the prying eyes of your little brother.

“How’d it go?”

You tilt your head in confusion, joining him on the porch, surveying the property. It’d been a while, but everything about your grandparents’ front yard looked exactly the same. “How’d what go?”

“Uh, the Theo bomb,” he says. You hit him in his stomach.

“You did that on purpose, didn’t you? You called to tell me when you knew Rafe would ask about it,” you accuse.

“Of course I did,” he shrugs, rubbing at his stomach and wincing. “What? You weren’t gonna tell him. And Rafe’s my guy.”

“Oh, is he?” you laugh.

“He loves me. Ask him.”

“Well, thanks for the nudge, I guess,” you say, bumping your shoulder into his.

“How’d it go?” he asks, sipping out of his tumbler and looking at you over the rim, sunglasses pushed down his nose. You loved when he pretended he didn’t care about you.

“As expected,” you say, willingly skipping over your roadside breakdown in Rafe’s arms. “I’m not convinced he’ll keep his promise to not throw punches in the dining room.”

“I’ll hold him down,” Dylan says.

“Rafe?”

“No, Theo.”

“Dyl,” you scold, pushing his arm. “Stay out of trouble this weekend, will you?”

“I will be on my absolute worst behavior,” he says. “You know this. You’ve always known this.”

“Please, I’m already gonna be wrangling Rafe—”

“Okay, mom, chill the fuck out, will you?” he sighs. “Dad’s already at defcon one.”

“Oh no, really?”

“Really. But hey,” his voice drops in volume. “Theo’s engagement? Toast. I guess he didn’t get into law school and then he got a DUI or something, too. She called it off. I was told to tell you that we’re not supposed to bring it up in front of him or June and Jerry. But, I want you to know I’m absolutely going to. At least twice. I think three is overdoing it, no?”

You almost feel indifferent to Theo’s life update, you realize, looking at where Rafe is still playing with your dog by the car, the trunk now open but still not unloaded. You didn’t tell Rafe he was coming as a little surprise because you figured he’d be nervous to meet your family—you should’ve known he’d be calm and collected when you needed to lean on him. You’d be stupid to care about any past fling’s love life when this is what you have in your present. “Dylan, seriously. Reel it in for everyone’s sake tonight.”

“No promises.”

“Should we go inside?” Rafe says, out of breath and holding all of your luggage, your golden retriever circling him in excitement.

“You think you’re ready for that, Cameron?” Dylan teases. Rafe shoves the garment bag into his chest forcefully, causing him to scowl before leading the two of you inside. “Alright, you asked for it.”

“Is everyone else already here?” you inquire.

“Yeah, dinner’s in two hours,” he reminds you. “Greenhouse, don’t forget.”

You just laugh lightly and roll your eyes, which causes Rafe to look at you in confusion, his fingers encircling your wrist. “What happens at the greenhouse?”

Dylan laughs too, pushing the front door open. “You have so much to learn, my friend.”

“Dylan, leave him alone.”

—

Rafe is absolutely, positively shitting it.

One second, the two of you are upstairs freshening up for dinner together. The next, you’re nowhere in sight—although, it’s a big house and there’s probably at least ten more rooms he could’ve checked. And then he’s intercepted by your dad who has a look in his eye that Rafe has never seen (not even the first time he saw him after the break-up), who’s introducing him to your cousin EJ (who you like) and your uncles Zach and Charles (who you… don’t, Rafe thinks) and he maybe feels a little weird that he already knows all of their names, and knows that the baby strapped to EJ’s chest is called Kendra but everyone calls her Kenny and she has recently picked up a strawberry allergy.

“My daughter is in the kitchen with the rest of the ladies,” your dad says, catching Rafe looking around. “Come sit with us.”

“Oh, I should—”

“Wasn’t asking, son,” your dad whispers. “My father wants to talk to you.”

“Oh, cool,” Rafe says. “Cool.”

“You’re fine, kid.”

“Rafe,” Ellis says, looking at him appraisingly from across the table in his study. Rafe takes a seat immediately. “Is that short for something?”

“Uh, no, sir,” Rafe says. “It’s just Rafe.”

“And what did you say your last name was?”

“Cameron.”

“Ah, Cameron,” he says, leaning back in his chair. “Yes. That’s right, I remember your father from years and years ago. Ward? Good man.”

“Uh… yeah,” Rafe says, nodding slowly. That was definitely a new one. “Yeah, uh, thank you. That’s my dad.”

“Development, right? Is that good money?” Ellis asks. Dylan laughs into his whiskey glass, your cousin EJ just shakes his head, reaching down and giving Kenny a finger to grab onto. Rafe looks to your dad for help, who just stares straight ahead at his own glass, circling the rim with a pointer finger.

“We do fine,” Rafe finally says, hoping that will suffice. Ellis looks at him in determination.

“Now, don’t be modest, Rafe,” he demands. “It’s just a question. Simple, but important.”

“Alright, grandpa. Give it a rest,” EJ says, eyes cutting over to Rafe. Rafe nods in his general direction, not taking his eyes off of Ellis, who doesn’t seem to be done.

“If you intend to marry my granddaughter—”

“Dad.”

“It’s a serious question, William. I’m sure you haven’t even bothered to ask this of him yet—when they’ve been running around together for what, two years now?”

“Uh, well—year and a half,” Rafe mutters. “But, Y/n—she’s. We’ve talked about this and everything, but she’s doing great all on her own, with the foundation and—she doesn’t need—”

“Hope I’m not interrupting anything,” a voice says from the entry to your grandfather’s study, Rafe’s words dying on his lips as he turns to see who it belongs to.

“Oh, thank god. This was starting to bore me,” Dylan murmurs, tossing the rest of his glass back. He leans over into Rafe’s side. “Money’s on you, dude.”

“Theodore, my boy,” Ellis says. The hair on the back of Rafe’s neck stands up as he watches Theodore Caldecott swagger into the sitting room, bypassing everyone to exchange greetings with Ellis first. My boy. “So nice to have you out here again.”

“Not every day the whole family is back in town anymore, is it?” Theo says brushing his hands down the front of his sweater vest. “My mother insisted I come up from the city when she heard.”

Rafe’s jaw clenches as Dylan snorts, the sound catching your grandfather’s attention. “You remember my grandson Dylan, don’t you?”

“Of course, it’s nice to see you, buddy,” Theo says, leaning over the table to shake his hand. Dylan rejects him with a fist bump.

“‘Sup. Sorry about the engagement.”

“Mr. Y/l/n,” Theo continues to your father, undeterred. His eyes flicker to Rafe briefly, but he doesn’t say anything and neither does Rafe. “It’s nice to see you again as well. I was actually wondering if your daughter was around? I heard she’d be here today, but I have yet to run into her.”

Rafe sits up straighter in his seat, now demanding Theo’s attention at the mere mention of you. “She’s off with her cousins.”

Theo looks slightly taken aback at being addressed by him, his hands slipping into the pockets of his khakis as he leans back on the heels of his gaudy loafers. “I see. And you are…?”

Rafe stands to shake his hand also, holding back a smile when he realizes he still has a few inches—at least three—on this guy. He remembered that much from the first time they met in Kildare, clocking the guy's height when he wasn’t inspecting every part where the two of you were touching or worrying about how much you’d had to drink.

“Nice to meet you man,” he lies. “I’m Rafe. Y/n’s boyfriend.”

Rafe can see the moment his statement throws the other boy completely off guard. He gives him a tight-lipped smile and a firm handshake, noticing Theo’s grip is limp in his hand. “Oh, I didn’t know Y/n had a boyfriend.”

“You know it’s funny, Rafe,” Ellis speaks from the head of the table again. “For a while there, we thought Theo and Y/n might make a go of it.”

They did. Or she did. And he broke her heart over it, Rafe wants to say.

“Really?” he muses, raising his eyebrows. “Well. Sorry, man.”

Rafe isn’t sorry, not at all. He knows that, and he knows Theo knows that from the way that he said it, but the kid just smiles with a glint in his eye that Rafe decides he despises.

“No apologies are in order,” Theo says, laughing haughtily. “Ancient history, Y/n and I are. But hey—better keep an eye on her.”

If Rafe was sixteen years old again and not currently in front of half of your family, including a baby, he might’ve lunged over the table and laid Theo out right then and there. He knows he could—one sweep of Theo’s physique tells him that it’d be no problem for him, not then and not now. But instead, he sits back down and sips on a little more of his whiskey, hardening his stare at the other guy. “I always do.”

Your uncles continue bickering with your dad over the business after that, Dylan’s messing around on his phone, and EJ’s preoccupied with his baby, leaving Rafe to do nothing but stare across the table at how Ellis and Theo are getting along. Rafe knows you don’t hold your father’s side of the family very high in your head but it bothers him on a physical level, the way that Theo is laughing along with whatever your grandfather is saying, getting shoulder pats when all Rafe got was a firm handshake and a gruff ‘pleased to meet you’ before his questioning started.

“Hey.” EJ’s looking at Rafe from beside him, tilting his head toward the door. “Wanna help me feed Kendra?”

Babies terrify Rafe but he thinks he probably would’ve taken an offer from a grizzly bear if it meant escaping these four walls and his own thoughts, so he nods and follows behind EJ without a second thought. He might’ve thought it through just a millisecond longer, he realizes, once your cousin unclips the baby from the wrap on his chest and makes to hand her over to Rafe.

“Wait—I, I don’t think I’ve ever held an actual baby before,” Rafe admits. The closest was Beckham, who was four by the time Rafe first met him. “Y/n and I had strawberries for breakfast and we washed our hands a billion times—I just don’t wanna hurt her.”

“You won’t hurt her, and I’ll be right here to kick your ass if you do,” EJ says. “Just support her head. She’s not very fussy right now, you’ll be fine.”

“U—uh, yeah. Okay,” Rafe nods, accepting Kenny willingly when she’s carefully laid into his arms. She wriggles slightly, making Rafe panic for a second, before she settles into his arms and promptly falls back asleep. Rafe stares at her for a second, her chubby cheeks and her long lashes. “She’s… she’s so cute.”

“Isn’t she?” EJ says proudly, reaching over and adjusting the cap on her head. “You’re a natural, Rafe. She’s snoozin’, probably won’t wake up for an hour if you sit still.”

Rafe looks at the small bundle of warmth in his arms, notices the way she lets out a small coo and wriggles again, and thinks he could probably do that if asked. “Don’t we have to wake her up, though? Y’know, so she can eat?”

“Oh, she’s not hungry,” EJ says. “She won’t need to eat again for another two hours.”

Rafe looks up at him in confusion, his grip tightening on Kendra when he’s not looking at her, just in case. “But you said…”

“I lied. Welcome to the family,” your cousin laughs, sinking back into the couch. The fire crackles in front of them in the sitting room EJ had chosen. “Figured you could use an out.”

Rafe clears his throat and looks back down at Kendra, remembering how you said EJ was your favorite cousin. “That obvious, huh?”

“Nah, you’re fine,” EJ says. “I just know how my grandfather can be. And I’m biased, but I think my baby makes way better company.”

“I’d have to agree,” Rafe says softly, still looking at her, completely transfixed by this point.

There’s a soft patter of feet in the distance coming from the direction of the kitchen, followed by quick footsteps and a flash of hair the same color as EJ’s. “Daddy!”

“Oof,” EJ suddenly grunts, pulling the little boy that had just mowed into his shins into his lap. “Noah, can you say ‘hi’ to your Uncle Rafe?”

“Hi, Uncle Rafe,” Noah says. “I’m Noah.”

“Uncle?” you murmur quietly, coming and settling into Rafe’s side on the couch. From where you followed Noah into the room behind them, you must not have seen Rafe’s precious cargo, because you gasp quietly when you do see Kendra in his lap, your hand falling to a light touch on her head. “Well, hi there, Kenny.”

Rafe readjusts his hold on the baby again before tearing his eyes away from her to look at you, his cheeks going hot as he watches you coo quietly, your arms pressed together as you lean over him. “Hey, sweetheart.”

“Hey,” you say softly, pressing your lips into his for only a moment, the two of you very aware that your cousin and nephew are only a foot away. Your eyes flicker down Rafe’s entire body, the way he’s sitting completely still, hunched over Kendra with steady arms encircling her. “Look at you.”

“Look at me.”

“Ellis Jr., I can’t believe you got him to hold her,” you marvel, looking at your cousin.

“Didn’t give him much of a choice, but he’s doing fine, right?” EJ says, smiling at the trio. “You guys look great.”

You duck your head into Rafe’s neck at the insinuation, and Rafe’s right there with you with a fluttery feeling in his stomach. He presses a kiss into your hair. “I can’t see us, but I know we do, too.”

“Don’t give me any ideas, I swear, Cameron,” you murmur.

“Rafe did great in there,” EJ says, nodding back to your grandfather’s study. “Should’ve seen him.”

“I’m sure he did,” you say quietly, still leaned into Rafe’s space as you fawn over the baby in his lap. Rafe would bottle this feeling if he could.

“Caldecott kid was looking for you,” EJ mentions off-handedly, straightening out Noah’s shirt collar.

Rafe feels your body lock up where you’re still pressed into him. “Me? Wait, is he here already?”

“He’s here,” Rafe mentions quietly, the bottle-worthy feeling now a memory.

—

You and Rafe trail the rest of your older cousins in the tall grass as you all make your way out to the greenhouse, a pre-family dinner tradition for every cousin ever since they hit the age you’d deemed worthy to be included, seventeen. Rafe still doesn’t understand why you’re all out here but you keep your lips sealed on the subject, far too preoccupied with the fact that he saw Theo than anything else.

“Proud of you,” you joke, your fingers roaming over all of his knuckles as if to look for evidence.

“Very funny,” Rafe muses, tucking you under his arm. “You make me sound like an attack dog.”

“No,” you say. “I’m just kidding, Rafe.”

“It bothers me that he was looking for you,” Rafe admits. You pull him to a stop and he sighs, one hand digging into his pockets and the other scratching the back of his neck. “It bothers me a lot. I thought you guys weren’t on good terms.”

“We’re not,” you say. “We’re not on any terms, Rafe. I haven’t spoken to Theo in years.”

“I know that. But I don’t think he does, Y/n/n, he was—”

“Rafe.”

“I just need to know what you want from me here, Y/n,” Rafe says in a rush. “You know I wouldn’t even let him come near you if that’s what you wanted. And that’s what I want, but…”

Your lips quirk up a little bit. “You’re not jealous, Rafe Cameron. Are you?”

He doesn’t rise to the bait, and your heart sinks as he sighs in frustration, stepping closer to him and tugging on his hand. “I’m not jealous. I just hate that guy and I’m really worried about you, but I’m always gonna follow your lead.”

“You didn’t have any reason to hate him before a few hours ago.”

Rafe furrows his eyebrows. “I did, actually. But I just hate him more now.”

You nod in realization that all those years ago, even though you didn’t feel like Rafe was in your life, he was right there on the periphery. And he’d had that same protective streak ever since you’d known him; your heart could hardly handle the way he worried about his sisters, or any of your friends, let alone when you were the focus of that trait of his. But this weekend was bigger than the two of you and your three-month-long fling with Theodore Caldecott. “Rafe.”

“What?”

“My parents are already stressed, I know Dylan’s gonna be on one, and I just don’t think it’d help if you—”

“Got it,” Rafe sighs. “Best behavior.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes,” he promises. “I solemnly swear I will not kick Sweater Vest’s ass in front of your Grandma DeeDee tonight.”

You giggle, leaning up to lock your arms around his shoulders and kiss him. “My hero.”

“Cut that out.”

“You were quite the topic in the kitchen, you know. Grandma and Aunt Mel said you were very handsome, and EJ’s wife said they didn’t make them like you when she was my age.”

“Please don’t tell EJ that. I like him. And his baby,” Rafe admits. “Can we finally find out what this greenhouse is about?”

Rafe goes to open the door but you stop him with a hand to his chest. “There’s a way to do this.”

You ignore his quirked eyebrow to knock on the door in the correct pattern. The door immediately cracks open and Dylan’s head pops out. “Password?”

“Dylan, come on.”

“Password,” he insists. “We’re keeping shit tight this year, Dale already tried to sneak in.”

You roll your eyes. “Grapefruit.”

“You may enter,” Dylan decides, opening the door wide enough for the two of you to step through.

Grandma DeeDee’s greenhouse was by far your favorite place on the entire property, ever since you were a child. You, EJ, and his sister Tiffany used to follow behind her like lost puppies, helping her tend to all of her plants. EJ eventually got pulled out of the rotation, your grandfather telling him it was time he started shadowing him instead, or playing a sport, or just something that wasn’t so… feminine. So it was just you, Tiffany, and your grandmother after that, and it was where your love for taking care of plants even came from in the first place. It was the one thing you missed the most about coming up here.

But part of why you missed it—you had to admit—was the pre-dinner tradition started by EJ and Tiffany, the two eldest cousins, years and years ago. It was the only place they could think of to sneak booze at family gatherings before being of age, slowly folding in the younger cousins as they grew up.

As of now, it was you Rafe, EJ, Tiffany, who brought her girlfriend, Penny, this time around, Dylan, and your Uncle Zach’s son, Michael. Dale and Ingrid were still too young.

You’d been slightly worried Theo might wander his way out here, like he had a few times before. You distinctly remember the year you were so excited to finally go to the greenhouse. Theo joined the festivities before Thanksgiving dinner your senior year of high school and he brought his new girlfriend. You took three shots in a row.

EJ took one look at you and told Tiffany to help you get upstairs undetected, not wanting to send you to dinner like that. He told everyone you weren’t feeling well before coming upstairs to find Tiffany holding you in her arms while you cried.

“Rafe, give me a boost,” you direct, shaking the memory from your head. “I think there should be something stowed at the back of the top shelf.”

“Uh, yeah,” Rafe says, hurrying to bend at the knee, hands outstretched for you. “What exactly are you looking for?”

“Get up, kid,” EJ laughs. “I figured it was time we upgraded from the bottle of gold-flecked vodka we’ve been sipping off of for years.”

He brandishes a new bottle of 1942 from under his coat, Dylan whooping and Tiffany humming in approval.

“Blegh,” Michael says.

“Shut up, Mike,” Dylan says. “You turned seventeen last week, you honestly shouldn’t even be—”

“And we have reason to celebrate tonight,” EJ continues, ignoring both of them. “Because Y/n and Dylan finally made it back and we have two new souls brave enough to face Grandpa Ellis and all of his charms. Rafe and Penny, good fucking luck.”

You and Tiffany both boo EJ for scaring your respective partners (even though he, as the sole married cousin, has the most expertise) but Rafe and Penny just take it all in stride, looping their arms before taking their tequila shots. You stand beside Tiffany, sharing in a feeling of fondness as you watch the two of them settle into the hectic dynamic. A full round is poured and passed around; Rafe cackles at your face as you down your shot, but he has your water bottle ready for you to get the taste out of your mouth as it pinches in disgust.

“Fuckin’ hate tequila,” you whine.

“I know, baby,” Rafe laughs.

“Grow up,” Dylan jeers, already pouring a second round.

Rafe cut himself off after his inaugural shot, but you take one more and are feeling a little buzz as you show him around the greenhouse, pointing at your favorite plants. Rafe nods along eagerly the entire time, a hand on your waist to steady you on the slippery floors. “It’s so humid at home, we should really look into getting some ferns or something.”

“Mm,” Rafe hums, fingers trailing over the plant in question, his touch gentle. “Don’t you think we have enough plants?”

“Absolutely no such thing, RC,” you say.

“Okay, you are cut off at dinner tonight,” Rafe laughs, yanking you right into his chest. “Haven’t even sat down to eat and you’re already calling me RC.”

“Boring,” you tease, struggling in his grip. His fingers dig into your waist, and you remain rooted to your spot. “If you’re gonna make me sober up, I have to tell you something before I lose my confidence.”

“Jesus Christ, what are we, sixteen? You had two shots,” Rafe teases, arms locked around your waist. “Out with it, lightweight. Are you gonna confess your undying love?”

“Haven’t I done that already?”

“Still like hearing it,” he shrugs.

“Alright. I’m in love with you,” you say, watching Rafe’s eyes glaze over in that way that they tend to do sometimes, when you can tell he’s all loved-up. It’s easy for you to tell because you’re usually right there with him. “You’re incredibly easy.”

“Only for you.”

“I really liked seeing you with Kendra,” you blurt. Rafe’s huge grin falls slightly, settling into something softer—a little embarrassed, the tips of his ears turning red and matching the blush blooming on his cheeks. “That’s all.”

“I liked—I liked being with you, and Kendra. A baby,” he admits softly. “So…”

“So.”

“Good. Same page,” Rafe nods. “C’mere. Let me mack on you before I have to sit at a table with your entire family like we didn’t just talk about babies.”

—

Rafe knew the bubble had to burst eventually—knew as much as he wanted to that the two of you couldn’t stay out in the greenhouse forever, soaking up the company of the family you did like. Knew that the two of you had to face the music eventually, knew that he couldn’t just wrap you up in his arms and take you upstairs and listen to more stories about your childhood spent here or tell you how many kids he wanted while he pets your hair and kisses your face and protects you from everything he possibly can.

And he knew Theodore Caldecott was the worst of the worst because anybody who can hurt you like he did has to be. But the absolute gall he possessed had come as a bit of a shock.

“Y/n, it’s wonderful to see you again,” Theo says. Rafe watches his eyes inspect your entire body like he isn’t standing right next to you, clutching your hand—like this isn’t a family affair. “You look… wow. It’s been a while.”

“It has,” you agree quickly. “You’ve met my boyfriend, Rafe, haven’t you?”

Rafe gives him a nod and Theo doesn’t return it, barely taking his eyes off of you for a second. “I have. Been looking all over for you tonight—I’m just dying to catch up.”

“Oh,” you say, your hand twitching in Rafe’s grasp. “Um…”

“We can all catch up at dinner,” Rafe says. His hand slips to the small of your back, nudging you toward the dining room and out of Theo’s line of sight.

But as fate would have it, Rafe takes the seat beside you just as Theo practically slithers into the one across from the two of you. Rafe sees to it that the end of the table with all of the real adults is fully occupied in whatever chatter before his hand grips the bottom of your chair, tugging you as close as possible before his lips drop to your ear. “We agree that the sweater vest is horrible, right?”

“Rafe, stop,” you admonish, still giggling despite yourself while pushing him away by his chest.

“What was that?” Theo asks, leaning over the table.

“Nothing,” Rafe says, scooting your chair a respectable distance away again, keeping his hand locked firmly on your knee, fingers nudged under the napkin covering your lap.

“Y/n,” the woman seated beside Theo says. Her eyes sweep to Rafe, the look in her eyes reminding Rafe a little too much of one he’d get from his father. “Who's this you have with you?”

Your fork clatters to your plate, your free hand slipping to Rafe’s shoulder. “Oh, June. I’m so sorry, this is—”

“That’s her friend, Rafe, mom,” Theo interrupts.

“Boyfriend,” Rafe corrects, narrowing his eyes slightly. Your hand tenses on his shoulder and he clears his throat. “It’s nice to meet you.”

June’s eyebrows raise, her confused stare matching the man’s next to her, who Rafe deduces must be Theo’s father. “Boyfriend? Y/n, your grandfather never mentioned that you were seeing someone.”

“Yes, um,” you start. “We’ve been together for a while now.”

“Hm. How did you two meet? Surely your mother set the two of you up,” she laughs lightly. Rafe looks down at you, his eyes searching.

“D’you wanna tell it?”

You nod, smiling small, just for him. “Yeah. So, we—”

“Must’ve met at school, right?” Theo asks. If he interrupts you one more time, Rafe might not be able to control any kicks under the table.

“No,” you continue, looking back to Rafe. “It’s funny, actually. We’ve been friends since we were kids, but we didn’t actually get together until last summer.”

“You’re from the Outer Banks?” June accuses.

“Uh, yes, ma’am,” Rafe answers. “Born and raised, just like Y/n/n.”

“Huh,” she nods. “Interesting. And what exactly is it that you do?”

Rafe covers a scoff with a sip of wine, looking to you for guidance. Theo and his mother continue to watch the pair of you like hawks, and you just shrug, as if to tell him go ahead. “My father has a real estate development company. I’m helping run finances.”

“Oh. Money guy,” June says, waving a perfectly manicured hand around, looking at you now. “Now I get it.”

“I’m sorry?” Rafe says in confusion. You don’t meet June’s gaze, staring at the table cloth instead. Your hand slips from Rafe’s shoulder and he watches you fiddle with your flatware set, half of your food uneaten.

“Well, it’s just—you know. Last I heard, Y/n was still babysitting for a living,” she chuckles, gesturing toward Rafe again. “So, I mean. Development, finance, it’s lucrative. That makes sense to me, for someone of her caliber.”

Rafe pauses mid-chew, nearly dropping his fork to his plate loud enough to interrupt the entire room. You’ve gone completely quiet beside him, the only point of contact he has with you his touch on your knee where it shakes under the table. Rafe looks to see if anyone around him heard how this woman, this woman he doesn’t even know, just spoke to you—to see if anyone will come to your defense. Everyone seems to be preoccupied but the two of you and the Caldecotts. “I—I don’t know what you mean…”

“What a charming southern gentleman you are, Rafe,” the woman smiles, her tone dripping in condescension. “It’s alright, I’m sure it’s nothing Y/n hasn’t heard before. We can dare to be realistic here.”

It’s not, Rafe thinks. It’s not alright and it’s not nothing you haven’t heard before. It’s something you’ve heard from everyone around you, for nearly your entire life. It’s the same sentiment planted in your head by your parents when you were a girl, tended to over time by guys like Theo and your other ex, Frederick, and apparently their horrible parents, too.

A soft nudge to his shin from under the table interrupts that line of thought, however, Dylan glaring at Rafe from across the table. He raises his eyebrows in expectation.

“Actually,” Rafe says a little loudly, his fork falling from his hand. He’s like a rope about to snap and he figures Dylan’s permission is all he needs at this moment. He drapes an arm over the back of your chair and you look at him in panic, shaking your head. Rafe will apologize to you later if he has to, but he can’t sit here and mind his Ps and Qs anymore. “Y/n’s kicking ass right now. She’s working in publishing and editorial, so she could go wherever she wants from here. Her boss said an acquisition editor at her publishing house is actually retiring soon, and the spot is practically Y/n’s as soon as she wants it.”

Rafe had been looking at you the entire time he was speaking, but he turns to look at Theo and his mother momentarily, feeling a small sense of satisfaction—alright, maybe not that small—at the dumbstruck look on both of their faces.

“Y/n works extremely hard. She’d be fine on her own, completely fine,” Rafe emphasizes, looking back down at you. He wants you to hear these words just as much as he wants them to, probably more. “But somehow, I got lucky enough to convince her I’m worth the time of day.”

Theo and his mother are silent after that but Rafe hardly cares, isn’t paying attention to anyone but you. The way your mouth gapes as you gaze up at him.

“Publishing?” Theo finally says. “That’s great, Y/n. You never… you never told me anything about that.”

“Very promising,” June agrees, visibly sizing you up with a gleam in her eye. “Congratulations.”

“Yeah,” you shrug. “I like it a lot, so.”

“Y/n/n,” EJ interrupts from the other end of the table, wiping Rafe’s encouragement for you to stop being so humble right off of his lips. He’d tell you later; he’ll never grow tired of praising you alone or in front of an audience. “You’re up. It’s your turn to go get more wine.”

“I can go,” Rafe immediately offers, but your cousin shuts him down.

“Rafe’s a guest. Y/n, go,” he says.

You sigh but nod, standing from the table. You start to make your way out of the room but stop mid-step, leaning over the back of Rafe’s chair, your hands on his shoulders and your lips pressed to his cheek in a quick peck. Your lips move to his ear and Rafe feels goosebumps bloom all the way down his arms, his shirt collar suddenly feeling unbearably tight. “My hero.”

Rafe’s sure nobody could hear it besides him but Dylan still gags at the display, and Rafe catches a Theo eye roll before craning his neck to watch you leave the room with a smile, shaking his head and hiding a grin as his chin tucks to his chest. The victorious feeling quickly leaves his body as June continues watching him curiously.

“Theodore,” she speaks, a smile spreading on her face. “We’re hardly guests here. Why don’t you go see if Y/n needs help in the wine cellar?”

—

Normally, you hate the walk down to the wine cellar in your grandparents’ house. The corridors are long, it’s usually pretty chilly down there—more often than not you forced Dylan to go in your place. He never brought back the right wine and it usually caused a headache but you didn’t mind, as long as you didn’t have to go yourself.

This time, however, you don’t particularly mind the trip. That dining room was beginning to suffocate you, and you might’ve jumped Rafe’s bones if you were in his vicinity any longer after that display. Thinking back to Rafe defending you to June brings an embarrassing heat to your cheeks, your hand covering your smile even though nobody is around to tease you for it. If you could tear your eyes away from your lover for even a second, you would’ve killed to see the look on Theo’s mom’s face.

Footsteps echo in the doorway of the cobblestone cellar, and your smile grows as you realize Rafe had followed you down.

“Was wondering if you’d find a way to sneak down here anyway,” you say, not turning around as you continue to survey your grandfather’s extensive collection.

“Not sure what the little boyfriend would think of that insinuation, Y/n.”

You turn around so fast you nearly make your neck ache, your eyes landing on Theo, not your boyfriend.

It’s strange—the few times you’d seen Theo since that summer had at their worst brought you to tears and at their best still stirred up a deep-rooted anxiety. But this time you felt next to nothing but a little annoyance. Theo was being Theo, but you weren’t bothered by it because your boyfriend was slotting in perfectly with your cousins, he was holding your niece with hands more careful than you’d ever seen, he was roughhousing with your brother and kneeling in the gravel to play with your dog. Rafe stood tall against the Caldecotts’ jabs toward him and even taller against the ones toward you.

A summer fling that broke your seventeen-year-old heart was nothing more than a slight irritation—a mosquito buzzing around you, Rafe readily batting it away.

“Theo, I’m sorry. Thought you were Rafe for a second. My mistake,” you apologize.

“Figured,” Theo smiles, that big toothy grin. “Could you use some help?”

“It’s just a bottle. I’m fine,” you tell him, returning to the rows of wine.

“Ah, come on, Y/n/n.” You flinch at the nickname only your loved ones call you—it feels wrong falling off of his lips. “You know this crew could put a vineyard out of business.”

“You’re free to grab one, too,” you compromise. “I’m gonna grab a white if you wanna pick out a red.”

“You were crazy for chardonnay back in the day, weren’t you?” Theo asks, sidling up to you. He’s a little close for comfort and you lean out of his space, pretending to look at a different row of wines.

“Chard’s too dry. S’fine, but not my favorite,” you conclude. “More into rieslings, always have been.”

“Ah, of course. A sweet wine for a sweet girl,” Theo says fondly. You remain silent at his compliment but that only emboldens him. “You know, I dropped everything in the city and drove right over when I heard you were coming up this weekend.”

Your hand falters where it was feeling over a label, and you turn to look at him slowly. He’s leaned up against a pillar with his arms crossed over his chest, and you realize he’s blocking your path to the doorway. “Why would you do that?”

“Don’t seem so surprised,” he laughs. "You don’t think I came all the way out here just to see Grandpa Ellis, did you?”

“No, it’s just… well. We haven’t spoken in, god—two, three years?” your mind races, trying to remember. Trying to piece together what your ex-boyfriend-who-never-called-himself-your-boyfriend is even getting at.

“Has it been that long?” he asks, eyebrows furrowed. He shakes his head after a second. “Well, nevertheless. I dunno, guess I missed you.”

“Well—hey, um. I heard about your engagement, Theo,” you say, going for a subject change and blurting the first thing that came to mind. He recoils visibly, gnawing on his bottom lip and raising his eyebrows at a spot on the floor. “I really am sorry. I’m sure that can’t be easy.”

“Thank you for saying that,” Theo says, his stare heavy when he returns his gaze to you. You almost feel bad for him; a part of you might always care for the boy you used to be friends with before he turned into the teenager that broke your heart and the man he is now. “Was for the best in the end, I think.”

You don’t like the way Theo’s looking at you, or the way his tone echos how he used to speak to you once so you turn back to the task at hand, settling on a random bottle. “I think this one’s fine. If you wanna pick a bottle we can head back up to dinner.”

“They won’t miss us,” Theo says, pushing off the pillar and walking to the side of the cellar lined with pinot noirs and cabernets. “So, didn’t think nouveau-riche was really your type, Y/n.”

“What?” you ask, your mouth going dry.

“Development, seriously? He’s practically blue-collar,” Theo muses, chuckling to himself even though nothing he just said was funny.

“Are you—do you mean Rafe?”

“Yes, I mean Rafe,” he parrots, saying his name like it tastes like acid in his mouth. “Sure your parents love this little rebellion streak you’ve got going. When do you think you’ll settle down with someone serious?”

“Respectfully, Theo, don’t talk about my boyfriend like that,” you bite out, gripping your selected bottle tightly and making a break for the door. “I’ll see you back up there.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he rushes, blocking your path again. “I didn’t—fuck, Y/n. I’ve never known how to talk when it comes to you.”

“What exactly is there to talk about?”

Theo lets out a laugh, hands shoved into his pockets. “After all this time, you still make me nervous.”

“Theo,” you speak slowly, confusion settling in for good. “What are you—”

“You know, I hated the way we left things all of those years ago,” Theo admits, stealing the air from your lungs as he actually goes there. Not once since that summer had he even acknowledged that the two of you were anything romantic, not in front of anyone else and not when you were alone. And here he was, five years and a failed engagement later. “I was a stupid kid, Y/n.”

You wince in realization. “You’re not serious, Theo… you mean when we—”

“When we were in love,” Theo interrupts, stepping slightly closer. “God. Saying it like it’s past tense makes it seem so sad, doesn’t it?”

“Theo, that’s… still past tense for me. I haven’t even—we were kids, like you just said,” you say.

“But I never apologized to you for that, Y/n,” he speaks softly. “You know, I can still picture that day I left the Outer Banks. You were wearing that pink sweater.”

You weren’t wearing a pink sweater. You weren’t wearing a sweater at all—it was summer in North Carolina, your daily uniform was a sundress or cut-off shorts. The dress you wore that night wasn’t pink either. It was white. You spent thirty minutes picking out what you thought would be the dress you wore when Theo asked you to make it official.

“Ancient history, Theo,” you say, voice wavering slightly against your will with the weight of the recalled memory.

“Is it, though? Don’t tell me that you’ve never thought about trying things again, now that we’re older,” Theo probes.

You nearly gawk at him, wondering if he hit his head on the way down the stairs. “No, considering my boyfriend is literally sitting down the hall right now. And we’re only here because we were taking a weekend trip together. From which, we’ll go home to our house, that we live in together.”

Theo laughs again, but it’s not friendly. He’s laughing at you. Five-year-old memories slowly unearth themselves in your mind, the way he’s talking down to you feeling uncomfortably familiar. Except for this time, he’s telling you the complete opposite of what he did then. And it’s still not what you want to hear. “You know you’re only wasting your time playing house with a guy like that. Now that I think about it, I remember seeing that kid around, always hanging with those two other idiots. God, what even were their names—”

“Those idiots are my friends,” you warn.

Theo raises his hands in surrender, still smiling fondly like he knows a secret you don’t.

“You’ve changed a lot since we were kids, Y/n,” he says.

“And you’re still an asshole,” you spit. “Who do you think you are, Theo? You walked out on us, not me.”

“I was a stupid kid, Y/n. Please,” he rolls his eyes.

“I was a kid, too, Theo. And you still ripped my heart out because you thought I wasn’t… good enough for you? You had this whole picture of me—”

“Was I wrong?” he gestures wildly. “Aren’t you right back in your hometown, with that arm candy you have sitting out there? Surprised he hasn’t tried to knock you up yet, and I don’t see a ring on that finger.”

“Stop fucking interrupting me. And stop talking about Rafe,” you warn, the hand not holding the wine bottle now poking a finger into his chest. He tries to grab your hand and you yank it away.

“You know you don’t have to settle for that guy, Y/n,” Theo says, almost sounding like he’s begging at this point. “We, on the other hand, would be great together.”

“This isn’t happening,” you say, hand clutching your forehead like you have to be crazy. “You’re not actually saying this to me right now.”

“You can’t honestly believe that your little high school sweetheart can give you everything you expect,” Theo says in exasperation. “This should be easy Y/n, I mean. He’s got you trapped in that podunk lagoon—where are the opportunities for you? I have so many connections I could—”

Everything slowly starts to slide into place and the end of his sentence tapers off in your ears. “Is that—so that’s what this is? I went and made something of myself, and after all this time I’m finally worthy of you? Literally fuck you, Theo.”

“You wound me, love,” Theo says. His cocky smile slips into one that’s a bit softer, but you can still see right through his brown eyes, even after all of these years. “You’re feistier now, what happened to my sweet girl?”

“You broke my heart,” you whisper. “You broke my heart, and then I grew up.”

“Y/n, don’t you see?” he whispers back, stepping closer to you. His hand reaches toward your face and you take a huge step back, your back bumping into the cold wall of the back of the wine cellar, holding the bottle in between the two of you like a barrier. “It’s always been you, love.”

“This is all I wanted to hear from you five years ago in that guest house, you know that?” you whisper, searching his face for any sign of sincerity. He could fool you back then but he can’t fool you now. You let Rafe into your heart a summer ago and you’d only known true love since then. It was deeper and it was more real than anything you ever thought Theo had made you feel. “But I’m glad I didn’t. Because giving you a chance would’ve been the worst mistake of my life. I’d be miserable, for one. And I wouldn’t have Rafe.”

“Dammit, Y/n,” he swears. “Your grandfather loves me, Y/n. He’d love us together.”

Theo’s not smart enough to get into law school but he shouldn’t be stupid enough to think your grandfather would love anything about you being a career woman any more than your mother would—some status symbol Theo and his family seemed to desperately cling too. Some mold that he and June thought you could finally fit into, seeing something in you tonight that they hadn’t before. Your dad had passed on the family business and Grandpa Ellis skipped right over Aunt Mel, letting Uncle Zach and Charles duke it out.

“Theo, I loved us together. Five years ago, and then you—you know what, I don’t have to explain myself to you. Get out of my way.”

You push Theo out of your way and he stumbles backward immediately, clearing your path to the doorway and causing you to sigh in relief. You’re almost home free but something inside you causes you to turn around, for that teenage girl inside you that would’ve died to hear these words years ago—who didn’t realize she had everything she could’ve wanted right in front of her already and was throwing her heart around to anything that would catch it so she didn’t have to face the truth. “And for the record, I’m not settling for Rafe. Rafe has always been it for me, Theo.”

“Don’t be dumb, Y/n—”

“Thought I wasn’t dumb. Remember?” you say coldly, throwing his words back at him. But of course nothing you say even registers; you were nothing but a blip on his radar and he was once a villain in your life story.

“What are you even talking about, Y/n?”

“I tried to play this nicely with you, I really did,” you say shakily, feeling the anger turning into hot tears behind your eyes because how dare he. How dare he act like he’s been harboring this grand love from you when he had a girlfriend three months after he let you go, while you spent months crying on Kelce and Margot and trying to work through what he put you through. When he was off getting engaged while you were fighting with Rafe because of feelings Theo was the first one to ever make you feel. When he was standing here lying to your face about how much you meant to him, that desperate to cling to something that would make him look good because he couldn’t do that for himself. “But you’re fucking pathetic. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

You turn to leave again but not even a second later an iron grip encircles your wrist and you’re pulled harshly back into the room. “Don’t walk away from me when I’m talking to you, Y/n. I just wanna—”

The tears break your waterline at the feeling, and they blur your vision where you look up at him, not recognizing the boy before you at all anymore as your arm struggles against his grip. He’s desperate, grasping at this past relationship that never really existed in the same way in his mind. But he knows how it existed in yours, and his life didn’t turn out how he thought it would and now he’s taking advantage of your heart then and trying to take advantage of your heart now. “Theo, get off, y-you’re hurting me.”

You think you begin to see some semblance of remorse flicker in his eyes, his grip loosening slightly, but it’s all a blur because another body is ripping his touch from your completely, a tall figure pushing Theo back and away from you until he’s not even breathing the same air, his back pressed into the wall like yours had been only minutes ago.

“I swear to god, I ever see you put your fucking hands on her again—”

“Oh, you’ll what, tough guy?”

Rafe practically growls, the arm he has shoved across Theo’s collarbones pressing in harder. “I will kick your ass back to the fucking city.”

“Aw, not in front of dear Grandma DeeDee, Rafe,” Theo taunts, right back to his usual snide self.

“I don’t care who’s around, you prick,” your boyfriend mutters. “You don’t. Fucking. Touch her.”

You realize then you need to spring into action before this escalates any further, testosterone absolutely raging in this room. Your feet move you forward and you grab onto Rafe’s shirt sleeve, tugging on his free hand. “Rafe, don’t—”

Theo shifts his focus back to you, smirking again, that lost and vulnerable boy completely gone. “Let the men talk, sweet—”

“No. You don’t talk to her like that, you don’t talk to her ever,” Rafe protests, leaving no room for disagreement with the way he has Theo pinned. “Don’t call her anything. Don’t even look at her. I mean it, you fucking rat. You even breathe in her direction and I will make you so fucking sorry you ever stepped foot on my island in the first place, got it?”

Theo feigns amusement but you see the way he actively struggles against Rafe’s arm, your boyfriend’s tricep flexing where he’d rolled up the sleeve of the nice white shirt you’d picked for him tonight. “Oh, come on—”

“Got it?” Rafe repeats, leaning into him further. “Good.”

“You’re messing with years of history here, Rafe,” Theo goads. “You don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

“I do, actually,” Rafe says.

“Well then I’m sure Y/n here gave you the dramatic version of whatever happened between us,” he says, looking over at you once again. Rafe follows his eyes and steps to the side, blocking you from his line of sight. “I remember your neighborhood having an affinity for gossip.”

“My girlfriend doesn’t really tend to lie. Or speak badly of people who don’t deserve it, so,” Rafe says definitively.

“Right, my mistake.”

Your boyfriend scoffs in his face, laughing like he doesn’t even deserve the time of day. And he doesn’t—which reminds you that you should probably be trying to tug Rafe away, but you’re frozen to the spot watching the exchange, still clutching your bottle of wine. “You’re—yeah. You’re right, your mistake. Your mistake ever treating her like that, or ever letting her go.”

“Well that worked out for you, though, didn’t it?”

“This isn’t about me,” Rafe growls, pushing into him again. “I know I don’t deserve her, but it’s not because I think I’m better than her. It’s actually the opposite, and I’ll be damned if I ever pull something as stupid as you did because I’m too much of a fucking idiot to realize how lucky I am. She makes me better. And she would’ve made you better too. But you don’t get to try again just because she proved you wrong.”

Theo has the wherewithal to appear sheepish at that, and you turn away as their voices quiet. “Guess I was wrong about her, huh?”

“Dead wrong,” Rafe agrees. “Dead fucking wrong. If you somehow don’t end up alone for the rest of your sorry life, I’m seriously praying for whoever has to put up with you. But it won’t be my girlfriend.”

Theo’s last wise-crack is lost on you because suddenly Rafe is letting him off the wall and then he’s all-encompassing, arms around you guiding and pulling you out of the room, whisking you away with a soft but firm touch that your body still welcomes even in its state of shock after everything that just occurred. “Rafe, I—he—you—”

“I know, baby, hold on,” he says, leading you further and further away until he’s pushing open a side door and leading you outside. His tone had gone completely soft again.

“But, wait. The dinner, Rafe—”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Rafe,” you say, the panic returning to your body, picturing your parents awkwardly explaining where the three of you have gone, fielding accusations from Grandpa Ellis who will only turn it into some thing about how misbehaved your dad’s kids are. “We can’t just leave.”

“Everyone moved on to dessert in the parlor, Y/n,” he explains, finally facing you in the glow of a crackling outdoor fire pit on one of the side patios. “Nobody’s gonna notice we’re even gone, alright? You’re fine, sweetheart. I promise. Now, will you let me look at you?”

Rafe doesn’t await confirmation as he cups your face in his hands, turning you to-and-fro, eyes appraising. His hands fall to your shoulders, brushing along your neck and then sliding down your arms, where he goes for your right arm, gently holding your wrist. You realize a beat late that he’s checking you for injuries. “Rafe, he didn’t—he was just holding my arm.”

“God fucking dammit,” Rafe bites out, scrubbing a hand over his face, fingers carding through his hair and mussing up his once-gelled strands. “I knew I should’ve followed him down there. If I ever see that kid again, I swear to god I—”

You’ve nearly tuned out Rafe’s irateness, studying the wine bottle you’re somehow still holding in your hand instead. When you went to get it, you were so happy and now you were a mess, mind racing with thoughts you thought you’d quieted over the years. You fail to notice Rafe had cut his rant short, going quiet as he simply watched you. He slowly tugs the bottle out of your hand, resting it on the outdoor settee in front of the fire.

“Are you okay?”

You furrow your eyebrows, which forces more tears out of your eyes—you hadn’t stopped crying. “What? I just told you… I’m fine. He didn’t hurt me.”

“No,” he shakes his head. His thumb wipes away some tears but it’s useless because they’re practically relentless at this point, flowing rapidly of their own will. “I don’t mean just that, Y/n/n. You’re crying—you were down there for so long… what did he say to you, sweet girl?”

It’s the nickname that causes the first sob to break in your chest, hearing it right after Theo had asked where his sweet girl had gone. You weren’t his anymore, and you hardly even were to begin with, but somehow you still let him get to you after all of these years.

“Rafe, i-it, I—”

Rafe slowly pulls you into his chest as you go temporarily speechless with your cries, pressing his lips to your hair for a long moment. “Tell me everything.”

—

In front of the fire and wrapped up in his arms, Rafe finally coaxes the entire Theo story out of you. Start to finish, summer to fall. It’s long-winded because he has to drag admissions out of you and simply wait you out when things get hard, but Rafe’s grateful because if he has even a millisecond to let his mind wander, he’d find himself busy scouring the entire property for the boy that thinks he gets to throw your heart away and then go looking for it again. Thinks he can put his hands on you, on any girl, when he thinks nobody is around to see. Like Rafe hadn’t been anxiously and impatiently waiting at the table until EJ finally caught on and then threw him a bone, announcing to the table he’d send Rafe to check on you so he wasn’t causing any eyebrows to raise at his untimely exit. The scene he saw in the wine cellar haunts him even though he swears he blacked out as soon as he heard ‘you’re hurting me’ from just down the hall. Rafe could kill him.

“I could kill him.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t,” you say, and Rafe loves that after everything he got a smile out of you without even trying. You could smile if you thought it was a joke but Rafe meant every word. “Your island, huh?”

Rafe blushes at words hurled in the heat of the moment. “As long as you’re on it.”

“Hey, thank—”

“Y/n Y/m/n,” he interrupts. “I know you’re not about to thank me for that.”

You purse your lips and shrug, Rafe admiring the now dry skin on your cheeks where they glow in the fire. “Whatever.”

“Whatever,” he mocks. “But I’m sorry you had to see all that.”

“It was fine, honestly,” you say. “You don’t scare me, you know?”

“I used to though, didn’t I?” he asks quietly.

You tilt your head in confusion. “What—when you used to get in those little fights in high school?”

Rafe winces, nodding nonetheless. “Yeah. Thought you didn’t like that.”

“I didn’t. I was scared you’d get hurt or something. But you’ve never scared me, ever,” you emphasize. “Not like that anyway.”

“Like what then?” he presses.

“Rafe,” you groan. “We’ve been heart-to-hearting all day, give me a break. I beg.”

“Humor me. I deserve a reward for not punching that guy.”

“You know what I’m talking about,” you accuse, tucking your face into his shirt. “I don’t think I would’ve let a guy like Theo have a hold on me like that if I didn’t see him as a one-way ticket out of my feelings for you.”

Regret overwhelms Rafe, even though he knows in his bones he was never ready to love you back then. He doubts himself from time to time these days, but he knows he’s come a long way from the stupid seventeen-year-old kid who was still kind of a jerk, who had absolutely no business handling a heart like yours.

“Should’ve just told you I liked you when I knew,” he confesses anyway. “Maybe I could’ve saved you from all this bullshit.”

“When did you know?” you wonder softly, your eyes searching in a way that makes Rafe feel like you’re inspecting his soul.

“Uh…” he trails off. “Well, I really missed you that summer, Y/n/n. A lot, and I don’t think I knew it then but it wasn’t just like, a friend thing. But then you weren’t you anymore, at least for a bit.”

“Yeah,” you agree. “I get it. I don’t think I would’ve liked me either back then.”

“No,” Rafe blurts, because you’re misunderstanding him completely. “No, I mean. I missed you still. Because you were back but you weren’t. And then the shirt thing happened and I was just a complete fucking goner. Knew I loved you at prom, though.”

“Shirt thing?”

“You wore my shirt to my state game, and you had my number painted on your cheek,” Rafe recalls, his forefinger brushing over where the blue and white paint had been five years ago. “And then I thought, ‘well. maybe…’ But you were still sad and I felt weird just because you were you, and then you told me you got into school in California, and… well. Yeah.”

Your silent but your eyes dance with mirth and Rafe recoils, sitting up a little straighter.

“What?”

“Then I beat you,” you tease.

“What do you mean you beat me?”

“I’ve liked you since you started dating Chloe. I win,” you declare.

“Now hold on. No, I—no, that doesn’t—do you not remember Midsummers sophomore year? Or the frog in eighth grade? Or fuck, Y/n/n, when I let you borrow my entire Harry Potter collection in fourth grade? You know I didn’t even own them yet, I’ve told you this, haven’t I? You asked Topper for his and he said no so I begged my dad to buy me them as an early birthday gift and I binged them in a week just so we could talk—you’re the fucking worst, you know that?”

You erupt into full-on laughter after stifling giggles for his entire speech, tumbling forward into his chest. “Oh my god, y-you—you’re so fucking cute.”

“Fuck you, Y/l/n. Seriously,” Rafe grumbles, his fingers digging into your ribs. “I was first.”

“So competitive,” you laugh. “And yet you still couldn’t even give me a hint that you liked me first.”

“I thought I was pretty obvious,” Rafe protests. “Not my fault you were so oblivious—we could’ve been dating for half a decade by this point.”

You settle down back into his chest, hands intertwining with his where it rests around your shoulders. You tug his rings off and start slipping them onto your own fingers, making Rafe’s heart skip a beat when you slip the one he’d inherited from his late grandfather onto your ring finger. “I don’t know if I was ready for you in high school, Rafe. I still had so much to learn—clearly, because I still thought you just wanted to hook up with me when you asked me out.”

“Stroked your ego a bit though, didn’t it?” Rafe says, his hand closing over yours so you can’t take the ring off yet. You turn and look back up at him, beaming.

“Maybe a little.”

“I don’t know how we would’ve done four entire years long distance,” Rafe says. “A year nearly killed me.”

“You visited like every other weekend. And we went home all the time.”

“Nearly killed me,” he repeats.

“Y’know—I hate it when you say you don’t deserve me or that you’re not good enough for me.”

Rafe’s smile falls slowly, the rush of your flirtations evaporating. “What?”

“In front of me or in front of anyone else. Hate it,” you whisper, burrowing further into his chest.

“I’m sorry, but I mean…”

“You’re about to do it again,” you chide, raising your eyebrows. Rafe doesn’t know what to say so he doesn’t say anything, leaning into your touch when you run a hand through his hair. “You rented my car, and you brought my grandmother her favorite flowers. You tore me open when I was acting cagey ‘cause you knew I needed the push, and then you just listened to me. You let me cry about some stupid guy who I hardly even think about anymore, and you protected me but you didn’t cause a scene because I asked you not to.”

Rafe still doesn’t think he’ll ever see himself through your eyes, but this is one of those moments where he’s really trying. It’s hard for him because he can’t imagine ever not doing those things for you because they’re not easy things but they’re easy for him because he loves you. But there’s this work involved, and he knows you work to love him but that’s different because Rafe knows he’s harder to love. And you shouldn’t ever feel like anyone is good enough for you but he’s realizing it isn’t that simple, and it’s neither of your faults but that’s just how it is.

You put it simply, anyway. “You’re my guy, Rafe. I choose you. Always.”

“How have the two of you not frozen to death yet?”

Rafe turns his head to see the cousins bundled up and heading your way, Tiffany holding a blanket that she drapes over the two of you before she settles with Penny on one of the couches across from you two. You immediately tuck your left hand under the blanket and out of sight, but you don’t remove Rafe’s ring.

“You guys missed dessert,” EJ announces, his wife Beth under his arm. “But someone brought you some anyway, right bud?”

“Here you go,” Noah says, placing a brownie directly in Rafe’s lap, the napkin he lays on top mostly likely meant to go under. You giggle into his chest and Rafe can’t help but smile.

“Thanks, Noah,” he says, sending Noah to sit in his dad’s lap next to Penny. Dylan eventually joins the party too, bringing Wilbur in tow, who prances right up to Rafe and immediately begs for crumbs. “Is Kendra asleep?”

“Yeah,” Beth sighs. “Ingrid’s watching her.”

“Caldecotts just left,” Dylan says softly, only loud enough for you and Rafe to hear over the crackle of the fire. “I watched them go.”

“Thanks, Dyl,” you say quietly, and your brother rolls his eyes. Rafe can see right through the feigned arrogance of a nineteen-year-old boy who still pretended he didn’t outwardly love his older sister. But his eyes flicker to Rafe then and he just nods in recognition before sitting on your other side, and Rafe will let him get away with it.

Because you’re finally, completely relaxed against him now, surrounded by your family and their loved ones while Theo is long gone, your hands still intertwined underneath the blanket Tiffany brought you two.

And neither of you can stop fiddling with the ring on your left hand.

—

Rafe triple checks that you’re soundly sleeping before leaving the guest room you’d been given for the night, tip-toeing down the stairs and to the kitchen, far enough away from where everyone’s asleep as not to disturb anyone.

He’d taken you up to bed after catching your third stifled yawn, and you’d been practically boneless by the time Rafe had finished brushing his teeth and came to join you under the covers. “You know it’s not him right? I don’t love him, and I don’t even like him.”

“I know.”

“It’s just hard being back here, being around all of this,” you clarified, your eyes drooping heavily. “But it’s easier with you here, I think.”

And then you’d rolled over and gone to sleep. He’d laid with you for probably fifteen minutes just doing the thing he does when you can sleep and he can’t yet—holding you and trying not to spend too much time just thinking about how lucky he is—before he finally extricated himself and made the trek downstairs that he’d been dreading all day.

The phone rings three times before his dad picks up, muttering a gruff greeting. “Rafe, it’s late.”

“I know, dad,” he cringes, reading the time on the oven’s clock display. “I’m sorry for getting back to you so late—it’s just been busy over here.”

They discuss the business-related things that Ward had been emailing him about all day, which really were things that could’ve gone through Rafe’s other boss or literally anyone else in his department, but such is Rafe’s life.

“I need that Monday, Rafe.”

Rafe lets out a sigh, already picturing you pouting when he was to log some hours on the last day of your trip. But he saw you slip your own work computer into your carry-on when you thought he wasn’t looking, so it looks like neither of you could fully make good on your promise to unplug this weekend. After everything that happened today though, Rafe craves the normalcy, the sheer mundanity of the two of you across a table from each other tapping away at your respective keyboards. Refilled cups of coffee and kicks in his shins when you get bored—it sounds like a dream. “Yeah, you got it.”

“Good,” Ward says. “You said you’re busy up there?”

“Uh, yeah,” Rafe says. “Just meeting the family and all that.”

“How’d it go?” his father asks, taking Rafe completely by surprise.

“It was hard,” Rafe admits, taking himself even more by surprise. “It’s a lot, dad. They’re… yeah. It’s intense up here, but I think I did alright.”

You’d told him that he did. You told him he was your guy. And that you choose him. Always.

“Well, bud,” Ward says, heaving his own sigh. “Can’t say I’m surprised. I mean, I told you it’d be this way with her, didn’t I?”

How silly of Rafe to even dare get to a vulnerable place with his dad, like he’d comfort him or something. “Yeah. You did.”

“Hm,” Ward hums. “Well, see you when you get back. And don’t forget to get that in Monday, alright?”

“Yeah, dad,” Rafe whispers. “Bye.”

The line clicks and Rafe stays leaned up against the kitchen counter for a second, honestly just feeling sorry for himself. Not even kicking himself for being stupid, but letting himself feel sad that this is how things were for him, because you’d always told him that it was okay if he did that.

Not even a hang in there or a cheer up, bud. Just a goodbye and one last reminder about work.

“Everything alright in here, son?”

He stands up straight again when your father enters the kitchen in his pajamas, heading straight for the fridge. “Um, yeah. I was just—”

“Do you want a sandwich, Rafe? I saw you skip out on dinner early tonight,” William says, already pulling ingredients out.

“You don’t have to—sure,” Rafe decides, dare his rumbling stomach give him away.

“PB&J?”

“Perfect.”

Your dad makes small talk while he makes two sandwiches, sliding the first one over to Rafe on a paper towel. “I’d tell you to bring one up to Y/n, but I’m willing to bet she’s asleep if she let you out of her sight.”

Rafe blushes as he polishes off his first half, nodding guiltily. “Yeah, she’s down for the count. Had to come make a phone call.”

“Everything alright?” William asks, setting both knives in the sink before taking a seat across from Rafe at the kitchen island.

“Yeah, everything’s fine. Just work stuff,” Rafe explains, not putting much thought into it.

“How are things with the old man?”

“Fine,” Rafe says immediately. “Yeah. Fine. Same old.”

“So not fine?”

“Mr. Y/l/n, look. You don’t—”

“Rafe, I think after today there should be no doubt in your mind that I’m familiar with what you go through,” William points out, looking up from his own PB&J. “Very familiar. It’s okay.”

Rafe’s cheek falls into his fist where his arm props him up against the counter, and he’s really starting to feel the travel day wearing on him, now that he thinks about it. “Right. I’m sorry again for bringing this on. I didn’t know Y/n’s mom would go to all this trouble when I mentioned it.”

William rolls his eyes much the same way you do when Rafe finds himself unable to stop apologizing, waving the hand holding his sandwich in dismissal. “It’s fine. Gotta do it every now and then. Come suffer through a visit with the family, and then go back to your perfect little life. And Kendra’s about cute as hell, isn’t she?”

“She is,” Rafe agrees, feeling himself smile. “Can I ask you something, though?”

“Rafe,” your dad warns. “My daughter is only twenty-two. I know you’re not letting my dad get in your head about marriage this early.”

“No, god—no. I—Mr. Y/l/n, it’s not that.” Not yet.

“Then I’m all ears,” William says, seemingly giddy at Rafe’s panic. God, you were so much like him. That familiarity is what finally pushes Rafe’s thoughts out of his head and into the air between them.

“How’d you do it?”

William narrows his eyes. “What?”

Rafe clears his throat, setting the second half of his sandwich back down on the paper towel. His fingers tap on the marble for a second before he gestures to the kitchen around him, and the house in general. “How’d you get out of all of this? The business, your family—you got away from it all, didn’t you?”

Your dad hums in recognition, shrugging his shoulders.

“Huh. Well, easy one,” he says, dropping his uneaten crust to his own paper towel, brushing his hands together so any residual crumbs fall onto the paper towel. “I fell in love.”

“Wait, what?”

“Not what you expected to hear from your girlfriend’s mean old dad, huh?” William quips.

“Honestly? No,” Rafe admits. “And you’re not mean, by the way.”

“The Y/l/ns have been vacationing in the OBX for years, Rafe. It’s how I met Shan in the first place. Back when I was a lowly touron,” William says. A fond grin graces his features, and Rafe realizes that he really isn’t kidding.

“And…?”

“And that was her home, it’s where she wanted to be,” your dad explains. “I loved her and I wanted her home to be mine, too. The business part was easy—I never liked it. And Shannon was the perfect reason to just say fuck everything else, excuse my language.”

“Wow,” Rafe breathes. “Wow—no, yeah. Excused.”

“And I did all of that,” William continues. “And it wasn’t easy and things are still hard sometimes, but now you get to date my daughter because of it. ‘Cause I chose my wife.”

“Wasn’t there a fallout? Y’know, with your folks and everything?” Rafe asks.

“Oh yeah. Nuclear.”

“Shit—sorry, fuck. Sorry,” Rafe repeats, mouth gaping at his own actions.

“But we moved on,” your dad continues, paying Rafe’s outburst no mind. “I know you’ve seen a different side of me this weekend, Rafe. But I love my life. I love my wife and my kids are awesome—I don’t regret the choice I made one bit and I never will. Because as much as it was for them, it was for me, too.”

Rafe nods in stunned silence, picking up his sandwich to eat again. “Thanks for telling me that.”

“Anytime,” William says, patting Rafe’s shoulder on the way to the fridge for a bottle of water. “How is my daughter, by the way?”

“She’s good,” Rafe says, and he feels like he isn’t lying, not at all. Because he knows you’re good, because he made you good.

Your father turns on his way out of the kitchen to address Rafe one last time. “Alright. And you?”

“I’m sorry?”

“You, Rafe. How are you?”

“I’m good, too.”

—

You just about keel over in adoration watching Rafe bid your entire family goodbye the next morning, from the way he flinches at your grandpa’s shoulder pat, to the blush that consumes his entire neck when your grandma kisses his cheek and makes him promise to give her the name of the florist he used for her arrangement. Noah’s in the running with Wilbur for who seems most upset to see him go, although you can’t say you feel the least bit guilty when you finally get him back to yourself in the car.

He’d offered to drive this time around, rolling down his window and waving goodbye one last time, committing to EJ that he won’t be a stranger anymore and shooting Penny a thumbs-up in solidarity. What had really caught your eye was the way your dad had hugged him, giving him a look you’d only ever seen for Dylan. This entire weekend was a lot, but Rafe was perfect—of course they all loved him.

“Ah,” you sigh as soon as Rafe drives off of the property. “We did it. Nobody died.”

“Drama,” Rafe sings, smacking your thigh lightly.

“Oh, the family meeting expert has returned, has he?” you jest, thinking back to Rafe’s cockiness the first time he met your parents and could tell they were head over heels for him.

“Never left,” Rafe says, still adjusting his seat and mirrors from your much shorter view as a driver. “But yeah, we did do it. You did it.”

“And now we have forty-three hours left of our first ever weekend away together,” you say, trying not to sound defeated. “Yay.”

“Oh no, this one doesn’t count either,” Rafe laughs. “We’re getting a do-over ASAP.”

“Are we?”

“I was thinking like, Wyoming. Unless there’s some oil heir out there I don’t know about that can’t seem to get over you.”

“No, he’s in Montana. We’re good,” you joke, leaning over the center console to kiss your boyfriend’s cheek. You slink down into your seat as he pulls onto the highway and sets the cruise control, his hand slipping to your knee when he can steady the wheel. You grab his hand, thumb stroking over his knuckles, wearing all of their proper rings once again. “I know it was a little much, and we had to deal with Theo, but. Thank you for coming with me, seriously. We can plan that do-over when we get back, yeah?”

“I’d go anywhere with you.”

“Well, I’d hope so. Seeing as it’s supposed to be a weekend away together,” you muse, flicking through your Spotify library for an upbeat album this time around.

“No, listen to me, though,” Rafe says. “I mean anywhere. I’d follow you wherever.”

You turn to look at him, a little confused at his tone of voice. “Rafe, we can pick the place together—it’s not a big deal.”

“Do you think it’s time to start talking about California?”

“Um,” you wrack your brain for your last visit with Delilah and Wren. It’d only been two months ago. “Well, sure. We could go in March, maybe? I’ll talk to them, we can probably stay for another week. But I thought you wanted to go somewhere new?”

“Y/n/n, I… I was thinking something a little more permanent, if you’re ready for that.”

You put your phone in the center console, no longer worried about if the music is matching the vibe of the still-rising sun or the beating in your heart. “You mean for my job?”

“For your career,” he corrects. “I know Agnes isn’t back until the summer, but it’s never too early to look, right? Just to see what we think?”

“But Rafe, what… would you still be able to work for your dad?” you question immediately, because it’s the first and biggest thought currently on your mind.

“Oh,” Rafe says, like it’s an afterthought. “Unlikely. But I wasn’t really counting on that.”

The wheels in your mind are slow but at least they’re turning now, picking up on what exactly he’s offering. “So, you—Rafe, you wanna quit?”

“Take a break,” he amends, shrugging one shoulder so the wheel keeps the car steady. “Like we talked about when we moved in together, remember? We’ll be back one day if it’s where we’re meant to be.”

“But… Ward’s not gonna like that, is he?”

“Doesn’t matter what my dad likes, Y/n,” Rafe reminds you, looking completely resolved. “What matters is you.”

“Rafe,” you say dumbly, all the other thoughts stolen from your brain as you just watch your boyfriend drive you through your grandparents’ town with ease, acting like he isn’t offering you the world. “Why are you saying this right now?”

He turns to look at you for as long as he can before his eyes have to go back to the road, bringing the hand intertwined on your leg to his lips, pressing a soft kiss right on your ring finger.

“Because you’re my girl and I love you, Y/n/n. And I’ll always choose you, too.”

[amazaynz]

dont share your favourite songs with wrong people

[amazaynz]

MSG. 2012 // 2018 // 2021

[amazaynz]

Amazing fic!!!

Kiss You Better | Rafe Cameron

Summary: Rafe ends up hospitalized after irresponsible shenanigans, but the boy ends up with much bigger issues than a simple concussion, as a doped up love confession to his best friend leads him down a path of miscommunication, fighting, and anger.

Word Count: 8k

Warnings: Medical injuries (nothing graphic), curse words, serious case of miscommunication, arguments, angst (ends in fluff, though)

Disclaimer: I made up the hospital policies for the sake of the story, so it may not be accurate to real life.

Note: The entire first half of this fic is exactly what the request says, but then I just kept going and ended up with a completely new plot? Apologies, y'all. LOL

Masterlist

-

“You idiot!” you yell at Rafe’s unconscious body, frantically climbing into the ambulance, not letting go of his hand. If he wasn’t already knocked out, you swore you would have strangled him yourself.

At the sound of someone calling your name, you turn around to see Topper’s and Kelce’s panicked looks. Trying to ease their nerves, you give them a small smile, “It’s okay guys, I got this.”

You see the two of them nod before the doors slam shut and the ambulance begins driving away. You did your best to stay out of the way, letting the paramedics do their job, but your grip on Rafe’s limp hand remains tight. Staring at the large split on his forehead and the bruises forming on his face and arms, you can’t help but glare at him with tears in your eyes. “You’re a literal idiot,” you mumble at him, though there was no bite, your voice shaky.

Once arriving at the hospital, you and Rafe were immediately placed into an emergency room. Being forced to stand at the entrance while the doctors took over, you begin to grow worried, noticing that he has yet to gain consciousness.

When a nurse pulls you to the side to ask for his personal information, you’re able to answer all of her questions without a hitch, but you find yourself extremely distracted. Eyes flickering to Rafe’s figure once more, you notice that someone is beginning to stitch together Rafe’s forehead, and you frown at the unpleasant sight.

“Thank you, sweetie,” the nurse draws your attention back to her, “Is there somebody we can call? An emergency contact? Family, perhaps?”

It takes you a second to comprehend her question with your eyes trained only on Rafe. Snapping away from him, you stutter, “Oh, his family is out of town right now, but I can give you his parents’ number,” you shift uncomfortably, realizing what little attention you’ve been paying to the conversation.

“That would be great, thank you. And your relationship to the patient?” she taps away at the screen, not looking at you.

“His girlfriend,” the words slip past your lips before you register them. Heat rises to your face at your own white lie.

The nurse nods and tells you that you could head back to his room. When she begins to walk away, you justify to yourself that the only reason you only told her that was so you could stay with Rafe, knowing that only family and significant others could stay with patients. Heading in, you immediately go to stand by Rafe’s side again, grabbing his hand in yours once more.

The doctor placing a gauze strip over his forehead gives you a small smile. “Someone will come by to update you soon.”

“Thank you,” you reply, but your gaze never lifts from Rafe’s face.

When the doctor exits, she slides the transparent door close softly. Being left alone with Rafe, you can’t stop the lump that forms in your throat and the tears that fill yours eyes.

Not knowing how to cope with it all, you begin to yell with him, despite his unresponsiveness. Gently slapping his bicep, you go, “Was it worth it, idiot? Chasing after Maybank like that and eating shit?” You bring one hand up to your forehead, “God, who trips and falls straight into the curb?”

Looking back at him, you glare, “Do you hear me, idiot? I’m mad at you,” you pause before breaking down, “Wake up and argue with me, dammit!”

When Rafe remains unmoving, you take a deep breath, trying to collect yourself. Wiping the tears from your eyes, you say, “Whatever, it’s not like you’d ever win an argument against me anyways,” but your voice cracks despite your attempt to humor yourself.

You look up at the sound of the door sliding open. Seeing a different doctor approach, you focus all of your attention on her, hoping it would distract you from the strong emotions coursing through your veins.

“Hello. My name is Dr. Parker, I’ll be taking care of Mr. Cameron during his recovery. I was told that you are Mr. Cameron’s girlfriend?”

You nod in agreement, wanting to be updated on his condition and fearing being kicked out if you said ‘no’.

“Okay ma’am,” the doctor steps forward and shows you her tablet screen, explaining the extent of the injury to you.

Once she clarifies that you understand everything, Dr. Parker gives you a smile and says, “Mr. Cameron is going to be monitored for a day or two, just out of precaution. He should be waking up sometime soon. Someone will come by to help you transfer to one of our rooms now.” With that, she exits, leaving you with the sleeping boy.

Running a hand over your face, you turn and look at him with a glare, “You’re lucky it’s just a heavy concussion.”

Sighing at the sight of people coming in with a gurney, you move out of the way as they transfer Rafe from the emergency room up to one of the regular floors. Giving the nurse you had talked to earlier a small wave, you step on the elevator and make your way to the new space.

Checking your phone for the first time since your arrival, you see several texts from Kelce and Topper, even one from JJ, all asking about Rafe’s wellbeing. After letting all of them know that Rafe would be fine, you catch sight of the time written at the top of your screen, causing you to let out a yawn.

Pulling the chair from the corner of the room directly next to Rafe’s bed, you grab his hand for the uptenth time. You tried to ignore the way your heart clenched in your chest, fear crawling up your throat as a result of seeing your favorite person this broken.

Delicately, your fingers trace the bandage on Rafe’s forehead, just ever so slightly. Moving lower, you brush over the yellow bruise on his cheekbone, clicking your tongue at the sight. You continue to move lower and lower until you reach his lips. Hovering over them, you stare softly at their slight part, pink and full, even in his slumber. For a split second, you wonder if they feel as soft as they look, but you immediately shake that thought from your head.

Eyes darting up to the clock on the wall, you finally acknowledge how heavy your limbs are, eyelids slowly fluttering as well. Letting out a loud yawn, you place your head next to Rafe’s forearm, deciding that you’re going to doze off, just for a bit.

-

At the feeling of someone shaking your shoulder, you stir awake. When the events of last night come rushing back to you, you snap your head up, only to be greeted with the sight of a peacefully sleeping Rafe. Looking around in confusion, you turn and make eye contact with the nurse from earlier.

Trying to look presentable, you wipe the sleep from your eyes and try to fix your hair. “Hi, sorry,” you say to her.

“Not a problem,” she replies, “I’m sorry to disturb you, but there are some things I would like to discuss with you. Do you mind stepping outside for a moment?”

You find yourself hesitating, casting a quick look back at Rafe, before turning back at the nurse and nodding your head. On your way out, you manage to take a peek at the clock on the wall, noting that you had only been asleep for two hours.

Stepping out into the hallway, the nurse closes the door gently behind the two of you. Guiding you away from the room, the pair of you stand at a nurses’ station.

“Hi honey, I’m sorry to tell you this, but visiting hours are over.”

Taken aback, you try to reason, “But I’m his girlfriend,” you stutter over the last word, “I thought family and partners are allowed to stay?”

The nurse gives you a sympathetic look, pushing her glasses up before saying, “That’s true, baby.”

Confused, you ask, “Then, why do I have to leave?”

The nurse shifts uncomfortably, face clearly distressed as she mulls over her answer for a bit, “I was able to get into contact with Mr. Cameron’s family. Though he is not a minor, it is hospital policy to get a hold of the person he has listed under his emergency contact.”

You nod, understanding what she was saying, but not able to make the connection between the story and the reason why you were being asked to leave.

“Unfortunately, they disclosed the nature of your relationship with Mr. Cameron,” she slowly states, not knowing how to navigate through this. “I know you’re not his girlfriend,” she concludes.

Horrified at being caught in the lie, you try to hide your embarrassment by looking to the floor, knowing it would be ten times worse if you looked directly at the nurse, since it was clear she found the whole situation awkward as well. Your ears burn hot and you start to feel nervous, heart thumping rapidly in your chest. Diverting your attention to Rafe’s door, you swallow your pride for his sake.

Beginning your argument, you say, “Okay, I’m sorry for lying. I shouldn’t have done that, I was just afraid of this happening.”

The nurse nods, giving you the encouragement to continue.

“If you were able to get in touch with his family, then you know they’re not here. Please, I mean, I can’t leave him all alone here. I just want to be here when he wakes up,” you say with complete sincerity.

“I get it, baby, I do,” the nurse shakes her head, “But you don’t need to worry. He’s in great hands here.”

“No, you don’t get it. I need to be here for him,” you begin to grow frustrated.

“Please don’t make this more difficult than it needs to be,” the nurse says kindly.

“I don’t mean to be difficult at all. I know there are policies in place and rules are rules for a reason but,” you lift your arm up, pointing towards Rafe’s door, “Don’t you think it’s unfair? Leaving him all alone with no one to take care of him?”

“We can take care of him,” she continues to soothe you.

“He doesn’t know you!” you snap, “Or anybody here! Look, can you just please,” you groan, throwing your head back upon realizing it wouldn’t be in your favor to upset her, “Please just bend the rules a bit?”

Letting out a loud sigh, her lips pull back into a grimace, “Honey, it’s just a concussion. You can come back in the morning, okay?”

With a huff, you cross your arms over your chest. Biting your lips, you glance back at his door.

“You can go say ‘bye’ to him, alright?” the nurse attempts to compromise.

Defeated, you mumble a quiet ‘okay’ in response before walking the short distance to Rafe’s room. Giving you space, the nurse takes a seat at her station, leaving you to say goodbye in peace.

Making your way back to his room, you stand with one hand on the handle. Embarrassed by your outburst, you turn back to look at the nurse before letting out an awkward cough. “I’m sorry for throwing a fit,” you push Rafe’s door open as you quietly say to her, “Thank you.”

She smiles kindly at you before you retreat into his room.

Placing your forehead against the closed door, you let out a tired sigh. With a huff, you turn around with a glare. Pointing at Rafe, you make your way to him before poking him in the forehead, “This is all your fault,” you glower.

Taking a seat beside him, you roll your eyes, “Okay, so what, you’re unconscious? That’s why it’s your fault. If you were awake, we wouldn’t be in this situation, would we? I wouldn’t have yelled at that poor nurse, would I?”

Raising your brows, you gently pat his cheek, smiling at the way his head lolled around. “That’s what I thought.”

Stopping your antics, your smile drops as you caress his cheek. With a shaky breath, you press a kiss to the corner of his lips. “I’ll be back soon, okay? I promise.”

At the sound of the door opening behind you, you look back to see the nurse standing there patiently. You look back at Rafe once more before standing upright and taking your leave. “Goodnight, Rafe.”

-

Two hours after you had left and an hour after you had finally let sleep overcome you in the comfort of your own bed, Rafe began to stir awake on the stiff hospital mattress.

Groaning, he brings a hand up to caress his pounding headache, only to find it obscured. Blinking open his tired eyes, he takes notice of his surroundings. Panic rising up his chest, his breathing labors, searching for one thing, one person, in particular.

“Hello?” his hoarse voice calls out.

Hearing him call out, a nurse hurriedly heads in to check on Rafe. “Good morning, Mr. Cameron!” he smiled kindly at the boy.

“Where am I?” Rafe’s panicked voice asks the dumb question. Where were you?

“You’re currently at The OBX Hospital. You have a mild concussion, but if your check up goes well then you’re free to go,” the nurse explains.

“Oh, alright,” he licks his dry lips, “And, uh, where’s—”

“Your parents?” Chris, as his nametag read, interrupts with a small ‘tsk,’ “Yeah, I’m sorry they’re not here, kid. Last I heard, they’re still on a plane.”

Shaking his head, Rafe’s eyes squeeze shut as he collects his thoughts, his family not even crossing his mind. “No, not them,” he sighs.

As the nurse begins his examination on Rafe, the teenage boy continues to explain himself. “A girl, uh, was there a girl here?”

Shining a light in his eyes, Chris takes a moment to respond, “You’re going to be a little more specific than that,” he chuckles.

Stating your name, Rafe delves into his best description of you. “Did you see her? Really pretty smile, uh, super nice hair. She’s like, this tall,” he holds his hand up. “Really nice, like, the nicest person I’ve ever met. I don’t, I don’t really know what else. Do you know where she is?”

Leaning back, Chris gives him a look with raised brows, “Pretty smile and nice hair? Geez, I don’t know, man. Telling me the color of her nice hair might be a start, though.”

Rafe lets out an exasperated groan. His head hurts. “Right, sorry—”

“I’m just messing with you,” Chris grins cheekily, “There was a girl here last night, but the night shift nurse sent her home a few hours ago.”

“So, she’s okay?” Rafe worries.

“Considering she was the one holding your hand all night while you were the one who laid unconscious in the gurney, I’d say yes. She’s perfectly fine. Follow my pen with your eyes please,” Chris instructs after answering Rafe’s question.

Abiding, Rafe lets out a small chuckle as he responds, “Okay, that’s good.” Rafe feels a weight fall off his chest, one he didn’t know was there. Once Rafe registered the hand comment, he bit back a smile. “That’s really good.”

Clapping Rafe on the shoulder, Chris lets him know that he’s “Perfectly good, man. If you want to call someone to come pick you up then you can go ahead and do that. Maybe your girlfriend? Heard she put up quite a fight when she was asked to leave.”

Rafe’s cheeks turn a flaming shade of red, but before he had the chance to correct Chris, the nurse was already out the door.

“I’ll grab your discharge papers and be back!” he calls from the hall.

Turning to the night stand, he grabs his bag of belongings before rummaging through it for his phone.

-

Yawning, you let out a loud stretch before your arm flops across your face. You’re tired, and everything hurts.

What time is it? You thought to yourself, though it was quickly cut short as a ringing tone reaches your ears.

Without looking, you grab your phone and accept the call.

“Hello?” your sleepy tone lets out.

Hearing a laugh on the other end, one oh so familiar, you shoot up in your bed, suddenly wide awake as the events of last night came rushing back to you.

“With the way you sound, I might’ve thought that you were the concussed one and not me,” Rafe teases.

“Rafe!” you let out excitedly, before lowering your volume after remembering his injury. “You’re awake!”

“Barely,” he pouts.

You roll your eyes at his dramatics. “Stay there, I’m on my way.”

Head cocked, Rafe purses his lips as he says, “Where would I—” but the phone clicks off before he can finish his sentence.

-

You were at the hospital in record speed, breaking several traffic laws along the way, much to many drivers’ dismay, but you couldn’t find it in yourself to care as you burst through the glass doors within minutes of leaving your house. Skipping the elevator, you find yourself barrling up several flights of stairs to the room number you’ve now memorized at this point.

Your momentum only seemed to continue as you nearly broke Rafe’s closed hospital room door, swinging it wide open.

“Rafe—”

At the sight of his open hospital gown, back to you, your cheeks immediately warm. All panicked energy draining, causing you to stop abruptly and straighten your posture, finally taking the time to catch your breath.

“Oh,” you stutter, backing out of the room, “Sorry, I didn’t realize—”

Before you could process your embarrassment and back out of the room, Rafe has you by the arm. Letting out a relieved sigh, he pulls you close, tucking your head under his chin. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

Humiliation fading, you find yourself stunned into silence instead, Rafe’s blatant affections uncharacteristic. Heart hammering in your ribcage, you tentatively bring your hands up to his waist, touch light as a feather despite Rafe’s strong embrace.

Holding you by the shoulders, he pulls himself away from you, scanning your features with scrunched brows as he asks, “Are you okay?”

It takes you a moment to reply, unable to get over your shock as you stutter, “Uh, why, um, why wouldn’t I be okay?”

“I don’t know, I mean, all I remember is running after JJ and you running after me,” Rafe recaps with a frown, “I don’t know what happened after.”

You tilt your head to the side, hand coming up to brush over his bandaged forehead. With a soft, reassuring smile, you tell him, “That’s okay, Rafe. Temporary amnesia is normal, it’ll come back to you in a few days.”

He gives you a small smile, pulling you in again, “As long as you’re okay, it’s fine.”

Reciprocating his hug this time, you can’t help but laugh as you say, “Yes, Rafe, I’m perfectly fine. You’re the one who hit your head, dummy.”

Rafe merely gives you a sigh, not wanting to let you go. At his insistent grip, you roll your eyes, figuring that he was still dopey from the concussion and the medicine. “Alright, tough guy, get dressed. I’ll go get your discharge papers.”

Conceding, he lets go with a grunt. “I have them, we just have to drop them off.”

Once everything was in order and Rafe was successfully checked out, post a ten minute lecture from nurse Chris about his recovery, who unnecessarily emphasized ‘no sex’ for the next few days, the two of you sped out the hospital doors.

“Alright, get in, I’ll take you home.”

Hand pausing on the door handle, Rafe places an arm on top of your car with a displeased look, “‘Home,’ like, my house ‘home’?”

Unaware of his dissatisfaction, you give him a nod, “Yeah, of course. I don’t know if your family is home yet or not, but you should be okay.”

As you get in the car, Rafe’s frown only deepens.

“Are you getting in?” you call out.

It was in this split moment that Rafe finally devised a plan.

“Ow, oh God!” he begins to groan, hand coming up to clutch his head.

Stepping out, you peer at him over the roof of your car with a panicked expression, “Rafe? What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

Finally sliding into his seat on the passenger side, Rafe side eyes you as you step in, dramatizing his act once you take your seat, hand reaching out to him. “My head,” he groans, throwing it back against the headrest.

“Do you want to go back inside? I don’t think this is supposed to happen—” you console him with urgency.

“No!” Rafe cuts you off, momentarily breaking his act. “Uh,” he brings his hand up to his head again, with fake exhaustion he says, “I don’t think I should be left at home all alone,” he states.

“I’m sure Ward and them are nearly here by now—”

“I won’t make it by then,” he slumps in your passenger seat, the back of his head sprawled across his forehead dramatically.

Observing him in concern, it all begins to click into place as you watch Rafe flicker between eyeing you from the corner of his eye, gauging your reaction, to clutching his head in pain, his face scrunching and unscrunching in between each act.

Tsking, you roll your eyes, finally realizing he was full of dramatics. “You’re a pain.”

“Yeah, I’m in so much pain,” he weeps sorrowfully.

“Fine, I’ll take you back to my house and watch over you,” you shake your head with a laugh.

“I think that would be best,” Rafe agrees.

-

You plop onto your bed with a sigh. From besides you, Rafe had finally shut his trap and fell asleep. It was a hassle, truly, with him acting as though he had just been shot with his constant moping and groaning for your attention.

Phone chiming in your pocket, you tiredly reach for it, turning to make sure Rafe hadn’t woken up to the sound.

Sarah C.: We’re home. No sign of Rafe, still at the hospital? :/

You: No, he’s at my place, sleeping. I’ll drop him off in a few.

Sarah C.: Kk!

“Who is that?” Rafe’s sleepy voice calls out.

Rolling your eyes, you reply, “My boyfriend,” tone dripping with sarcasm.

Sitting up in a start, Rafe’s face is shrouded in concern. “Boyfriend? Since when?”

“Since my best friend decided to be stupid and smash his face in. Had to find someone else to replace him for the time being because I got lonely,” not realizing that Rafe didn’t sense your sarcasm.

Defensively, Rafe retorts with aggression, “Well, dump him. I’m fine, see,” he gestures to himself.

“You weren’t fine an hour ago when you made me spoon feed you soup.”

“No, I can do it myself, it’s just a small concussion, no big deal.” Rafe stands from the bed, making a show of demonstrating simple exercise tasks.

Clapping your hands together, you exclaim, “It’s a miracle, he’s healed! Let’s get you home bud.” You begin to grab your keys from the nightstand besides your bed.

Stopping his ministrations, Rafe’s frown returns. “Hey, wait a minute—”

Tossing him his sweater, you decide to stop your relentless teasing, “I don’t have a boyfriend, idiot. You were only out for, like, a day. Sarah texted, they’re home now, so let’s go.”

Falling onto your bed face first, Rafe mumbles, “But I like it here.”

You can’t help but laugh. “You like my tiny, one story house more than you like your mansion?”

“My mansion doesn’t have you.”

Baffled for the millionth time in the past two days, you conclude that you were no longer capable of letting Rafe’s comments slide anymore, his behavior only further confusing your already muddled feelings.

“What is going on with you?” you sit beside his head, hand coming up to card through his soft hair.

Turning to press his cheek against the sheets, eyes finding yours, he says, “I just like being with you, that’s all.”

“Jeez, this concussion has made you clingy.”

Nodding in affirmation, Rafe replies, “Maybe. But I’ve liked you way before my head injury.”

Hand stopping their movements, you look down at him with a glare, “Are you doped up, Cameron?”

“A little bit,” he grins. “But I’m not lying.”

Sitting up, he pulls you into an embrace once more, causing the two of you to fall onto your mattress with you tucked into his chest.

“Rafe,” you say with caution.

“I don’t think this is the most romantic confession, considering I am a little bit high,” he giggles. “But I really, really like you,” he sighs.

Growing serious, he lets out a shuddery breath. “Do you know how scared I was, when I woke up and you weren’t there? I really thought ‘she must have gotten hurt, if she’s not here with me.’” His grip on you tightens, “I don’t know what I’d do with myself if you ever got hurt like this.”

“It’s just a concussion…” you whisper, not sure what else to say, heart thudding inside your chest.

“It doesn’t matter. I don’t ever want anything bad to happen to you.”

At the sound of silence, Rafe continues. “I don’t want to make things weird. I know we’re best friends and I don’t ever want to lose you. But...I like you, so much that it hurts sometimes,” he pauses, his next words carrying a tone of heartbreak that you’ve never heard from him before as he says, “But if you don’t feel the same way, I’ll let it go.”

“You’re just saying that because you’re messed in the head right now,” you pull yourself out of his warm arms, denial running rampant in your mind.

Rafe chuckles, “That’s not true. If anything it gave me clarity.”

Turning to him, you let out a turmoiled sigh. You’ve attempted to conceal your feelings for Rafe for months, years even. The possibility of him not feeling the same was too heavy a burden for you to bear, the risk of ruining the best relationship in your life was too great in your eyes. There was no other choice but to stay silent, to shove your blooming love as far down as it could go in an attempt to preserve your own heart.

But here he was, uttering the same words you’ve longed to hear for so long.

Instead of happiness bursting in your chest, stomach overran with a zoo-full of butterflies, your chest weighed heavy. You weren’t sure what it was about his confession, but everything about the situation felt wrong.

With teary eyes, you swipe your keys from the nightstand. Without so much as a glance Rafe’s way, you exit your room with a quiet murmur of, “Let’s get you home, Rafe.”

-

That was the last you saw of Rafe for two weeks. The car ride back unbearably silent, as Rafe spent the entire duration staring out the window with a locked jaw. Upon arrival at his home, he simply swung the car door open, leaving without so much as a goodbye.

The lack of communication only furthered your skepticism, affirming your beliefs about the sincerity of his confession.

It was the worst kind of sadness, you’ve concluded, the worst you’ve ever experienced in your life. As heart wrenching it was to know that Rafe's confession was nothing more than a hazy mistake, it was the loss of his friendship that truly carved a whole in your heart.

As you spend the following days alone, you can’t find any way to stop the ache that hugged your bones as you felt the shadow of his presence wherever you went. The lack of ‘good morning/good night’ texts seemed to make your days grim. The constant ‘table for one’ admission caused a churn in your stomach everytime. The empty space on your couch, bed, car seemed to be so apparent and loud, a constant mockery of the person you’ve lost.

It was a constant back and forth in your mind, one part of you wishing that his confession was sincere while the other hoped that it never happened to begin with, and despite the two weeks you’ve had to mull over the possible scenarios and their consequences, you’ve yet to draw a conclusion about which option was more ideal.

The first time you saw him again was at Duck Woods Country Club, your bartender uniform unbearably stuffy as you polished glass cups from behind the counter. You had prayed you wouldn’t see him, but realistically you knew the chances of that were slim. It was Thursday, and Rafe Cameron was always at the club on Thursdays.

Your breath hitched in your throat at the sight of him, flanked by Kelce and Topper as he clutched his stomach in laughter at their conversation. Though it was unreasonable, you couldn’t help but feel bitter indignation at his happiness, finding it hurtful that he had the galls to enjoy himself after your angstful weeks.

As you scanned his face, you sighed at the way your resentment simmered down to a mere bubble from its previous boil. His bruises have faded, bandage absent from its previous place on his forehead. He looked better.

He didn’t notice you until you had turned away from him, in favor of focusing on your job as you discussed scheduling issues with your coworker.

It caused him to sutter in his steps, drawing the attention of his two friends as he suddenly stopped.

Following his gaze, Kelce and Topper share a knowing look with each other.

“Hey man,” Kelce begins, looking at Topper for support, which the other boy granted with a small nod of his head. “Look, I know it sucks, but there’s other girls out there, alright? If she doesn’t like you back, that’s her loss.”

Snapping out of his daze, Rafe lets out a scoff, as though it would be convincing enough to ease the heaviness he feels in his heart. “Yeah, whatever.”

With that, the trio takes their leave, Rafe refusing to look back at you in honor of his pride as you watched his back until he was out of sight.

-

It was late by the time you ended your shift, Rafe finally out of your mind for the first time in weeks when the rush of customers preoccupied your attention. Letting your hair out of its work bun, you let out a relieved sigh as you made your way to your car.

At the shadow of a person loitering besides your car comes into view, you halt in your steps, fear crawling up your throat. The dark of the night shrouded them, your squinting providing no clarity.

Knowing better than to risk your safety, you let out a hushed, “Oh hell no,” as you turn around and make your way back into the club.

“Hey, wait—”

At the familiar voice, you turn around with a look of confusion. “Rafe?”

Stepping into the light, he shuffles nervously. “Sorry, I know you probably don’t want to see me—”

“What the hell are you doing?” you can’t help but yell in anger.

Misinterpreting your anger as disdain for him personally, Rafe lets out a defeated sigh as he rubs his sweaty palms against his pants. “I just wanted to talk.”

“Are you stupid?” you exclaim, the panic and fear from before overcoming your senses. “What the actual fuck were you doing standing besides my car in the dark like that?” you reprimand.

“I was waiting for you,” Rafe defends, not sure what to make of your hostility.

Perhaps it was the late night, exhaustion from your strenuous shift dictating your emotions accompanied by the utter fear that you just experienced at the thought that some random man was waiting for you in the dark of night, but you couldn’t help but utter the following words.

“The last thing I want to do right now is talk to you, Rafe.”

The ambiguity of the phrase is what caused the misinterpretation. Though you meant the words exactly as they were, not wanting to talk to Rafe right in that particular moment, Rafe found himself reading between the lines.

It was a confession of your feelings for him, Rafe believed, a statement of conclusiveness. You no longer wanted anything to do with him.

Being one to know when to accept his losses, Rafe swallows the lump in his throat as he nods his head with a clenched jaw. Looking away from you, Rafe does all he can to hide the hurt as the sincerity of your words shined through. Mustering all the courage he can, Rafe is only capable of letting out a cracked, “Okay,” before he takes his leave.

At the sight of him walking away, you let out a tired sigh, pounding heading making no effort to assuage your heavy mind as you make your way to your car.

Checking under the car and in the backseat before all else, you feel a sense of relief before you get into your car and finally make your way home.

-

Another week went by without an encounter with Rafe, the initial sorrow fading with time. As sad as you still were, life continues to move on, you supposed, and constantly directing your energy to moping over the boy did no good for your well being.

It wasn’t until you received a text from Sarah that your resolve came crumbling down.

Sarah C.: Hey! Let’s meet up, we gotta talk. :)

Unsure of what to make of the message, you can’t help but suspect the topic of conversation that she wanted to have, causing you to hesitate in accepting the invitation.

Ultimately, you decided that it would do you no favor to cut off the entire Cameron family in light of your estranged relationship with Rafe, and so you hastily type out a reply before losing your nerve.

You: Sure, let’s meet at Carly’s Cafe

Within the hour, you find yourself sitting across from the younger Cameron, the two of you sharing a plate of blueberry pancakes as you conversed about subjects far from the elephant in the room.

It was after sharing a laugh about getting how Sarah lost while on vacation and being stranded with a dead cell phone that Sarah truly addresses the purpose for initiating the hangout, the true reason finally being acknowledged after looming over your heads for so long. Noticing her change in demeanor immediately as she suddenly sits up straighter, bottom lip tucked between her teeth, you lean back in your own seat as well, anticipating her next words.

“So listen…”

“Sarah,” you let out, voice clearly demonstrating disinterest in her next words.

“I know, I know,” she raises her hands in understanding. “Just, hear me out.”

Upon your confirmation of your willingness to listen, she continues.

“Look, you know I don’t make it a point in my life to interfere with whatever mess Rafe has going on in his.” You let out a small laugh, nodding as you find truth in her words. “But this is different, alright? You’re my friend as much as you are his, so I feel like we need to talk about it.”

You let out a click of your tongue, unsure if you truly want to get into the details of the situation, before giving a hesitant nod. “Alright, let’s talk.”

The conversation went on for hours, the plate of pancakes being long gone within the first hour as the two of you nurse your own drinks during the conversation.

It got emotional at times, the two of you tearing up at different moments as you navigated through a range of topics, varying from the current predicament at hand to more individual feelings regarding the older boy and each other.

The discussion provided a much needed sense of relief, you soon found, as pieces of the weight on your chest chipped away with every minute that went by. What began as a tentative chat, with the two of you walking on eggshells and carefully placating your words, soon turned into a heart-felt, open conversation as the pair of you delved into intense emotions you felt.

It ended with a tearful hug in the parking lot, next to each other's cars as the two of you parked next to each other. As ‘I love you’s were exchanged, the two of you confirmed that you’d see each other soon before taking off to your respective business, You don’t miss how she goes out of her way to inform you that she would be retreating to John B.’s home, as well as including that her entire family was out for the day minus one particular member.

With the knowledge that Sarah provided, you reflected on the situation as a whole, perspective on both sides of the situation suddenly coming with a newly found sense of clarity that you did not have before. As such, you let out a breath of determination, driving down the route that you have become so familiar with over the past years.

-

Graveling crunching underneath your shoes, you ignore the way your hands shake as you reach up to press the button of the doorbell. Admittedly, it was an odd sensation, and it felt uncharacteristically formal, but you took it upon yourself to affirm that it was not unusually, and it wouldn’t be appropriate to simply invite yourself in as you’re so used to doing.

After long, painful seconds of toeing the concrete porch, the door swings open with power, a gust of wind accompanying it.

“Who is i—” At the sight of you, his words are cut short. For a moment, he finds himself softening, heart fluttering in his chest at the sight of you after spending so much time away, but it’s fleeting. Remembering the harsh words you uttered to him not long ago, Rafe’s resolve hardens, refusing to be vulnerable with you any longer. “What are you doing here?” his voice is monotone.

“Can we talk?”

Rafe lets out a scoff, grip on the door releasing as he turns away from you. From over his shoulder, he says, “Oh, now you want to talk?”

Following him inside despite the lack of invitation, you shut the door behind you as you nod, “Yes.”

“No.” Rafe replies.

“No?”

“Yeah, no,” he grits, “As I recall, you were the one who told me to fuck off, who said that you ‘didn’t want to talk’ to me. But now,” Rafe lets out a hollow laugh as he turns around to face you, “Now you do? When it’s on your terms and it’s convenient for you?”

He begins to talk slow steps towards you, anger dancing in his eyes as he points a finger to your chest. Sarcastic smile on his face, he presses, “Where were you three weeks ago, huh? Hell, where were you this week?”

At your silence, he pulls back with a nod. “Exactly. So no. No, I don’t want to talk to you anymore. I’m done.”

“Did you mean it, Rafe?” you find the courage to speak. “Three weeks ago, when you said you like me, was it all some doped up illusion or did you mean it?”

Tough act faltering, Rafe considers your question before his anger returned, “Of course I fucking meant it,” he yelled in frustration, “I told you I meant it that day.”

“You were high!” you yell back, “How was I supposed to know it was real?”

“Why didn’t you just ask?” Rafe’s voice continued to rise. “You ghosted me. How was I not supposed to take that as a rejection?”

“Because I was waiting on you,” you explain. “It was your words, your confession, Rafe. If you meant it, you would’ve said it again when you were sober!”

Hands flying to his hair, he throws his head back, “I did the confessing,” he emphasizes, “The ball was in your court, Y/n!”

“Well, it didn’t feel that way then,” you cross your arms over your chest, avoiding his gaze.

“Not to mention I did go after you, two weeks later, remember? The night you told me you never wanted to see me again?” he continues to yell.

“‘Nev—Never see you again’?” you jut your head towards him, suddenly confused, “When did I say that!”

“Don’t act dumb, you said you didn’t want to talk to me anymore, what else could you have possibly meant after ghosting me for weeks,” Rafe spats.

“I meant exactly what I said, stupid! I meant I didn’t want to talk to you that night, you fucking creep. Do you know how terrified I was that night when I saw some huge shadow hiding in the dark next to my car?” you explain.

And so the fight went on for an hour, the two of you tossing words back and forth as you explained your resentment towards each other regarding the course of events that have been happening over the past few weeks. It wasn’t a calm nor healthy conversation by any means, but it was certainly effective, the two of you finally understanding each other through the angry phrases and aggressive arguments.

At the end of it all, you ended up in Rafe’s room, as at some point he had stormed up the stairs during your fight and you followed. He sat at his spinning desk chair, legs straddling the back of it, arms resting on top as he spins side to side. From across the room, you sat on his bed, arms crossed over your chest as the two of you sat in silence.

The anger had dwindled on both ends, though the tense air was still there despite your understanding of one another. It was you who decided to break the awkward silence as you say, “For someone who’s recovering from a concussion, you sure yelled a lot.”

Letting out a small chuckle, Rafe finally looks your way as he says, “Yeah, well, you piss me off. I have a headache the size of the Grand Canyon right now because of you.”

“Whatever,” you mumble. “So, you really like me then?”

Glaring from across the room, he says, “I can’t for the life of me figure out why.”

Ignoring his attempt at a quip, your arms drop from your chest, now folded neatly in your lap as you say, “In case it wasn’t obvious by now, I like you too.”

“I realized that two headaches ago,” Rafe continues to tease.

“I don’t think confessions are supposed to go like this,” you roll your eyes. “Where’s the love, the romance, the kissing?” you list off in question.

Stopping his swivelling, Rafe looks at you with a smirk, “You want me to kiss you?”

Grabbing his pillow, you throw it with all the force you can muster, hitting him square in the face as you yell at him to “shut up.”

As the pillow falls, Rafe grips his head with a groan, “Oh God, I think you gave me another concussion.”

“You’re so dramatic,” you bite back a smile, the tense air slowly fading as the two of you subtly slide back into your usual dynamic.

“No, I mean it,” Rafe continues, causing you to stand up in a panic, “God, that really hurt.”

“Are you okay?” you kneel in front of him, trying to pry his hands off his face as if you could see the damage.

“Yeah, I think so, I think I just need,” Rafe pauses to groan again.

“Need what? Your meds? I can go get them, where are they?” you shake his wrist.

“No, I need,” his grasp on his forehead falls, revealing a smirk on his face as he grabs your wrist, “I think I just need you to kiss it better.”

“Jesus, Rafe Cameron!” you yell, causing him to let you go with a loud laugh. “You scared the crap out of me!”

Standing, he continues to laugh as he says, “It was funny though.”

“You and I have better different definitions of humor, Rafe,” you deadpan.

Looking at you with a small smile graced on his face, Rafe asks, “Will you, though?”

Still annoyed, you ask, “Will I what?”

“Kiss it better,” he asks with sincerity.

Flustered, your attitude shifts as you mumble, “You’re lame.”

Rafe approaches you anyways, leaning down so that your lips were leveled with his forehead. Nervously, you place your hands on his shoulders, and with as much courage as you can gather, you lean forward, placing a soft kiss to his previously bruised skin.

“I feel better already,” Rafe stands upright. Your placement on his shoulder stayed, though, causing him to step closer to you. As you stared up at him, you can’t help but feel your cheeks warm. The constant change in your emotions was starting to jumble up your brain.

“Can I kiss you?” Rafe suddenly asks in a smooth breath, eyes locked intensely with yours.

You were tired of thinking, of analyzing situations over and over again, and for the first time in nearly a month, you decided to let go. Listening to only your current emotions, you let the butterflies and thumping heart speak for you as you give him a nod.

With that, Rafe presses his long awaiting lips to yours. Suddenly, it was like the failed confessions and miscommunication never mattered. As he let out a content sigh as you pressed yourself closer to him, it truly felt as though the sequence of wrong turns were all worth it, making this moment all the more sweeter. Hands wrapped tightly around your waist, Rafe moves so that the two of you fall onto his bed, hand flying up to cusp the back of your head and soften your impact, all while keeping his lips moving against yours. It was soft, a surprise to you given Rafe’s rigid character, but that made it all the more special.

Neither of you wanted to break apart, pulling the other as close as possible, lips locked until the very last possible breath. It was you who pulled back first, sucking in a large gasp of breath once letting go. Rafe’s breath fanned across your cheek, not wanting to move too far from you.

Chests heaving and limbs tangled, the two of you laid together as you caught your breath. Gently, Rafe slides his fingers in between yours, giving your hand a squeeze as he presses kisses to the column of your neck as you laid in silence.

-

At some point, the two of you had fallen asleep, the fight truly taking a toll on the both of you in addition to numerous make out sessions. You woke to a flash and the sound of a camera shutter, Rafe’s hand still entwined in yours as you blink your sleep away.

“Whoops,” you hear Sarah’s voice.

Face pressed against your neck, Rafe’s voice causes vibrations that tickle you as he says, “Get out of my room, Sarah.”

“Will do,” with that, she immediately took her leave, calling out, “You’re both welcome, by the way!” from the hallway, causing you to go into a fit of laughter.

“How are you feeling?” you ask Rafe, turning to see that he’s already looking at you.

“I feel great,” he replies, unable to resist pressing another kiss to your lips. “Thanks to you.”

“What did I do?” you ask, bemused.

“You kissed me better,” he replies cheesily, causing you to let out a groan.

“That is so cheesy, Cameron,” you retorted, rolling on top of him as you press a kiss to his lips once more.

-

Taglist: @dmonchld @heysimps @jjmaybankzz @moniamaybank @popebaby @sunsetswithjj @teamnick @tovvaa @taylathornton @sortagaysortahigh @boyfriend-cal @thatsme-johnbookerroutledge

[amazaynz]

Absolutely adorable, I love this story soo much💘🤞🏻

new light part 10: look at you — rafe cameron

new light series masterlist

summary: thanksgiving break means returning to the town you grew up in, and facing the boy you fell in love with there.

pairing: rafe x reader

warnings: swearing and mentions of alcohol, another mention of agnes's false positive pregnancy

a/n: first of all. wow, hi to everyone who found me and this fic since season 2 came out! welcome to the new light party 😌 sorry i took such a long break between parts—just got really swept up in all of the new content! nonetheless, i hope you enjoy 💜

my writing

i just wanna sit and look at you, look at you

Fall in the Outer Banks has always felt special to you. Hurricane season is ending, all of the leaves have changed, and it’s still not too cold when you finally make your way home for the first time since summer. You usually love coming home for Thanksgiving, seeing all of your old friends, meeting up at all of your favorite places, and just feeling so happy and cozy at home after spending weeks grinding it out at school across the country.

A hallmark of this time, Kelce’s annual Thanksgiving Eve party had somehow evolved into a full-on bar crawl this year, complete with a Facebook event page. You hadn’t helped him at all, Kelce telling you he’d handled everything and just wanted you to show up—a tall order in and of itself, considering—so you were pretty impressed with how sophisticated it looked. You took a breath and sifted through the invite list when it came through last week, only confirming what you already knew.

Rafe had viewed the invite, but not answered yet. You wonder if he noticed that the first stop on the bar crawl was the place where you had your first date. You had followed his lead, closing the app without responding, throwing your phone across the couch as Davis and McCall had become so accustomed to in the last few weeks. You're still a teeny bit emotional thinking about the way they'd wrapped you up in a group hug at the departures terminal, not that it was able to completely replace your last memory of that particular place.

As you waited for your brother to pick you up from the ferry dock (your parents offered to pick you up in the plane but you declined, needing that final leg of the trip to sit and think about your plan for the next few days) you sifted through the slew of unanswered texts on your phone.

Kelce was blowing you up as soon as he opened Find My Friends and saw you at your college airport, and you immediately screened his calls, sending him a text that promised to think about the bar crawl but at least do breakfast at some point so he could interrogate you properly, then leaving it at that. A couple of your girl friends talked about hitting Chapel Hill on Saturday, getting brunch and then a head start on Christmas shopping, which you declined, too.

Topper had reached out too, telling you he brought his girlfriend home if you wanted to see her.

Separately from Rafe, he clarified.

And then there were the texts from Rafe.

They’d started Saturday, when he had headed home for the break. They were gentle, tentative asks for when you were getting home, if you’d even still want to see him, what your plans were for the week in general.

And you had yet to answer a single one, typing out reply after reply, deleting them every single time. You couldn’t work out why you were ghosting beyond the fact that the pull he still had on you after over a month apart was terrifying.

“Y/n,” you hear from down the dock, head turning in the direction of the voice that decidedly does not belong to your little brother. You sigh upon seeing the culprit, head tipping back as you look up at the sky.

“What are you doing here?” you groan, already accepting defeat as you roll your suitcase toward him. But Kelce doesn’t accept it right away, just takes one look at you before pulling you into his arms.

“Bribed Dylan,” he admits, arms wrapped tightly around your shoulders, rocking you side to side. “You know, didn’t really put up a fight.”

“Of course he didn’t. Probably gave me up for what, $100?” you say, pulling out of his hold.

“C’mon, you’re worth more than that. $200,” Kelce says, ruffling your hair. “Knew you’d ignore us when you got back, figured I take the direct approach.”

You bat his hands away, frowning. “Surprised you didn’t bring Top, too. So then you could both gang up on me.”

Kelce’s eyes shift away immediately, suddenly intently focused on loading your suitcase into the trunk of his black Range Rover. “Topper and his girl are currently on Rafe duty.”

You turn your surprise about how quickly Kelce mentioned him into a noncommittal hum, making your way to the passenger seat and hopping inside. “He told me he was bringing her home.”

Kelce gives you a look over the center console once he starts his car, picking up on the way you ignored the last half of his sentence. “Yeah.”

You’re shocked by how much everything you pass by—all the things that usually just mean home—now mean Rafe. Not of being young, hometown nostalgia, but just him. The marina where he’d dock the Druthers in the summer, the high school where you fell for him, the coffee shop you’d always go to in town together. It was just feelings of home and Rafe being hurled at you until you couldn’t distinguish them anymore, and you had no idea when that happened.

Kelce asks you how school is and you return the pleasantry, but it’s completely silent after that for a while, his car radio not even on to break the silence.

Kelce clears his throat. “He’s fine, by the way.”

“Who?”

“Don’t give me that shit, Y/n/n. I know you’re dying to ask about him,” he tuts, casting you a sideways glance.

“I’m not, actually,” you mumble. Kelce looks at you again. “I’m not! I already know how he is.”

Confusion flashes across his features. “Did you talk to Top?”

“No.”

“Then how—Sarah?”

“No.”

“Okay, uh…” Kelce trails off, looking at you again once you’re at a stoplight. He raises his eyebrows and you sigh. “We’ve been talking.”

“Who?”

“Who do you think?”

His eyes widen. The car behind him honks, the light green for a while now. Kelce speeds off, still throwing you glances. “Wait, you talked to Rafe?”

“Yeah.”

“When?”

“Few times. When he came home, on his birthday, a call and a few texts after that,” you shrug.

“Wait, since we came home for him?” Kelce asks.

You look at him in confusion, your heart sinking at the realization. “Wait, you and Topper came back just for him that weekend?”

“Of course we did,” Kelce shrugs. “But wait… you guys have been talking for that long, and neither of you told me?”

Your fondness for Kelce fades, replaced by annoyance. “I know that for some reason all of our friends are really invested in this relationship, but we don’t need to tell you every move we make.”

“I know, Y/n/n—I know,” he sighs. “Sorry.”

You peel your eyes away from where you’d been staring at the Cameron Development office as it passed by, a hand patting his shoulder. “Hey, don’t be. I’m sorry. I know you care because you love us—I’m just, I’ve been on this island for like ten minutes and I’m so fucking stressed already.”

“About what?”

“Everything, Kelce. Being back here, seeing him again—”

“So you are gonna see him?”

You cross your arms over your chest, sinking into the seat. “Yes, of course, I’m gonna see him.”

“Does he know that? I don’t think he knows that. He’s not acting like it.”

You weren’t sure how you’d expected Rafe to be doing right now, but finding out he’s waiting around for you to find the nerve to speak to him is like a punch to the gut. You throw your sunglasses on Kelce’s dashboard, rubbing your hands over his eyes. “I’ve been ghosting him this week.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know,” you sigh, finally seeing your house come into view. You don’t miss the way Kelce had taken you the long way home, the way that doesn’t lead you to pass by Tannyhill. Even if he was giving you a hard time, you appreciated the gesture. “I don’t know what to say to him yet. Or how to say it? I just don’t want to lose him.”

“You haven’t, trust me,” Kelce says, putting his car in park. Neither of you makes any move to get out. “What are you afraid of?”

“That if we get back together, it’s gonna be just like last time,” you admit, for the first time out loud. You’d been thinking it for weeks, skirted around the idea with McCall a few times, ever since Rafe sent you those dresses.

Something you learned fairly quickly about being with Rafe is that when it came to how he felt about you, he was an open book. Ever since that day at the store, where he fessed up to years of buried feelings for you, it was on. You’d have to be in deep denial—like you had been in high school, you now realize—to ever think he wasn’t all about you. And ever since Rafe apologized and set the record straight on the break-up and his birthday, you didn’t doubt he was being true. But that didn’t mean everything that actually led to your breakup wasn’t still weighing on you.

“What do you mean?” Kelce says. “Y’all were so happy over the summer.”

“Yeah, we were,” you agree, not even able to put on a smile. “And then it got real. And it was hard, Kelce. Way harder than I thought it ever would be. I don’t want to just—I can’t just rush back into it if this could happen all over again.”

“I have an idea,” Kelce says, getting out of the car to open his trunk again. You follow suit, looking at him quizzically as he just gets your suitcase back out for you. “Stop ghosting him. And, I don’t know. Try to talk it out?”

“We did try,” you remind him, snatching your luggage from him. You turn on your heel, making your way up the driveway without accounting for where he goes. “And then we fought for the entire night. And then he broke up with me.”

Kelce still follows behind you, stopping you from opening your front door. “Yeah, and he’s a fucking idiot for that—which he knows.”

The two of you reach the porch in front of your front door, and you turn to look at him. “It’s just not that simple anymore.”

“Look,” Kelce says. “Can’t tell either of you what to do. I just think it’s worth trying again.”

“Of course it is.”

“Then why—”

“God, fuck, Kelce,” you whimper, tears brimming on your waterline at an embarrassingly rapid pace. “Because I'm scared. I’ve never… I don’t want to feel like this ever again. But I can’t let him go.”

“Then, don’t, Y/n/n,” Kelce implores, wrapping you up in another hug. “Just get your shit figured out.”

You push yourself out of his arms. “Remind me to never come to you for breakup advice.”

“What do you want me to say? Ignore it? Drink your problems away on Wednesday night?”

“By the way, I am not going to that,” you say, scowling as you wipe your tears, your emotional outburst fading into annoyance at your friend.

Kelce furrows his eyebrows. “Uh… yes, you are.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Yeah, you are,” Kelce says, starting his descent down your porch steps.

“I’m not coming Kelce. I don’t wanna see him there,” you say, voice raising so he can hear you down the driveway. Kelce fakes that he couldn’t hear you, hand around his ear.

“What? You said you’re gonna call Rafe tonight and talk things out? And that you’re both coming, together, to my bar crawl, the one I worked extremely hard on, for all of my hometown friends, two of who love each other very, very much?”

“I swear to god, Kelce—”

“Sounds good to me, Y/n/n. See you there!”

—

If the sympathetic shoulder pat Topper’s girlfriend had given Rafe when the three of them met for a round of golf hadn’t been enough to set him on edge, the sad eyes she casts toward him whenever they briefly make eye contact is about to send Rafe right over it.

“I didn’t realize I would be third-wheeling,” Rafe grumbles, setting up his shot.

“Dude,” Topper says. “I brought her to my hometown. She doesn’t know anyone else here. Was I supposed to leave her at home?”

“She’s not even golfing.“

“Don’t be a dick, Rafe,” he warns.

“I’m not—” Rafe cuts himself off with a frustrated grunt, dropping the conversation. “She’s fine, Top. I’m sorry.”

“You’re just in a bad mood because Y/n is home and hasn’t texted you yet,” Topper says, smiling at where Blythe is sitting in the golf cart. Rafe rolls his eyes, even if he is happy for his friend. He’d never seen Topper the way he was when Blythe came to visit last summer. Topper has always chased girls, but this was different. He remembers talking about it with you right after you’d both met her at brunch, the two of you dreaming about how fun it’d be to have another couple in your friend group. And of course, right when Topper gets his girl, Rafe loses you.

“Of course I am,” Rafe says. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Topper just shrugs, waiting for Rafe to swing. “Have you thought about what you’re gonna say?”

“Every day,” Rafe breathes, trying to focus on his form. “If I even get the chance to.”

“She’ll come around,” Topper rolls his eyes, pushing Rafe out of the way as soon as he’s done.

“I don’t know, Top,” Rafe says, gloved hand resting on top of his head, readjusting his hat. “She… I hurt her. And I thought I was making up for it, but it’s just been radio silence this week. I can’t lose her, man, I—”

“Hey,” Topper says, breaking form and standing up straight again. “Don’t even go there. She probably just needs some time. That’s good, it means she’s thinking about it. Dresses don’t just fix everything.”

“Oh c’mon, you told me that was a good idea,” Rafe accuses. He'd immediately ruled out the idea of asking Kelce for help, knowing he'd try and pull some parent trap stunt when Rafe knew you weren't ready for that. He'd turned to Topper for advice instead, appreciating the way his friend had completely avoided any conversation about you and Rafe being on speaking terms around Kelce this week, because the guy normally couldn't lie for shit.

“It was a good idea. An expensive one, but good,” Topper nods. “But it’s not the end of it. Don’t push her.”

“What does Blythe think?” Rafe says, tilting his head in the direction of the golf cart. Topper shifts his eyes away guiltily. “You thought I wouldn’t notice? I don’t care, dude—Y/n/n and I talked about you guys all the time.”

“About what?”

“Mainly about how you needed to get your shit together and make it official.”

“Oh, that’s fucking rich, coming from you and Y/n,” Topper scoffs, rolling his eyes and going back to lining up his shot. “Made for each other, I swear.”

Rafe can’t help the smile that tugs at his lips at that, even if it still stings a bit. He’d dealt with Topper and Kelce ragging on him about you for years, and one unexpected perk of dating you is that he finally got to shut them both up, prove to them that he could do it. They’d hardly reacted when Rafe told them you liked him back, that you wanted to be with him, too—because they already knew. But Topper’s comment hurts even more now that Rafe isn't oblivious. He knew you were made for each other, the last half of the year was proof, and he still fucked it up.

“Rafe, dude.”

“Sorry, what?”

“I said,” Topper re-starts. “Blythe said if it were her, the dad thing is what would bother her the most. That’s what’s controlling everything.”

Rafe swallows and nods. “She’s right.”

“I know she is,” Topper says, turning and pulling out his wallet as he sees the beverage cart approach their own.

“Well,” Rafe says, starting back toward the cart with him. “That’s been handled, so.”

Topper stops him with a hand to his chest. “Hold on, you talked to Ward?”

“‘Course I did,” Rafe supplies, pushing his hand off and furrowing his eyebrows. He looks at his friend, who looks completely shocked. Rafe just shrugs and keeps walking, waiting for Topper to fall in line next to him. “I mean, it’s Y/n.”

Topper just smiles, shoulder checking him softly as they continue walking. “Yeah, you guys are gonna be fine. Drinks on me.”

—

Laying low in a town as small as the Outer Banks proved difficult, but you figured you were doing a good job the first few days you were home. You didn’t post anything about being there, still didn’t really answer anyone’s texts, not even Kelce’s after his ambush, and just hung around with your parents for most of the time, shadowing your dad at work or sharing wine with your mom.

So of course, the first time you properly go into town, failing to put your guard up—not thinking twice about heading down the marina to talk to one of the employees about bringing your dad’s boat in for the season—your cover is blown.

“Y/n?” they call, your hand coming up to shield the sun out of your eyes as you look in the direction of the voice.

“John B,” you realize, pulling your Ray Bans off and hooking them onto the collar of your sweater. “Wow, hey.”

John B walks down the dock toward you with a friend in tow, who has a cocky grin on his face as he tugs off his hat, slipping the bill in his back pocket.

“Hey, how—”

“Heard about you and Cameron,” his friend says, running a hand through his blonde hair. It takes you a second to realize he’s trying to flirt with you. “I’d say it’s a shame, but I’d be lying. On an entirely unrelated note, did you know that I’m 18 now?”

“JJ, go get on the fucking boat,” John B grumbles, pushing his friend away. The friend—JJ, you now remember—just winks at you, and you can’t help the laugh that bubbles up in your throat. “I’m sorry about him. How’ve you been?”

You planned a lot of conversations in your head before you came home, but the one with your ex-boyfriend’s sister’s boyfriend never came to mind, and you’re momentarily thrown for a loop when it comes to deciding how to proceed. But John B had always been kind to you, and that didn’t seem to be changing now that you and Rafe weren’t together, the boy in front of you radiating nothing but genuine concern and interest.

“Good, yeah. As can be,” you say, gesturing to where his friend had just walked off after so kindly mentioning your heartbreak as a means to get in your pants. “What about you?”

“Good,” he says. Although, there’s no actual indication of that anywhere on his face. You raise your eyebrows at him knowingly, and he sighs. “Listen, I’m really sorry about you and Rafe.”

You wince, trying to shake it off. “Oh, wow. Right to it, John B.”

“And I’m sorry I told him about Midsummers. Sarah told me I kinda put my foot in my mouth over that one,” he says, a blush dusting across his cheeks. And that’s news to you. Rafe didn’t tell you he told Sarah about that, and you have to physically shake your head to push those thoughts away, wondering how that conversation went. You'd still never seen Rafe that angry.

“Doesn’t really matter anymore, but thanks,” you tell him. “No hard feelings. Probably should’ve told him anyways.”

“I didn’t think… I thought he knew,” John B says. “And I didn’t think it went down between you and Ward, or I would’ve shut up.”

You cringe thinking back on that night, the pit reforming in your stomach like it just happened yesterday. “Well, enjoy your Thanksgiving, I should—”

“Sorry if this is weird, I just—can I ask you something?”

And even if you and John B have no real reason to interact anymore, you can’t really help the soft spot you have for him, the one you’d had ever since he’d opted to take you under his wing at Midsummers. Especially after your conversation with Ward, the way he didn’t hesitate to reduce John B to nothing because of his class status, while the boy in question happily twirled his daughter around on the dance floor in a tuxedo he couldn't be more uncomfortable in, followed her around with puppy eyes all night; part of you wondered if he still had no clue.

“Go ahead.”

John B sits down on an old crate, sighing loudly. “It’s about Sarah.”

You raise your eyebrows. “Sarah? Are you guys… okay?”

“Honestly?” he asks, looking for your permission to unload. You pop a hip, settling into your stance for a while. “I don’t know. I feel like she’s pulling away. And it’s so hard to get to her—like, impossible, Y/n. I didn’t even know about you and Rafe, she never told me that. I just heard it like some pogue lucky enough to get privy to some kook gossip.”

Your face warms at the thought of you and Rafe being a topic of discussion in Kildare. Maybe it didn’t even matter if you didn’t tell your mom yourself—there’s a high chance she’d heard it around town at this point.

“Again, fuck, I’m sorry,” John B apologizes.

You wave a hand, shaking your head at him. “Don’t worry about it. Um, I don’t know about Sarah, but. Last I knew, Rafe hadn’t even told Ward about us yet. So that might not mean anything.”

John B nods, still looking worried.

“As far as everything else, I don’t know,” you say, taking a seat beside him. “Distance is hard.”

“That’s the worst part. She won’t even let me come visit her,” John B says, scrubbing a hand over his face. “And when she does come home it’s just… different between us. I don’t know what it is.”

You know what it is—it’s Ward. You consider just keeping your mouth shut, continuing to chalk it up to college and the distance. But then you remind yourself that John B looked out for you when you didn’t even ask him to.

“Well, if I had to guess? It’s Ward,” you tell him, nodding sadly when he looks over at you in surprise. “I mean, John B. You have to know how he is.”

“I know how he is. Used to work for him,” John B says. “I just didn’t think she’d let him get to her. We made it this far.”

“Farther than Rafe and I,” you say, attempting a joke. But he just cocks his head in confusion.

“That’s why you guys aren’t together right now? Ward?” John B asks, not hiding the surprise in his voice.

“Part of it, at least,” you say, smiling sadly. “It’s more complicated than that. Distance didn’t help.” John B gives you a pointed look, reminding you that he’s currently in the same situation. “But hey, you two? I don’t know. You’ve been together for a while—I think you’ll come out of it on the other side.”

“You think so?”

“Just talk to her, yeah? That’s the only way you can help it,” you murmur, now lost in your own thoughts about where you went wrong. It was so easy to give the obvious advice—about ten times harder to follow it for yourself.

John B bumps his shoulder into yours. “Hey, d’you hear me?”

“Sorry. What’s that?”

“How long do you think it’ll be for you and Rafe?”

You rear back slightly. “What do you mean how long?”

He looks around like it’s obvious. “Until you work it out?”

“What makes you think we will?” you question back, eyebrows furrowing again.

“You’re not serious?” John B asks, already standing up, easy smile back on his face. He offers a hand to help you up, but you just cross your arms over your chest in defiance.

“I’m lost, Routledge.”

He just rolls his eyes, still smiling. “You guys are definitely gonna get back together.”

You stand up, balking at him. “Wait, hold on. We… I—”

But John B’s already backing away from you, walking back toward his own boat as his friend calls out for him, while you just watch him from your spot on the dock. “Thanks for the insight, kook! Maybe I’ll catch you at Tannyhill this weekend.”

—

By Tuesday, you’re still a bit timid to accept Kelce’s invite. You begrudgingly checked, and Rafe still hadn’t accepted, but you knew he had to be going. And you really didn’t want the first time you saw him to be undoubtedly drunk, surrounded by all of your high school friends, at the bar he took you to on your first date. Not that you’d been making any effort otherwise, still unable to reach out to him. Or anyone really, besides your little brother. But even Dylan had grown bored of your sulking, handing you Wilbur’s leash and shoving you out the front door, telling you to get some fresh air so he could play video games without you bothering him anymore.

You stare down at your golden retriever for a little as you both sit on the porch together, trying to decide where to take him. He swishes his tail as he looks up at you, and you finally settle on the health food store because they recently started carrying your favorite wine (sue you for asking your dad to call in a favor with the co-op owner).

So there’s exactly one thing on your grocery list as you tie Wilbur up to wait outside, the collar of your Patagonia fleece popped so you can at least try to hide yourself away from having to talk to anyone you might encounter. Kelce and John B were enough for you—you didn’t think you should need to rehash your breakup to anyone else who was curious.

Wilbur’s still waiting patiently outside when you untie him again, tucking the bottle of wine under your arm and pulling out your phone to find out which streaming service had Twilight on it, fully resigned to another night in your childhood bedroom.

The first thing that happens is Wilbur’s leash slips through your hand as he suddenly jerks away from your body. The same hand connected to the arm you’d been using to cradle the bottle of wine into your side. The second thing that happens is said bottle of wine shatters on the asphalt of the parking lot near your feet, soaking your shoes, feet, and legs in white wine, little shards of glass scattering everywhere across the black surface.

And the third thing that happens is you see him.

Rafe’s standing across the parking lot, looking at you in unfiltered shock, already crouched down where Wilbur ran up to him, jaw hanging open as he pets your dog, who’s dancing around him excitedly, none the wiser.

“Holy shit, Y/n/n? Are you okay?” He’s rushing over to you, Wilbur’s leash grasped in his hand, checking for cars coming both ways across the parking lot.

Your arms shoot out in front of you before he can get close enough.

“Wait, his paws.”

“Oh, shit, come here, buddy,” Rafe says, corralling Wilbur behind his legs, who goes easily. You carefully step around the shattered bottle of wine, noticing the way Rafe’s free arm twitches at his side, offering his hand to you in case you need it. You don’t take it, and he drops it back to his side, flexing it awkwardly. “You got it?”

“Yeah,” you answer, taking back the leash when he offers it to you, awkwardly thanking the employee that had rushed outside to clean up the mess for you.

Wilbur doesn’t move from his spot behind Rafe until you tug on his leash forcefully. He nudges Rafe’s hand on his way back to sit by your side. “I’m sorry, he must have seen you and just… got too excited.”

The boy in front of you drops his mouth open, closing it again.

“You… this is the first time I’ve seen you in over a month. And you’re apologizing for your dog,” Rafe says slowly.

That’s when you finally let yourself look up at him, really taking in his appearance for the first time. He’d gone completely ghost on social media—which really wasn’t that out of character. But you hesitated to keep up with either of Topper and Kelce’s feeds, worried you’d see a snippet of Rafe and be sent spiraling. Nora, Sarah, and Wheezie’s stories were effectively off-limits to you too, just in case. Which meant you really hadn’t seen Rafe since he Facetimed you, nearly a month ago now.

But as you take him in before you, a faded black college cap tucked over his hair, the ends of it flipping up in the back because it’s so overgrown, that slightest hint of stubble you used to love. He looks soft and cozy in some old jeans and a pair of sneakers, the hood of his high school sweatshirt now pushed down from where it’d been pulled up over his hat before he came up to you—you’re not all that shocked when being in his presence immediately allows you to feel less anxious than you had all week.

And that feeling hits you hard.

“Yeah, um. I should go,” you say quickly, turning to exit the parking lot with alarm bells ringing in your head.

“Y/n/n.”

“Rafe, I’m really not doing this right now, I can’t,” you rush, fumbling with your wallet chain. You drop that, too, noticing that your shoes and legs are still completely soaked. Rafe picks your wallet up for you, because of course he does, and then he’s placing a hand on your shoulder to get you to stop moving. You shrug off the touch, your shoulder tingling where his hand was.

“Y/n,” he says, the first time he’s used your full name. “Are you okay?”

“What? Yes, yeah. Of course—”

“I have a towel in my truck,” he says, still holding your wallet hostage. “We don’t have to talk, just dry off before you ruin your interior, alright? Your dad will thank you.”

You look down at your legs, can already feel them getting sticky from the sweet wine. Wilbur just sits between the two of you, panting away as he looks back and forth. Rafe is still looking at you, sliding your wallet back into your hand. Your hand closes around it, the tips of your fingers brushing against his. “I didn’t drive here.”

“You didn’t?”

“Walked.”

“Ah,” Rafe says, hands tucked into his sweatshirt pockets now. He uses a shoulder to gesture back at his truck. “Well. You should probably still dry off.”

You consider the nervous look on his face, the way he keeps readjusting his hands in his pockets, his shoulders crowding inward and upward toward his ears. You can’t believe this is happening right now, when you’re caught completely off guard, no more time to mull this interaction over in your head. But you nod, timidly. “Okay.”

“Okay?” Rafe says, relaxing, another smile tugging on his lips.

“Okay.”

Rafe holds Wilbur’s leash again as you towel off, slipping off one sandal and then the other as you dry your wine-soaked legs off with the beach towel he’d pulled out of his back seat. You stumble into the side of his truck as you balance on one foot, and Rafe immediately steadies you with a gentle hand on your elbow. “Y’alright?”

“Yeah, um, thanks,” you say, handing it back to him.

He bunches it up, throwing it in the bed of his truck while keeping his eyes trained on you. “Can I at least buy you another bottle? I feel awful.”

You shake your head. “No, um. That’s silly Rafe. Wasn’t meant to be, I guess.”

Rafe winces at your choice of words, shaking it off as he hands you Wilbur’s leash again.

“Okay, I should actually go now,” you say, forcing yourself to find the mental strength to do so. You decide the best way to pull yourself away from him is to simply not think about it before turning on your heel, walking back toward the golf cart path you came from. Wilbur thankfully follows behind you this time, nudging your knee with his leg as he falls into a trot alongside you.

“Hey, wait,” Rafe calls, rooted to the spot while he watches you leave. “Do you… wanna go for a drive?”

“With you?”

“Yes, with me.”

You shake out your free hand, Rafe noticing the nervous tick immediately. He frowns. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

“Yeah, no, you’re probably right,” he fumbles, coming around to stand by the driver’s side of his truck. He smiles half-heartedly at you one last time. “Had to try.”

The air leaves your lungs.

It’s all too familiar, the same parking lot where you’d said yes to him for the first time, the same thing he messaged you when you first turned him down, all those months ago. You’re speaking before you even decide that’s what you want to do, Rafe making your mind up for you in an instant in the way only he can.

“Rafe, wait.”

His head peeks out the window, and he’s pulling off of his sunglasses to look at you.

“One drive?”

He breaks out into a grin, like he’s bursting at the seams trying not to beam, wants to respect your timidness but can just barely contain his own excitement. He’s hopping out, already racing around to the passenger’s side to open the door for you. “One drive.”

—

You expect Rafe to drive around aimlessly for a while, fostering the silence in between the two of you until one of you attempts to break it. But he’s placing a hand on the back of your seat as he backs out, shooting you an awkward smile before he’s pulling out of the parking lot and heading straight to Kildare Academy. You barely notice where he's headed at first, too caught up in the familiarity of sitting in the cab of his truck and how much it hurts, one of your scrunchies still in the passenger side cupholder. Your fingers twitch at your sides to not open his glove box, worried you’ll find your chapstick isn't in there anymore.

The nerves don't settle once Rafe drives around the back of your old high school, pulling into one of the parking spots beside the pool.

It’s silent like it has been the entire ride once Rafe finally parks his truck. He rolls down a window in the backseat, Wilbur settling into a sitting position where he can stick his head out while he waits.

Your heart squeezes at the way you hear Rafe talking to him, freezing you even more to your spot in the car.

“Hey, are you sure this is okay? I can take you guys home,” Rafe says, once he comes around to open your door for you.

You study the nerves on his face, his chapped lips—he’s been worrying them between his teeth too much, probably wasn’t using much chapstick without you to bother him about it. You flick your gaze back to the aquatics complex. “Why are we at the pool?”

Rafe shrugs, hand resting behind his neck. “Figured it was neutral ground. And you can push me in if you’re still mad.”

His entire body relaxes once he sees you unbuckle your seat belt, hopping out of the truck, though without his help. “I’m not mad at you.”

He nods, offering you a hand. You can’t help but take it, feeling something warm take over your entire body when his thumb swipes over your knuckles instinctively, his grip tightening as he leads you to the locked gate.

“What now?” you challenge, fiddling with the chain and padlock. Rafe just drops your hand, hoisting himself up and over the fence in one go. “Rafe, you’re not actually expecting me to hop a fence. In flip flops.”

“No one told you to wear flip flops in November, California,” he retorts, smile on his lips. “C’mon, Y/l/n. Just get yourself up and over. I’ll handle the rest. Can you do that?”

You roll your eyes. “Rafe.”

“Please.”

You’re rolling your eyes once more and climbing up the fence at a snail’s pace compared to the way Rafe had easily cleared it, tentatively swinging one leg over once you get to the top. Rafe’s spotting you the entire time, standing right under you with his hands out.

“Alright, other leg, sweetheart.”

“I’m trying,” you say, barely getting your leg over before Rafe’s hands are nearing your waist. He stops halfway, looking at you unsurely. “It’s okay.”

He lifts you down once you consent, a hand lingering on your side even after you’re safe on the ground. “Um. Bleachers?”

It’s quiet again by the time the two of you settle into the bottom row of the bleachers, so far apart that an entire person could probably sit between you if they were here.

“So…” Rafe trails off, the toe of his right sneaker digging into the concrete. “Did you have any big plans for that bottle of wine later?”

“Just a night at home,” you nod.

“Ah. Thought it might have been for Kelce’s thing tomorrow.”

“I’m not going to that,” you say. “Are you?”

Rafe shakes his head. “I thought you would’ve gone.”

“Is that why you didn’t want to go?”

“Yeah,” he nods, eyes tracking where you bite your lip. “But not because… well. I wanted to see you. Just not like that.”

“What, a drunk Kelce berating us both for being idiots wasn’t your kind of fun?”

“No,” Rafe says, the smallest smile pulling at his lips. “And not at that particular bar.”

You just nod, not even slightly taken aback that he’d paid that much attention to the detail. Had the same reasoning as you to not go.

And of course, you somehow ended up at the academy with him anyways.

“Right,” you nod. “Well, you wanted to see me. And now you are.”

“Now I am,” he agrees. “Although, took a random run-in, Wilbur, and a broken bottle of wine to get to you. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were avoiding me, Y/l/n.”

“Do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Know any better?”

Rafe sighs. “I think I’ve proven to you pretty recently that I don’t.”

“I mean, you know where I live, Rafe. You could’ve—”

“I didn’t even know you were home, Y/n/n, not until Kelce told me. You said you’d text me and then you didn’t. If you didn’t wanna see me, I wanted to respect your space—”

That gets you. “I never wanted space from you, Rafe. Not ever. You’re the one that put it there.”

“I know,” he breathes. “I know.”

When it’s silent for a while longer, you take a bit of pity on him. His hands are shoved in his sweatshirt pockets, the setting sun illuminating his worried features as he looks over the pool. “How have you been?”

“Um,” Rafe says. “Not gonna lie—because that’s never gotten us anywhere—pretty terrible. It’s been a rough month without you, Y/n/n.”

“Five weeks,” you correct.

Rafe sends you a look. “Coming up on six.”

You can’t help it, a small smile forms on your face at that.

“I don’t wanna walk on eggshells, sweetheart,” he admits. “I thought we gained some ground after my birthday.”

“We did,” you concede, nodding. “But I pumped the brakes.”

“Can I ask why?”

“I’m not gonna bite your head off for asking questions, Rafe.”

He nods, shrugging sheepishly.

“Rafe, it’s like everyone around me sees this fairytale,” you admit. “They’re all just so confident that we’re a sure thing.”

“And you aren’t?”

“Rafe, no, I’m not saying that,” you say in exasperation. “Listen, we let this pull us in last time, and I don’t think we worried enough about anything else in our lives.”

“I told you, Y/n. This isn’t a fairytale for me, it’s real life. You're real life,” Rafe says. “I want you, and everything that comes with that.”

“See, and this is why I avoided you for so long, Rafe,” you sigh, resisting the urge to lean forward and put your head in your hands. “Because I’m just like, as ready to jump into your arms right now as I have been since the summer, and I don’t… I can’t be blinded by that feeling.”

Rafe’s hand comes to rest behind his neck, pushing under his baseball cap in the back. “Yeah, um. No. Not until you’re sure. I want you to be sure.”

Your eyes track the motion, reminding you of something you've been wondering since you saw him in the parking lot.

“Your hair’s long. Really long,” you point out, your suspicions confirmed when his cheeks burn red. You reach over and tug on one of the longer strands, reveling in the way he still leans into your touch, how soft and familiar the strand feels between your fingertips.

“Figured it might give me a better shot at getting you back,” he admits. “Is it working?”

“Little bit. Just because I know you hate it so much.”

“I don’t hate it,” he claims. “Not if you like it.”

You just smile, looking back down at your hands at that. “Well, the pool was a nice touch, too. Nostalgia and all that.”

“Yeah, that—can’t even deny it. But I didn’t do that to sway you if you’re not sure, sweetheart,” he says, voice straining. “I wouldn’t—“

“Rafe, of course not,” you assure him, hand yearning to reach out to him. This is one of those moments where you can think back on what Ward said, the way he’d underestimated his son’s strength as a weakness, criticizing him for the way he was able to just feel and love. He was just a romantic, and he cared so much about the people he loved. Even the people who didn’t deserve his love, even you who sometimes doubted you did. Rafe was always doing everything he could to prove to you that you did.

“Okay, 'cause I—I’m gonna—stop me if you don’t want to hear it, but. I just think I need to explain a few things to you,” he starts.

“Go for it. Wanna hear everything.”

He takes your green light, shaking out both of his hands in preparation. “I thought when we started going out that every part of the old me that I hated, that kept me from being the right guy for you, was gone.”

You resist the urge to rear back, look up at him and tell him he’s wrong. The words are caught in your throat, then on the tip of your tongue, until you bite it, letting him keep his momentum.

“And I think when I went to California, it took me by surprise how insecure I could still feel about you. I freaked out, Y/n/n.”

“I was never… Rafe nothing like that ever kept us apart in the beginning. Trust me, I was just as insecure as you.”

He grins involuntarily at that, letting out a laugh. “What a couple of losers. Well, I guess it didn’t really fade for me—my dad didn’t help.”

You look at him significantly when he mentions Ward. “How’s… that been going?”

“I talked to him. About us. About you.”

Your eyes widen. “Wait—you did?”

“Yeah, what did you expect?” he questions, looking at you in confusion.

“I don’t know, Rafe. I mean, we broke up. Wow,” you breathe, trying to organize your thoughts. You knew coming into this that Ward was going to be the worst part of this uphill battle. You knew you could figure out the distance and the life plans, everything else. But you didn’t know what Rafe was going to say about his dad. “And you…”

When he doesn’t say anything for a while, you hook two fingers into the collar of his hoodie, tugging until he’s looking straight at you. Your body moves a bit closer to his on instinct, close enough he has to look down at you. This is normally the part when he’d kiss you, but he just tugs your hand off of his collar, bringing it to rest in his lap, cradled in between both of his own. “I told him he had to back off. I mean, even if we were broken up. I fucking hate that he made you feel like that and I just really can’t believe how much I let him come between us.”

“I did, too. You were right about that, back in California.”

But Rafe shakes his head. “No, Y/n/n, I was—”

“And I was awful about it to you. I should’ve never lied and kept it all in. And I should’ve never let it come up later when I was mad at you,” you say, feeling the tears form on your waterline.

“Y/n.”

“I don’t want you to think I agree with him on any of that. Because I don’t, Rafe.”

He drops your hand in his lap, arms reaching out to wrap around you, pulling you across the bleachers until your legs are pressed together. “I know you don’t, sweet girl.”

Your head drops to his chest as you will your tears to subside, Rafe just giving you a second while his hand rests on the back of your head. “But Jesus, Rafe he’s—like you’ve always told me, but holy shit.”

“Yeah, he tries to ruin everything. And he usually succeeds.”

“Not everything.”

Rafe leans back from you, eyes assessing your features as you shoot him the smallest smile, hoping he’ll catch onto what you mean. It takes him a second to make sure.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” you murmur. “I mean—I know I fucked up, beyond the thing with your dad.”

“Oh. I know I did.”

“So, guess we’re still just a couple of losers, huh?” you tease, looking out over the pool deck in consideration. “Especially being back here.”

“Actually,” Rafe says, standing up suddenly. He looks down at where you’re sitting, eyes trailing up to the third row, to the very left side. “If we wanna make this historically accurate…”

He scoops you up in his arms, one hand under your legs, lifting you off of the seat as you squeal in surprise. “Rafe!”

“You’d actually be about here,” he laughs, the vibrations in his chest palpable in your own body, setting you down again in the third row, where you used to sit with Kelce and Topper in high school. Topper always took the outside, you and Kelce switching back and forth between being in the middle, depending on when you could make it to the game. And you always rushed. “And I’d be in the pool.”

You look at him significantly. “Okay, go get in the pool then.”

He just shakes his head, still standing by you at the edge of the bleachers. Up at the third row, you’re sitting at about the same height as Rafe now, who’s looking into your eyes as he leans against the railing. He rests a hand on your knee, giving it a squeeze when you don’t bat his touch away. “How are the brakes now?”

Your hands both fall to where his rests on your leg, thumbing over his ringed knuckles. “Better, I think. Just…”

“You just gotta hit me with it, Y/l/n. Whatever it is.”

“I can’t do that again, Rafe. Like I know it was both of our faults. But you can’t just run away like that when things get hard,” you tell him, voice dropping in volume. “That hurt way more than anything else that happened that weekend.”

“I really thought I was doing it for you,” he admits. He thumbs over your chin, making you look up at him. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s gonna be hard again, Rafe,” you point out. “Our futures are coming, and your dad’s not going anywhere. It’s not gonna be like it was over the summer, even when we’re back here next year.”

Rafe’s head shoots up from where’d been looking at his shoes, his hand twitching in your hold. “We?”

“Oh fuck,” you swear. “I—”

“Y/n/n.”

“Rafe—”

“I’m serious, please don’t be fucking with me right now,” he says, hand nudging your knees apart until he’s crowded into your space, standing as close to you as possible. “Are you moving home?”

You push on his chest a bit angrily, turning back to face the pool head-on. “Agnes had a false positive.”

“Oh, shit, baby,” Rafe says, any giddiness quickly fading from his demeanor. “Is she okay? What about Beau and the kids?”

“Yeah, yeah. It wasn’t like that. They’re all fine, Rafe,” you rush to reassure him, chancing a glance at him.

“When did they find out?”

“Like, not even a full 24 hours after you left,” you say, eyes downcast.

“Wow,” he says. “I really feel like an idiot now.”

“You should have already,” you say. “You knew I wasn’t committed to anything.”

“I know,” he sighs, head tipping back. “I know. I just felt like you were hiding it from me.”

“I mean, I was,” you admit, making Rafe shoot you a look. “Everything between us was already so weird, and I could tell you weren’t doing great. Didn’t really seem like the right time to bring it up.”

He nods. “Yeah, no. I guess I can appreciate that. I mean—I’d always rather you just be honest with me, Y/n/n.”

“I know. Which is why I was gonna tell you this when we talked, just not yet.”

“Why?”

“I just didn’t want either of us to feel like everything is fixed between us just because I decided to move home next year, Rafe.”

“That’s not gonna fix everything,” Rafe agrees. “And I know that, Y/n/n. I was ready to fix everything before that, fully expecting you to stay out there. Because literally none of it fucking matters, Y/n. None of it. Not my dad, not where we end up, or your friends, I don’t care about any of that.”

“You have to, Rafe,” you mumble, head tipping downward again. Rafe shifts you so you’re facing him again, a knuckle nudging under your chin until you’re looking at him.

“Not more than I care about you. None of it matters enough to make me ever let you go again.”

“But it’s our friends, and our families, and our futures, baby—it’s everything,” you say, voice on the verge of breaking.

Rafe pulls you into his chest, allowing no room for any more space between the two of you.

“I want your everything,” he says, his voice clear and firm where his lips are almost pressed against your ear. “I want you.”

And it’d be so easy to just lean back and kiss him right now, let him press more weighted reassurances into your skin over and over until your head had no room for doubts, just for Rafe.

“We should head back,” you say abruptly, pulling out of the trance. “I need to get Wilbur home.”

“Y/n/n, hey—what?” he says, panicked. “No, we—”

You lean forward hastily, pressing a kiss into his warm cheek, his words stolen from his throat as he stands completely still. “I love you, Rafe.”

His sentiments returned so many weeks later, a smile forms on his lips as he helps you down, kissing your forehead and bringing you under his arm. He scans your face, and you know he hasn't misunderstood. “Just need some time, don’t you?”

“A little. Is that okay?”

Rafe's smile softens, his arm staying around your shoulders as he walks you back toward the locked gate. “Waited since we were kids, Y/n/n. Think I can stand it just a bit longer.”

—

tags: @moniamaybank @downbytheouterbanks @littlementalpolaroids @fangirlvoice @chicagoblackhawkslover96 @pogueslandia @loveylangdon @oopsiedoopsie23 @sodasback @rafeseggplant @cooper8224 @rafeyybabyy @lemur46 @cameronsrafe @imjustanothernerd @judayyyw @irlpadfoot @synonymforlame @tinawhynot @mildkleptomaniac @ilymarkchan @sofiatheseconf @hockeyshmockey @supersouthy @coffeeandcrimeshows @emptyloverofmine @gublerspublers @infinitleyethereal @nerdypartytrashpsychic @mrs-cameron @tcmhollnd @nicavass @sakikos @catonthesideoftheroad @jemimah-b99 @serrendipiity

[amazaynz]

Simply soo beautiful

Poems that the earth writes upon the sky.

[amazaynz]

I love new edition... and i love algee smith! 🤗

Algee Smith Covers - Sensitivity by Ralph Tresvant 

New Edition Story Part 3

[amazaynz]

Harry solo stans who hate on Liam scare me. Like ... what did that man do to elicit that much hate and anger? Where’s that TPWK you guys constantly preach about? As an OT5 fan for the past seven years now, it’s so hard to watch Liam constantly being torn down by toxic members of this fandom. He’s just as talented as any of the other guys, and he deserves so much better than what people give him. I really hope there are still true fans out there that can agree with me on this. 😕

[amazaynz]

!!!! Preach

just so we’re clear, saying “wow this feels like we’re in north korea/afghanistan/syria/venezuela/pakistan/[insert another country in the global south]” is racist and orientalist. this is happening here, in the united states, and if you had your head out of your ass you’d know that 250 years of white supremacy and genocide and capitalism and colonial violence and imperialism have led up to this moment. the united states did not only ALLOW this to happen here, the united states created this and has been enacting fascism since it was created.

[amazaynz]

They look BEAUTIFUL !!! 🤩

Harry and Olivia Wilde at Jeff’s wedding - Jan. 2

[amazaynz]

Spread this info!! 💚💚

Since I know none of yall have lost your energy for supporting black people right now, you should check out this blog with over 1000 black-owned online shops.

https://themadmommy.com/black-owned-etsy-shops/

[amazaynz]

Whoever sees this pls donate🥺 !!

Croatia was hit once again with big earthquakes, third time this year, yesterday 5.2 and today with 6.3. I'm sharing donation links so please donate if you can or share so it reaches more people

First donation link

And

Second donation link