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outerbankies · 2 years

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new light: hesitate — rafe cameron

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summary: Overhearing a candid conversation between Rafe and his best friend leaves you heartbroken and rethinking the future you pictured with him.

warnings: family issues, body image, discussions of pregnancy (and options, this is a pro-choice blog), drinking, swearing, suggestive content

a/n: *tap tap* is this thing on? wow this one’s a long time coming! i hope it was worth the wait. this is almost 22k so grab a drink

“Don’t you think it’s time we got one of our own?”

“Our own what?”

He gestures to Wilbur where he’s walking beside you on the sidewalk, the three of you en route to a patio brunch on an otherwise sluggish Saturday morning. Waking up with no pressing responsibilities to tend to and no hangovers from the night before because you opted to stay in, the sun streaming in through the curtains you forgot to close the night before and wrapping the two of you in the golden morning light—it’s far and away your favorite kind of morning.

Your favorite kind of Rafe, too. Lax and happy, sending you that dopey smile over the pillows and blankets between you. He didn’t let them separate you for long, pulling you close to press lazy kisses anywhere he can reach, eyes barely open yet and voice as slow as honey.

The weather is beautiful this Saturday, and the sun fooled you into thinking it’d be warmer than it was. Rafe’s black North Face fleece was wrapped around your frame—your boyfriend promised he was fine in a t-shirt, even as his hands dug into his jean pockets beside you and he held his arms close to his torso. It’s uncharacteristically blustery for this time of year, the trees that recently re-grew their leaves rustling in the wind. “It just feels weird always renting him from your parents like this when we’ve always talked about getting our own.”

“Don’t listen to him,” you say to your dog with a mock offended tone.

“Don’t even try to play that angle. You know I love Wilbur,” Rafe says, grabbing the leash out of your hand, so he can walk him instead. Wilbur easily falls into step on Rafe’s outer side, who then throws his free arm around your shoulders, tucking you closer to him and pressing a kiss to your head—you can tell he’s trying to leech some of the warmth he’d sacrificed for you. “I’m just saying, we could have our own Wilbur.”

“We already have our own Wilbur! And he’s right there, and he can hear you!”

“Babe, y’know what I mean,” Rafe grumbles. “Our own dog. Like, we are her dog dad and dog mom, and she sleeps in our house, and we feed her and take her to the vet and train her and name her, and—”

“Hold on. Her?”

“Well, I dunno,” Rafe shrugs, the motion moving your body, too. “I guess I don’t really mind either way. Just always pictured a girl for some reason.”

Your eyes narrow slightly as you look up and over at him. He avoids eye contact and continues to look forward, but you aren’t fooled. “You’ve thought about this a lot, haven’t you?”

He budges immediately, his neck going slack as his head tips back in embarrassment and he sighs in exasperation. “I just really like the name Sadie, okay?”

“Oh, so you’ve really thought about it,” you laugh. “Sadie? That’s cute.”

“It doesn’t have to be Sadie—obviously we’d have to meet her first. Can’t just name our future dog without seeing her face first,” Rafe explains, rolling his eyes like it’s obvious. “But it’s a cute name. I’ve always liked it."

“Do you have the breed picked out, too?” you can’t help but tease.

Rafe pays you and your jabs no mind, continuing just as earnestly.

“I mean, I’m partial to golden retrievers,” he answers, reaching down to pat Wilbur’s side while the three of you wait at the crosswalk in front of the park. Wilbur immediately starts weaving his way through and around both of your legs, making Rafe curse and you giggle as the leash gets tangled up and his arm is tugged at an awkward angle. “But you should see the black lab puppy Ezra just got for his kids, sweetheart, so fuckin’ cute. And I read that collies are super smart. Ooh, and baby—have you ever heard of Australian cattle dogs? Insane energy. So you could take it on your walks if you wanted to, and then you could start going later at night. Not when it’s dark or anything, but like, later, ‘cause you’d have Sadie with you—”

“Approximately how long do I have ’til you just bring her home?” you laugh, taking delight in his unfiltered enthusiasm.

Rafe had been dropping hints about getting a dog ever since you moved in together, and even a little bit before that, but you must have missed the moment he became this serious about it.

He’s suddenly bashful, the tips of his ears turning red. “I dunno, just… it’d be cool having one. Together. Like, our own little family or whatever.”

The sound of your ringtone steals away the mental pictures you were flicking through of Rafe researching dog breeds and training videos or scrolling adoption sites and dog parent forums, and you root around in your tote bag until you can find it and read the caller ID.

“Delilah’s calling… huh,” you say, pouting.

“Early over there,” Rafe points out, his eyebrows furrowing in consideration. “You should take it.”

“I will.”

Rafe nods, walking off in front of you in the park you always cut through on this walk, allowing you a little privacy. “Tell her I said hey. And to hurry it up, ‘cause I’m starving. I think I worked up an appetite talking about our future child.”

Rafe grins cheekily over his shoulder as he slinks away, even though you roll your eyes at him. He finds an open patch in the grass, almost immediately running through some of the new tricks he’d been trying in earnest to teach Wilbur, who was about five years past his new tricks stage.

“Delilah?” you answer, no-doubt wary. Delilah wasn’t the phone call type. “You okay?”

Your friend sniffles on the other end of the phone. “How do you do that? You—you always know.”

“It’s six a.m. in California, Li,” you say gently, checking your watch. “You’re never up that early unless something’s wrong. And you usually text before you call me.”

“I did!” she sniffles again. “I did text. I texted the group chat five SOS emojis but nobody responded. five.”

“I muted that one because of Davis’s—whatever. What’s wrong?” you prod softly. Rafe looks over at your tone of voice and frowns in sympathy, and you shrug your shoulders.

“I took a pregnancy test.”

Your heart drops to your feet and you turn your back on your boyfriend, lowering your voice significantly. “…dude.”

“I—”

“Well—what—have you looked at it yet?”

“No, I can’t. The timer already went off and the test is still just sitting there but I can’t look at it, Y/n/n, I can’t. Not alone.”

“Delilah, oh… okay,” you breathe, racing to collect your thoughts before a new one strikes you. “Where’s Wren?”

“He’s camping with his dad. They just left this morning,” she explains. “I’ve had this sick feeling—just, like, all week, right? I felt nauseous and really tired, and we definitely have been less than careful a few times recently—okay, more than a few times, if we’re honest—”

You wince slightly. “I get the picture.”

“—but I just wanted to wait ’til he was gone to do anything because—I don’t know why, actually, I… I love him a lot, I love him so much. He should be here, shouldn’t he?” Delilah cuts herself off as she devolves into small sobs, and if you didn’t know her as well as you do, you’d be worried that this might be a sign.

“Okay. Listen to me, Li. You already took the test, and Wren’s gone, but you have to look. You’ll worry yourself to death waiting around for him to come back all weekend.”

She whines again. “B-but Y/n, what if I am pregnant? And he wasn’t even here when I first found out?”

Your eyebrows furrow immediately. “Would you—wait… Delilah, would you, like… keep the baby?”

In your pacing you’d turned your body back toward Rafe, so you watch as his head whips to the side and his eyebrows raise in surprise, brunch and Wilbur’s refusal to roll over forgotten in a second. He mouths ‘baby?’ andpantomimes a stomach.

“Of course I would,” Delilah says, sounding calmer now, and more resolved than she’d been all morning. It doesn’t last long. “Actually—wait, would I?”

“I-I don’t know that’s—that is totally up to you, Delilah. I shouldn’t have even… okay,” you sigh, scratching the back of your neck, fingering the material of Rafe’s jacket. “Back to the test. Are we gonna look at it? We’ll talk about the rest after.”

“Fuuuck,” Delilah sighs, the word long and drawn out, and you can almost picture her pacing in the bathroom at her’s and Wren’s apartment. “Yeah. I think I’m gonna look at it. God, I wish you were here with me.”

“We’re coming soon, I promise,” you smile, catching Rafe’s eye. He smiles, too.

But his focus is shifted again as you watch a woman and a young girl approach him in the grass. You can’t hear what they say over Delilah’s blabbing into your ear about the two of you moving back out to California and the rest of the park patrons and the noise from the street, but Rafe smiles and nods his head at whatever the woman says, kneeling to the ground and motioning for Wilbur to lay down next to him. He pets the top of your dog’s head softly, smiling when the little girl reaches out timidly before following suit. Rafe pushes his sunglasses into his golden hair, and you swear you can see his eyes twinkle as he looks at the girl and speaks softly to her and her mother.

“Y/n/n?” Delilah asks, reminding you that you’re currently one part of a very serious conversation.

“Um, yeah, sorry—it’s gonna be soon, I promise. We just started looking at places.”

“Hold on, imagine if I’m actually pregnant and you guys are out here—wait. You’d have to get pregnant, too so our babies can be best friends or fall in love,” Delilah muses.

In your line of sight, Rafe stands again as the girl and her mother make to leave, nodding his head and smiling politely as the woman does the same. He looks back over at you once they’re gone, still beaming, eyebrows raised like he’s wondering if you saw all of that.

Despite Delilah’s spiraling, you can’t help but smile. “Yeah, um, let me just run that one by Rafe real quick.”

Rafe’s interest is officially piqued at the mention of his name, and he stalks back over toward you, leaning in closely so he can hear the sound coming from the phone.

“Okay. I’m gonna look,” Delilah decides, chanting to herself as you hear the sound of plastic on a tile counter. “It’s fine, we’ll be fine—our babies can be besties, and Wren will be fine, we have good jobs. I’ll be a hot, young mom.” A beat of silence, an intake of breath, a sigh and then, “Oh, thank fuck.”

You’re surprised to find yourself smiling and letting out a matching sigh of relief. “Negative?”

“Negative!”

Rafe grins too, pumping a fist silently since he can’t say anything and blow his cover; you roll your eyes and push him away from you to finish up the call. Rafe doesn’t budge though, and Wilbur walks around behind you, tucking you even closer to your boyfriend’s chest. “Alright. You did it.”

“I did it. And I’m not pregnant, oh thank god,” she sighs. “Now you don’t have to get pregnant either.”

“Oh. What a relief, thanks for that,” you laugh.

Delilah hums happily, and you hear the sound of plastic clattering into a bin. “That’s done. Do you wanna Facetime? Catch up?”

“My boyfriend is currently pouting at me because he really wants to get brunch,” you say, shaking your head when Rafe reaches between where your middles are pressed together, clutching his stomach in fake agony. “And you should probably go back to sleep. You might just be normal sick. Text me later and tell me how you’re feeling, okay?”

“Mm, suppose you’re right. Tell Rafe I said hi. And congrats, because he doesn’t have to be a dad yet,” she jokes, laughing around a yawn. “Love you, Y/n/n. Thank you.”

“He says hi, too. And anytime—love you.”

“So no baby?” Rafe confirms, untangling Wilbur’s leash from your legs.

“No baby,” you say, slipping your phone into the pocket of Rafe’s jacket and taking his outstretched arm.

“And we can eat now?” he smiles softly, just like he had at the little girl and her mom.

“And we can eat now.”

—

Early on in your relationships with Rafe, you’d figured out that he was it for you. There were a few speed bumps, and a few big ones at that. But no argument, from the superficial bickering after you’ve both had a long day, to the doozies that left you not speaking for hours, had ever been bad enough to quiet the part of your soul that just knew—it had always been Rafe Cameron and it always would be.

And when you realize something like that, it doesn’t matter how old you are. It means picturing a life, a future, a marriage, a home, and a family. The further Rafe settled himself into your life and into your heart, the more clear those pictures became.

It was no longer just you, a little girl or a naive teenager, or even a grown young woman, absent-mindedly daydreaming about names or even middle names you picked up from TV shows, or wondering how many children you’d want to have and at what age. It had always been that, because you never dated anyone important enough to make any impacts in that department. It had always been that, until that point in your relationship with Rafe where you really, really knew he was the one. That point maybe came a little earlier than you’d like to admit, even now.

From that point on, you pictured Rafe as a so-called “girl dad,” who spoiled your hypothetical daughter or daughters not unlike how he spoiled you. New daydreams about how you’d decide to tell Rafe you were pregnant for the very first time clouded your mind when you thought about the future; how you’d tell your parents and your friends, holding Rafe’s hand at every single doctor’s appointment—you knew he’d come to them all.

One day, you realized that you’d started imagining Rafe building absolutely whatever you wanted to put in a nursery while you got to pick the color scheme. And you didn’t mind that at all.

You knew Rafe was your person in all of this, but there were unknowns, too. Where you’d raise your kids, how you’d raise them. You knew you’d be able to figure that all out eventually, because none of it mattered as much as knowing they’d be his.

Because sometimes, on some of your least favorite nights, the nights when Rafe came home from work and was practically non-verbal, carrying tension in his shoulders and a deep furrow in his brow, you couldn’t help but picture Rafe maybe giving his future son—and yours, too—that relationship with his father that he’d never had for himself.

And all of that was just these brief little moments that’d spring to the forefront of your mind—small snapshots of a future life you wanted with Rafe one day. Surely not now, but…

Ever since Delilah’s episode, you couldn’t shake the idea of having Rafe’s kids. Everyone had bouts of baby fever, you were no exception. But it felt different this time, as you painstakingly re-thought every interaction you ever saw Rafe have with kids. From the piggyback rides he gave Barron and Beckham (sometimes both at once, if they could convince him, which they always could) during your nannying days, to your niece, Kendra, who Rafe had made a habit of asking about whenever he heard you on the phone with EJ or his wife, to even the little girl from the park near your favorite brunch place, just a few days ago. Rafe as the father of your children was all you could think about for a bit, not that it was even something you saw yourself wanting presently. Definitely one day, without a doubt. But Li’s words echoed in your mind. “Of course I would.”

You were the same exact age as her—she was actually a few months younger. You’d never had a proper pregnancy scare before, but you couldn’t stop thinking about what you would have done. You were at the precipice of a big move for your career, for both of your careers. But you lived together, you loved each other… shouldn’t a baby fit between you perfectly, in theory?

The thought, or overthought, process had only been intensified when she texted you a few days later: “wren teared up when i told him about the test… brb giving him a baby rn.”

Maybe all of this is partially to blame a few days later, when all of these feelings come to a head when you’re at your parents’ house.

“You should’ve seen the look Kelce’s mother gave the waitress, really, I—did you gain weight? Your face looks fuller,” your mother mentions off-handedly that morning.

She’d asked you to come by and help decide on decorations for some benefit for some charity you couldn’t ever seem to remember—not necessarily a feat, given she was a philanthropist. Her comment doesn’t catch you off-guard, even if it stings. Nothing new from her, unfortunately.

“Um, maybe? I don’t know,” you say, completely distracted as your fingers trail over the seating chart. You suck your lips into your teeth when you see your family at the same table as the Camerons, joined together by you and Rafe in the middle. The perpetual tension of Rafe and Ward, combined with your mother in hostess mode—that promises to be an interesting night.

Your mother just hums, a high-pitched and judgmental sound, before going back to the table cloth and napkin swatches she’d been flipping through, some papers fluttering on her desk as the air moves. “That happened to me when I was around your age. Of course, I was pregnant with you at the time.”

A heavy pause settles over the room—you, standing at the table in the middle of her office, your mother turning her attention back to you from behind her desk. The swatches she’d been holding fall to the wood with a resounding thwack.

“Y/n.”

“Mother, no, don’t even start,” you say. “It’s not that.”

“Well it most certainly better not be,” she insists. “You aren’t even married. And you’re leaving! My first grandbaby will absolutely not be raised in—in California.”

“There is no first grandbaby,” you point out, feeling the need to hug your abdomen protectively anyway as she crosses the floor to you, her eyes ridiculing every part of your body.

She takes your face in her hands, cold palms sliding over the fat on your cheeks, jewelry jingling on her wrists. She uncrosses your arms for good measure, looking at your stomach pointedly. “You’re sure? Is this a new shirt you’re wearing? Did you have to go up a size?”

“Mom,” you grit out. “I’m sure.”

But the other seed has been planted, and you duck away as soon as your mother goes back to her moodboard, giving some flimsy excuse of wanting to go find an old book from your room. You head all the way down the hall and up the staircase to use your old bathroom, barely shutting the door before you’re pulling up your texts.

The toothbrush Rafe used every time he snuck into your house was still sitting in the cup on your counter.

i think you gave me your pregnancy

Delilah rings you immediately, almost squawking in your ear. “What are you talking about? Are you actually… pregnant? You know I was joking about the pact, right? Like, completely, one-hundred percent joking.”

“Delilah,” you say, exasperated, squishing the fat on your cheeks in the mirror. “No, I don’t know, my mom said something about how I gained weight in my face, just like she did when she was pregnant with me.”

“Okay… and?”

“And Rafe and I are moving to California soon but I think we wanted to wait. Have our kids if we ever move back here, I think? We haven’t really talked about it like that yet, but I’ve just been thinking about it, ever since you called me,” you ramble. “And now that I think about it, I felt sick after coffee the other day but I thought the barista just gave me normal milk instead of oat. And those jeans, you know, the two-tone ones I bought sophomore year—that last button was really stubborn the other day—”

“Hold on,” Delilah orders. “Are you actually pregnant or not?”

“No—I don’t know!” you whisper-shout, sliding down to the tile floor, leaning your head back against the door to your bedroom.

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

“I haven’t—I was just fine until my mom told me I looked pregnant. Now m’here.”

You hear Delilah sigh, then she lets out a light laugh. “Okay, since I’m the expert now, I’m gonna walk you through this. Does your tiny little town have a CVS?”

“A—a what?”

“You know. A pharmacy—they sell things like medicine, bandaids. Family planning,” she says significantly.

“We… yeah, well, there’s just this family-owned one,” you say. “On the main strip in town.”

“Do they sell pregnancy tests? Or am I gonna have to overnight you one? I have, like, a shit-ton of extras,” she says helpfully.

“Oh my god. I’m gonna have to buy a fucking pregnancy test from the Cartwrights,” you realize in horror, imagining that interaction. “All of Figure 8 is gonna know by the weekend.”

“You could just have Rafe go in for you,” she says, like that solves a problem at all. Everyone knew you two were an item. And if there was every any doubt of that, Rafe was always—Rafe. You hadn’t even thought about telling him yet.

“Wait, should I… do I tell him? About this?” you wonder. “You didn’t tell Wren.”

“No, I didn’t. Um…” she says softly. “You don’t have to, Y/n/n. But it’s Rafe. He’d be there for you.”

You stand again to look at yourself in the mirror, a hand placed on the stomach your mother had just been criticizing. You certainly don’t have the nerve to turn to the side. “It’s kinda stupid, Delilah, right? It was just one stupid comment from my mom.”

“Maybe,” Delilah says. “But take it from me. You’re not gonna relax until you know for sure.”

“I don’t think it’s anything. It’s nothing. It’s probably nothing, right? Why would I tell Rafe about nothing?” you wonder softly.

“Because it’d be his nothing, too,” she reminds you.

—

A magazine, a few packs of gum, some random bottles of vitamins that you weren’t even entirely sure what they were or what they did, a couple of new scrunchies for good measure, Rafe’s favorite candy because you loved him a lot, a bottled iced coffee that you knew from experience wasn’t very good, and a new vial of nail polish, so close in color to one you already had at home that it honestly might have been the same one.

That was everything you could think of to stuff your basket with at the Cartwrights’ pharmacy before you could even make yourself walk by the pregnancy tests.

Delilah was painfully right, and you’d never been able to shake the feeling. But you told yourself you did, even if you immediately turned down a happy hour with some co-workers on the mainland, just in case. Even if you mostly wore your loosest-fitting clothes, just so you wouldn’t have to grapple with the implications of any dress or denim hugging your body even slightly differently than it did before.

Even if the same day you skipped happy hour, you flipped a u-turn so that you could pull your car into the parking lot behind the pharmacy before you could actually decide you wanted to take the test.

Mrs. Cartwright, the pharmacist that’s been seeing you since you were a young girl with chicken pox, eventually unearths the offending box from your basket of impulse purchases; you’d tucked it way down there as soon as you’d grabbed it from the shelf, shoving it underneath the magazine and between Rafe’s Skittles and the scrunchies. She still finds it, and doesn’t scan and bag it without an accusatory glance to your ringless left hand, which you tuck behind your back for no good reason. “How are you and the Cameron boy, hon?”

“We’re just fine,” you grit out, showcasing your pearly whites, tapping your unsheathed card on the counter softly.

Your bag of goodies ends up a discarded heap on the bed the moment you get home, as you race to the bathroom, sitting on the edge of the tub while your phone timer counts down. You close your eyes and keel over, arms around your middle, not even sure what you were expecting or what you were waiting for, wondering if you read in the instructions close enough or if you should’ve picked up more than one brand. What you would do and if you should’ve waited for Rafe or called a friend, and then your timer goes off.

It’s negative. It’s so glaringly negative that it’s not even funny. It’s actually kind of funny, you decide, laughing lightly around a breath you didn’t even hold consciously as you chuck the test into the trash can before sending a text to Delilah. And the rest of your college friend group, because apparently the news had made its way around, courtesy of Wren’s big mouth.

y/n: negative !!! :)

davis: wait i kinda wanted to be a god dad ;/ lowkey already picked out my hospital outfit

delilah: HELL YEAH. still down for a pact tho, js

mccall: can y’all wait for me?? damn

You smile despite yourself as the group chat devolves into its usual chatter, because you worked yourself up over, what? A comment about your appearance by your mother, which you fielded every time you saw her; a pair of jeans from your freshman year of college that honestly had never fit correctly; a stomach-ache?

Collapsing onto the bed after you click your phone off and set it aside, you don’t even flinch when your shirt rides up, your stomach exposed above the hem of your pants.

“Well, hello.”

Rafe announces his entrance from the doorway to your bedroom, his tone colored with surprise and a bit of contentedness that warms you to your core as he assesses you on the bed. You must have missed the sound of the door and his keys dropping on to the table in your mudroom in your little episode, but he’s a welcome sight, as usual.

“Hi there,” you answer, propping yourself up on your elbows for a kiss. Rafe answers your wordless request before he’s collapsing on the bed next to you, his work shirt already unbuttoned all the way down to his belly button, one side untucked from his pants. “Work was…?”

“Good. Fine,” Rafe answers, his eyes dropping shut as soon as he has his shirt fully untucked and he settles back into the bed. “You?”

You hum, turning onto your side. “Good.”

“That’s good.” Rafe yawns, his arm stretching to the side. Plastic rustles as his arm makes contact with the tote bag you left on the bed. “What’s this?”

You roll over into his side, reaching across him to grab the bag and rifle through it. “Needed something from the pharmacy so I picked up some other stuff.”

“What did you need?” Rafe asks casually, his eyes still closed, head rested on the bed. You falter momentarily, realizing you hadn’t thought about this part yet. When you don’t answer for a while, he finally cracks an eye open. “Y/n/n?”

Rafe’s wearing one of those hard days at work with his father all over his face, and the lie falls from your lips all too easily. “Um, this nail polish.”

“Nice. S’pretty,” Rafe says, closing his eyes again, a hand rubbing up and down your back where it’d snuck under your figure. Not too long after, he cracks an eye open, appraising the bottle again. “Swear you have a color just like that already.”

You try to shrug nonchalantly, dropping it back into the bag as a hint of guilt settles into your stomach. “Maybe. Hey, I got you some Skittles, too.”

“No way,” he grins, tearing the packet open as soon as it’s offered to him. He turns on his side, dumping half of the bag out into his hand. Rafe sorts through them, offering you a red, which you gladly expect. “Oh, babe. Guess what.”

“What?”

“Ezra has to get rid of that puppy.”

“No way,” you say, holding your hand out for another Skittle. Rafe tries to give you a yellow but you refuse, closing your hand in a fist until he gives you another red. He does so, rolling his eyes. “Why?”

“Turns out his youngest is, like, super allergic to dog hair,” Rafe explains. “Sucks, but he’s hangin’ at the office all day until he gets rehomed. Which rocks for me.”

“Shut up,” you laugh. “How could they not know? About the allergy?”

“Kids don’t all grow up with a dog,” Rafe says, eyeing you significantly. Before Wilbur had been Tally, and before that Cal. You were raised in a dog family, whereas Rafe had been in the class of kids that begged their parents over and over and over for a puppy to no avail. “They just didn’t know until they brought him home. They thought she’d get used to it, but it’s so bad. Ezra takes care of him in the garage now when he’s not at work with us.”

“That’s so sad,” you lament. You knew Rafe loved that dog, he’d tell you a new story about him everyday. The kids had yet to even name him, to your knowledge, but Rafe still found a way to get himself attached. “I hope they find him a good home.”

—

“I still can’t believe you’re leaving me here alone. You’re back in California, and Gretchen’s in Seattle so you’re practically going to be roommates… and I’m—what? Here? With who? My parents?”

“Top’s still here,” you point out, head tilting to where the boys are fishing off the back of the Druthers. “I don’t think his med school program starts until August.”

“Does not count,” Margot laments, her windbreaker crinkling against your own as she sinks further into the boat seat. The pout that had been permanently etched onto her face ever since you told her about the big move deepens, which you thought was impossible at this point. “Not like Top will get his nails done with me.”

You giggle at the visual. “He might. You never know.”

“Yeah, maybe if Blythe asked him to,” Margot says with an eye-roll. “Couldn’t have even left me with a single friend, you selfish bitch?”

“Kelce still comes home all the time.”

“Been there, done that. Several times, actually,” she says, a wry grin appearing over her can of seltzer, but then she squawks indignantly at your scowl. “What?”

“I know you and Kelce have your… your thing—that doesn’t mean I need to hear about it.”

Margot is completely unperturbed, continuing her train of thought. “We’ve only got like, one more hook-up left in us, I’d say. Personally, I think we should save it for your and Rafe’s wedding.”

That rips a laugh out of you, just as much as it sets butterflies off in your stomach. “Hate to say it, but one of my college friends already called dibs on that.”

“On Kelce? At your wedding?”

“Yup,” you say, recalling a conversation with McCall that happened shortly after you started dating Rafe. It was a weird flurry of emotions at the time—that she assumed there’d be a wedding between you and Rafe. Not only that, but that she was so sure, that she was already planning to hook up with one of your best friends that she’d had an eye on for years, ever since you brought McCall and Davis home for a weekend sophomore year.

“Wow, who knew my hometown sneaky link was so sought-after,” Margot says, preening a little as she does. “Good for me. But anyway, there has to be some sort of Figure 8 dibs on that for me, no? I’ve known you and Rafe longer, I’ve known Kelce longer, I’ve known Kelce more—”

“Ah, shh,” you say, stopping short of pressing a hand over her mouth as she grins again. “But you’ve also… like, already had him.”

“So? First, you leave me for your college friends. And now you offer them my emotional support hometown dick, too?”

You mull it over, deciding she isn’t wrong, no matter how much you shudder at the thought. “Fair. How’s this—why don’t we leave it to Kelce to decide?”

“Or maybe,” Margot says in a flourish, already onto the next thought, like she often is. “I’ll have met someone by then.”

“Ooh, what’s he like?” you indulge, laying your head on her shoulder once she pulls you into her side on the seat cushion you’re currently sharing.

“He’s tall. He has two degrees and no social media accounts. He’s foreign, somehow. Says my name with an accent,” she muses, a hand waving emphatically, her fresh manicure shimmering in the sunlight. “He’s worldly.”

“He sounds perfect,” you decide.

“He is. And we never have kids, and he never meets my family,” she says. “As far as they’re concerned, I’m the perpetual fun, single, wine aunt.”

“You already are the fun, single, wine aunt,” you point out.

“Exactly. Gotta keep up the persona. It was hard-fought.”

“Cheers to that.”

Your cans clink together in the midst of the fits of giggles you’re exchanging. You hear Rafe and Topper’s laughter at the other end of the boat, and enjoy the sway of the water, the sun on your face even in the chilly air, and the company of your friends that you’d be leaving soon. “I’ll miss you, Margs.”

“Mm,” she groans sadly. “Don’t do that yet. I’ll cry.”

“Fine. Wanna know a secret, instead?”

“Always.”

You crane your neck to see where the boys are fishing, catching only the backs of their heads. You hadn’t told anyone but your college friends, or truly, only Delilah, about your episode the other day. Everything happened quickly, and with the issue done and dusted for now, you felt like maybe you could play it off as some gossip now. Your friends had before when they were in similar situations. And you have to wonder if getting it off your chest might be help you cope with the guilt of not telling your counterpart about any of it, something you’d been toiling over daily.

Topper and Rafe still aren’t paying you any attention, but you duck your head down just to be entirely sure you’re out of earshot, even lowering your voice to a whisper. “I took a pregnancy test.” You watch as Margot glances between you and your stomach. “Okay, it was negative, obviously!”

“I’m sure you’ve taken several of those by now,” Margot laughs, looking confused.

“I haven’t. I really haven’t. That was the first time I really… thought,” you say, shaking your head, still feeling silly over it now.

“Oh, wow,” she says. “Well, did you want it to be positive?”

“I don’t know?” you answer truthfully. “It was just like, if it was… I dunno. Like why wouldn’t we keep it, at this point? Does that make sense?”

“No,” Margot says, dramatically fanning herself. “Breaking out into hives thinking about the girls settling down. Please don’t do this to me, not yet. We haven’t seen the world.”

You laugh at her antics, nudging her in hopes she’ll settle down. “Nah. Not for a hot second, I promise.”

“You better.”

“Scout’s honor,” you swear, smiling.

Margot scoffs in indignation, but she’s smiling, too. “Look at you—so fuckin’ serene. Just like, moving across the country with your man. Totally fine with the idea of having his babies right now.” Her eyes widen, as if she’s just realized something. “I bet Rafe cried when it was negative. Did he cry?”

You suck your lips into your teeth, swallowing the sense of shame that threatens to creep up your throat. “I didn’t tell him about it.” Margot’s mouth forms an ‘o,’ and you groan, sliding down in your seat. “God, I’m fucking awful, aren’t I?”

“No! I mean, no,” she says, quieter, gaze flitting to where the guys are sitting for a millisecond. “It’s all up to you, obviously—I guess I’m just surprised you wouldn’t tell him. Don’t you tell him everything?”

You cover your face with your hands, because that cuts even deeper. Even if your friends might think you tell him everything, you’ve kept things from Rafe before—big things. And it was the same for him; it always ends the same way, one or both of you hurting and the other wishing they’d fessed up sooner. Conversations like this were dimming the hopes that this little episode of yours wasn’t headed for the same fate.

“I don’t know,” you contemplate. “It just happened so fast, honestly, Margot. And then after I found out it was nothing, it didn’t really seem conversation-worthy. With the move and everything…”

“Yeah, no,” Margot says, nodding her head in understanding. “I get it. Things like that happen.”

You still feel unsure, begging for that last little bit of validation that you didn’t fuck this up. “They do?”

“They do,” she says, her forefinger booping your nose, a soft smile on her face. “Come on. I believe some drinks are in order.”

You crack a smile finally, a little bit of the anxiety you’d built up over it dissipating finally. “Okay, sure.”

“I hope I didn’t twist your arm too hard there,” she jokes, making you scoff as you walk toward where the cooler is sat on the other end of the boat. She reaches a leg out to kick you, misses by a hair, and lays back to resume her lounging.

You find the cooler Rafe packed with beers and hard seltzers (along with exactly two hard kombuchas, just for you) but turn at the sound of Rafe laughing again, feeling a small smile make its way to your face as your ears follow the sound. You almost wander over to see what’s so funny but decide against it, turning back to flip open the top of the cooler.

Rafe’s voice filters in anyway, the salt air picking up his familiar timbre. “Yeah, dude—it’s fuckin’ wild. One of our friends just went through that whole thing.”

“Wait, who?” Topper asks.

“I’ve mentioned Wren before, haven’t I?” Your hand pauses where it was reaching for a can.

“Oh, yeah. From Y/n’s college, right?”

“Yeah, yeah. Well, his girlfriend, Y/n/n’s friend, calls her and is like, freaking the fuck out about how she’s pregnant. It was nothing, but shit.”

Topper hums. “That was me and Blythe literally two months after we started dating.”

“No shit,” Rafe says, tone colored with surprise. Your fingers twitch around the can you were grabbing for Margot—you shouldn’t be listening, but part of you can’t stop.

“It was nothing in the end,” Topper says. “But it was really intense for us at the time. I’m sure you know all about it though.”

“Nan, not really,” your boyfriend starts, and you can picture the way he must be shaking his head. “No, not with us, man.”

“Never?”

“No, dude. I dunno, we’ve never had a scare like that,” Rafe says. “I can’t really imagine what we’d do.”

Your heart hammers in your chest at his tone of voice. You know Rafe inside and out and front to back but without his facial expression it’s hard to decipher his intentions.

“How do you mean?” you hear Topper ask.

Rafe laughs uncomfortably, and he’s trying to shrug it off now. “I don’t know what I mean, Top. C’mon, just—it’d be intense, just like you said it was with Blythe.”

“Well, yeah,” Topper huffs out a laugh, and the awkwardness his tone carries almost makes you cringe. “Two months in, it was intense. But you and Y/n/n are coming up on like, two years, bro, plus—y’know, whole lifetime of being in love—you live together, et cetera, et cetera—”

“Okay, you made your point,” Rafe laughs, the sound of it—fond, a little embarrassed—loosening you up just a little. “But, still dude. Just… fuck.” Your heartbeat is back to roaring in your ears, and it’s like you can feel your blood pumping. Grab the cans, shut the cooler, get up and walk away. Before you hear something you don’t want to, something you shouldn’t, something that will break your heart, send every vision of your future up in flames. But you don’t move, you can’t, because you have to hear what he’s going to say next. “I don’t know if I could.”

—

“Could what?” Topper asks softly, turning to face Rafe, fishing pole suddenly good as forgotten. “Could what, dude? Have a kid?”

“No,” Rafe says quickly. “I mean, of course, yeah—one day, definitely, man. Definitely.”

He registers the sound of Margot squealing at the other end of the boat, leaning up in his seat to see through to where you’re cheers-ing your can with hers.

“Okay, then what do you mean?” Topper asks. He’s not letting it go, eyes still trained on Rafe. For good measure, Topper pushes his sunglasses up, the blonde tresses he’d been growing out held out of his face in the wind, and Rafe knows he’s officially fucked, and not getting off the hook for this one any time soon.

“We’re young?” Rafe tries. It sounds good as he says it, like a perfectly normal excuse. So he continues in the same vein. “We’re moving. I’m basically starting over.”

“Alright,” Topper says, nodding his head. “Yeah, that’s all true. But…”

“Topper, is there any chance you’ll drop this?”

Topper levels him with a look, and Rafe thinks he might have jumped the gun, and probably could’ve got away with avoiding the rest of this conversation if he had tried just a bit harder. But Topper Thornton is invested now, a dog with a scent. “Well definitely not, now that you ask. Dude, what’s up?”

“Nothing’s up.”

Rafe’s strong. He’s the leader, the oldest child, the heir one day, maybe.

You lean on him, his friends lean on him, and so do his sisters. And that’s fine, that’s cool—Rafe was born to take care of the people he loves, he knows that for sure, and he doesn’t need his own feelings talked out most of the time. He doesn’t need to pour his heart out to Topper and fish for advice like someone who can’t handle his own shit.

The burden of Rafe’s emotions are often too much for him to bare—usually pushed into corners of the mind or buried under the laid-back cool-guy thing he always thought he had going for himself (but knew the most important people to him could always see through) until he just couldn’t anymore.

Rafe would be selfish to place them on anyone else willingly.

“Rafe. C’mon.”

“Drop it, Thornton.”

“I told you I’m not, Cameron,” Topper retorts. His voice takes on something stern, unusual for his demeanor to the point that it’d make Rafe laugh should it be directed at someone else. “You’ve at least thought about it, right?"

“‘Bout what?” Rafe mumbles, crossing this arms over his chest firmly. His crewneck is starting to feel too warm in the afternoon sun, the material of his hat itches his head, his board shorts are too tight, waistband digging into his hips.

“Kids. With Y/n,” his friend says, head tipping backward briefly, in your general direction. Like he would even have to clarify further than your name, or clarify at all. “I know she’s gotta want a million, at least.”

“You’re joking, right?” Rafe says, taken aback by that. He sits up straight, leaning over so he can get a good look into his friend’s eyes. “That’s a joke.”

“No, I’m serious. Have you thought about kids with her?”

“Have I thought about kids with her?” Rafe laughs sarcastically. “Let’s see, she was literally a nanny when we first started dating. And before that, she was practically helping raise half of Figure 8 when we were in high school.”

Topper opens his mouth, closes it again, then shakes his head. “That’s not what I asked. And it’s not what I meant. And you know it.”

Of course Rafe knows what he meant. And he also knows the first time he really did think about it—having kids with you—after all of the other times it was nothing more than a minor, fleeting thought. Rafe remembers when it became something real and tangible, something he felt like he could hold in his hands and keep forever, or tuck away safely until one day it was time for it be real.

Rafe knows you look back on your days as a nanny fondly and that you miss the kids often, but he never expected to be right there with you. The first year of your relationship is flecked with memories that are perfect daydream material for your future together; Beckham-interrupted FaceTimes with you when Rafe was away in Georgia, water polo practice with Barron when he came out to visit and you couldn’t beg off of a shift like normal. You apologized profusely every time, but Rafe never minded. It surprised him when he realized that he actually kind of loved it.

You didn’t have everything figured out when it came to the kids; you had rough days where you struggled, but Rafe could still feel the love you had for them overflowing from you with every recalled anecdote, every whisper of your deepest fears about leaving them late at night over the phone. He felt it every time you’d run into kids you used to babysit in town—some of them teenagers now, one of them Rafe’s co-worker now. And he felt it again that horrible, awful weekend in Massachusetts, somehow saved in his memories by one look, just one, singular look in your eye when you saw him holding your baby cousin, Kendra.

That might have been the first time he ever said something to you—made it clear that this was going to happen for him and it was only going to happen with you—but it wasn’t the first time he thought it.

One day, in the summer after college graduation, Rafe was driving home from the beach with you in the passenger’s seat and two sleeping boys in the back. You leaned over and kissed his cheek at the stoplight, whispering for him to look into his mirror to find their sun-kissed faces and unruly, ocean-salted hair, and before he could stop himself, Rafe thought ‘we’ll figure out names and shit later, but it’s all going to be perfect as long as they’re hers.’

On the boat in front of his friend, Rafe puts it simpler. “I’ve thought about it, Top. I’ve been thinking about it since way before I should’ve been thinking about it. Trust me.”

“Okay, yeah. Figured,” Topper says, nodding. “That sounds like you.”

“Okay,” Rafe agrees. “So we’re good? Did I pass your test?”

“Don’t be like that,” Topper says, rolling his eyes and going back to how he was sitting. “Fuck me for trying to be a good friend, right?”

Rafe sighs. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m a big boy, Rafe,” he says slyly, cracking a soft grin. “I’d support you through whatever, you know that. As long as you and Y/n/n are happy, on the same page about what you’d do about all of this, it’s whatever to me.”

Rafe hums at, scratching the back of his neck, pushing his hat off and smoothing his hair down before putting it back on again. “Yeah, we haven’t like, super talked about that.”

“Huh,” Topper says in consideration, sounding less than impressed. “Well, I’m just saying, you super should. ‘Cause I didn’t know you felt that way.”

“Felt what way?” Rafe says, tone accusatory in a way he can’t help—the deeper issue is bubbling right under the surface and Rafe will decidedly not be bringing it up first, but he’s so aggravated by this conversation that he almost wishes Topper would just spit it out already.

Topper clears his throat, checks behind his shoulder one more time, and Rafe knows he’s toast. “This is all about your dad, isn’t it?”

“And if it was?” Rafe bitches.

“Then I’d be fucking worried about you,” Topper bitches back. “And so would she.”

“Look,” Rafe sighs, hands shaking as he nudges his sunglasses off and hooks them in his shirt, rubbing his eyes furiously, elbows rested on his knees. He rubs so hard he gets white spots in his vision, and an ache behind his eyes. “I don’t know what you want me to say. It’s not like—it’s not something I can just fix.”

“Rafe, I’m not saying that. No one that cares about you is saying that.”

Rafe’s panicking, because this conversation was teetering towards something serious about five responses ago but now it’s careening off the edge toward it, and he can’t even look to his side and see whatever doleful expression his best friend has written all over his face because it’s well-intentioned as hell and he’s not mad at Topper, or you, his dad, not anyone but himself because he never figured out how to pack this part of himself away. He can’t have one conversation about the idea of a hypothetical scenario where he’s becoming a father because it freaks him out this much—Rafe has not a clue what he’d be doing as a parent, not like you do, and he knows he didn’t learn much from his blood. But maybe a small part of him is worried he did learn, even if he didn’t want to. “I know.”

Topper’s seen it all, from the helicopter dad Ward used to be, always making sure his son was doing what he wanted and not just doing it, but succeeding, excelling at it—pushing Rafe so hard he would’ve snapped if he didn’t find it in himself to pull away when he needed to.

He was there the time Ward missed Rafe’s senior night, his own father opting for a small smile and a pat on Rafe’s back, an offer to get dinner with their family instead.

Topper was there the time Rafe’s phone was connected to the speaker in his Jeep so he could play music, but instead a call from Ward came through, his angry voice echoing through the car before Rafe could scramble to disconnect the Bluetooth, embarrassed and asking for a ride home sheepishly after hanging up.

And he was there after Midsummers two years ago, comforting you after your first real Ward encounter—Topper was always there.

Topper, with his perfect dad that took him on college tours, showed up to every football game even when his son warmed the bench, chaperoned every field trip in elementary school.

It wasn’t something they had to talk about all the time, and they hardly did—which Rafe was grateful for—but he knew his best friend had to see it.

Topper clears his throat. “You know, you’re not Ward. It’s not some fate you’re doomed to, being a chip off the old block, or whatever.”

“S’like, I know that, but I don’t… I don’t know. I don’t have anything to compare it to,” Rafe says. He’d heard the same narratives his entire life, about apples not falling far from their trees, like father like son. It was impossible not to think it of himself from time to time. “Not a big deal anyway—I mean, my dad gave me everything. I wanna do that for my kids.”

Rafe gestures around the two of them at the boat, the open water of the paradise he lives in, glimmering in the sunlight. Rafe grew up in a bubble, but he’d seen his roommates in college struggle, miss parties to balance a full course load and multiple jobs so they could pay their own way.

And maybe it stung, when Cody’s dad called him every Sunday afternoon, or even when Graham’s mom would gush over his relationship with Nora to anyone who would listen.

But at least Rafe never had to worry about student loans.

“Can’t really ask for more.”

“You can though,” Topper says softly. “You know that, right? You deserved more, Rafe. You still do. Not just a boat, or a car, or a trip somewhere. Like, more, man.”

Love is probably what Topper is saying, without really saying it. It remains unspoken, but it sits between the two of them heavily anyway, a truth as strong as the sky above them and the sea rocking the boat below.

“Yeah, I don’t know about that,” Rafe finally says. “Which is why all that shit with Y/n/n’s friends fuckin’ terrifies me, dude. I don’t—I don’t know how to… she’s perfect, Top. She’s gonna be perfect, and I—”

“You’re figuring it out.”

“I’m not, though, Top, I can’t—I can’t be like him. But I don’t know anything else. What if I’m not capable?”

Topper shakes his head. “That’s crazy.”

“How do you even know that?”

His friend leans back in his chair, picks up his fishing pole again, finally. Rafe doesn’t feel better necessarily—he might actually feel worse, all things considered. But he’s relieved to find the conversation coming to a close. His skin is crawling, and he feels like he just rolled over and bared his soul, something he tries not to do often, or ever.

“Because I see you with her.”

“That’s not the same.”

“It all comes from the same place—and you might not be ready right now, and that’s totally fine, dude. Honestly, it is. I’m sure as hell not ready for either of us to go down that road right now. But either way,” Topper sighs. “One day, you’re gonna be perfect, too.”

—

The next evening, Rafe bursts into the bedroom, chest heaving.

He’d been on a run, originally leaving the house with plenty of time to get in a few miles and come back home to shower before the charity gala, when Wheezie called him because her car broke down. She wasn’t far so he just redirected his trail, but it took forever to get it running again, and he wanted her to drive it straight home after, so he declined her offer for a ride home even though the time on his watch told him he was cutting it close.

So then he ran back to your house, practically sprinting—it must have been comical to witness, but he was mildly concerned the neighborhood watch would put his photo up on Facebook or something.

He keels over in the bedroom doorway—he’d say he’s in in shape, but not by that much. “Please, please tell me I have time to shower before we leave.”

“Of course.” You’re already fully dressed, gown zipped, your ‘R’ necklace hanging around your neck. Rafe can’t help but dwell on the fact that he wasn’t here to help with any of that, when he really looks at you for the first time through the hair that had fallen in his eyes. “And I’m certainly not letting you show up like that, so…”

You were facing the mirror on your vanity table, and you finally glance back at him, eyes assessing Rafe’s no-doubt splotchy face, wild hair, sweaty clothes. He strips his shirt off and ducks into the closet to put it in the hamper. “Hey, so this is black tie, right? Is a tux too much?”

“No, definitely a tux.”

“Did you have one in mind?” Rafe pops his head out of the closet to see the way you would try to duck your head in embarrassment at how easily he can read you.

But your back is turned again, and you merely shrug your shoulders. “Not really. I didn’t know if you wanted me to pick.”

“I always want you to pick,” he says, unsure. “You always know what makes us look good together.”

“Black, for sure,” you decide, still not looking. “Not the one with the cropped pants though. And you could do a blue tie for the theme, if you want to.”

Rafe finds the pieces he needs and lays them out on the bed, coming over to where you’re standing now, sifting through the jewelry tray on top of the dresser. That’s the third pair of earrings he’s seen you try on since he stepped foot in the room today. “Wanna pick the tie?”

“If you want me to,” you say, looking up at him. Rafe sees you struggling with the earring, reaches over to hold your hair out of the way for you, careful not to disturb the way it’s been immaculately styled.

“I do. Want you to,” he clarifies. You simply nod, looking over at what jacket and pants he chose, still barely meeting Rafe’s eyes. “Hey, I’m sorry about being late.”

“Don’t apologize,” you assure him, leaning out of his touch once the earring is in. “Wheezie get home okay?”

“Yeah,” Rafe says. “She texted me.”

“Good. I’ll pick out your tie when you’re in the shower,” you say significantly.

“Right, yeah,” he nods. You lean down to the mirror again, sighing when you turn your head from side to side. Rafe watches you begin to take this pair out too, and angles himself toward you instead of the bathroom he’d began to walk in the direction of. “It’s gonna be the fastest shower ever, babe. Island Club’s only a fifteen minute drive right now. And you know these things always start late.”

“I’m not worried.”

“Okay,” he says, and he almost starts back-stepping toward the bathroom, almost. But he watches the way you toss the earrings on the dresser, hands coming to rest on your hips while you sigh in frustration, and he’s across the room again. “Are you okay?”

He touches your elbow, fingers closing around the flesh of your arm until you drop your stance, arms hanging limply at your sides in a way that doesn’t reassure Rafe at all.

“I’m alright.”

“Baby,” he says softly, any worries about being late or how awkward it’ll be sitting at a table with all of your parents or how drunk he’s allowed to get at this thing falling away as he studies you. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong, Rafe,” you say, shying away from his touch.

“I know that’s not true,” he says, his thumb caressing your cheek. “Are you worried about your mom? I’ll be right next to you the whole night.”

Your eyes might be shining, Rafe can’t tell, and you take a quick, deep breath—he thinks you might start crying. But you just nod, and the fake smile you paint on breaks Rafe’s heart. You knew those didn’t work on him. They might fool everyone else—every Figure 8 kid had one in their arsenal. But they never fooled him.

“Yeah, you know how she gets at these things.”

“Y/n/n—”

“You reek,” you blurt. The moment’s over, you shrug off his touch again and Rafe’s hand feels ice cold. “And you’re starting to push it on time.”

Rafe looks to his bedside clock, murmurs a ‘fuck’ because he really is pushing it, so he has to leave you be for now. “I’ll be right out.”

“I’ll have your tie.”

—

Rafe twitches nervously the entire car ride across the island, hands drumming against the wheel, off-beat to the music playing a little too loudly, lest either of you be tempted to speak.

And when you arrived, he just hovered awkwardly around you as the valet boy that was friends with John B opened your door and helped you out, barely remembering to hand over the keys to him, and accidentally dropping them when he did. Rafe seemed so nervous—movements jerky, smiles awkward, a permanent pinch in between his eyebrows.

Needless to say, he’d caught onto your mood.

You thought about saying something about what you heard, but the boat day rolled into dinner and drinks with your friends, and by the time you got home, you were dead tired. You just wanted to shower it all off and pretend you never heard anything, fall into bed like nothing was wrong, let Rafe press sleepy kisses anywhere his tired lips could reach you until you were boneless. It was even easier today, with your plans for the day taking you away from each other—giving you time to yourself to think and think and think, until you could hardly look at him when he came home.

But Rafe still keeps like a magnet to your side as you walk together through the main hallway, a form customary to these types of events that you two had attended over the years together. Complemented by sneaky across-the-room text messages when you two got separated by outside sources (Vibe check?, or You look so pretty btw. Did I tell you that before we left? Bc you do, or, Departure in ten. Wrapping up some stuff with my dad, wanna put in an online order for Papi’s?), polite touches to your shoulders or the small of your back to let you know he was there, or strands of hair tucked behind your ear for you, an easy excuse for him to get a good look into your eyes. And forehead kisses, hand squeezes, or tight hugs when you really needed the boost. And only on the very worst nights, murmured excuses to whoever needed them followed by early car rides home.

Rafe knew you so well, he never really even had to ask.

The Outer Banks Island Club is completely transformed tonight. It had turned out exactly as your mother envisioned, or at least you hoped it had. You had little time to actually evaluate anything she was planning before her comment knocked you off-kilter, and you were hopeless to help with anything beyond the floral arrangements afterward—that was always your favorite part.

You’d had the flowers you helped pick in mind when you picked out Rafe’s bowtie, going for velvet, a sky blue to match the hydrangeas. You did an alright job, you think, as you survey an arrangement near the front door, clutching Rafe’s arm softly while he checks you in with the event staff toward the front. The cream of your dress complements it nicely, making the two of you the picture of perfection to anyone around you. Not that it seems to matter at an event like this, where everyone is the picture of perfection, because nothing less is accepted.

But you can’t focus on any of that. The decorations, if you’re standing up straight, if you should stick to white over red tonight as to not risk staining your dress, if any of your mom’s friends are trailing a judgmental eye over you, if Rafe’s tie is crooked, if you look good together—none of it.

All you can do is wonder if this is all there would ever be. If this is the only way you’d ever show up to a who’s-who of the Outer Banks. Just a couple, a pair, a twosome. With rings on your fingers one day, no doubt about that.

But not with a toddler or two trailing between you in the cutest, tiniest, fanciest little get-ups imaginable. No baby snuggled in either of your arms to be fawned over, no beat-tired kid asleep on Rafe’s shoulder on the way back to the car.

Way down the line, there would be no unruly teenagers to chastise for running off and causing trouble like the two of you did, all of those years ago.

Because Rafe didn’t want that with you.

“Y/n/n.”

The way Rafe says your name gives you the impression he’d been vying for your attention for a while. “Sorry, what?”

He clears his throat, and his eyebrows raise in a way that might annoy you any other time, but you let it slide right now. “What’s this all for again anyway?”

“Oh, um. I think something to do with the salmon off the coast? They’re raising money for habitat preservation. The fishing’s gotten out of hand, or something,” you recite, trying to recall what your mom had told you. “I’m not sure.”

“Oh,” Rafe nods. There’s nothing really to say after that, so you don’t. “Should we… get drinks?”

“Yeah. You’re driving, right?”

Something mischievous glints in his eye as he turns you so you’re facing each other. “Yes.”

“Good,” you say, nodding toward the wet bar, sights set on the distraction. “Shall we?”

“I love you,” Rafe says, random and blurted, and you don’t know why it makes your throat tighten up.

A couple, a pair, a twosome.

A dark thought suggests that you might never get to watch Rafe with your own children like you got to with Kendra or Beckham. You wouldn’t get to guess if your baby would have his eyes, your hair, his skin tone, your smile.

But you still loved him. Of course you did. “I love you.”

Rafe’s smile is weak before he leans in and kisses your forehead, and you wonder how long you can keep this up until he realizes it’s time to take you home.

—

Rafe sits at the table with you and both of your families all the way through two incredibly boring speeches, a dinner, and a third round of drinks before he can’t stand not touching you any longer.

He’s never one for PDA around the parents and neither are you, but his body misses the way you’d poke a finger under the sleeves of his shirt, stroking a finger over his wrist idly. The way you’d push a strand of hair back that didn’t really need it, tracing the skin behind his ear. Tonight had none of that from you, and coupled with your behavior from earlier, he feels on-edge.

Rafe waits until his father wanders away from the table in boredom, leaving Rose alone to check her phone, nails tapping away at the screen because she never really put work away. Your parents get wrapped up in a conversation with a passer-by—who he is, Rafe doesn’t know. But he figures the twinkle in the guy’s eye when he tosses you a smile is enough motive for Rafe to place a hand under your chair, hand wrapping around one of the back legs.

“Hey, is it okay if I tug you over?” he asks, his lips ghosting the soft skin of your neck as he leans in.

“”Course,” you say, leaning back into him when he does so. Rafe breathes easier as soon as you lean into his touch, but only by a little.

“The night isn’t so bad, yeah?” Rafe wonders, kissing your cheek.

“Yeah, could be worse,” you shrug. You toss back another gulp of wine, not turning the waiter away when she offers to pour you up again immediately.

Rafe glances at your discarded dinner plates that ought to be collected soon. The food wasn’t exactly spectacular, it never really is, but you had hardly even touched yours—another reason for him to worry.

His hand traces up the skin of your arm, coming to squeeze your shoulder. “Are you feeling alright?”

“Fine, Rafe.”

“Okay,” he says, even though he doesn’t agree. “But if you—”

“Can we talk at home? Something is starting on stage.”

Sure enough, lights dim as people settle back into their seats across the ballroom. Rafe will lose any remaining brain function if he has to hear one more long-winded speech about fishing or the importance of protecting a habitat for a fish everyone in this room probably ate fresh this week, delivered to restaurants from fishers on the other side of the island every morning.

You turn fully away from him, slipping out of his touch as you face the stage.

You want to talk at home, which means there’s something to talk about—had his dad said something to you? That can’t be right, because you had been off all night. Could have been even earlier, if he thinks back on it.

As Rafe re-traces your steps, a cavalcade of pre-schoolers takes the stage, decked out in special-made hats with fins on them, and sequin scales that are multi-colored, their feet pattering softly as they settle into place. Rafe hears the audience collectively ‘aww’ as the little tunas—thats what they have to be, right?—take the stage. A little girl in the front row loses her hat almost immediately, and the teacher standing before them races to put it back on right as the music begins.

Rafe is distracted, but It’s adorable, he has to admit. He knows you’ll think so too, and he hopes it’s something to lift your mood tonight.

“So cute, aren’t they?” Rafe whispers, leaning forward again. “Look at little dude on the right, second row—”

“I can’t do this. I—” Your shoulder blade collides with Rafe’s chin softly as you toss back the rest of your drink, and your chair scrapes against the floor as you push yourself back.

Rafe hadn’t even made to stand by the time you’re halfway across the room, ducking politely and making yourself small to pass any wait staff on your way out of the hall and through the double doors that lead out to the golf course.

“She had a headache earlier.” The excuse leaves his mouth before he even faces both sets of your parents that he knows are watching him like hawks. His dad, who returned to the table just in time and is leering, smelling trouble in paradise. Your mom, scandalized you’d leave in the middle of her event, eyebrows drawn as they had been most of the night as she critiqued servers and monitored the silent auction.

The only person at the table Rafe feels he can turn to, wants to turn to, is your dad, who purses his lips at him.

“Check on her?” William mouths it likes it’s a question.

But Rafe knows better.

He nods once and turns to follow you, his feet knowing where you went before he does.

—

Behind the Outer Banks Island Club, tucked behind the back nine and covered by a canopy of blooming dogwood trees, there’s a rickety dock extending into a pond.

It can feel like a secret sometimes, because it’s hardly visited anymore—the kids of today’s Figure 8 much preferring the newer and fancier attractions at the front of the complex, the tourists, weekend warriors, and summer second-homers never around long enough to spend time discovering it.

But for people like you, who grew up here, spent years and years and years running off from your parents at events just like this one every other weekend, secret spots like the pond and the lookout and the Hawk’s Nest were sacred places to shirk responsibility and shed expectations, get drunk enough to have fun but not enough that your parents will notice on the car ride home. You hadn’t been back here in years, because even when you were home these days, it turns out that part of adulthood is actually having to be present at these events. To hang off of Rafe’s arm when he needed you too, talk to your parents’ friends or entertain some of the younger kids so their parents could throw back wine just like you’d been doing ten minutes ago.

You know that last fact isn’t the sole reason for your tears as your back leans delicately against the rickety dock railing, but it definitely seems to be speeding the process along.

“Baby?”

Another set of steps rock the dock into a sway beneath you, and you don’t even have to look up to know who it is, didn’t even have to hear his voice, but you do, sagging into his arms as soon as you can get your hands on him.

“I’m sorry, you can go back in. I just need a sec.”

“No, no, hey,” he says with finality. “It’s fine, Y/n/n, I’ll stay. What’s going on?”

“I—” Rafe’s crisp white shirt muffles your cries and catches your tears one and the same, and fuck if you don’t feel awful about that too, because how are you meant to go back in there with his shirt like that and your makeup like this? With your tears refusing to cease and a scene no doubt already caused by your hasty exit and Rafe’s prompt follow-up? With your head pounding and your hands shaking and your heart so, so confused? You take a deep breath, untucking from his chest, voice still wavering, and you can’t look at him yet. “I-I’m sorry, I’m trying really hard, I just—”

“You’re scarin’ me, sweet girl. Can you take a deep breath?” You comply with his wish, and Rafe slips a hand off of your waist for just long enough to take out his handkerchief, which you’d folded and placed so neatly on an hour ago, dabbing it under your eyes until you take it over for yourself and he can hold you again. “Can we sit down?”

“My dress,” you say weakly.

“Here.” Rafe shrugs off his jacket, laying it down flat on the wood of the dock toward the end, helping you lower yourself so that your dress is protected and your legs hang over the side, Rafe’s dangling next to yours once you’re both settled. “What happened?”

“I took a pregnancy test last week.” You screw your eyes shut because you can’t look into his, can’t stand the rush of relief that will overtake his face once you speak again. “It was negative, but—”

“Y/n/n, you took—what?” he says. “You—hey, look at me.”

You barely do, heaving a sigh, tears drying momentarily. “What?”

“What do you mean what? What? When did you even—why didn’t you—Jesus Christ, baby. Y/n,” he says softly. “What?"

“I didn’t even… it all happened so fast, like, my mom said something, and then after Li’s whole thing when were going to brunch, I just figured I’d do it and be sure.”

“Without telling me,” Rafe clarifies, and if he didn’t look so heartbroken you’d probably be annoyed.

“I thought about telling you before, but…”

“But what? If you’re this upset, about it, you could’ve—you should’ve told me, Y/n.”

“It was nothing,” you shrug. “I didn’t think it was really worth telling you.”

“This doesn’t make sense. We tell each other this shit, Y/n/n, like, if you were pregnant—”

“Well, I’m not.”

He breathes heavily through his nose when you interrupt him. “Then why are you crying?”

You didn’t even realize you’d been set off again during the exchange, that Rafe’s stern words were offset by soft fingers catching your tears from beside you, twisted around you awkwardly as you’re sitting side by side.

“Y/n,” he says, thumb and forefinger trapping your chin. You can tell he’s confused—his chest heaves underneath his shirt, and that furrow in between his brows breaks your heart. You feel your face crumple instantly when you finally fess up.

“I didn’t know you didn’t want kids, Rafe.”

You hear the hitch in his breath. His hand falls into his lap, and the absence of his warmth on your face makes everything worse, like an admission, like he’d been found out. You bury your face into your hands, hunched over, and his hand smooths over the skin of your back exposed by the dress, while you wonder how long he’s felt like this. “What did you just say?” “I shouldn’t have listened—I couldn’t stop though, it was right after I got the negative test, and we were on the boat—”

“Tell me what you’re talking about right now,” Rafe demands.

“We were on the boat, and I should’ve walked away, but I heard you a-and Top talking about Wren and Delilah, and I’m so sorry, Rafe, but I heard it. I heard you.”

“Heard me what, Y/n/n?” he asks, clearly frustrated. “I’m trying so hard to catch up right now—the boat?”

It’s lucky that you have the entire conversation memorized, embarrassing as it is, but how could you not? It’d been bouncing around in your head for days, replaying over and over ever since you heard him say that and stepped away immediately, body on autopilot as you rejoined Margot, barely remembering to bring the drinks back with you. You take a deep breath, press the palms of your hands into your eyes one last time. “When we had Topper and Margot on the Druthers. And you guys were fishing off the back.”

It takes a beat, and then recognition crosses his features, and his face goes slightly pale. “Oh, shit.”

“Yeah. And Topper was talking about how Blythe had a scare, and then he asked you about having kids with me, and then you said—”

“Y/n/n.” His voice tight. “You don’t understand.”

“You said you didn’t know if you could,” you finish, the last syllable collapsing in your throat. “I just—I didn’t know you didn’t want kids, Rafe.”

You watch as his eyebrows knit together and then unfurl, his face experiencing about five different emotions in the span of ten seconds, mouth hanging open and then pulling tight again. “What?”

“Rafe, I know we haven’t had the like, official talk yet. We’re young and whatever,” you start. “But I at least thought you wanted kids with me, baby—I mean in Massachusetts, with Kendra, and then—”

“Babe.”

“I just don’t wanna lose you over this, Rafe. I can’t.”

You were far from resolved over it, but in the back of your mind, ever since you heard that conversation, you knew it’d come down to a choice for you. Rafe, or—the other option doesn’t even matter, because you’d choose him over and over again.

“You… you’re not… come here,” he says softly, looking less confused this time, but infinitely more apprehensive, his face still white as a sheet even when he brings you so close to his body that you can smell the cologne your dad got him for his birthday, and the scent the dry cleaner uses on his shirts before you sometimes pick them up on the way home from the ferry dock, your own clothes mixed in, the cashier asking where your husband is this time and never being met with your correction.

He’s Rafe and he’s love and he’s yours and he’s home all wrapped up in a nice shirt and a bowtie he let you pick, sans his tux jacket because he let you sit on it—why were you ever afraid to tell him anything?

“You’re not gonna lose me, Y/n/n. You’re never gonna lose me,” he says, sounding so sure that you try to believe it. And any time you doubted yourself with Rafe before now, you could. But this one is big, and it hurts.

He speaks again, words coming out in a hush above you. “You know, it doesn’t sound like you heard everything.”

“Huh?” you ask, rearing back slightly. Your boyfriend is sheepish, staring off into the water under your gaze. “Rafe.”

“On the boat,” he says, then clears his throat. “I did say that, at least I think I did. I tried to block that entire conversation out, honestly. I forget Topper had a psych minor sometimes.”

“You said it,” you clarify. “I heard you.”

“Right,” he breathes, nodding his head like he forgot. “Yeah, no, I’m sure you did—we talked a lot. About all of that stuff. I think the Delilah and Wren thing kind of rattled me, too. If I’m honest.”

“Yeah, I figured,” you say. “After I heard, anyway.”

“It’s just different now, right? Not like it was a few years ago,” he says. “The same thing happened with Nora and Graham sophomore year. We got so drunk when it ended up being nothing.”

A small twinge happens to your lips, thinking about a scenario with McCall around the same time. “Yeah. We’re older now.”

“Yeah,” he says. “We are. And listen, I do want that one day, Y/n. I really do.”

You’re confused now, and you’d hate it if he was lying to your face, or just going along with something he didn’t actually feel because you’d cried him into a corner. “But when you were with Top, you—”

“I know, sweetheart, I know—I didn’t mean, like, ever,” Rafe clarifies. “I mean, ‘course not, Y/n.”

“You didn’t?” you ask softly.

“No. No, I didn’t. C’mon,” he says, lips upturning slightly. He still looks uneasy as he grabs your hand, squeezing your palm tightly. “You have to know that, don’t you?”

“I-I thought I did,” you murmur out, almost lost for words.

“I’m sorry if I’m all over the place,” he apologizes. He drops your hand, worrying the grown out hair on the back of his head, the ends brushing his shirt collar. “This is just a lot at once right now.”

“You’re fine, Rafe.”

“I told my dad that we’re moving,” he blurts.

You sit up straight, dislodging Rafe’s arm from your body. It falls into his lap before he’s running another hand through his hair, the gel he’d put in it after his shower surely completely dislodged by now. “Rafe, what?”

“Yeah, last week. That day you got me Skittles.”

You wrack your brain for every interaction with Ward you’ve had since then; he’d never given any indication he knew. Hadn’t made one comment to you, negative or otherwise. “What? But he hasn’t said anything.”

“You know how when we told your parents at that dinner, and your mom started crying, ‘cause she’d miss you? And your dad was so happy for us?” he asks, and you hate the implication that it’s a precursor. You nod anyway, and Rafe shrugs. “Ward said ‘Good luck. And get me a two-weeks when you get the chance.’”

“Oh, baby. Rafe,” you say. A weird mixture of sympathy and absolute rage floods your veins, as it usually did wherever Ward Cameron was involved with your boyfriend. You still can’t believe Rafe told him without you, you’d agreed to do that together, like you did with your own parents. Rafe hadn’t seemed anymore off than he usually was after a day at work. Nothing that your hand running through his hair with his head in your lap and a few Fast and Furious movies playing on the TV in the living room couldn’t fix. “I thought we wanted to tell him together.”

“I know, I’m sorry,” he says. “Fuck. I just knew in my heart that that’s how it’d go, I really did. I didn’t want you to see that. It’s embarrassing.”

“I would’ve been there for you. No matter what,” you assure him, even though he knows. “I’m sorry that’s how it went down.”

Rafe lets out a sad laugh, more a puff of air and a crooked smile than anything. “He’s probably already hand-picking an intern from last summer to be my replacement. Maybe Carter will get a shot after he graduates. Fuck, Y/n/n, I don’t know if I’d rather he yell, or tell me I was fucking my life up for a girl, or what, but I thought he’d at least act like he was upset. But he didn’t even care. He never does.”

“Rafe, you don’t know that.”

But Rafe doesn’t stop.

“I do know that,” he insists. “God, I hate this.”

“Hate what, Rafe?”

“I hate bitching about my dad to you and to Topper. I hate that I can’t handle—I can’t even go into work most days without sitting in my car for ten minutes before just psyching myself up,” Rafe admits, cheeks red and eyes averted. “I hate that I can’t protect my sisters when they need it because when I get involved everything just gets worse. And I fucking hate that he’s the biggest thing that always comes between us, over and over again.”

You’ve seen Rafe cry once. He teared up when you both left for college at the end of the summer, and his eyes were glassy when he broke up with you at the airport in your college town. And the one time he’d really actually cried in front of you, he was drunk after Thanksgiving the week you got back together. They were tipsy, happy tears—maybe a little melancholy of the time lost together over something that didn’t matter, the feeling he’d made a mistake. But you’ve never really seen him cry.

“Rafe, it’s okay.”

“But it’s not.” He’s pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes so hard it looks painful, and you tug on the arm closest to you until he lets you have it, lets you wrap your arms around him and lean into his side, where you can see your suspicions confirmed, tears falling off of his lashes when he blinks. He draws an exasperated breath, his voice pinched painfully, “I think he really fucked me up, Y/n/n.”

A part of you had always known that. From a very young age, years before you’d even began dating. To know Rafe closely, be let into the very small space he allows for others in his heart, was to know that about him. It was a world of difference to know that he knew, and knew it well enough to say it out loud to you.

“Like, way more than I ever wanted to admit, or even realize. I think I thought I could just run from here, after high school. Be done with him and with all of it,” Rafe says. “But I’m back here. And then I thought I got us through his whole—thing with you, and he still just—it’ll never be how I want it to be with him. And he’s my dad, Y/n/n.”

“I know, baby,” you say. “You deserve so much better.”

“Sometimes I feel like I’m fucking losing my mind every day. I did everything, I went to work, I tried to set boundaries, I—none of it was good enough, Y/n/n. None of it. And now I’m leaving again, and he still just doesn’t fucking care,” he says, tears still falling. “I was a shitty teenager, we all were, but I swear I did everything right.”

“Rafe, you can’t play that game with yourself.”

“I did, didn’t it?” he pleads. You’re not sure if he’s asking himself or you, and you’d never ever tell him otherwise, anyway. But he did, he did try, for years while you watched from his side. He tripped over himself, he said how high, he broke his back.

“Of course you did,” you promise softly. A feather light touch to the back of his neck brings his face into your neck instantly, and your arms do their best to hold his broad frame against you. “You did.”

“Ah, fuck,” he swears, finally pulling back after only a drawn out breath. “I’m sorry. I don’t wanna cry in front of you.”

“You’re allowed to,” you assure him, thumbing away some sympathetic tears of your own. “You’re always allowed to.”

“I know. Just hate it, hate being like this,” he complains, shaking his hands out. He turns and sees your own tears, and he’s such a sight, cheeks red and angry, eyelashes practically stuck together with how wet they are, eyes a few shades lighter and aggressively bloodshot. But he’s still feeling around for his handkerchief, blotting underneath your eyes dutifully.

“Like what? Vulnerable?”

“No,” he laughs wetly, cheeks red again when you take the handkerchief from him to give him the same treatment. “A fuckin’ mess.”

He ducks his head to meet your lips, and you share a few salty and giggly kisses, the thought of the appearance of you two preposterous. “My mess, though.”

“Do you see where I’m coming from though?” he asks, sniffling one last time.

“What do you mean?”

“With kids.”

You’d almost forgotten that’s how this entire mess started, so distracted by Rafe’s confessions. “Wait. That’s not because of Ward, is it?”

“Y/n/n, you could have a baby tomorrow if you wanted. If that test was positive? You would’ve been fine, I have no doubt that any baby of yours would have a perfect life,” he says.

“Rafe, no, don’t—don’t say ‘mine,’” you say. “I only want my babies to be yours, too. Ours.”

“And I love that. I love you. I just wanna be good,” he says softly, his voice cracking again. “I don’t even know if I thought I’d ever have kids until we got together, Y/n. If we have children, if we have a son…” He lets out a huge breath of air, sticking his tongue into his cheek. “I just wanna be good. And I’ll figure it out. I can work on it.”

“Rafe, none of this has to happen to you on your own. I’m right here,” you remind him.

He shakes his head firmly. “It’s not your problem to have. I’m not putting this on you, too.”

“And that’s not your decision to make,” you argue. “Already did. It’s right here. You’re too late.”

You place a finger over the spot where your heart would be.

He scans your face, and with one last wipe under his eyes, you hope he’s finally done. “I don’t know what I did to deserve you.”

“You’re just—you’re you, Rafe. You’re so good to me. And you’re gonna be so good to our kids one day,” you say. “You’re not him.”

“He gave me everything I could ever need, Y/n/n,” he argues. “Everything. I never even had to ask. Cash, cars, trips to literally wherever the fuck I wanted, school, a job—”

“Those things are all true. I’m not gonna sit here and tell you they aren’t,” you say. “But they’re just things, Rafe. He could’ve…” you trail off, wondering if now is the time to go there. “Never mind.”

“He could’ve what?”

“I don’t know if it’s my place,” you say, feeling your cheeks heat up a little.

“It is. It is always your place, sweet girl.”

You look down to where your hands are still intertwined, stroking Rafe’s knuckles. “I don’t know, Rafe. Ward isn’t evil. He’s your father, and I’m always going to respect that. But the way I see it, like, yeah, he could’ve… I dunno, come to your senior night for water polo.”

Rafe’s neck flushes red, and you bet it’s warm to the touch with embarrassment. “I didn’t think you remembered that. Or even knew it happened.”

“I was there, Rafe. I was in the stands, I—” your voice breaks off at the recalled memory, the heartbreak you felt then still as strong today. “I saw the look on your face, Rafe. Every time he didn’t show in high school, or whenever you had a rough day at work that first summer. Even with us, Rafe. With me, he could’ve at least tried to like me.”

You don’t tell him about how your mother had rolled her eyes when you first told her you were dating Rafe, or that your father had pulled you aside to ask if you were sure about him. Rafe already knew all of that in some way, you were sure. It sucked, but it didn’t matter now. Because now, your father takes him to hockey games with Dylan on the mainland, and your mother brags about him to all of her girlfriends whose daughters could only be so lucky to land one like him.

“He never even tried to get to know me. From that very first night. He still makes a comment about John B’s hair or clothes every time Sarah turns her back, even though that boy makes her so, so happy,” you continue. “‘Cause he just—’”

“He doesn’t care if we’re happy. If any of us are. He doesn’t care at all, actually.”

“Rafe, no, no. I’m not saying that,” you say, frustrated. “This is why I didn’t want to—”

“You are,” Rafe says. “And it’s okay. It’s a relief actually. I can tell you’ve been thinking that for years.”

He smiles, despite himself, and you feel slightly stunned when his lips press to your forehead.

“Rafe…”

“Y’know, for someone so protective, you’re too nice for your own good,” he teases, eyes knowing. He looks back in control, like he might not be one-hundred-percent-okay by your standards, but okay enough. “People are assholes. Ward Cameron included. And it’s okay for you to admit it. I think I’d prefer it actually—then I know it’s not just me.”

“Rafe! You can’t expect me to call your dad an asshole,” you laugh.

“Oh, what, I’m sorry—you think he can hear us? Where he’s probably on some phone call in the hallway right now? Actually, no, he probably didn’t even leave the table. Probably told the kindergarteners on stage to shut up so he could close whatever fucking deal he’s zoned in on right now,” Rafe says, rubbing a hand over his face, the white teeth of a mischievous smile still visible. It drops slightly, and he sighs in indignation. “Please don’t ever let me be like that. Please.”

“I’ll literally kick your ass,” you quip, even though no part of you believes you’ll ever have to.

“Wow, gloves are off tonight. Who is this girl?” Rafe jokes, helping you stand up. He shakes his jacket free of dock dust, throwing it over his shoulder, other arm offered to you immediately.

“I love you. So much,” you blurt, rejecting his proffered tricep (much to his short-lived offense), arms snaking tightly around his waist instead.

He grins. “Am I poking the bear if I say I love you more?”

“No,” you say, shaking your head, feeling butterflies bloom from your stomach until they overtake your entire body, flying through your elbows and down to your fingertips that clutch the back of his dress shirt, slightly rucked up. “I wanna hear you say it.”

Because I love hearing you say it, you think. And I’m gonna love hearing you say it to our kids one day.

“I love you more.”

—

“Well, if it isn’t America’s sweethearts, skipping out early. What will the tabloids say?”

Sarah’s friend—who’s name you can never seem to remember, no matter how many times your paths cross—leans against the valet stand leisurely, his vest and white button-down worn so incorrectly it almost astonishes you.

“God, not this kid,” Rafe mutters under his breath.

“What was his name again?” you whisper conspiratorially, flashing him a grin anyway as the two of you approach the stand. You and Rafe had decided to leave the Island Club early given the night’s unforeseen events, and all that stood between you and freedom from the Outer Banks’ upper crust was—

“You remember me, don’t you, Y/n?” the blonde asks. When you just blink, dazzling smile waning slightly, he adds, “John B’s friend. JJ.”

“JJ! Yes, of course,” you say. “How are you?”

“I’m fine, making money, you know how it goes,” he says, arms spread in a lax manner, gesturing modestly to his valet stand. “And how about yourself?”

“We’re good,” you say, patting Rafe’s arm where it’s linked with yours. Rafe, silently unimpressed up until this point, looks down at you at that, sending you a small smile. “We’re good. Trying to do an Irish exit, though. Would it be possible for you to bring our car around?”

JJ winces. “Ooh, see I’m not really supposed to do that yet, and like, I would like to keep working at your mom’s events, so I can’t exactly like, go rogue, yet—or ever, actually, ‘cause like, I’d never. I’m a good employee, or trying to be one at least, so like—look, please don’t tell your mom I just said that.”

“JJ?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Breathe.”

“Okay,” he says, doing so. “Sorry, I just—”

Your boyfriend cuts in. “What are they paying you for the night? I’ll double it.”

“Rafe,” you chastise. “He’s just trying to do his job.”

But JJ seems to be considering it, before ultimately shaking his head. “No can do, amigo. I’m sorry. Plus, the cars are stacked, and the other valet went for a smoke break an hour ago, so.”

“I’ll triple it.”

The teenager seems to doubly consider that offer, looking between the two of you like this might be a joke. But you dutifully play the part this time, eager to get out of here undetected. You just hope Rafe doesn’t see the completely unsubtle way that you bat your eyelashes, because you’ll never hear the end of it later.

“I’ll triple it. Just go get the car.”

The three of you turn to the front porch of the Island Club at the sound of your mother’s voice, immediately tripping all over each other to get an iota of explanation in.

“Mrs. Y/l/n, I wasn’t gonna break protocol, I swear, they were begging me to—”

“No, mom, we were just, we wanted—”

“Mrs. Y/l/n, I am so sorry, I swear, we—”

Your mother descends the steps gracefully, waving a hand flippantly at all of you. “Rafe, be a dear and help the valet find your car, and I’ll forget you just tried to bribe him,” she says, then turns to JJ. “What was your name again?”

“Uh, it’s JJ, ma’am.”

“JJ,” she smiles, like she knew that all along. “I wasn’t kidding about triple, but I do not like to be kept waiting.”

“Absolutely. Let’s go, Cameron—I mean, sir,—uh, Mr. Cameron?” JJ tries, sorting through the keys in his stand with haste.

You stand beside your mother, watching the two of them run off around the corner. Rafe turns back to look at you, holding up a hand to signal ‘five minutes.’ Looking just a touch exasperated in his undone shirt. The sun hadn’t even set behind him yet—this might be a record for an early exit made by the two of you. Which reminds you.

“Mom, it was a lovely night, really.”

“Hm. Hardly even over yet,” she sighs, fingering a curl behind your ear until it falls how it’s meant to. “For someone who had so many opinions about the catering menu, you hardly touched your food.”

“It’s a fundraiser to protect tuna habitats, mother,” you point out. “I thought you should at least offer a vegetarian option.”

“And you were right,” she says, smiling. “It was a hit. Just not with you. And now you’re leaving early?”

When it came to your parents, you’d always subscribed to the ‘it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission’ school of thought. Which is why you didn’t expect this conversation to come so soon, if you could slip out early without excusing yourself like you intended. Definitely not tonight, mid-escape, while if you blinked hard enough you knew you’d still feel some remnants of tears, even though Rafe had let you get your mascara on his handkerchief. “I was going to text you once we left, or call tomorrow. I promise. You just seemed really busy.”

“I was busy. Fielding questions from Kathy Rosen about where you two ran off to,” your mother says, lips pursed.

You’re out of excuses, guiltily avoiding eye contact under the pretense of checking on Rafe and JJ across the way. Your boyfriend with his hands on his hips, watching on as the kid tries to figure out which keys go to which cars, almost brings a smile to your lips. “I’m sorry, mom.”

“Sweetie. Are you alright?” she asks. You love your mother, but the question surprises you. “Your father said you looked upset.”

“I’m fine, mom. Really,” you say, and this is the first time in while that it hasn’t felt like a lie.

“Is this about what I said? When you were over last week?”

It’s not the time nor the place to tell your mother that that is exactly what it was about, so you just shake your head. “No. I just wasn’t feeling well, wine didn’t help. Rafe suggested we go home.”

She smiles knowingly, her eyes finding Rafe. “He’s a good one, isn’t he?”

“Um, yeah, mom. Yeah. He is,” you breathe.

“I know I haven’t always understood your dreams, Y/n,” she says, completely out of left field. “When I was your age, all I needed was your father, a wedding ring, and a home to raise you in one day.”

You swallow. “I know.”

“But even if I don’t. I’m glad you have someone who does,” your mom continues, still looking in Rafe’s general direction. But you’re just staring at your mom, who glances at you wryly. “Even if I’m still waiting on that ring for you.”

“Oh my god,” you groan. “Mother.”

“It’s completely reasonable,” she starts, right back to her usual self. “You already live together—you’re preparing for a cross-country move together, for God’s sake. You know what, no, because the wedding has to happen here, anyway, so—”

“Wedding?” Rafe magically reappears then, and you see JJ pulling his truck around in the distance. “Who’s wedding?”

“Yours, should you ever propose,” your mother says, not missing a beat, unsusceptible to the charm your boyfriend can usually coast by on.

But Rafe doesn’t miss one either, just hooking an arm around your shoulders when he comes up behind you. “C’mon, Mrs. Y/l/n. You know I’ll have to ask you first.” He presses a kiss into your hair.

“Her father might be scandalized,” your mother says, but you can hardly hear it over the buzz in your ears.

“He’ll be there, too. Don’t worry.”

“I’ll miss you two,” your mom says again, looking between the two of you fondly. “Even when you run off from my events.”

The crunch of gravel under Rafe’s truck tires in the drive-up signals it’s finally, finally time to go, but it doesn’t feel right until he hugs your mother goodbye, then turns to open the passenger-side door for you, saying, “let’s get out of here, sweetheart.”

—

“How do we feel about nannies? You know what, no. How do you feel about nannies?” Rafe rephrases. “You know how I feel.”

“Just because you’re convinced your nannies were evil, doesn’t mean we all are,” you roll your eyes. It’s later in the night now, the two of you laid up on the outdoor couch you’d squeezed onto your tiny back deck, the dregs at the bottom of your wine glasses mirroring each other on the table in front of you. Your feet are in his lap, his hands resting on your shins, neither of you really paying attention to the moonlight on the water, just being with each other.

“You’re right. You were so good, maybe you can be our kids’ nanny,” Rafe says, grinning.

“Literally not how that works,” you say, grin matching his, with a well-timed kick to his thigh. Rafe grabs you ankle so you can’t do it again. “But, I dunno. I’d prefer not to. Then again, think everyone would prefer not to.”

“That’s fair,” Rafe says.

“Especially if we’re not near family, and we’re both working. I still wanna say no, though,” you say thoughtfully. “I think it was really confusing for Barron and Beckham.”

“And really hard for you,” Rafe reminds you. “Leaving.”

“Yeah,” you sigh, frowning a little. “There’s that part, too.”

“We’ll figure it out,” Rafe decides, stroking the skin his fingers are touching. “When we need to.”

“Yeah,” you smile. “We will. Oh, here’s one.”

“Shoot,” Rafe says, sinking further into the couch, the wine maybe starting to get to him.

“Public school or private?”

Rafe tilts his head to the side in consideration, tapping out a pattern on your shins. “I’ve never thought about that. What are the schools like in California?”

You falter a little, Rafe feeling your gaze on the side of his face. “In California? You want to have our kids in California?”

“Maybe,” Rafe shrugs. “We’ll be there for at least a little while, right? It could happen.”

“It could,” you agree softly. “Hey, Rafe.”

“Hey, Y/n,” he mimicks, and you try to kick him again. You smile softly, a tiny and beautiful thing.

“I know you said you’re not ready. But it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, right?” you ask quietly. “If I had been pregnant.”

Rafe holds a hand out to you, eyes not leaving yours while you shift onto your knees, scooting closer to him. “C’mere.”

You’re in his lap, then, and Rafe strokes his hands up your sides, high enough to where you start to get ticklish, then low to where he can thumb lazily at your hip bones. He uses one hand to ruck your shirt up slightly, the other still holding you in his lap. That’s when he lets his mind run wild, stroking a hand over the skin of your stomach, where it’s now exposed to him. “I suppose there are worse things in the world that I could do than knock you up.”

“There’s that boy brain,” you joke, shrieking suddenly when Rafe shifts his fingers just so, jabbing right where he knows will make you jack-knife against him.

“I was trying to be sweet,” he accuses, not ceasing his attacks. “And you’re laughing."

“You were, you were, you’re so sweet, please let me live,” you beg, breathless. Rafe takes pity on you, pulling your shirt back down, and letting you go willingly as you slink off of his lap, tucked against his side.

“You’re right, though. It wouldn’t be the worst thing,” Rafe says, serious again. “Not by a long shot, baby. I hope you don’t ever think that.”

“It was kind of hard not to,” you say quietly, and Rafe tugs on your shirt sleeve so you’ll look at him. “Before we talked tonight, I mean.”

You looked so beautiful tonight, Rafe almost wishes he got to enjoy it for longer. But he loved you like this, relaxed and comfortable in your house clothes, the materials soft under his fingertips. Your hair brushed back and skin still dewy from whatever lotions and potions you used as soon as you got home. In his arms, making him feel like nothing could ever make you sad again if he had anything to say about it.

“I don’t wanna have a baby right now, Y/n,” he says, honestly.

“I know.”

“But,” he continues. “If it happened… and we—and you decided to keep it. That’s my kid, sweet girl. That’s our kid.”

You press your smile into his cheek, resembling a pour excuse for a kiss, but it makes him smile, too. “I love when you talk babies.”

“Ideally, not for a few years. Like, a good few,” Rafe says. “Look at me, baby. Dead serious.”

“You can’t do that! You can’t rub all over my stomach like a neanderthal and ‘that’s my kid, sweet girl’ me and not expect me to get any ideas,” you whine, lightly curled fists bumping into his abdomen.

“You can get ideas,” Rafe says. “Please, please get ideas. I want you to have ideas.”

“I have plenty,” you remark, and he has no doubt you do. And he wants to hear them all, suddenly.

“What were you thinking? When you took the test?” he asks after a moment.

“It started with Delilah, for sure. And then my mom said something about my face,” you said, your lips twinging in embarrassment.

“Your face? I love your cute face,” Rafe says, reaching around to squish your cheeks, smacking a noisy kiss to your lips. You bat him away quickly, smiling.

“It’d just been on my mind. Seemed simple enough to just go get a test and take it,” you shrug, fiddling with Rafe’s fingers, where he’d rested his hand in your lap. “Although, god, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to face Mrs. Cartwright ever again. You’re gonna have to go in and get my retinol prescriptions from now on.”

“Was that the day you did it?” Rafe asks, searching in his memory. He remembers being distracted that day, because it was the day he told his dad about the move. He wanted to come home and tell you everything immediately, but you seemed happy and you got him Skittles. It didn’t feel within his rights to ruin that. “When you came home with all of that random shit?”

“Guilty,” you grimace, sinking further into the cushions.

“So you were relieved?” Rafe wonders.

“Yes? I think so. Yes,” you say more definitively.

“Y/n/n.”

“I was. I promise,” you say. “I’m not trying to have kids right now, Rafe, I’m really not. It was just a weird feeling. I know we’ve never really had a proper scare before, but it was the first time I thought… if we wanted to, maybe we could. But then…”

“But then you heard me on the boat.”

You shrug, over it. “I’m getting a refill. Do you want one?”

Rafe nods wordlessly as you get up, trying to collect his thoughts by the time you come back onto the deck, another bottle of white in your hand. “It’s not you.”

“What?” you ask, frozen in the doorway.

“Back at the event, when you said you thought I didn’t want kids. With you,” he says.

“Oh,” you say, still stuck under his gaze. “Yeah, but, Rafe. I get it now.”

“I just don’t want you to think—everything I have to figure out is about me. But it’d only be with you. I wouldn’t want them with anyone else.”

“I’d sure hope not,” you say, breathing a laugh, finally coming onto the deck, screen door sliding shut behind you. Rafe stops you when you try to refill the glasses, setting the wine on the table and pulling you back into his lap instead.

“Y/n/n, I’m serious,” he says. “I need time. We need time. I want to have a plan—we have to talk to our financial guy about college funds and everything else—I need to marry you, first of all.”

“Oh, you’re so old fashioned,” you say, leaning into kiss him anyway.

“Excuse me,” Rafe says, only halfway offended, and only halfway pulling back from your lips before he leans in again. “There is definitely an order of operations here.”

“Mm, says you.”

“You heard your mom. And don’t you wanna marry me?”

“I want to,” you say, leaving not even a millisecond of hesitation, but still enough time for Rafe to feel like he got the wind knocked out of him by your certainty. “Don’t need to in order to have your baby. That’s the difference.”

And if you’re not actively trying to kill Rafe, you are anyway. “Jesus, baby.”

You shrug casually. “Their last names will be hyphenated anyway, so there’s no rush there.”

“Hyphens?” Rafe asks, pushing you back by your hips, picturing it in his mind. “Really?”

“No,” you smile, a shit-eating grin. “That was a joke. I’m taking Cameron, there’s no reason they wouldn’t too.”

“You…” Rafe trails off, because there goes the air from his lungs, again. “You wanna take my last name?”

“One day. Not done with mine yet,” you reason. “But Dylan’s got it, too. It’s, like, legally his job to keep the name alive. Not mine.”

“I always thought about—I don’t know, it’s kinda silly,” Rafe says quickly, kissing you again. But you pull off of him with a questioning noise and a smirk.

“What?”

“It’s silly. And really far off,” Rafe says, trying to get caught up in you again. But he recognizes the signs of you holding out, pulling back with a sigh when you deny him one more time, sighing in preemptive embarrassment. “If you take Cameron, and so do our kids, I always thought it’d be kinda cool if we used Y/l/n as a middle name.”

“‘Kinda cool?’” you parrot. “Rafe.”

“It’s random, I know, but Graham’s sister and her boyfriend did it,” he explains. “It’s just an idea.”

“I love it,” you tell him. “I can’t believe you’ve thought about middle names. Have you… thought about first names?”

“A little,” Rafe says, and he can feel his cheeks turning red. You’re practically leering at him, and he just rolls his eyes. “I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.”

“Deal.”

“It’ll have to wait, though,” Rafe says, standing up, offering you a hand when you slide off of his lap. He collects the bottles in one hand and your empty glasses in the other, entering your house and waiting on you to do the same before he locks the back door behind you.

You’re confused, but follow after him nonetheless, through the kitchen and then to your bedroom. “What? Why?”

“‘Cause I’m having one of those moments where I’m really in love with you,” Rafe says, shucking his shirt, then yours.

—

“You are way too excited for a round of golf right now.”

“No I’m not,” you say quickly. But your knee has been bouncing up and down the entire ride over, and your hands tighten and un-tighten again on the steering wheel, grip slightly sweaty. You’ve never been able to keep things from Rafe, and never for long.

But this secret is really, really worth keeping.

You keep your eyes trained on the road, your sunglasses pushed high on the bridge of your nose. You’d hoped your new golf skirt, delivered in a package yesterday, then hiked up only enough that Rafe would take note, would’ve been enough of a distraction for him. And it definitely made you a few minutes late to your not-so-legitimate tee time.

“Really? Because you’re literally driving the wrong way,” Rafe points out. “Babe, are we good? You know you didn’t have to come.”

It’d been a few days since the fundraiser at this point, giving you just enough time to make sure this was the right choice, then set the plan into motion.

“I wanted to! And we’re picking up Ezra and Marcie, remember? I’m sure I told you,” you lie. You did not tell him. It was too out of the ordinary, you always met them at the golf course. If Rafe had too much time to think about it, he’d figure it out.

“No you didn’t,” he says. “Why are we picking them up? We never pick them up.”

“Yeah, well,” you shrug, thankfully pulling onto their street. “You know how Marcie and I like to hit the mimosas. I told her you’d drive us home so your boss could drink, too.”

“Oh great, thanks, sweetheart,” he deadpans.

“I’m sorry, baby,” you pout, putting your car into park on the curb. You push your bottom lip out and Rafe cracks a smile, unbuckling himself. “Honest. I’ll make it up to you?”

“Put that thing away. We’re guests,” he says, dipping into kiss your bottom lip anyway, thumbing it away when he’s done. “C’mon. At least we get to see the puppy one more time. I think they’re giving him away soon.”

“We’re just in time, then,” you say, turning away from him so fast, you’re lucky your ponytail didn’t catch him in the face.

After hopping out of the car, you don’t make it very far before hands catch you around the waist, Rafe’s fingers lightly digging into the flesh of your hips. “What’s up with you?”

“I think you made my coffee too strong this morning, and you know I only really golf in front of you,” you say, reciting the little white lie you’d been practicing in your head all night, when you could hardly sleep. “I think I’m just jittery. And it’s your boss.”

“Oh, babe,” he chides, squeezing your waist. “I’m sorry. I wish you would’ve said something so I could’ve told you to stay home.”

“No, I wanted to come,” you say, immediately backpedaling.

“No, really. We can still go home, right now,” Rafe says, more seriously. “Y/n/n, look at me. Tell me you’re alright.”

“I’m alright, I promise.”

But the gears are turning in his head. “I can make something up, oh, I’ll tell them I’m sick—”

“I’m not sick. You’re not sick,” you say. “We’re going inside.”

With that, you give Rafe no choice but to follow you up the cobblestone front path to the front door, not turning back once. Ezra opens the door before you can even reach the doorbell.

“You’re here,” he says, sounding quite relieved, still sporting a pair of pajama pants. You inwardly cringe—this is where you could’ve got the planning down better. But dedicated girlfriend duties aside, you didn’t feel too inclined to rope Rafe’s superior into your plan.

“We’re here,” you say anyway.

“Uh, did we get the tee time wrong, babe?” Rafe says, taking in Ezra’s attire, and looking at you pointedly. “Hi, Ezra.”

“No, you’re just in time,” his boss says, waving the two of you in. “Wanna see the dog?”

That seems to wipe Rafe’s mind clear of confusion, and he tugs you into the entryway with him, and suddenly he’s leading you toward the garage, hot on Ezra’s heels. “I’m gonna miss him so much, sir. I can’t believe you have to give him up.”

Ezra just gives you a knowing look as Rafe passes through the threshold into the garage first, leaving the two of you behind in the mudroom. “Still has no idea?” he whispers.

“No,” you answer.

Rafe’s sitting on the cement flooring of Ezra’s garage in his nice golf shorts without a care in the world, the black Labrador puppy that was sleeping peacefully now wide awake, stumbling around on clumsy legs. Your boyfriend already found a small rope toy to taunt him with. “Have you met the people he’s going to? Are they nice? No allergies, right? It’d suck if he had to get rehomed again.”

“They’re alright,” Ezra says, leaning a shoulder into the door frame. He nods to you, and you walk toward Rafe and the dog, kneeling to the floor. “Seem like a good couple.”

The dog shifts his focus to you, and you realize this is the first time you’re properly meeting him, only seeing him through pictures or videos that Rafe would send from work. He really is adorable.

“Alright?” Rafe asks, looking at his boss. “Just alright?”

“Y/n,” Ezra says pointedly. “This would be where you come in.”

Distracted with the bundle of fuzz in your lap, you look up when called. “Oh, right.”

Rafe looks at you weirdly, then to Ezra, then back to you. “What’s going on?”

You take a deep breath, and Ezra smiles at you encouragingly. Or maybe like he wants to wrap this up already. “Well, Rafe, you’ve been talking about getting a dog, right? And you really seem to like this little guy,” you say, scooping the puppy into your arms.

“Okay,” Rafe says, nodding in understanding. “I mean, yeah—so, you’d want a black lab? That’s fine with me, we can start looking—”

Ezra sighs, turning in the doorway to leave. “Alright, I’ll be inside. Let me know when he figures it out.”

Rafe watches him go, still clueless, checking his wrist watch. “Is he going to get changed for golf? And where’s Marcie? We’re gonna be late, and you know how the Island Club is about missing your slot, and—”

“Rafe,” you laugh. “There is no slot.”

“What?” he says.

“You can say no,” you preface, even though there’s already a box of puppy supplies from Chewy stowed in the hall closet behind your Christmas decorations. You didn’t think about names, not without Rafe’s overzealous input. But you’d already looked into how to fly across the country with a dog, you called the landlord at the townhouse Beau had helped you get in California to make sure you could have one. Now, all that’s left is for Rafe to catch up. “But I was thinking… what if we took him?”

You hold your breath for a few seconds, and then Rafe laughs softly. “Baby, I wish you said something earlier. But you heard Ezra, he’s already got a home for him. You know it’s funny, I almost asked you if you’d wanna take him, but I didn’t know if you’d go for it.”

You physically deflate, and the puppy jumps out of your arms, running right back over to Rafe. “Rafe. We are the home.”

He’s distracted, playing with the dog again, taking his eyes off of him long enough to look at you. “Huh?”

“I talked to Ezra a few days ago,” you say, making sure Rafe is really looking at you. “Rafe, he’s ours.”

“He’s—he…” Rafe’s carefree smile drops, and he looks down at the dog, who’s found a place to sleep in his lap. His hand freezes in the fur. “He’s ours?”

“There you go.”

“Stop,” he says abruptly. So much so, the dog stirs in his lap, and Rafe puts his hands up, like he’s afraid to touch him suddenly. “Don’t joke about this. Say you’re so serious right now, I swear to god, baby, I’m already too attached.”

“Rafe, we’re here to take him home. If you want him.”

The entire morning is worth it when Rafe finally clicks on, practically tackling you in a hug, your new dog ending up somewhere in between. You both laugh when he takes turns licking both of your faces, a welcome reminder you’re now a party of three. “Babe, babe. Of course I want him, are you kidding? I can’t believe this. How did you do this?”

“It was perfect timing,” you say, taking your turn scratching behind his ears. “I’d already thought about it, once you said they had to get rid of him. But then, once everything happened… I think he’ll be good for us. And he’s so damn cute.”

“Sweetheart, you don’t have to do this just for me. Not if you don’t want to,” he says. You know he means it, but it’s hard to take it seriously when he’s got the dog clutched to his chest, not taking his eyes off of him for a second, like he’s wanted this for years, for his entire life.

“I want to.”

—

“Well, Sadie’s out, then. Huh, little dude?” Rafe asks, turning to your puppy at the stoplight. “And you don’t look like a Wilbur Jr. to me.”

“Kelce suggested we name him Griffin,” you say, checking the responses to your Instagram story with your free hand, the other holding your dog in your lap. Rafe just rolls his eyes. “Dylan said Dylan. Oh, and also that we’re traitors to Wilbur.”

“No. No, we’re not,” Rafe says, eyebrows furrowed. “They’ll be best buds. You can’t wait to meet your Uncle Wilbur, huh, buddy?” Rafe thinks on it for a second, pulling back. “Does he need, like, shots first?”

“I had Marcie send over all of his records. He’s good to meet Wilbur,” you say casually. Rafe’s hopelessly endeared to you right now—he nearly choked when you pulled the little blue collar out of the glove box. How long had that even been in there?

“You. I can’t believe you,” Rafe says. “I can’t believe you did this. You got us a dog, baby.”

You duck your head a little, your hair falling into your face now that it was out of its ponytail—seriously. You, setting up a tee time, for 8 am on a Sunday? Rafe’s a fool. “You had me goin’ for a sec, sweetheart.”

“Yeah, I did. Didn’t I?” you tease, giggling before pressing a kiss to your sleeping puppy’s head. Suddenly, Rafe vividly remembers the first time he met Wilbur. That Rafe would die if he could see you two now. “You don’t have a monopoly on romantic gestures, RC.”

“I never claimed to,” Rafe scoffs. You give him a pointed look. “I didn’t! I just—I like doing things. For you. Nice things.”

“Speaking of,” you say, moving the furry lump in your arms closer to the passenger side window. “Look, baby.” It throws Rafe off for a second when he realizes you aren’t talking to him. “That’s where your dad took your mom on their first date.”

The restaurant with the nice rooftop bar the two of you still find the time to frequent, Captain’s Quarters, passes by outside. It’d been discovered by tourists a year ago, so it wasn’t really the same in the summertime anymore, but Rafe knew you had a sentimental side, so you’d stop in for old times’ sake during the spring and the fall when you could. You knew the owners well by now, and they were always putting drinks on the house that Rafe would cover with the tip anyway. “Oh, babe. They’re dog friendly during the day, I think.”

“Did you hear that? Maybe we can take you to Quarters one day,” you say. Like he can understand you, or maybe just recognizes the happy lilt in your voice, the dog starts panting, his tail wagging like he wasn’t blissfully asleep only a minute ago. “Yeah? You wanna go to Quarters? Maybe that’s what we’ll name you.” You laugh, dodging eager kisses.

“Quarters?” Rafe laughs, but he tries it out in his mind for a second, just for sentimentality’s sake. “I dunno about that one, baby.”

You consider it for a moment too, before your nose wrinkles. “Yeah, I don’t like it.”

“What about Captain?” Rafe asks.

“Captain…” you echo. A smile ghosts your lips, turning into a full on grin after a second, still looking down at the dog. “Do you like that one, bud?”

“Cappy for short. Cap when he’s in trouble,” Rafe adds. You’re back in your neighborhood now, and soon enough Rafe is pulling into the garage. Maybe Captain starts to squeal quietly as the car comes to a stop—Ezra had warned you two about that. “Just an idea.”

“A little basic, coming from two OBX kids,” you joke, leaning up for a kiss from Rafe as soon as you’re out of the car, puppy still held tightly. Maybe Captain starts wriggling restlessly in your arms, and Rafe gets the supplies Ezra and Marcie had gifted the both of you while you let the dog inside.

“Oh, definitely basic,” Rafe agrees, setting the bed, food, and toys down in the mudroom. The two of you stand at the entrance of the living room to your home, watching the newest piece to your puzzle as he toddles around, scoping out the new surroundings.

“But I think I kinda love it.” You turn to Rafe where you’re under his arm, smiling up at him sweetly. “It’s pretty cute.”

“Captain,” he tries, to no avail. But then he kneels to the floor, patting his thighs excitedly. “Captain. Come here, bud.” That draws him over, and it suddenly feels settled right then and there. Rafe looks back up at you, and catches you smiling fondly, hands on your hips. “I love you so much for this.”

“I know,” you say, joining him on the floor, giggling when Captain releases himself from Rafe’s clutches to come back to you. “We’ve got a little practice baby now.”

You two sit enraptured on the floor for a while, passing toys back and forth, doing anything to catch Captain’s attention and make his tail wag, until he finally calls it quits. He splays out in the middle of the room, tummy on display, and Rafe just watches you coo at him, where you lean with your back pressed into his chest. “I was thinking about what we were talking about the other night.”

“Oh yeah?” you answer, distracted.

“Yeah. And I don’t care about private school or nannies or the PTA or the water polo teams I will absolutely be coaching,” he says. That causes you to look up at him. “I don’t care about any of it.”

There’s a genuine, if a touch confused, smile on your face. “None of it?”

“No, Y/n/n, no,” he says urgently. “Happy, safe, taken care of, they’ll be all of that. But I just want them to know we love them. I don’t want them to ever question it.”

“They won’t,” you decide. “A few years from now, when we’re ready—they won’t.”

—

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