Rafe and you had been weird kinda-sorta friends up to this moment. Meetings in private, on the beach, at night at your worst to talk about anything and everything, despite your differences. His conversations with you were the only times he found himself listening to a Pogue, respecting one even.

Falling in lust with you was fast, sure, I mean it was easy to get infatuated with someone like you. But love? That came slow, like a parasite, eating him up little by little from the inside out.

So, this time when he walked from his house down the beach in an intoxicated haze and found you drenched from the rain that seemed to just keep on pouring, heavy and loud, it was hard to keep his mouth shut.

He started by calling you beautiful. Friends could say that… right? But then it escalated from beautiful to perfect, and from perfect to smart, which somehow hit even harder.

“I just— God, it’s hard to say, but I think I fucking love you,” he admitted. It wasn’t even because he was wasted, it was the truth. He’d say it sober if he ever got the courage.