LITTLE SECRET | RAFE CAMERON

43: 𝘍𝘪𝘳𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘳𝘺

R A F E

He watched her as she looked at the starry night sky above them.

She sat between his bent legs, her back leaning against him and the back of her head against his collarbone.

Rafe liked having her so close to him - watching her while she was so lost in her thoughts - but as he looked at her like that, all he could think about was her confession from earlier.

Knowing that she loved him made him look at her through different eyes.

When it came to describing love, he lost the ability to speak. He had never really gotten attached to anyone and the girlfriends he had so far were fuck-worthy but never heart-worthy.

And Rafe knew that keeping someone by his side just to fuck that person wasn't love.

But he was never capable of more.

And yet the girl leaning against him somehow managed to touch the small bundle of feelings in the left side of his chest without doing much.

She had a way with him that made him forget that it wasn't usual for people to treat him like she did.

People like his family, for example

The family that fell apart when his mom died. His two sisters, his father and the nightmare of a stepmother he loathed in every way imaginable.

Nothing about the new life his father had built had anything to do with love.

This huge house they lived in now just to escape the memories of his mom. A stepmother on top of that - because his father's money could buy any love - as blonde as his mom was back then, but never even remotely as beautiful as she was.

The only true love in this new house was between Ward and his two daughters, but his only son was like the thorns of the roses, which he regularly gave to his new wife but never thought to place on his first wife's grave.

Rafe never deserved his father's love, left alone with the scar his mom's death had left across his heart.

A scar he hid because he was supposed to man up.

Maybe that scar was where the fear he felt when he looked at Alice came from. He was afraid that another love and the loss of it could scar his heart a little more.

A L I C E

She silently watched the vast sea and its raging waves as she thought about everything that had happened

What happened between her and Sarah.

What had happened between Rafe and her in the last few months.

What was happening inside her as she felt him lean his head against hers, his warmth closing around her.

„Rafe?" She finally broke trough the silence.

„Yeah, baby?"

„What are we gonna do now?" She asked honestly.

He didn't answer her, and yet she could tell by the way his voice cut off abruptly that he was thinking.

„I mean, Sarah knows, Kelce knows, even my mom knows about us" She explained her thoughts, pulling the sleeves of his hoodie over her hands.

Rafe sighed behind her and lifted his head from hers. „Kelce and Sarah weren't your fault and if my mom was still here I would've told her too"

The mere mention of his mother made her look at him in surprise.

Since she died, which happened a damn long time ago, they had never spoken about her again.

Alice would almost go so far as to say that he hasn't spoken to anyone about her since her death.

„Really?" She managed to say, all the other words that were floating in her mind got stuck in her throat.

He shrugged his shoulders. „I usually don't talk about my girlfriends, but I probably would with my mom"

Ward was definitely not father of the year.

Alice pondered before finding the courage to speak. „you've never talked to me about your mom before"

„You know I never talk about stuff like that" He let out a deep sigh. „she's been gone for so long and somehow everyone already processed it that I sometimes forget that she was actually here"

„Forget that she was actually here, are you kidding me?" His words made her brows furrow.

„You know how I mean that" He said in a thin voice.

„You telling me you forgot everything she did for us when we were kids?"

Rafe pulled his bottom lip between his teeth and looked at her silently as she turned fully to him.

„How she always went to the beach with us, baked or painted with us?"

It was as if he was looking right through her as she spoke. His silence showed her that he probably remembered all of this even better than she did.

„Or the day the photo you recently put on your bedside table was taken?" She said, at that moment winning back his eyes, which swung up to her.

She had noticed it earlier when they were lying in his bed.

A small white picture frame on his bedside table that hasn't been there before. Rafe wasn't the type to fill his room with all sorts of pictures - like she did - so of course the picture of him and his mother caught her attention pretty quickly.

It only showed him and her. No sisters, no father.

„Don't act tough, Rafe" She shook her head emphatically. „I don't know about your previous girlfriends, but I'm not just here for kissing. I'm here for everything"

A smile slowly fought its way back onto his lips, as he pulled her closer to him. „but especially for kissing, right?"

„You don't even hear what I'm telling you, do you?" She huffed sweetly and placed her hands on his chest.

„I do" Rafe made her straddle his lap. „and I also heard what you said earlier"

And that was the point at which he lost her again.

Alice knew he was talking about that damn love confession. And she meant every word she said, but she was still haunted by slight shame.

„I know what I said." She murmured irritably.

He let his hands wander to her cheeks with a chuckle. His fingers threaded into the hair around her ears, holding her as she looked at him in the dim streetlights of the nearby boardwalk.

„I feel the same, baby" He admitted quietly.

He didn't know anything about love, not in the slightest. What it involved, what it meant or what had to happen for love to really be love. But when their lips merged right after the words he said - the touch reaching his heart - he knew that she would teach him how to love properly, even if she was the first to try.

And hopefully the last one too.