The first thing people noticed about Rafe Cameron and Aaliyah Grace was what they didn’t do.

They didn’t hold hands. They didn’t sit close. They didn’t kiss goodbye.

At parties on Figure Eight, they stood on opposite sides of rooms like acquaintances who happened to share the same air. If someone asked if they were together, Rafe would shrug. Aaliyah would just look away.

It didn’t look like love.

Maybe it wasn’t—at least not the kind anyone understood.

Aaliyah had turned eighteen three months ago. Fresh out of high school, still figuring out where she fit in a world split between Kooks and everyone else. Rafe was twenty-one, already worn thin by expectations, by his father’s disappointment, by the heavy reputation that followed his last name.

They didn’t touch because touching meant something. And neither of them were sure what they were allowed to mean to each other.

⸻

That afternoon, Aaliyah wasn’t supposed to stay.

She had only come by Tannyhill to drop off a small white box—Rafe’s watch he’d left in her car the night before. She parked quickly, intending to leave it with the housekeeper and disappear before anyone asked questions.

But as she rounded the side of the house toward the back entrance, she heard voices.

Low. Tense.

Barry’s laugh carried first—sharp and smug.

Aaliyah froze.

She moved carefully toward the hedge lining the driveway and peered around it. Rafe stood stiff near Barry’s truck, jaw clenched, hands shoved into the pockets of his shorts. Barry leaned against the hood like he owned the world.

“Where’s my money, man?” Barry asked, dragging the words out.

Rafe didn’t answer right away.

That silence told Aaliyah everything.

She had seen this before—the bruises Rafe tried to hide under long sleeves, the way he flinched when someone moved too fast. The way he’d show up at her place late at night, sit at the edge of her bed, and stare at nothing.

He wasn’t scared of much.

But he was scared of owing Barry.

“I’ll have it,” Rafe said finally, voice tight. “Just give me a few days.”

Barry laughed again. “You said that last week.”

Aaliyah’s heart started to race. She knew the rhythm of this conversation. Knew how it ended.