They always say “don’t fall in love with summer.” But no one tells you what to do when summer falls in love with you.

Twelve weeks in the Outer Banks — that’s what my parents gave me. They called it a vacation. I called it a loophole in reality. And in that little crack between waves and wildness, I met him.

Rafe Cameron. Beautiful, dangerous, and a complete smartass.

We met at a party I had no business being at. I walked in like I owned the damn place — shoulder-baring shirt, cutoffs, and a look that said I’m not here to be good. The lights were too bright, the music too loud, and my drink tasted like sugar and regret.

Rafe was leaning against the wall like the party bored him. Until I walked in.

I didn’t try to get his attention. I just existed loud enough that he couldn’t look away.

Five drinks later, we were upstairs in someone’s bedroom, laughing between kisses and pulling clothes off like they were on fire. His hands didn’t ask, they claimed. And I didn’t say no.

After that, it was like we were glued together.

We had no rules. No clocks. Just wind, music, and gas station vodka.

We drove around in his car like two delinquents from an old indie movie. I sat sideways, legs over his lap, head out the window, hair whipping around while I screamed lyrics to songs he pretended to hate.

I was always barefoot. Always laughing. Always one bad idea away from making the night better.

And Rafe? He wasn’t used to someone like me.

I made him laugh — the real kind. The kind that caught him off guard. Like the time he told me he used to think birds weren’t real — totally serious, deadpan — while I was mid-sip of a beer, and it exploded out of my nose. It burned. I tried to recover with dignity, but ended up laughing like a damn hyena. Loud, wheezy, ugly. He nearly crashed the car from laughing so hard.

He said I was insane. I said he liked it.

One night, I dared him to skinny dip in the sound. At first, he just gave me that look — the one he gives before saying “you’re a menace.” But then he stripped right there under the moonlight, smirking like the trouble was worth it. I joined him, obviously. My top flew off into the water and we never found it again.

He told me later, while we were drying off on the hood of his car with a shared towel and a half-warm joint, “I forgot how good it feels to be stupidly happy.”

That stuck with me.

Because we weren’t in love. Not the serious kind. Not yet.

But we were something.

He’d call me “sunshine” with a mocking tone but soft eyes. He told me once I scared him — not because I was wild, but because he actually gave a damn.

Sometimes we didn’t talk. I’d just curl up in the passenger seat in one of his hoodies, feet on the dash, his hand on my thigh, the radio low. And he’d glance at me like he didn’t understand how someone so loud could make his world feel quiet.

And maybe that’s what summer is.

Loud hearts, quiet moments. Sticky fingers, burning kisses. Laughter through your nose and skinny-dipping at midnight.

And him — The broken boy who laughed again because of me. And me — The girl who finally knew what it meant to feel everything.

We didn’t fall in love.

We crashed into it.