Country Club Living - Rafe Cameron

Epilogue

It was a warm night on the Outer Banks. The kind of warm that feels like a hug, not too stifling but welcoming. The lights twinkled outside of the Kildare Country Club. It was the first time Ivy had been back here in 4 years.

After the night Rafe didn't show up, she did exactly as he asked. Blocked all contact with him and distanced herself from Sarah so as to not hear anything about him, she asked her mother not to mention him and rarely came back to Kildare and if she did she stayed far away from the Cameron house and only for a few days over the holidays before leaving abruptly and saying that she was too busy with her studies, which technically wasn't a lie.

 She excelled in her classes with little distraction and soon became enamoured with her degree, receiving her acceptance to further study at Harvard Law and even scoring an internship with a top law firm with the promise of a permanent position if she played her cards right. Ivy lived an almost peaceful existence, she got a job working in a coffee shop on campus and if her schedule allowed it she would spend her free time with Lina, Jamie and Carmen. However, she longed for her former self sometimes, she reminisced about partying on the mainland with friends and nights spent in the chateau with the pogues. But with those memories came the sadness of missing Rafe and the awful thoughts of the night on the docks. She had recently taken up therapy in an attempt to work through her feelings, but there was only so much a therapist could do when she wasn't telling the whole story.

During her first thanksgiving break at her uncle Isiah's, Elijah had slipped up about Rafe being arrested a few months back. Alexis quickly shut the conversation down and nothing else was mentioned. Ivy didn't ask, she didn't want to know. Her heart yearned to know more, to find out when and if that was the reason that he didn't show up at her door that night, but she knew that her heart may not have been able to take it regardless of the answer. That was the last she heard about it, Sarah said nothing and she took this as a sign that she wasn't supposed to know. Over the course of the next few years, however, Sarah had mentioned Rafe in passing so Ivy knew he wasn't in jail. That was fine. 'I couldn't care less' is what she often told herself.

Now 4 years later she stood outside the country club, she hadn't dared to chance coming when she had been back in case she saw Rafe, but something was pulling her toward it on this occasion. She had returned to her mother's for the summer and instead of staying in like she usually would while her mother worked at the diner which had since become very successful, she felt like a drink and before she knew it she was ordering a cab to the club.

Being outside the sign she watched the rich families she had grown up around inside socialising, talking business and laughing. She smoothed down her black dress and tucked her curls behind her ears, holding her breath as though she were going underwater. Inside the AC was cool and there was the faint sound of a piano coming out from the patio area. And that's when she saw him.

Hunched over the bar on his own sat Rafe, he looked older and tired, his hair now cut into a short buzz with a slight stubble on his face. He was dressed in a pale pink shirt with the top button undone and the sleeves rolled up to reveal his muscular forearms, he looked like he had bulked up over the past few years. He looked like a man and not the mischievous teenager Ivy once knew.

She felt sick and knew this was a bad idea, she was about to turn on her heeled foot and run all the way home when she spotted a familiar face that almost made her do a double take.

"Ivy!" Wheezie exclaimed, her face beaming

"Hi Wheezie" Ivy smiled awkwardly

"When did you get home? We're having dinner soon you should join us! Oh please Ivy, Sarah will be so excited, does she know you're back?" the girl clapped.