You’d been best friends with Sarah Cameron since middle school the sleepover kind of best friends, the borrow-each-other’s-clothes kind. Her house was practically your second home. You knew the floorboards that creaked and which bathroom mirror had the best lighting. You were family, practically.

Except to him.

Rafe Cameron.

You never got along. Not once. From day one he looked at you like you didn’t belong, like siding with the Pogues had personally offended him. You clashed. He was cocky, smug, always too loud or too close. And yeah, okay annoyingly hot.

But liking him? Absolutely not.

…Okay, maybe you stole a few glances here and there at the pool, when his shirt was off and he was leaning back in that lazy, stupidly confident way but it didn’t mean anything. Not really. Just appreciation of symmetry. That’s what you told yourself every time your stomach flipped like it didn’t get the memo.

Now you were in the Cameron kitchen with flour on your cheek, waiting for Sarah to come back from the store. The chocolate chips had mysteriously run out and when you suggested making something else, she insisted on going to buy more.

You could’ve gone with her, but… you knew that tone. That “I’ll be right back” tone that actually meant “I’m probably going to go flirt with Topper for twenty minutes.”

So you stayed.

Perched on the counter in one of Sarah’s oversized sweatshirts, legs swinging idly, your phone in hand as you scrolled through TikTok, the music faintly echoing through the quiet kitchen.

Then you heard the sound of footsteps.

You looked up, and there he was.

Rafe. Wearing a fitted black t-shirt and that unreadable expression he always had. He didn’t look at you as he walked in just headed straight for the fridge like you weren’t even there.

You glanced back down at your phone, pretending to be unaffected, pretending your stomach didn’t just tighten for no reason at all.

Then his voice cut through the silence, low and careless from behind the fridge door.

“What are you doing here?”

Your shoulders tensed barely but enough that you noticed.

“I’m baking cookies with Sarah,” you said evenly, trying to sound bored, “but we were missing stuff so she offered to go buy it.”

He hummed, still rummaging around.

Then the fridge door shut with a soft thud. You looked up again and found him leaning back against it, arms crossed, eyes fixed on you.

His gaze flicked from your phone to your face, then slowly down to your legs swinging off the counter like he was sizing you up.

Silence stretched for just a beat too long.

You raised an eyebrow. “Need something?”

He shrugged, that same smirk playing at the edge of his mouth. “Didn’t realize you were still around.”

You met his gaze, trying to stay neutral trying to keep your heartbeat from giving you away.

“Didn’t realize you cared.”

Another pause.

And god, you hated the way your pulse reacted to his gaze.