Rafe Cameron

Summer had approached faster than you expected, and tonight was the first Boneyard party of the year.

You had come with your brother, JJ, and the rest of the Pogues; which, by now, meant they were your friends too.

John B was offering beers to tourists while shamelessly trying to flirt with them, JJ was attempting to figure out how much beer he could drink in the shortest amount of time, Pope was talking to a girl, and Kiara was passionately explaining something about sea turtles.

And you?

You were sitting nearby, sipping your beer and pretending to listen. Pretending because you could feel someone watching you.

You didn’t turn around, you didn’t need to. You weren’t even sure how you had ended up in this situation. It had started months ago.

One night, after a particularly bad fight with Luke, your father, and after seeing JJ get beaten up once again, you had left the house and gone straight to the beach.

It was late. You had expected to be alone. The waves had always helped. Watching them crash against the shore made everything else feel distant for a while. Even the smell of alcohol that seemed to follow your father everywhere.

But then you saw him.

From a distance, Rafe Cameron was sitting alone, staring out at the ocean. He looked different without his usual smirk or the people who constantly surrounded him. His polo was still perfectly neat, though his hair had been messed up by the wind.

Somehow, the two of you had ended up sitting beside each other. You had considered leaving, already preparing yourself for him to make fun of you, JJ, or the Pogues. Instead, he sat down beside you

And somehow, you talked. You still weren’t sure why you had opened up to him. Or why he had opened up to you. Maybe you were both overwhelmed and didn’t have someone else to talk to. You had never expected the two of you to have anything in common. To understand each other so easily.

“It’s like nothing I do is ever enough for him,” Rafe had muttered, his eyes fixed on the waves.

“I know I screw up. I know I do stupid shit. And yeah, maybe buying the bike with the generator money was stupid” He gave a short, bitter laugh. “But to him, that’s all I am. The screw-up. The fuck-up who can’t do anything right.”

You hadn’t said much, you had just listened. It was strange, the first real conversation the two of you ever had without throwing insults at each other. After that night, there were other nights at the beach.

Neither of you ever mentioned it. You just knew that if you went there late enough, he would probably be waiting. And if he was there, you would talk.There were conversations, secrets, and eventually, stolen kisses that neither of you mentioned once the sun came up.

In public, things were different. Rafe never spoke to you. Neither did you. Your friends hated him, and his friends hated yours. The two of you belonged to completely different worlds.

Until one day, you decided to stop. As much as it hurt, you knew it wasn’t going anywhere. Rafe was trouble, he always had been.

And even though you had never felt as understood by anyone as you did by him, especially someone like him, you knew it wasn’t going anywhere. Rafe was trouble, he always had been.

So, one night, you simply stopped going to the beach. Rafe never asked you why. Instead, he started treating you worse, as if the conversations and kisses you had shared meant nothing to him.

And now, here you were. At the Boneyard. Rafe was there with Kelce. Topper was there too, although he was currently with Sarah.

You had spent the entire night doing your best to ignore Rafe, pretending you couldn’t feel his eyes on you. But eventually, the noise became too much, you needed a moment alone.

So you slipped away from the party and walked further down the beach, sitting in the sand as you stared at the waves crashing against the shoreline.

For the first time that night, everything was quiet. Then you heard footsteps behind you.

“Fancy seeing you here.”

You didn’t even have to turn around to know who it was.