The party at the Cameron estate thudded with music, cheap beer, and the shouts of boys who never learned what it meant to grow up right. Rafe leaned against the kitchen island, laughing too loud with Kelce and Topper, throwing back another drink like it could drown the twisted knot in his chest.

He hadn’t seen Rose all night, but he could feel her anyway. The way she looked through him. The way her mouth pinched whenever he spoke too long. The way she made him feel like he was always too much, too angry, too wrong — and Ward never cared enough to notice.

You were standing by the window, pretending not to watch him. Older. Smarter.

You were two — almost three — years older than Rafe. Old enough that you should have known better than to get tangled up with a boy like him. But there was something about the way he looked at you. Like he needed you to be the safe place he’d never had.

“Yo, Rafe!” Kelce yelled. “You gonna throw the ball or are you just gonna stand there drooling over—”

Rafe shoved him hard enough to make Kelce stumble into a chair, laughing it off. Rafe had to be rough. Had to be the one who laughed first, hit first, or else the hollow feeling inside would catch up to him.

Later, when the party thinned and the house settled into silence broken only by the surf, Rafe found you sitting on the back porch. The air smelled like salt and storm.

He hesitated. Part of him said don’t. Rose’s voice in his head said he was weak, needy, a disappointment. He heard it even now — You can’t even stand on your own two feet, Rafe.

But you looked at him and smiled, gentle and easy, like you weren’t waiting for him to mess up.

That was all it took.

Without a word, he sat down beside you, slumping forward, hands rubbing at his face like he could scrub the feeling away. You reached out — slow, careful — and pushed his messy hair back from his forehead.

He melted into your touch like a boy starved for kindness.

“You don’t have to be tough all the time, you know,” you said softly.

Rafe swallowed hard, shame flashing across his face. “They…they don’t get it,” he muttered, voice rough. “She doesn’t get it. Rose. She’s always looking at me like I’m—like I’m just another problem to fix.”

You brushed your thumb along his temple, your heart squeezing tight.

“You’re not a problem,” you whispered. “You’re just…you.”

He looked up at you then — really looked — and you saw it all: the bruised pride, the raw ache for love he didn’t know how to ask for. You cupped his cheek, letting him rest his weight against you, your hand steady even as he trembled slightly under your touch.

“You love me, right?” he asked, voice small, like a kid needing to be told he was wanted.