Golden Hearts | Rafe Cameron [1]

13

13

Rafe and I walk past the crowd, his arm still around my waist. Nathan and Sarah are right behind us, and I can just imagine how mad Nathan is right now. He probably won't be happy at any point during this evening. It's a shame he has to be so mad at such a fun party, even though I agree with him. I don't want it to be me and Rafe either.

Rafe stops when he reaches a group of guys, some of whom are Topper and Kelce.

"Hey, Rafe," one of them says, then looks at me and him. "So, you guys official now?"

"Dating," Rafe corrects.

"Oh, congrats, bro. You've really done it!" he says and does some weird handshake with Rafe, causing him to let go of me, and I finally feel a bit free. But it doesn't last long before Rafe puts his arm around me again, and Topper walks away with Sarah. I meet Kelce's gaze, and he looks a bit concerned about us, as if he can see that we actually hate each other.

"Congrats," he says, then starts some boring conversation with Rafe.

"I'm going to my friends," I say and remove Rafe's arm. He doesn't seem to react much, so I leave them and walk away to see if I can find any of my friends among the crowds. Sarah is with Topper so I won't go to them. I don't want to know what they're doing right now.

I'm about to hurry past some people when I accidentally bump into someone. When I look up, I realize it's JJ, whom I've managed to run into once again. Why do I always seem to encounter Pogues wherever I go? Especially him.

"Oops, sorry," JJ says, scratching his head."

"It's okay, my fault," I say and am about to leave when his other friends, John B and the third one whose name I can't remember, come up to us.

"Hey, why are you talking to her?" John B asks, looking between us. "Are you trying to steal Rafe's girl?" Oh god, even the Pogues know about this now. I guess the whole island has found out that we're dating now, even though everything's fake actually.

"No, we're just talking," I say and immediately start to question myself. Why did I say that? We weren't talking at all.

"How are you, Adeline? I mean, you're living your best life while dating Rafe Cameron. What do you see in him that's so special?" John B says.

"You guys wouldn't believe," I say with a bit of irony in my voice, but they seem to interpret it differently and are about to comment when the person I least wanted to meet right now comes up to us.

"What the hell are you guys doing with her?!" Kiara says loudly to her friends. She has really changed since the time I was friends with her. It feels so awful to look back on the times when we were best friends. Those were better times.

"Take it easy, we're just talking," JJ says to Kiara, who is clearly angry that they're talking to me, and I don't even know why I'm still standing here. I should just leave. Maybe find Sarah or someone else.

"You shouldn't talk to us. You have no right to—" Kiara starts but stops abruptly when she looks at something behind me.

"Do we have a problem here?" I hear a voice behind me that I know all too well, and I feel two strong arms holding me from behind. Does he have to do that all the time? He knows very well that I hate it, and it just makes him love it more, and I really hate it.

"No, everything's fine here," JJ suddenly says, a little nervous.

"That's good. I think you should let my... uh... Adeline be in peace here now," says Rafe.

John B gives him an irritated look before walking away with Pope, but JJ and Kiara are still standing there.

"You're so disgusting, Adeline. Just look at you. How you've changed and now... Now you're dating him.
I never would have believed it," she says, and she sounds almost a bit sad.

"Don't call her disgusting," JJ says, surprising Kiara, who looks at JJ in amazement.

"What do you mean? Are you suddenly on her side?! Everything is hopeless here. Absolutely everything!!" she says loudly.

"Come on, let's go," Rafe says, letting go of me and starting to walk away. I'm not sure if I should follow him, but I don't want to stay here with angry Kiara and JJ. So I smile a bit stiffly at JJ, which he responds to with a smile before walking away with Kiara. I'm surprised at myself. Not only am I hanging out with Rafe right now, but I've also encountered JJ several times now. I even smiled at him. Not that there's anything wrong with smiling, it's just something I don't usually do.

Rafe continues a bit further until we reach a place where there aren't as many people, and I start to wonder why we came here. Isn't Rafe usually the one who wants to party hard and drink a lot? Well, I do too, but I just don't feel like it today too like the last party. Especially when everything that's happening right now.

Rafe sits down on a bench, and I'm unsure of what to do, but I can't just walk away, so I sit down beside him. What have I done with my life? Here I am, alone with Rafe Cameron. I never would have imagined it.

"I hate this so much," Rafe says, putting his face on his hands before running his hands over his face and looking out towards the sea.

"You're not alone about that," I say, sighing heavily.

"No, I'm very well aware," Rafe says, meeting my gaze. There's something in his eyes that says something special. Just like the time he kissed me. But I can't quite put my finger on what it is, and that's what annoys me so much. Rafe doesn't break eye contact and continues to look into my eyes. "

"One thing I'll be completely honest about is that you're really hot even though I hate you".

"Well, well, you seem a bit drunk," I say and can't help but smile. He can't have meant that seriously.

"The thing is, I haven't drank so much today" Rafe says and laughs a little.

"Really? Why not?" I ask, a little surprised that he hasn't had anything to drink either.

"Just didn't feel like it," he says and shrugs. "I can't believe I'm sitting here having a conversation with you right now."

"No, I can't either," I say, leaning back against the slightly broken bench. We sit in silence for a while, looking out at the sea. It's dark outside now, but there's some light from the bonfire a bit further away, but it's quite nice here where there aren't as many people. Parties can easily get too noisy.

"This summer is going to be long," I say, watching the waves rolling back and forth along the shore.

"Yeah, with you, it will be long," Rafe says, crossing his arms.

In this moment, I wish it could always be like this between us. Calm. That we could just sit in peace without hating each other. It would have been so much easier to date then. But now we still happen to hate each other, and there's nothing we can do about it. I guess this was just an exception. Tomorrow we'll hate each other as usual again.