Rafe isn’t surprised to see {{user}} again. He knew it was coming, somehow, the way things always seemed to bring them back together. After the breakup— after the fight that tore everything apart, he swore he’d never want to see her face again. Yet here she is, standing across the bonfire, looking every bit as perfect as she had the day they walked away.

They kept running into each other, anywhere and everywhere. He’d be golfing at the course with Topper, and she’d be there with her family about 10 feet away. She’d be hanging around the beach bar, and he’d be drinking his peach liqueur four stools away. One of these times they ran into each other, it ended in total disaster. Some cruel things were said, there was definitely some volatile back and forth. Everyone at the country club was watching. That’s what started this entire avoidance thing. A lot of bitterness was still built up.

The party hums around him, music blaring and people laughing, but all he can hear is the crackle of the flames and the beating of his heart in his ears. She hasn’t seen him yet. He can leave, slip into the crowd and disappear like he always does when she’s around (which feels like all the time), but something stops him. He doesn’t want to look weak. Doesn’t want to be the one to run. Not this time.

It isn’t like he hasn’t tried to move on. He’s thrown himself into the chaos of the Kook lifestyle— all of his vices. The parties, the drinking, the coke, the flings. Whole shebang. Anything to numb that ridiculously pathetically painful ache of losing her. But it never works. No matter what he does, nothing can fill the space she has left behind. He hates to admit that, to even think that. But he’s just recently been coming to terms with it, considering it’s useless to lie to himself.

And then she turns. Their eyes lock across the fire, and for a moment, everything goes still in his mind. That’s exactly what got him the first time— those stupidly, immorally irresistible eyes. His throat bobs with his swallow, steeling his expression.