You stood on the balcony of the dimly lit hotel room, the cool night air brushing your skin like a secret. The city below pulsed quietly, lights flickering like tired stars. In one hand, a half-smoked cigarette smoldered between your fingers, forgotten. In the other, a glass of red wine — its warmth dulled, like the fading fire inside your chest.

From the room behind you, a song played low, haunting — the kind of song that made everything feel heavier, more meaningful than it was allowed to be. The curtains danced slightly with the breeze, and the scent of his cologne clung to you like a ghost.

You were wearing his shirt. Rafe’s. It hung off your shoulders in that effortless, intimate way — sleeves pushed up, the collar stretched from his rough hands pulling it off earlier. His boxers barely stayed on your hips, worn and soft, and still warm from your skin meeting his just hours before. The sheets inside still carried your shapes — twisted, messy, raw — the memory of tangled limbs and whispered nothings echoing off the walls.

You’d made love that afternoon. Or that’s what it felt like. But you both knew better than to call it that.

“No strings attached,” you had said with a small smile. “Like always,” he echoed, eyes dark with something neither of you dared to name.

But tonight... something had shifted. You felt it in the air — thick, heavy, dangerous.

It was the way he touched you this time. Slower. Like he was afraid it might be the last. The way his lips stayed pressed to your shoulder a little too long afterward. The way his eyes lingered — not just admiring, but memorizing.

You’d always avoided love like a fire. You didn’t touch it, didn’t even look too long, because you knew how easily it could burn. And he — he was just as scorched. Just as scared. You were both experts at pretending this was nothing.

But the truth? It was never nothing. Not really.

Now the strings you thought you could keep loose had knotted into something tight and painful — around your ribs, pulling with every breath; around your throat, choking back all the things you weren’t brave enough to say.

Behind you, you felt the weight of his presence before you saw him. He stood just a few feet away, bare-chested, wearing only grey sweatpants, his arms crossed tight over his chest like he was physically trying to hold everything in — all the tension, the wanting, the fear. His jaw was clenched. His eyes unreadable. But they didn’t leave you.

The silence stretched between you like a thread pulled taut — delicate, threatening to snap.

Then he broke it, voice low, quiet, laced with something softer than you expected:

“You look lost.”

And when you finally turned to him, heart hammering in your chest, you saw it — that flicker. That storm.

He wasn’t just looking at you. He was searching. Like maybe — just maybe — he’d finally realized you were both lost in the same way… and maybe, for once, it wasn’t so terrifying to be found.