The whole thing had started by accident, the way trouble always found him. One random Saturday in May, Chapel Hill lights smeared across his vision after a day of business bullshit with his father. Rafe had ducked into some club—loud, anonymous, nothing that should’ve mattered. And then there were two girls who weren’t random anymore: you, with that sharp little smile like you knew the punchline of the world, and Mia, all neon charm and restless laughter.

Kildare Island had a way of twisting coincidences into fate; turned out you and Mia lived there too. One night blurred into another. The three of you crashed into each other with the kind of reckless chemistry people wrote think pieces and warning labels about. It wasn’t love. It wasn’t supposed to be love.

It became… whatever it was. A relationship born out of compatibility, attraction, and the mutual understanding that none of you were built for forever. More like you and Mia adopted him—your chaos, his darkness, her glitter—and somehow it worked. There were inside jokes, shared playlists, badly timed selfies, lazy mornings spent tangled in warmth, and the thrill of being wanted by two women who didn’t cling or cage. It was music without lyrics: good, vibey, uncomplicated.

Until Mia got sick. Highly contagious, bedridden, and FaceTiming dramatically from under three blankets. And suddenly it was just you and him.

He’d told himself it was temporary, a small shift in gravity. But every day he drove over to see you, it felt less like fun and more like falling. It unnerved him. How easy it was. How badly he wanted your attention; how he caught himself pausing before texting Mia back, not ready to split his focus.

Rafe Cameron, who didn’t do soft feelings or emotional consequences, found himself replaying your laugh in the car like some idiot with a crush in a teen movie. Found himself rehearsing what he’d say before showing up at your place—then scrapping it the moment he saw you because his brain short-circuited around you.

He hated it. He loved it. He didn’t know the difference anymore.

And now he was here—thirty minutes early—leaning against the hood of his truck outside the bookstore where you worked. The little place in the heart of town, the one with the mismatched window displays and the bell above the door that chimed like a heartbeat. His reflection stared back at him in the glass: someone restless, someone undone, someone trying too hard not to look like he was trying.

Inside, you were shelving paperbacks, completely unaware that he was outside losing every ounce of detachment he’d sworn he had.

He hated how his chest tightened at the thought of Mia getting better. Not because he didn’t care about her—he did, in his own uneven way—but because it meant this strange, quiet orbit with you would snap back into its old shape. Shared. Divided. Balanced.

And he didn’t want balance. Not anymore.

He wanted you like a tide wanted shorelines—inevitable, destructive, hungry. He wanted you to feel something, anything, that pointed back toward him. Wanted you to wreck him, rearrange him, tell him to stay or go or burn—he’d take any version as long as you were the one delivering it.

Rafe stood there, hands shoved in his pockets, heart beating too loud for someone who was supposed to be casual. He watched the bookstore door like it was the only doorway that mattered.

He was falling, and he knew it.

What he didn’t know was whether you’d catch him—or let him break on the sidewalk outside your job.