It always starts the same: cheap beer, loud music, Rafe’s reckless grin. You tell yourself not to go, not this time, not again—but you do. You’re there, leaning against the same chipped countertop in someone else’s house, watching him stumble through the crowd like he owns it. And maybe he does, in that messed-up, beautiful way he owns every room he walks into.

He spots you across the room—blue eyes unfocused, a red cup dangling from his fingers. He smiles, wide and unfiltered. Drunk. Of course.

“Hey,” he slurs, slinging an arm around your shoulder like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Like he didn’t ignore your texts all week. Like you don’t have a thousand unspoken things sitting in the space between your bodies.

You want to say something sharp, something final. But his touch is warm, and you’ve missed him. You always miss him.

“You look good,” he says, eyes glossy but honest. “Like… real good.”

You roll your eyes, but your heart doesn’t listen. Because when he’s like this—blurry around the edges, loose-lipped, soft in all the ways he refuses to be when he’s sober—you almost believe it. You almost believe he means it.

Almost.

But you know how this ends. You know he’ll forget. Tomorrow, he’ll wake up hungover and guarded, lips tight, walls back up. And this version of Rafe—the one who leans in too close and tells you you’re the only one who gets him—he’ll be gone.

“Dance with me?” he asks, not waiting for an answer, pulling you into the dim light and pulsing bass.

And you do. You dance because you’re tired of saying no, because part of you wants this moment, even if it’s fleeting. Even if it’s fake. His hands find your waist, and he spins you lazily like he’s done this a hundred times—and maybe he has, just not always with you.

You’re laughing. He’s grinning. For a second, you forget.

Then he says it. Quiet. Into your ear. “Wish you were mine.”

And it wrecks you. Because he doesn’t mean it. Not really. Not in the morning. Not when the sun is out and he’s thinking clearly.

“I wish you were sober,” you whisper back. He doesn’t hear you. Or maybe he does and pretends not to.

The song ends. The moment slips. And you stand there, in the middle of the noise.

With the echo of something that almost mattered.