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whytheylosttheirminds · 2 months ago

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Don't Call Me Kid - Chapter 9 (part three)

(Rafe Cameron x reader series, 9.6k words)

series summary: You'd had a crush on Rafe Cameron since you were six years old, but he friend zoned you at every turn. Once shy and insecure, you found new confidence and self-love after high school. When your high school friends go on a reunion beach trip, Rafe finally sees what he lost, but he isn't going to give you up without a fight.

tropes: unrequited crush, glow up, she fell first/he fell harder

series content: some angst, eventual fluff, slow burn, tomfoolery and shenanigans, drinking, fem!reader has occasional insecurity and body image issues

⇢ series masterlist

additional chapter content warning: descriptions of blood and violence, drinking and overconsumption, side characters make mentions of noncon but it does not happen, this chapter is 18+ MDNI, please read this disclaimer before reading!

Rafe was dying inside.

Actually, no, Rafe was dead inside. The dying had already been done, it happened when you said you hated him. Now he was just a ghost, walking around in some guy’s body and playing golf like he hadn’t already breathed his last breath.

It was hard enough keeping his gaze off of you when you came downstairs to load into the shuttle, having to literally close his eyes on the ride to keep from searching your face for any sign you were ever going to speak to him again. Then you changed into yet another dress that made him forget how to breathe, one glance at you and the way the crisp white fabric gripped your body and he could feel his brain cells dying out from lack of oxygen.

He tried to mask his slow, painful death in politeness, saying “have a good game” with a casual smile as fake as a halloween mask. He might as well have been wearing a costume the way he felt like he was living someone else’s life, his own had ended in your bedroom when you said the worst three words he’d ever heard.

It’d be better just to avoid you, he figured, turning his attention toward his golf game. He’d never been a huge fan of the sport, but growing up with money and country club memberships, his exposure to it was inevitable. He was good at it too, the same way he was immediately good at everything. Everything except for being with you, apparently. A game he’d lost in record time. Maybe he should just forfeit, maybe he should leave Miami on an overnight bus like the teams that lose the Superbowl.

So he kept his eyes off of you, a feat akin to not staring directly at an eclipse, and played through the pain.

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“I’m in love, I’m in fucking love, and I’m drunk.”

The second fact was made even more obvious by the fact that the audience you were currently confessing to was a family of ducks.

It was silly, but you were so far gone you didn’t even realize you were speaking out loud. Then the laughter came. Clutching the railing to keep from falling over, you burst out into manic cackles. It was all so ridiculous - of course you were in love with him, you always had been, but this new realization was about something else entirely. It was about the permanence of it. Because, let’s be honest, if these feelings hadn’t gone away after four years and this insane fucking week, then nothing was going to shake them. God, you needed another drink.

And like an answer to your prayers, Ryder and Chad showed up at just that moment, a fresh, ice cold vodka cranberry in tow.

“There she is,” Chad smiled at you, handing you the drink.

“What’s funny, beautiful?” Ryder asked, cozying up to your side, a little closer than you would’ve liked, but your brain was just fuzzy enough not to care.

“Oh, y’know, just like, life,” you smiled at him before taking a long sip from the little plastic straw and continuing your way across the bridge, the boys following close behind.

You finished this drink off faster than any of the ones before it, officially crossing the line between tipsy and drunk.

Somewhere, somehow, Ryder and Chad had scored themselves a golf cart, convincing you to climb in the bed in the back and ride with them. You yelped as the cart flew, going way faster than the little speed limit signs along the cart path allowed for.

The thirty minutes following that drink were a blur. You only remembered flashes of the course, stopping every so often to catch up with your group before Ryder and Chad would whisk you away on the cart again.

“They were supposed to be my caddies,” Sabrina grumbled when you got the group’s attention by letting out a loud chorus of giggles. “I’m so getting my twenty bucks back.”

The group had reached the thirteenth hole, and you were punching your number into Ryder’s phone, though you couldn’t really remember why. Carter followed Sabrina’s gaze over to you, frowning when she saw you grab Ryder’s arm for stability, the boy giving his friend a smug look when you touched him.

She was trying her best to give you space, which you so clearly wanted. She didn’t know why on earth you were hanging out with these fuckboys, but she was your sister, not your mother, and she figured she’d done enough criticizing of your decisions this week. Plus, she had her hands full with Topper, who was now so far past drunk she was basically carrying him through the course.

But when she realized you were handing out your personal info to these scumbags while happily accepting another drink, she decided she had to step in.

“Hey, think maybe it’s time to switch to water?” She suggested gently, stepping in between you and Ryder.

“She’s good,” Ryder told her.

“I wasn’t talking to you,” Carter said, turning towards him and getting in his face. “Who the fuck even are you? You think it’s funny, messing with her while she’s clearly drunk?”

“I’m not drunk!” You protested, though your stumble forward completely betrayed you.

Carter turned back to you, grabbing you before you tripped over your own feet. “Okay, well maybe we can go get a coffee or something, yeah? How about -”

“Oh fuck I’m gonna be sick,” Topper interupted her with a groan, running away from the group and towards a patch of trees in the distance.

Carter watched him with worry, and you nodded in his direction, “you should go after him.”

She hesitated, looking back at you with worry, torn between your need for her and the very real potential that Topper was in even worse shape.

“Carter, go, I’m fine,” you urged her.

She sighed and shot Ryder an absolutely menacing look as she called Rafe’s name, waving him over from his spot behind the tee. He approached nervously, looking between her and Ryder, who was grinning like he’d somehow won this little interaction.

“Can you watch her, please? Do not leave her,” Carter passed your arm to Rafe like she was handing off a crying baby, taking off in Topper’s direction once he’d taken over her grip on you and given her a reassuring nod. As much as she despised Rafe, she knew there was no universe in which he’d leave you drunk and alone with these assholes.

He gave the two boys a glare, towering at least a few inches over each of them, and they stepped back, though they didn’t go far.

“I don’t need a chaperone!” You griped, pulling your arm from his gasp, hoping he didn’t notice the goosebumps already blossoming from where his hands brushed you.

In your attempt to separate from his touch, you pulled your arm away too quickly, making yourself stumble, your pink tinted drink sloshing from the glass and splattering all over Rafe’s baby blue polo.

“Yeah, clearly,” he took in the stain with a sigh.

“That was an accident,” you said with unnecessary defensiveness.

“What else would it be?” He huffed.

“I’m not trying to get you to take your shirt off,” you insisted, as though anyone had accused you of such.

Rafe’s eyebrows shot up in amusement, smirking down at you as you deepened the hole nobody asked you to start digging. It was like the words were flowing out on their own volition, the invisible security guard who usually keeps your thoughts locked inside was dead. You’d drowned him in Smirnoff.

“And I am not thinking about how you look with your shirt off,” you couldn’t help but smile at the way he was smiling now, your grin giddy and sloppy, like a toddler laughing at a puppy.

Whatever runaway train of thought your words had been chasing had long left the station, you stepped towards him as he continued smiling, tripping just a little, Rafe catching you by the elbows for stabilization, his eyes twinkling with pure amusement as you reached up and bushed a line along his jaw with your pointer finger.

“You’re pretty,” you whispered.

“Mmm?” He tilted his head, “and you’re drunk.”

“No ‘mnot,” you shook your head, the action making you dizzy. “I’ve always thought you were pretty. Pretty blue eyes, pretty smile. I love your smile.”

“Love, huh?” He quirked an eyebrow.

“Mhm, love,” you leaned in closer, but his arms slid up to your shoulders, pushing you back a little as he helped you stand up straight.

“You used a different word this morning,” he reminded you, making you frown at the memory of a time when your head wasn’t so delightfully swirly and numb, when things could hurt you and your words actually meant something.

“Don’t remember,” you lied with a bite of your lip.

“You will,” he said, the amusement completely gone from his tone now. “Drink some water.”

After that, Rafe didn’t talk to you for a bit. The group played through, the middle section of the course more challenging than the beginning, longer walks between holes and more sand traps and lakes for you to avoid as you walked in zigzag lines.

Chad and Ryder were more than happy to help guide you around them, their hands on your lower back as they played gentlemen. What you couldn’t see were the looks they’d give each other when you’d grab their arms with drunken giggles, thanking them sweetly for their help.

They kept bringing you drinks from the cart girl, never saying no when you asked for another. They’d ask you questions and laugh smugly at the way you fumbled to answer them. After a few more sips, you realized there was something about their attention you didn’t like, but in your tipsy state you couldn’t figure out what it was, or muster the words to tell them to leave you alone.

Plus, as long as they kept bugging you, you knew Rafe would stay close, his eyes trailing back over to you every few seconds, nostrils flailing when one of the boys said something a little too close to your ear. After a whole afternoon of him ignoring you, finally having his attention was almost as intoxicating as the vodka in your glass.

After your fourth drink, you watched him stride over to the cart girl, leaning forward on her small counter as he said something to her you couldn’t hear. Ryder was leaning over you, asking you something about what you were doing after this, but you blocked out the annoying sound of his voice as you watched Rafe with a furrowed brow.

Why was the cart girl smiling at him like that? He pulled something from his pocket and handed it to her. A slip of paper maybe? Was he giving her his number? He tapped her counter as he said one final thing to her, nodding with a grin in her direction.

Your stomach churned, a twisting pain that had nothing to do with your blood alcohol level. You raised an arm to push Ryder away, but he just came right back, buzzing around you like a gnat you couldn’t shake. You held your head in your hands, you were officially no longer having a good time.

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By the fifteenth hole, you were having trouble walking in a straight line. Long gone was the bubbly euphoria of the first few drinks, now a foggy nausea washed over you as the flat coastal horizon swirled in the distance.

“Omg, she’s totally sloshed, that’s so tacky. Like, she can barely stand straight,” a distant female voice who’s owner’s name you couldn’t quite remember whispered behind you.

“Well she better not bend over too far, her skirt is already barely covering her ass,” a male voice, somehow equally catty, replied.

The whispers continued, you brought your hands down to tug at either side of your skirt for the thousandth time, knowing damn well it wasn’t going to do anything to make this ridiculous outfit cover you any better.

Having already taken their shots, the others moved onto the next tee, all except the two caddies who’d been getting increasingly forward and sleazy with their flirting and fawning over you, and Rafe, who’d been watching the whole thing closely.

“Here’s your driver, gorgeous,” Ryder smiled smugly while handing you the club, eyes trailing down your body again as Chad chuckled in the background.

His eyes lingering on your chest made something turn in your stomach that had nothing to do with the alcohol. Over his shoulder, your eye caught Rafe, his hands resting on the back of the golf cart as he sneered at Ryder’s back, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the edge of the cart’s bed.

Just drunk enough to justify it to yourself somewhere in the back of your mind, you forced a giggle, brushing Ryder’s hand purposefully as you took the club from him.

“Thank you, Ryder,” you fluttered your lashes, hoping Rafe caught the way you flirted with Ryder after seeing him flirt with the cart girl.

You made your way toward the tee, wobbling a little with each step.

“Woah there,” Ryder caught your elbow with a chuckle, his other hand resting on your lower back as he led you to the tee.

“Sorry ‘m just a little dizzy from the heat,” you slurred, fooling no one.

You could barely swing, but when you did, the end of the heavy driver clipped your ball and sent it flying directly into the swampy woods at the edge of the course. You frowned as you watched its disappointing trajectory.

“Shit,” you groaned, knowing it would be a whole ass journey to go fish it out of the woods, and you could barely walk on the trimmed putting green.

“Don’t worry, angel, Chad and I will come with you,” Ryder shot Chad a suggestive look as he started to guide you toward the secluded woods.

That was the last straw.

“Absolutely fucking not,” Rafe stepped in, striding over to where Ryder had his arm swung around you and pushing him off. “You two aren’t going anywhere with her.”

“What’s your problem, man?” Ryder snapped, your eyes flying between them before you got dizzy and started to sway a bit. Instinctively, Rafe held out his arm for you to grab, which you did without really thinking, just grateful to find some stability.

“You’re my problem, asswipe. You think I’m fucking blind? Time for you two to stop circling her like fucking vultures and go find someone else to bother,” Rafe scolded them.

“I think she’s having a good time, isn’t that right, sweetheart?” Ryder reached out his hand to you. “C’mon baby, who would you rather go with, me or him?”

You didn’t even have to think about it, your whole body recoiling at the sight of him reaching toward you until you were practically hiding behind Rafe, “I wanna go with Rafe.”

Ryder actually looked surprised, dropping his hand in disappointment.

“Alright, alright, whatever the lady wants…” he stepped back, setting your bag of clubs down and hopping in the cart, motioning for Chad to join him. “We’ll catch up with you later, alright gorgeous?”

“Yeah don’t fucking bet on it,” Rafe called after them as they started up the cart and pulled away, leaving you standing by his side, still clinging to his arm for balance.

Once they’d disappeared across the horizon, Rafe turned to look down at you.

“You good?” He asked, brushing a stray hair off your forehead and tucking it behind your ear.

“No,” you shook your head, and Rafe frowned at your sad sounding answer, before you could follow-up with, “My ball’s in the woods.”

He smiled, which made you smile, and said, “we’ll go get it. First let’s stop at the drink cart and get you some water, yeah?”

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“Rafe, we’ve been looking forever,” you whined from your seat on a big rock you’d found in the marshy woods.

Rafe sloshed through the muddy brambles, effectively ruining his shoes as he searched for your long lost golf ball. He smirked at your remark, “we’ve been in here for like three minutes. Just drink your water, alright?”

“Yes sir,” you grumbled, taking another swig from the large bottle of water he’d bought from the cart girl, who you no longer considered your bestie since she was clearly flirting with Rafe while he ordered it, despite you standing right next to him.

Rafe smirked again at the nickname, turning quickly to hide his reaction from you. You sighed as you watched him continue looking around for the small white ball, his brow furrowed as he searched. Rays of golden hour sunlight poured through the cracks in the trees, landing in glowing stripes across his handsome face. Your heart ached for him.

The water was helping bring you back to earth, the world coming back into focus, but you still had enough liquid courage in your system to ask him something that sober you would never dare to.

“Sasha’s really pretty, don’t you think?”

“Who?” Rafe didn’t even look up from his search.

“The cart girl, Sasha,” you told him, watching him like a hawk for any sign that he had in fact given her his number earlier.

“Oh, I dunno,” he shrugged.

“I mean you have eyes though,” you snorted, annoyed at how nonchalant he was acting, as if the most important thing right now really was finding your stupid fucking golf ball. “She’s obviously pretty. Not as pretty as Cassie though.”

This finally got his attention, he looked up from the ground and turned toward you, his head tilting in disappointment as he sighed, “what are you doing?”

“What do you mean?” You asked innocently.

Rafe just responded with your name, lilting it slightly at the end, like he was scolding you.

“Ray-f-uh,” You mirrored his tone, stretching his name out like he had yours.

Rafe just shook his head at you with an incredulous grin, ignoring your teasing and going back to his search.

His apparent indifference toward you today was officially pissing you off. How could he possibly act like nothing that happened in the past few days had happened? The two of you were alone in the fucking woods for god’s sake, and he was still acting like everything was totally normal.

You stood from your rock, your balance returning to you a little as the water and your determination to get a response from him worked in tandem to sober you up.

“Did you give her your number?” You asked, approaching him slowly, your nearing voice making him turn toward you in surprise.

“Who?” He asked, his tone getting shorter with each second you were pushing him.

“Sasha,” you said, like he should be caught up to your line of questioning by now. “I saw you hand her something and she smiled at you.”

Rafe just looked at you for a second, his face unreadable.

“It’s okay if you did, she is really pretty, I can see why you would like her,” you started rambling as he stepping closer to you, stopping just in front of you so you had to crane your neck to look up at him, Rafe nodding patronizingly as you stumbled over your words.

You kept rambling until he finally spoke, once again merely having to say your name to take your breath away.

“Yes?” You breathed, trying and failing not to sway into him a little as you looked up at his sparkly eyes. The world was swirling again, and this time it had nothing to do with the alcohol.

“I did hand her something…a twenty,” he explained. “I was paying her to stop serving you and those fucking goons drinks. I was worried about you.”

“Oh.”

It sounded so small and silly slipping past your lips, but it made him smile at you, which made you smile back, and your world was back on its axis.

“Now can we find your ball and get the fuck out of this swamp?” He requested.

“Oh, it’s right there,” you pointed to a spot a few feet from you, where your ball sat atop a little pile of leaves and twigs.

“Wh - I - when the fuck did you find that?” Rafe gasped in disbelief.

“Oh like five seconds after we got over here,” you shrugged.

His mouth fell open, “then why the hell were you letting me stumble around like an idiot looking for it?”

You giggled at his aggravation, “because I liked watching you. It was cute.”

“You’re unbelievable.”

Before you could hit him with some flirty comeback, Rafe started walking toward your ball, calling over his shoulder, “can’t believe all I had to do to get you to forgive me was make you jealous.”

Your jaw dropped to the floor at his words, arms crossed firmly over your chest as you stomped after him.

“First of all, I was not fucking jealous,” you kept walking until you were standing toe to toe with him, nearly kicking your ball out of the way. “And who said anything about me forgiving you?”

“I dunno, this morning you wouldn’t even talk to me and now you’re luring me into the woods so you can watch me like a crazy stalker so…” he matched you by crossing his own arms. “And you absolutely were jealous.”

“Okay, maybe I was, like, a little jealous, but I didn’t lure you anywhere,” you bargained. “And the only reason I wanted to be alone with you is because you’ve spent the whole day acting like nothing happened, you didn’t even notice me until you saw Ryder getting close.”

Rafe’s arm’s fell, as did his smug smile. His eyes were suddenly sympathetic, shaking his head at your words.

“You think I didn’t notice you?” He scoffed. “I’ve spent the entire day forcing myself not to stare at you because I thought that’s what you wanted. It’s been like fucking torture keeping my eyes off of you.”

His words caught you off guard, the whole fuzzy day suddenly coming into focus. All of his walking ahead of you and dedication to his game, it was because you’d told him it was over. Now with him staring down at you, so close you could feel his increasingly ragged breaths fanning across your face, you couldn’t for the life of you remember why you’d said it.

“Do you remember now? What you said earlier?” He asked quietly.

You just nodded, not seeing a reason to tell him that you’d never really forgotten, that you’d been playing the words - I hate you - to him over and over in your head, the regret ringing so loudly in your ears you had to put away six drinks just to drown them out, and even that couldn’t make you stop wishing you’d never said them.

“Did you mean it?” He asked, his voice cracking with vulnerability.

You took a deep breath, shaking your head just slightly, “not even a little bit.”

“Maybe you should, after everything I’ve put you through,” he reminded you, wanting to be sure this was you taking it back, and not the alcohol.

“Maybe. Probably. But I just don’t. I could never hate you, Rafe.”

He nodded once, lips parted to take a deep breath, relief sweeping over his face. You blinked up at him, eyes running over his soft pink lips, so glad to get that off your chest and missing the feeling of his hands on you.

“Fuck, I…I just -” you whispered before rising up on your toes to meet his lips with your own.

Your arms wrapped around his neck as you kissed him, trying to make him understand, your fingers gripping the back of his polo and bunching it up under your grip. His hands hesitated at his side for a minute, kissing you back, but only slightly.

Eventually, his palms landed on either side of your face, holding firm as you deepened the kiss. But when you slipped your tongue between his parted lips, he pulled back, his forehead resting against yours and his eyes squeezed shut as he fought his own primal instincts.

“I…we shouldn’t,” his voice quivered, like he was trying to convince himself, not you.

“Why not?” You frowned as he pulled your arms from around his neck.

“Because you’re drunk,” he explained, stepping back like he had to physically restrain himself from you. “Believe me, if you weren’t…”

“But ‘mnot! Not anymore, I’m completely s-sober right now, swear,” You insisted, though the way you fumbled over the syllables gave the obvious lie away. Even though you were certainly feeling a bit more clear headed, you definitely would not pass a breathalyzer right now.

“Oh really?” He raised an eyebrow at you.

“Really, swear. Just please, I need to …please Rafe,” you searched for whatever words would bring his lips back to yours, though you knew that fact that your inhibitions were low enough to actually beg for it was just further proof that it’d be wrong for him to give in to you.

“Tell you what,” he looked around before locating your club, which he’d propped against a tree a few minutes ago. He retrieved it and held it out to you, keeping his distance as if getting too close to you would snap his restraint. “If you can line up the shot and actually hit it out of the woods, then I’ll believe you’re sober.”

You took the club from him defiantly, locating your ball, still waiting in its spot atop the leaves. You stood behind it, trying to square your shoulders and recall something, anything, from the golf lessons your parents had forced you to take as a kid. But as you looked down, the club was splitting in two, blurry in your double vision. You took a deep breath and tried to line it up again, but looking down was making you dizzy, and you stumbled a little.

Looking up at Rafe with a pout, your shoulders sagged as you admitted, “I need help.”

“Knew it,” he teased with a satisfied smirk, laughing at your pitiful stance.

“Raaafe,” you grumbled, only making him laugh more. “Please. I’m dizzy.”

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry, you just look so cute right now.”

He made his way toward you, and you started to lift the club, thinking he was going to take it from you so he could take the shot himself, but instead he circled you and approached from over your shoulder. His hands came to rest over your own, wrapping you in his arms so he could assist you in making the shot. And goddamn if it wasn’t the hottest thing anyone had ever done to you.

Your body relaxed back into his, your back flush against his chest, and his head lowered until his lips were an inch from your ear. The proximity flooded your senses, forcing your eyes to flutter closed briefly.

“Can’t believe you thought I could actually ignore you today,” he whispered, low and slow, lips brushing against the shell of your ear. “As if I could pretend I didn’t see you in this fucking dress. As if it hasn’t been driving me absolutely insane. I thought I was gonna have a fucking meltdown trying not to snap and take you in the middle of the fucking golf course.”

God, him and that fucking mouth. You nearly whimpered at his words, and at the heat curling in your belly as he made you impossibly more desperate for him, but before you could react, he lifted your arms up, twisting with you to bring them back down in a perfect swing, the club sending your ball out of the woods with an echoing thwack! that forced your eyes to fly open.

Rafe released your hands so you could drop the club, but he didn’t let go of you, keeping his word and not kissing you, but just holding you. You turned in his arms and wrapped your own around his waist, hugging him back. His chin settled on the top of your head and you sighed contently as his arms squeezed you a little tighter, your body enveloped in his.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“For what?” You asked.

“For dropping your hand, for everything,” he explained.

It took you a full minute, but you said it with your whole chest.

“I forgive you.”

You stood holding each other in silence for a long time. Rafe brushed soothing circles into your back when he felt a single tear roll down your face onto his shirt, dampening the same spot where you’d spilled your drink on him a few hours ago.

After a while, he tucked his chin to drop a soft kiss on the top of your head, smiling into your hair. His voice was muffled when he confessed, “I’m glad you chose me over that fucking punk kid.”

You smiled, pulling away from him just enough to look up at him with a smug grin, “aha, so maybe you were the one that was jealous!”

He smacked his lips, looking away from you to try and fight back his smile, finally resigning, “okay, maybe a little.”

“A little!” You scoffed. “You looked like you were about to fight them.”

“Nah, I don’t do that anymore,” he admitted bashfully, voice lowering to add, “I don’t think my therapist would be too happy with me.”

Your head tilted in intrigue, “your therapist?”

“Yeah,” he nodded. “Needed a little help… to grow up, you know?”

“Rafe, I think that’s great,” you told him, giving him one more squeeze. “Thank you for telling me that.”

“I want…I don’t know,” he pulled away from you, scratching the back of his neck. “I want to tell you everything, you know? Like when something happens to me, good or bad, you’re the one I wanna tell. I just didn’t think you’d want to hear it.”

“I do,” you reached out and squeezed his hand to reassure him. “I want to hear it all.”

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Emerging from the woods, mud splattered up to your knees and giddy smiles painted on your faces, you slipped your hand into his. You thought maybe you should give him some excuse about how you were still drunk and you just needed to hold his hand for stability, but you didn’t have it in you to lie.

As you walked, you thought back to a few minutes earlier, when you’d clung to him to avoid Ryder’s touch. How he’d appeared by your side when you needed him and you didn’t even have to think twice before saying you wanted to stay with him. How it never crossed your mind that it’d be a bad idea to go into those woods with him, because for the first time, you really truly trusted him.

When you were young, Rafe was a storm. He brought an uneasiness with him wherever he went. Being around him always made you feel a little unsteady, knowing the wind could shift at any minute, but never knowing what kind of emotional havoc it could wreak when it did.

But now, he was different. This wasn’t a violent, unpredictable boy, but a steady, trustworthy man. And it washed over you like a dream - once a hurricane, Rafe was now your safe harbor.

And you’d never felt so sure the storm had really passed.

Yes, Rafe had hurt you in the past. That was true, and it couldn’t be undone. But you trusted him not to hurt you now, and you loved him. Both things could be true, and you finally felt ready to live with that contradiction, finally felt strong enough to face your own emotions, knowing you’d have him to hold onto for support whenever the world swayed under your feet. You squeezed his hand at the thought.

It was a long, quiet walk back to the clubhouse, but there was much said in the silence.

The two of you stood outside the locker room doors, your hand still in his as he looked down at you with an adoring grin.

“So I’m gonna shower, and maybe get some coffee,” you laughed softly, looking down at your mud caked legs. “And then maybe we could go somewhere and, I dunno, talk? Or something?”

“Yeah,” he nodded, his voice soft as it fanned over your face. “We’ll talk. Or something.”

“Maybe you can tell me more about therapy?” You said with a cheeky glint in your eyes, wondering how much of his inner life you could convince him to spill to you before the day was done.

He laughed, “Sure. I’ll tell you anything, whatever you want to know.”

“Good. No more secrets?” Your smile cracked a bit at the question, just a tiny bit of lingering distrust left in your heart.

He eased it with a kiss to the back of your hand before letting go of you slowly.

“No more secrets,” he promised.

And you believed him.

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Rafe watched you go until the locker room door swung fully shut behind you, his heart and mind soaring somewhere in the clouds.

He hadn’t felt this good in such a long time. In fact, he may have never felt this good. He stood on the patio for a long time, just watching the pink-purple clouds of the swirling sunset and wondering how he got so fucking lucky.

The rest of the group slowly returned from the eighteenth hole, Cassie and Sabrina arriving just before Carter and Maddie.

“Topper?” He asked Carter, suddenly remembering his friend, who had been in bad shape the last time he saw him.

“Jack and Tom took him home in a company car,” she explained. “He’s good, just not gonna let him drink again, like ever.”

“He’s lucky to have you,” Rafe said, surprising both himself and Carter with his sincerity. She gave him a look that was half confusion, half unexpected friendliness before following Maddie into the locker room.

Kelce showed up last, struggling to carry multiple bags of clubs, which Rafe could only assume meant the girls had somehow conned him into carrying theirs.

“Dude,” Kelce panted. “Where the hell have you been? You should’ve seen me at the eighteenth, hit a fucking birdie man.”

“Bullshit,” Rafe ribbed him as he helped him unload the bags off his shoulders, Kelce taking a deep breath once he’d finally unloaded their weight.

“Let’s get the fuck outta here man,” Kelce suggested. “We should go downtown and get fucked up.”

“Nah, man, I don’t do that shit anymore,” Rafe shook his head. “Plus I got plans tonight…with my girl.”

Kelce’s eyes widened, breaking into a goofy grin as he shook Rafe by the shoulders.

“No shit? You finally locked it down, huh? Never thought you were gonna pull that shit off, man!”

Rafe smirked despite himself, “yeah, yeah, alright. Only took me fifteen fucking years man.”

The two slipped into the men’s locker room, heading towards the rental lockers where they’d stored the clothes they arrived in.

“I need details, bro,” Kelce pressed him. “I mean after the way she was acting this morning, I thought you’d blown it for good.”

Rafe opened his mouth to explain that he too thought he’d ruined his chances with you, but before he could, the door to the locker room swung open. From their spot behind the wall of lockers, they couldn’t see who was accompanying the voices that were in the middle of an entirely too-loud conversation, but Rafe recognized them immediately.

“Dude, you’re fucking crazy, she’s at least, like a nine, nine point five. You don’t have a chance,” Chad scolded his friend.

“I don’t care what she is, as long as she stays fucking faded,” Ryder laughed.

“Seriously, she was a fucking mess, she’d be so fucking easy, dude.”

Rafe’s whole demeanor changed at the sound of their conversation. His eyes flicking over Kelce’s face for just a second as his jaw clenched tight. Kelce watched him anxiously, neither of them needed to wonder who Chad and Ryder were talking about, after they’d followed you around all afternoon, coping as many sneaky feels as they could before Rafe stepped in.

He thought they’d gotten the message when he told them to back off, but apparently they hadn’t.

“Got her number, she invited us to her beach house,” Ryder informed his friend with a conspiratorial grin.

“Fucking perfect,” Chad slapped him five like he’d just won some kind of trophy. “You keep the drinks flowing and I’ll make a move.”

“No fucking way,” Ryder protested. “I’m the one who scored the invite, your perverted ass can watch while I seal the fucking deal.”

“Ah, you’d really diss your brother like that?” Chad whined.

“You know what, you do the job correctly and maybe I’ll let you have a taste when she’s finally blacked out, yeah?”

Forget protective, this was enough to send Rafe on a full fucking killing spree. He was almost too infuriated to move, but that last remark sent him reeling around the corner of the lockers in a path of destruction no one could stop, not even Kelce, who was close behind him in an absolute panic.

“Rafe, don’t man, they’re not worth it,” he warned, trying to catch up.

But he was too late, Rafe was already barreling toward Ryder and Chad, who looked up in shock when they realized suddenly that they weren’t alone.

Rafe lunged toward Ryder, grabbing him by the collar of his club issued uniform and slamming him up against the lockers. His forearm pressed into Ryder’s neck, pinning him up helplessly.

“I thought I made myself fucking clear.” Despite his aggressive stance, and the air slowly leaking from Ryder’s crushed throat, Rafe’s tone was smooth, his lips twisted in a terrifying smile that had absolutely zero joy behind it.

He looked over at Chad, who was watching, and cowering, in horror. “But you two fucking morons didn’t seem to understand, did you? So let me phrase it in a way even two shit-for-brains like you can grasp, yeah? Say one more fucking word about her or ever even breathe in her fucking vicinity again, and I will fucking end you. Got it?”

Chad nodded rapidly next to Rafe, his wide eyes pleading for mercy. Rafe pressed hard on Ryder’s neck one more time, grinning menacingly at the pained cry he let out before releasing him, his body slumping back against the locker as his hands rubbed over his sore neck.

“Good,” Rafe smiled again, patting Chad’s cheek patronizingly, smirking at the way he flinched in fear.

He turned from them, back toward Kelce, who looked relieved it hadn’t gone any farther, knowing what Rafe was capable of from his many drunken fights in high school. And considering this grown-up Rafe was even stronger, Kelce said a silent prayer Ryder and Chad would just keep their mouths shut.

God apparently wasn’t listening.

Chad pulled Ryder toward the locker room door as Rafe stood over the sink, white knuckling the edge as he tried to get control of himself, repeating some mental mantra Kelce couldn’t hear. They’d almost made a clean break of it, before Ryder pulled himself from his friend’s desperate grasp, turning around to taunt,

“Can’t help it if the slut is asking for it, man.”

Rafe looked up slowly, meeting Kelce’s terrified eyes in the mirror.

“Rafe, man, they’re just kids, alright?” He reminded him, his voice begging for Rafe to regain control of himself.

Rafe turned slowly, stepping towards Ryder, who was doing his best to stand tall and square his shoulders, despite the way his whole body was obviously shaking in fear. Rafe absolutely towered over him.

“Just a kid, huh? How old are you guys?” Rafe asked, his voice confusingly friendly in a way that disarmed Ryder slightly.

“Just turned eighteen,” he said proudly.

Rafe nodded casually, looking down at his hands and adjusting the solid gold ring on his forefinger with a grin.

“Good.”

Rafe’s fist met Ryder’s jaw with a crack!

The cool metal engraving of the Cameron family crest on Rafe’s ring split his lip like a knife, blood immediately running down his face as his neck snapped backward with the force of Rafe’s punch. Ryder stumbled backward, Chad cowering away and letting his friend fall through the swinging locker room door and stumbling into the lobby.

Rafe followed after him, Kelce’s shouting voice somewhere far, far away as he zeroed in on Ryder’s hunched over body, clutching his face in pain and panic. Kelce was begging him to stop, but Rafe couldn’t hear it, all he could hear were Ryder’s words, all he could see was your face, your body, the things they were planning to do to it. At that thought, his arm cocked back again, knocking into Chad, who was fruitlessly trying to pull him back.

Rafe’s fist collided with Ryder’s face again, and again and again, until he couldn’t tell skin apart from blood, until Ryder was flat on his back and Rafe was hovering over him, unleashing the full force of his anger.

Nothing could stop him, not Kelce’s pleading, or Chad’s, not his own conscience, screaming from the back of his mind that he needed to calm down, that he was gonna fucking kill this kid if he didn’t stop soon.

And he would’ve too, if the door to the women’s locker room hadn’t swung open, if you hadn’t come running out of it, tears streaming down your face and Carter’s voice calling after you. You stopped dead in your tracks and looked down at him in sheer shock and horror.

“Rafe! Oh my god, what the fuck are you doing?!”

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The steamy cascade of the shower felt so nice, you sighed aloud as the warm water rushed down your back to your mud caked legs, dragging clumps of the swamp down the drain with it. You hummed a little happy tune to yourself as you washed. When you’d entered the locker room, you were the only one in it, having your pick of showers and choosing the biggest one. Your eyes closed as you breathed in the steam, feeling the rest of your sobriety return to you, eyelashes fluttering open again excitedly as you remembered Rafe was just on the other side of this wall, waiting for you.

Your mind wandered pleasantly to all the possible things this evening could have in store, using a second pump of body wash at the thought, your stomach full of butterflies. As you washed the day off, you let your mind wander even farther, past tonight, past this week, when the trip was over and it would be just you and Rafe, facing the summer together. You’d help him with his summer class, as much as he needed, be there to cheer for him when he graduated. Surely, he’d have to start working once he got his diploma and you’d have to go back north for your last year of school, but he could come visit you on the weekends, and for once in your four years away, you’d actually look for reasons to return to the OBX instead of avoiding it at all costs.

The future, which usually made your stomach twist in anxiety with all its uncertainty and vastness, seemed to glow now, shining like a star in the distance with the knowledge you’d reach it with Rafe by your side.

Part of you mourned that you were just now claiming this life for yourself, all the wasted time between you and Rafe seeming tragic now that you knew what it was like to be with him. But you promised yourself you wouldn’t waste any more time being sad about that, thinking instead of what Rafe would look like on one knee in front of you someday, a vision that for the first time in your life, was completely real and in reach.

The door to the patio squeaking open interrupted your reverie, two familiar voices in mid-conversation robbing you of your once private locker room experience.

“So uncomfy actually, she was such a mess. Like why are you sloppy drunk in the middle of the day? That’s just sad,” Sabrina’s voice carried under the shower curtain. You knew she couldn’t see you, but you still turned away toward the shower wall as you listened in as if you were shielding yourself from her. Clearly, she was talking about you, but to who?

“I don’t know, maybe she just needed to blow off some steam. We’ve all been there,” Cassie deflected.

Once again, you were shocked by how kind Cassie was being, weirdly kind of touched at how quickly she’d come to your defense.

“Since when are the two of you the best of friends?” Sabrina snapped back, clearly embarrassed that Cassie was taking the high road while she was talking shit like a teenager.

“We’re not, I just don’t see why you need to drag her down all the time when she’s never actually done anything to you,” Cassie pushed back.

It took everything in you not to shout “exactly!” from your shower stall, biting your tongue as you waited for Sabrina’s response.

“Okay maybe not to me, but she’s done shit to you. Sorry that I’m being defensive over my best friend,” Sabrina reasoned.

You were baffled, literally scratching your head as you tried to think of one bad thing you could’ve possibly ever done to Cassie of all people.

“Okay, well it’s not like she knew she was doing it, Rafe never told her.”

Your heart dropped to your stomach. Rafe never told her. Completely sober now, you still had to clutch the wall to stay standing straight.

“Maybe Carter did though,” Sabrina reasoned. “Those two are like freaky close, even for sisters.”

“No, I don’t think she would’ve,” Cassie explained. “Rafe said it was like an unspoken agreement between them. Like if he ghosted her sister, Carter would leave Rafe alone and stuff. I don’t see her admitting that they made some weird pact to keep her in the dark like that.”

Your body was so still, the shampoo you’d just lathered into your hair was running down your face and into your eyes, and you didn’t even care. You were numb, no feeling where it was stinging your eyes as you blinked it away, frozen in shock.

If he ghosted her. Keep her in the dark. An unspoken agreement between them.

Your mind was spinning too fast to fully make sense of it, but just fast enough to conjure an image of Carter and Rafe in high school, shaking hands as they made some kind of deal over you. Then a flash of you, in the weeks that followed, sobbing into your pillow as Carter sat at the edge of your bed, assuring you that Rafe was just some guy who ghosted you and you’d get over him eventually. And Rafe, in his own bed a few streets over, ignoring your texts and justifying the way he’d pretend like he didn’t even know you when he saw you in the halls at school.

It was all part of some fucking pact? You were sick to your fucking stomach.

Before you could start retching, the door swung open again, the unmistakable sound of Carter’s laugh wafting in with the evening air. Maddie laughed alongside her, mumbling something about Kelce looking out of breath. Your nausea quickly turned to absolute disgust at the thought of Carter laughing without a care while you were reeling from the news of her betrayal and swallowing the taste of shampoo.

You slammed the shower handle to the left, shutting the water off with a squeak of the faucet. Grabbing your towel from the hook and just barely taking the time to wrap it around yourself, you stormed out of the showers and into the locker room, beelining past a shocked Sabrina and Cassie and straight toward Carter, who stopped mid-joke to take you in with surprise.

“You made a fucking pact?!” You spat at her.

“What are you talking about?” She asked, the remnants of a smile still lingering on the corner of her lips.

“You and Rafe, in highschool. You made a deal over me?” Your mind was racing so far ahead of you that it was difficult to string the words together. But the way Carter’s face fell and flooded with panic told you she knew exactly what you were referring to.

“You said he was just showing his true colors, you said he was ghosting me. But you fucking told him to? How could you do that to me?” Your voice cracked as you accused her.

“I was protecting you!” She defended herself.

“By fucking lying to me?”

Her eyes skittered around, trying to figure out what to say, eventually landing on your neck. In an instant, her face shifted from panicked guilt to cold anger.

“You wanna talk about lying? Nice necklace you got yourself there,” she pointed to your exposed clavicle, uncovered by your towel.

Your stomach dropped, not needing to look in the mirror to know everyone in the room could see the hickies that were scattered across your collarbone.

“Nothing happened, huh?” Carter repeated the words you’d sworn to her over and over when she’d pressed you about what happened when you disappeared with Rafe the other day. “Or did you get those hickies from those fucking caddies?”

“Don’t try to change the subject,” you told her, your hand coming up to cover the marks as though that would make everyone forget they’d seen them. “You’ve been lying to me for years. And I only lied about hooking up with Rafe because for once in my life I didn’t want to hear your fucking judgemental opinion.”

The rest of the girls stood back, completely frozen in fear as they watched the completely unprecedented event unfolding before them. No one had ever heard you and Carter speak like this to each other, mainly because you and Carter never had spoken like this to each other. It was terrifying, having no blueprint for what was going to happen next, no idea how low the two of you would be willing to go.

“Maybe I give you my opinion on everything because you can never do anything by your fucking self,” she crossed her arms. “I mean, hell if I hadn’t pushed you to come on this trip you never would’ve even spoken to Rafe again in the first place. But now, he’s what, the love of your fucking life?”

“You’re right, Car, how would I make it through life without the opinions of someone with the emotional intelligence of a fucking toddler? You can’t even tell someone you love them without having a full blown panic attack on the bathroom floor.”

“Oh you wanna talk about emotions? You cried over him every night for twelve fucking years,” she shot back. “And you’re supposed to be the ‘emotionally healthy’ one? Give me a fucking break. He kissed Cassie one time and you acted like the whole fucking world had ended, what the fuck was I supposed to do? You helped him fucking prom-pose to her for god’s sake, and I couldn’t say anything about it. I wasn’t gonna sit back and let them keep hurting you like that.”

Heat rushed to your face, unable to keep your eyes from flicking over to Cassie, who looked away quickly, as if she could spare you the sheer mortification you were experiencing at the sound of Carter revealing one of your dearest secrets right in front of the person you least wanted to hear.

Carter knew she’d gone too far, eyes flashing with regret, almost wincing at her own words.

“I’m sor-”

“Save it,” you pulled your towel tighter around yourself, rushing over to the locker where you’d stored the clothes you came in. You pulled them on quickly, ignoring Carter as she rushed to try and apologize.

“I shouldn’t have said that in front of her, okay? I’m just- you’re not giving me a chance to explain. It was a long time ago and it’s complicated. Please, let’s just talk, I wanna talk about this.”

Once your clothes were pulled back on, you turned to her.

“No, I’ve been listening to you talk my whole fucking life, and I don’t even know if I can believe what you say anymore.” Tears finally slipped past your lash line.

You brushed past her and headed for the door, not sparing a glance to the other girls, who were still standing back near the showers, pretending they couldn’t hear every word you were saying.

“Wait, no, please wait!” Carter called after you as you ripped open the door to the lobby, but you didn’t hear her, too stunned by what you found on the other side.

Rafe was kneeling above a bloodied and beaten Ryder, his arm cocked back for another in what must have been a long series of blows. His eyes were wild, like an animal attacking their prey. His own face had flecks of blood scattered across it, that you surmised wasn’t his own.

He looked up at you, his pupils blown wide and his entire body consumed by rage.��

And there it was: the storm of him. The one you had just been so sure had passed, breaking again right in front of you.

You trembled, more tears slipping from your eyes, as Ryder groaned from under Rafe’s hold, too battered to fight back.

“Rafe! Oh my god, what the fuck are you doing?!” You screamed in terror.

Carter and the other girls came running out at the sound of your shriek, all their jaws falling slack at the sight.

“You’re gonna fucking kill him!” You cried, noting the way Rafe still hadn’t let Ryder up off the floor. “Why are you doing this?”

“They were talking shit,” Kelce jumped in to explain, Rafe too consumed with chaos to form the words.

“I don’t care what they said, that doesn’t give you the right to break someone’s skull in,” you screamed at Rafe, praying he’d lower his fist before he did anymore damage.

“He was saying he was gonna get you wasted and pass you over to his buddy once you were too blackout to realize,” Kelce clarified.

“Ex-fucking-scuse me?” Carter snapped, looking toward Chad, who was white as a ghost as she stormed toward him.

Before you could react, Carter had pulled back her own fist, crashing it into Chad’s face with a thud. The rest of the room gasped, even Rafe whipped his head toward her in shock.

“Ow, fuck!” She screamed and shook out her knuckles, some of them surely broken after that punch. At the same moment, Chad stumbled backward and crashed into a large, expensive looking vase sitting in the middle of the lobby, which rocked back and forth a few times before crashing to the floor and shattering into a million pieces.

The sound echoed throughout the lobby, and the desk agent came running from the employee break room toward the commotion.

Chad cried out, holding his nose as it began leaking blood, and the front desk agent barrelling around the corner, his eyes going wide at the scene in front of him.

He pulled a walkie talkie from his belt and spoke quickly, informing someone on the other end, “call security now. And tell them to get the real cops.”

“Oh fuck,” Kelce groaned, his hands flying to his head in worry. “Rafe, fuck man, I love you but…I can’t be here right now.”

With that, Kelce ran through the lobby, jumping over Ryder’s limp legs to make his escape. Sabrina grabbed Cassie’s hand and dragged her after him, Maddie hesitating for just a minute before looking sympathetically to Carter, who was doubled over in pain.

“Sorry,” Maddie said. “I just got into med school.”

With that excuse, she ran after the others, stepping in some of Ryder’s blood and trailing footprints across the glossy marble floor.

As the front door to the club closed behind her, two security guards arrived, huffing in their tight uniforms, clearly having run here.

“Nobody else better fucking move,” he warned, holding up his knightstick as he gasped for air. “The police are on their way.”

The other guard hurried to pull Rafe off of Ryder. With his eyes still pinned on you, Rafe finally climbed off of him, slumping back against the wall with his knees pulled up to his chest, his blood soaked hands resting limply on top of his thighs like they hadn’t just beat this kid within an inch of his life.

“You,” the heavily breathing guard pointed at Carter while his partner checked Ryder’s eyes to make sure he was still conscious. “Against the wall, too. Now.”

Carter obeyed, following his instruction to sit next to Rafe, her knuckles red and swollen as she held her hand up pathetically.

“You two better have a good fucking excuse when the cops arrive,” the guard scolded them. He looked at you for any sign of your own involvement, “unless someone else wants to take responsibility?”

You just looked down at Rafe and Carter, never in your life having seen a more pitiful sight than the two of them slumped on the ground, looking at you like you were their last hope.

“Nope,” you shrugged. “These two got here all on their own.”

Careful to avoid getting blood on your own shoes, you turned your back on them and left.

(to be continued)

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