'Safe with Rafe' Y/N x Rafe Cameron

Chapter LXX

Rafe turns the knob of the front door, still unlocked like you had left it when you first snuck out.
"Phew." He sighs before carefully closing the door again.
You shift in his arms, your eyelids heavily blinking open as he walks up the stairs, every footstep making a hollow, wooden sound. A sound that you associated with the coziness and comfort of your own home which made you smile up at him, moaning as you stretch your arms around his neck.
"I didn't mean to wake you." He whispers as he smiles back down at you.
"You probably should have, I'm not a baby, you know." You say softly as you nuzzle your face back into his chest, letting him carry you the rest of the way in silence.

As Rafe approaches your bedroom door while still carrying you bridal style, it reminds you of a particular moment that happened just the night before when he carried your dripping wet body to bed with him, the very memory plasters a cheeky smile across your face with a short giggle.
"What's so funny?" He asks curiously.
"Doesn't this feel familiar?" You ask sheepishly.
He lifts his head up in thought before seeing a smile spread across his face when he realises what it was exactly that you meant.
"Yeah," he huffs with a smirk, "it does."
"Mmhm." You hum with the same continuous smile as he pushes your bedroom door open to reveal your messy bed, just the way the two of you had left it this morning.

He leans against the edge of your mattress with one knee, slowly placing you down on the softness of your sheets and guiding your head against your pillow, watching as your pretty face sinks into it comfortably as you stare back up and into his eyes as they shine for you only a few inches above your own.
He smiles over you lovingly before you feel the bed shift with the loss of his body.

He moves his knee but not fast enough to stand up as your hands fly to his, pulling him back down over the top of you.
"Stay?" You ask as you raise your hand to his face, your fingers moving his draping strands of hair that curtained around his eyes.
He bites his bottom lip in contemplation as he feels his body slowly gravitate against yours but stops himself shortly after, fighting the urge to give in.
"I can't." He sighs as he inches his face closer towards yours, "I gotta take Topper home." He says, pressing his lips against yours.
You lean up into the kiss as you wrap your arms around the back of his neck again, pulling him down further in the hopes that he would give in completely but to no avail, he doesn't.
"Mmm Y/N," He groans against the kiss, "don't do this to me."
"Alright, alright. Get outta here." You say jokingly as you push against his hard chest, offending him in a way that makes him want to change his mind all over. His body pauses in thought above you as he stares below him, admiring you as you lay across your sheets. Temptation almost winning him over until you speak again.
"Toppers waiting."
"Uh- yeah. Right." He mumbles before reaching over, tucking you in hurriedly and kissing you once more, "goodnight."
"Goodnight, Rafe." You smile.

Topper leans against the cold, hard metal of the truck as he basks in the refreshing midnight air before hearing a thud to the side of him. He swiftly turns his head to the source of the noise, slightly paranoid as it seems that these days, you can't be too sure who is lurking where during the night and why.
He relaxes when he sees Rafe again after just jumping over the fence and landing it with the same thud onto the concrete footpath, easing his suspicions.
"Phew, you scared me for a sec." he sighs, "That was quicker than I thought." He adds with a wink.
"Get your head out of the gutter, Top."
"I have no idea what you're talking about." Topper says with a sarcastic tone, teasing Rafe in all his glory.
"Yeah right, just get in the truck." Rafe chuckles faintly as he holds his hand out to Topper, motioning for his keys back.
"Sure thing."

As Rafe drives down the bumpy road, he loses himself in thought. He thinks about tonight and as his eyes glaze over with an empty trance, Topper takes notice of his silence.
"Y/N's a great girl." Topper says as he stares out the window, hopeful that mentioning you would help get his mind off of the worst of things.
Rafe turns his head towards Topper for a couple of seconds before focusing back onto the road ahead of him.
"Yeah, she is." He says as he feels a smile return to his features again at the thought of you, specifically you in the last moments he had just seen you as you lay eager amongst your sheets for him.
"Have you asked her out yet?"
Rafes smile falters as he thinks, a couple of seconds too long, causing Topper to laugh.
"You haven't, have you?"
"What? Am I supposed to?" Rafe asks with a serious tone of voice and confused eyes.
Topper shifts his entire body towards Rafe in awe, struggling to hold back the urge to throw his head back in a fit of laughter. Rafes obliviousness, however, almost instantly lifts the intensity of the atmosphere.
"What?- are you serious right now, dude?"
"Dead serious."
"Have you like? At least hinted at her that you wanna be more than just...I don't know, say...friends with benefits?"
Rafe pauses as he tilts his head from side to side in uncertainty, "well, she told me she loved me and I told her that I loved her back. You're telling me that's not enough?"
Topper huffs a laugh before staring back outside the window at all the fast passing trees, "You know you actually gotta ask her out, right?"
"Im pretty sure we're together, Top. There's no need for all that."
"Bro, you might wanna clarify with her before assuming anything, who knows, she could be completely unaware and when that Jj dude comes swooping in again, she'll reconsider."

Rafe feels his hands subconsciously grip the steering wheel tighter, his knuckles slightly pale amongst the very few specks of dried blood he had missed earlier.
As annoying and anger inducing Toppers example was in using Jj's name, he was probably right.
Silence looms inside the car again as Rafe thinks,
both about whether you really would consider Jj and whether or not he, himself, had already popped the question but just doesn't recall, frustration starting to set in when he comes to no conclusion for either;
And suddenly, the excitement and relief he felt after finally earning the privilege to call you his, vanished.
Impatience setting in again as he taps his fingers against the leather of the steering wheel.

"-But hey, don't stress about it too much."
Rafe turns his head towards Topper, his face ridden with an unimpressed expression.
"I'm just saying," Topper says with a shrug, "oh! This is me here."
"I know where you live man, you don't need to point it out." Rafe says with a weak smile.
"Yeah I know that but... you were driving pretty fast just now, dude. Gotta get those thoughts under control before you hurt someone." Topper says as he leans into the passenger seat window from outside, "I mean, besides tonight." He adds cockily.
Rafe presses his lips together, feeling regret wash over him at the reminder, "yeah."
"Anyways. Drive safe, dude." Topper says with two taps of the car, signalling at Rafe to begin driving off, as he did.

Now that it was finally Rafes turn to head home, he sits lonesome in his dark car, the only company he has is the muffled radio voices as they occasionally play midnight oldies, music he grew familiar to and didn't really mind at all, regardless of their time.
It was the type of music he would often see Ward and Rose slow dancing to in the kitchen when he was a child, back when things weren't so hectic. The memory makes him feel warm inside as it takes him back to a better time, a time where he didn't have to fight for his place in the family and a time before his father started choosing Sarah.
It was always Sarah,
Rather than him; somebody who was always there but would go unnoticed instead.
Overlooked.

As he drives tiredly down a gravel infested road, his thoughts were cut short and his sad smile drops as he feels his pockets for his phone after feeling it buzzing against his thigh. He takes control of the entire car with just one hand on the wheel as his other digs desperately through his pockets before finally whipping out his sandy phone that read the name:
"Ward (dad)".

He holds the phone up to his ear with a singular hand as his elbow props his arm up from against the window, driving the car effortlessly with his other.
"Hello?"
"Rafe? Where the hell are you?"
"I was just out with Topper, dad, whats-"
"Don't bullshit me. I just got a visit from Shoupe."
"......."
"Well?"
"I didn't mean to hurt anybody, I was protecting two people at once and Kelce was-"
"Shoupe said the boy was damn near dead, Rafe, so don't you lie to me."
"I'm not lying to you, i just- I don't know what's wrong with me, somethings wrong with me and I don't know how to control it but I just-"
"Man up, Rafe. You're fine."
"But-"
"Just get home, now, before you fuck this entire family." Beep, beep, beep.

"Love you too, dad."