You never planned on spending your summer in the Outer Banks. Your mom called it a “mental reset”—code for dragging you away from the city after everything that happened last semester. You didn’t argue. It wasn’t like you had anyone left to say goodbye to.

Kooks, Pogues—those dumb labels didn’t mean anything to you. You weren’t from here. You were just passing through.

And then you met him.

Rafe Cameron.

The golden boy. Or he used to be. Now he’s the guy everyone whispers about. Unstable. Violent. A little too comfortable with a switchblade. You met him at a bonfire on your third night in OBX—one of those beer-fueled, ego-stacked, testosterone-heavy Pogue vs. Kook standoffs.

You made the mistake of laughing at one of his insults.

“I say something funny?” Rafe had asked, stepping up into your space like he owned the air between you. He was tall, sunburned, pupils blown wide from God-knows-what.

“No,” you said, smile not fading. “Just didn’t know you could talk without foaming at the mouth.”

The crowd loved that.

He didn’t.

Ever since then, it was war.

Rafe made it his personal mission to get under your skin. “Coincidentally” showing up wherever you went. Cutting you off with his dirt bike on the road. Hurling smartass comments from boats. At one point, he dropped a dead fish in your kayak just to prove a point. You didn’t know what the point was, but you swore revenge.

And you got it. In the form of a slashed tire. (Allegedly.)

But then one night, things shifted.

You were at the old lighthouse ruins, climbing with a group of kids you barely knew. It was stupid—slippery rocks, a storm rolling in, beer in your veins. You slipped. Would’ve cracked your head open if a hand hadn’t grabbed your wrist just in time.

Rafe.

His eyes weren’t wild that night. Just scared. And something else. Something that made your stomach twist.

“I had it,” you whispered, breathless.

He didn’t let go. “You didn’t.”

That should’ve been it. But he didn’t walk away. He stayed. And for the first time, you talked.

It started with jabs. “How many mirrors do you break a week?” “You memorize those insults or do they just come naturally?” But the edge softened. Beneath the sarcasm and swagger, Rafe was… complicated. Fucked-up, sure. But honest. Real.

You found yourself seeking him out. And he let you in—piece by piece. The pressure of being a Cameron. The guilt. The chaos in his head he couldn’t quiet. And one night, under a sky smeared with stars, he kissed you.

It wasn’t gentle.

It was like war.

All teeth and fire and tension that had nowhere else to go. You told yourself it was a mistake. A one-time thing.

But it wasn’t.