THE SEA AND I ARE LONG TIME LOVERS

The North Carolina sun beats down on Rafe’s shoulders as he weaves through people entering and exiting the Norfolk International Airport. His red and black snapback is only just shielding his face from its harsh rays, but it’s better than nothing if the sweat sticking his clothes to his skin is any indication. Humid air only worsens the heat, thick against his nose as he tries to inhale. He should be used to the pressure, having experienced it for most of his life, but he’d gotten used to Connecticut winters where breathing feels easier.

There’s a flash of movement, and that’s all the warning Rafe gets, before he jerks to the right as a toddler suddenly swerves into his path—narrowly avoiding a collision between his knee and the kid’s face. The toddler remains entirely unaware, not even looking at Rafe before running off again, and Rafe has to bite down on his cheek to stop himself from glaring at the parents, who seem to be in too much of a rush to realize their child isn’t next to them.

At the sudden movement, Rafe’s luggage wobbles on its wheels, catching on a crack in the sidewalk and tipping onto its side, yanking his left wrist with it. A frustrated hiss forces itself through his teeth and Rafe stops on the sidewalk, fumbling with the handle for a moment before twisting his suitcase back onto its wheels with a bit more force than necessary. It’s awkward enough to be pulling the bag with his left hand and the heat is causing his palm to sweat—it’s causing all of him to sweat—making the process all the more aggravating.

His backpack—which was hanging off only his left shoulder—had been a pain in his ass since he stepped off the plane, inching its way down his t-shirt with every few steps and forcing him to stop walking every time to drag it back up. In his wrestling with his suitcase he failed to notice the way the strap was slipping off his shoulder until it had already slid down his bicep. The strap catches at the crook of his elbow, hanging on his arm as his backpack awkwardly swings underneath it.

Rafe has to take a breath, squeezing his eyes shut and exhaling harshly through his nose to ignore the strong urge he has to just hurl his backpack into the street.

He lets go of the handle of his luggage, bending his elbow upward to keep the bag from sliding off his arm. His hand drops down and he ignores the burning in his right shoulder as he attempts to pinch the backpack strap between his fingers, lifting and twisting his left arm in different directions to move the bag closer.

“Hey man, you need any help with that?”

Rafe turns to see a couple stopped a few feet to his right, still bent awkwardly as he’s finally able to pull his backpack back over his shoulder. The man looks around Rafe’s age—probably a few years older—and has a friendly expression on his face, a large duffel bag balanced against his side. His mouth starts moving again when they make eye contact, but the words fizzle out before they reach Rafe’s ears, unable to keep his attention as he notices the woman standing next to the guy and the obviously pitying smile she’s giving him.

“I’m good,” Rafe interrupts suddenly. “Thanks.”

The man’s eyes travel over Rafe’s bag and suitcase before he shares a brief, knowing glance with the woman next to him and Rafe feels a sizzling wave of heat rush through him that he knows isn’t entirely due to the humidity and hot sun. “You sure? ‘Cause it’s no—,”

“I got it.” The words come out sharper than Rafe intended, and he wasn’t even trying to be that polite in the first place. 

If the couple were going to push further, he doesn’t wait around for it, turning and walking away before he can see their reaction to his tone, his stupid rolling suitcase making noise the whole way and his stupid backpack already starting to fall off his arm again. He doesn’t necessarily feel bad for how he handled the situation, but Rafe still decides to blame it on the dull pain emanating from his right shoulder. Or maybe the buried anger that has been sizzling next to it since January. One of the two.

Once he’s far enough away from the couple—and closer to the line of cars and Ubers parked along the curb—Rafe stops again, letting go of the handle of his suitcase and fixing his backpack so that he can pull his phone from the pocket of his sweatpants. It unlocks a moment after he holds it to his face and he pointedly ignores the multiple text notifications from his dad and one from his sister, not bothering to read more than the few words his eyes catch as he swipes to his home screen. 

Rafe has to shift the phone in his grip, still unable to instinctively find an angle that gives his thumb the full range of motion it needs to reach all his app icons. Again, he feels that sizzling feeling under his skin. It takes a couple more taps of his thumb to pull up Topper’s contact and call it and then Rafe’s holding his phone to his ear, scanning the cars in front of him for the familiar sight of Topper’s black BMW.

The phone continues to ring in his ear, but there’s a sudden honk from down the row of cars. Rafe squints to see a familiar head of dark blond hair making its way out of the driver’s side with an attention-grabbing wave. He drops his phone back in his pocket after ending the call and grabs his suitcase again, picking up his pace slightly to reach his friend, who was already leaning against his open trunk.

“Hey,” Topper grins, no doubt amused by how much Rafe’s appearance has been affected by the heat. “Good flight?”

Rafe just shrugs before he can think better of it, his neutral expression quickly replaced with a wince as the movement aggravates his shoulder. He lets out another hiss as he relaxes it back into place, before clearing his throat. “Yeah.”

Topper just nods, pushing himself off the edge of the trunk as Rafe retracts the handle of his suitcase back down and finally takes his backpack off, leaving it sitting on the asphalt. For a moment, Topper almost looks like he’s reaching for Rafe’s luggage before seemingly thinking better of it, instead choosing to watch his friend with a wary expression as Rafe awkwardly lifts the suitcase with one hand and shoves it into the trunk of the BMW. 

Rafe takes a step back, almost stumbling over the backpack he forgot was there, and by the time he looks up again, Topper had already closed the trunk. He still doesn’t say anything, but he waits until Rafe’s fingers curl around the top handle of his backpack before he starts heading back to the driver’s side door.

A sigh of relief slips past Rafe’s lips when Topper turns on the car and the A/C starts blasting in his face. Some country song on Topper’s playlist also starts blasting through the car, but Topper turns it down quickly. In the time it had taken Rafe to put away his luggage, a few cars ahead of them had already driven off and, though he’d turned his blinker on, Topper still had to wait for the new line of cars that were driving around him to fill up the space.

The backpack in Rafe’s hand had moved to his lap when he sat down and, before tossing it into the backseat, he unzips the front pocket to grab a small Ziploc of painkillers. He thinks enough time has passed for him to take a second dose but, honestly, Rafe doesn’t really care if it hasn’t, and he cups two of the small pills into his palm. Next to him, Topper takes one hand off the wheel, halfway to gesturing at a plastic water bottle in the cup holder between them, but Rafe’s already tipping the pills into his open mouth before he can offer. 

Topper grimaces like he’s also experiencing the feeling of swallowing the medication dry, but again he chooses not to comment on it. The traffic next to them slows and Topper pulls away from the airport as Rafe shoves the Ziploc back in his bag and puts it in the backseat. Rafe shifts again to get comfortable, setting his hat down on his thigh before running his fingers through his damp hair.

“How much longer do you have to wear that for?” Topper asks once they’ve made it out of the pick-up lane, his eyes darting to the black sling keeping Rafe’s right arm bent against his chest.

Rafe sniffs, reaching forward with his left hand to angle one of the A/C fans more directly in front of his face. “Another week. Then I can start taking it off more and then I’ve got, like, 12 weeks of physical therapy and rehab.”

Topper cheeks puff out slightly as he lets out a low breath. “Shit, man. That sucks.”

This time Rafe is able to keep his shrug to one shoulder, feigning indifference as he keeps his eyes locked on the freeway in front of them. “It was my fault. Probably wouldn’t even have needed surgery if I had just let it finish healing the first time.” His tone is flat, sounding more like he’s reciting lines than having a conversation. And, in a way, he is—just parroting the words all his doctors had told him. The words his dad had told him.

“Still…” Topper spares him another glance before shaking his head slightly. “Fucking Maybank, man.”

Rafe’s jaw clenches. Yeah, fucking Maybank. It’s easy to blame JJ Maybank for everything that happened, and so Rafe does. It was his upcoming games against JJ that pushed Rafe to return to the ice before he was ready, and JJ’s dirty hit that worsened his AC joint injury and ultimately ended his season, and the fact that none of that would have even happened to begin with if Rafe hadn’t spent the whole year being compared to JJ and his all star breakout season. 

Deep down, Rafe knows that most of his problems started way before JJ Maybank, but, if anything, it only makes Rafe hate him more.

Topper’s music switches to a song Rafe recognizes—mainly from it being blasted in locker rooms and he’s pretty sure he’s actually heard it live at a concert Topper and Kelce dragged him to—and it’s almost enough to keep Rafe from noticing the single buzz of his phone that vibrates in his pocket. 

“You’ll be cleared to play by the time the season starts though, yeah?”

Rafe nods. “Should be. If everything goes right, I should be good by August to get back into weight training and everything.” He lets out a soft breath, relaxing against the seats of Topper’s car. “But my first physical therapy appointment is tomorrow, so I guess we’ll see.”

“You still need me to take you to it?” The question sounds genuine and Topper’s eyes haven’t wandered from the road and those are really the only things stopping Rafe from snapping. 

The complete helplessness that came with his injury is still an unfamiliar feeling. He can hardly do anything by himself anymore—like wash his hair, or change his shirt, or drive—and anything he can do can only be done with so much effort and struggle that he feels just as frustrated doing it as he would be if he hadn’t done it at all. Or, worse, Rafe doesn’t even get the chance to do it himself because someone else is already offering to do it for him with a sympathetic tone and that same look of pity like he’s someone to feel bad for.

Rafe keeps his eyes trained on Topper’s GPS, watching as the estimated distance switches from an hour and 49 minutes to an hour and 48. “I guess.” 

Topper hums in agreement, fingers tapping against the steering wheel to the beat of the music. “Kelce is flying in on Thursday,” he supplies after a moment.

“Yeah?” Rafe knows what Topper’s doing and he knows that Topper is just as aware, but no part of him wants to confront any of it, so instead he plays along.

“Yeah.” And then Topper rolls his eyes with an amused scoff. “And he’s probably gonna be fucking annoying when he gets here. He won’t shut up about this girl he met in California and he hasn’t even left yet.” 

Rafe lets out a soft snort. “What happened to Jennifer?”

“Dumped him after spring break. She’s with some soccer guy now–Which I only know because I had to be the one to stop Kelce from egging the soccer house.” Rafe wipes at his face to hide his smile as Topper continues. “But don’t worry,” he grins. “He’s found his future wife now. Sapphire’s the one, Rafe.”

“Sapphire?” Rafe’s brows raise in disbelief before he throws his head back against the headrest with a groan. 

Topper cackles. “Whatever you’re thinking, that’s exactly what she’s like.”

“How long has he even—?”

“Four days.” 

“Jesus fucking Christ.”

“So… Like… Is your sister coming back for the summer, do you think?”

“You’re an idiot.”

Rafe’s fingers shake against the pen in his hand. It sits awkwardly against his first two fingers and thumb, wobbling as he tries to fill in the small check box next to ‘Caucasian’. Just to keep the clipboard steady, he’s had to use his forearm to press it firmly against his thighs and hunch over until his back almost feels horizontal just to reach the paper. 

When he and Topper had first walked in for his physical therapy appointment and the woman at the front desk handed him a clipboard full of forms that he needed to fill out before seeing his PT, Rafe almost laughed in her face. Because, sure, make the guy with one functional arm and nondominant hand physically fill out paperwork. Once they sat down in the waiting room, Topper had cautiously offered to do it for him, but Rafe had quickly shot down the idea.

Currently his paperwork looks like it had been filled out by an actual second grader, but if the front desk woman wanted to be able to read any of his information, maybe she should have thought of that before she handed the guy with an AC joint injury a pen. Stupidly, Rafe thought that that would be the most annoying thing he’d have to go through in this beige, strangely lit waiting room, but obviously Topper had other plans.

“I’m just asking, dude!” Topper says defensively. He shifts in the stiff, scratched up, waiting room chair and looks away from Rafe uncomfortably. “‘Cause, like, she hasn’t really texted me or anything and… Well, you know, we—,”

“If you start talking to me about how you almost hooked up with my sister over spring break, I’m actually going to throw this clipboard at your head.”

Topper mutters something under his breath about how that’s “not very threatening coming from a guy with his arm in a sling”, but Rafe ignores it with a roll of his eyes, jerkily checking the ‘yes’ box next to the question ‘Do you drink alcohol?’.

When he goes to fill out the second part of the question—‘How much?’—he stops with a sigh. “Sarah’s in Cancún. Dad gifted her a ‘girls trip’ or some shit for her graduation, so she and her friends are staying there for the summer.”

Topper pouts. “Dude. Your dad’s such a cockblock—Ow! Okay, sorry!” Topper yelps when Rafe suddenly stabs him in the bicep with his pen. 

It garners them both a few looks from the other people in the waiting room, but Rafe doesn’t care and Topper is too busy trying to rub the smudge of pen ink out of his Polo to notice. 

Rafe’s in the middle of checking off if he’s ‘currently having any of the following symptoms’ when Topper speaks again. There’s a small wet patch on his shirt sleeve—surrounding the not-at-all-faded pen mark—that makes Rafe think that Topper had tried, unsuccessfully, to wash it away with his spit.

“I don’t remember you going anywhere after you graduated, though?”

“I didn’t.” Rafe sniffs. “Dad didn’t want any distractions with the draft coming up. Can’t really meet with teams and agents in Cancún.”

Topper nods in understanding, before shifting weirdly in his seat again and pulling out his phone from his back pocket. 

After finishing the last question on the page, Rafe begrudgingly sticks the pen between his lips in order to free his hand enough to flip to the next page. He pulls the pen from his mouth again, reading over the next question.

The words ‘Over the last 2 weeks, how often have you been bothered by the following problems (check one answer):’ stare back at him. He skims through the first couple problems quickly—haphazardly checking the ‘Not at all’ box for all of them—until one of them makes him stop suddenly, the ballpoint of his pen pressing just a bit too hard into the paper.

‘Feeling bad about yourself - or that you are a failure or have let yourself or your family down?’

The words almost mock him as he reads them over and over until his vision blurs. It’s only when the pressure from his pen becomes too much for the paper—the tip of it piercing a hole through the sheet—that Rafe snaps out of it. He checks the ‘Not at all’ box again.

It’s after watching his dad’s call go to voicemail for the fifth time since he got off the plane that Rafe decides that he should stop ignoring him and just get it over with. 

He’s sitting at Topper’s kitchen island, taking some slow sips of the leftover protein shake Topper had made for his workout. It’s taking Rafe longer than it usually does for him to finish it because Topper had put an unholy amount of protein powder into it before blending—to the point that the drink was borderline paste—and every sip left a tacky, filmy feeling in Rafe’s mouth.

Topper wasn’t even here anymore—after bringing Rafe back from his appointment, he went to the gym for his morning workout—so technically Rafe could dump the rest of the shake down the drain and he wouldn’t know, but Rafe’s never been one to waste a protein shake, regardless of how disgusting it is.

Thrown casually on the granite countertop in front of him is the stack of stretches and exercises Rafe’s physical therapist had assigned him during their appointment. Each sheet is filled with detailed instructions and a weird mix of cartoon and anatomical pictures showing him how to do each exercise. Rafe doesn’t know if his physical therapy office mostly works with kids or something because, along with the how-to guides, he was also gifted a paper chart of the week and a sheet of dinosaur stickers that could be used to track his progress in completing his daily exercises. Rafe had thrown it away before they even left the building.

He takes another sludgy sip of protein shake before finally grabbing his phone and tapping on the missed call notification from his father. After three rings, his dad picks up.

“You’ve been ignoring my calls.”

“I’ve been busy.” Rafe replies flatly. 

“Right.” And because Rafe knows that, ultimately, his dad doesn’t really care enough to argue with him, he moves on. “Did you go to your physical therapy appointment?”

“Yes.”

“What did they say?”

“Same as the last one. I need to wear my sling for the rest of the week and then 12 weeks of PT.” Rafe looks down at the papers in front of him. “But she gave me some exercises and said if I was careful I could start doing some of them now a few times a day and it might help shorten the recovery time.”

“And you’ve started doing them, right?”

Rafe rolls his eyes. “I got them today, Dad.”

“Don’t catch an attitude with me, Rafe, I’m the one helping you fix this. If you had just let your shoulder heal the first time, we wouldn’t be here.”

“You’re the one who told me to play the Boston College game!”

“No, I told you to play better than Maybank, which you had the whole season to do—,”

“I did play better than him and he fucking checked me from behind!” The bar stool Rafe had been sitting on squeaks against the European oak hardwood flooring of Topper’s kitchen as he stands up from the kitchen island in frustration.

His father lets out a condescending sigh. “I’m not going to keep having this argument with you, Rafe, just do your rehab exercises and go to your appointments and call me if anything changes.”

And then Rafe is met with the taunting beeps of the call disconnecting as his dad hangs up the phone.

He pulls the device away from his ear, looking down at the darkened screen. His jaw is so tense his teeth are grinding and his knuckles are white as he grips his phone. After a moment, Rafe tosses the phone back onto the kitchen island—where it lands screen side up with a forceful thump—and chugs the rest of Topper’s shitty protein shake. 

Globs of it still stick to the sides of the cup—globs of it still stick to his throat—and Rafe drops the dirty glass into Topper’s kitchen sink. If there’s any upsides to his injury, it’s that, at least, he can’t really wash dishes or clean things. The few weeks he was on his own before flying out to Topper’s beach house, he was living off of dining hall food and paper plates.

He grabs a Cool Blue Gatorade Zero from the fridge to get the protein shake taste out of his mouth. It takes a little bit of fiddling—he has to squeeze the bottle between his right elbow and chest to be able to hold it steady enough to twist the cap off—and then he’s downing half of it in large gulps, swishing it around his mouth to wash out any lingering protein powder.

Topper probably had another hour in his workout, at least, before he would be done at the gym and he gave Rafe free reign to do pretty much anything at the house to keep himself entertained. Taking another sip of Gatorade, Rafe makes his way to the Thornton’s cinema room—or, at least, that’s what Topper insisted everyone call it. On one of their trips to an away game, Topper had cornered Rafe on the plane and made him listen to all the HD, high-tech upgrade bullshit that Topper had added to make it the “peak cinematic experience”. Rafe let him go on about it for 45 minutes before he put his AirPods in and stopped listening—it took Topper another 45 minutes before he realized this.

Rafe reaches for the remote, lazily scrolling through the various streaming service icons, before settling on ESPN. Nothing that interesting is being played mid-morning on a Wednesday, mostly recaps of games that had already happened and, in Rafe’s opinion, washed up opinions from washed up former athletes who weren’t famous enough to be given more popular time slots.

He tries to relax back into a more comfortable position on the couch, but he can’t get settled, every position either pulling or pushing on his shoulder too much or making him contort his neck and back in uncomfortable ways. He lets out a few swear words under his breath before giving up on the whole thing and sitting up again.

ESPN quickly grows boring and, after one too many weirdass ads, Rafe exits the application. He somehow finds himself clicking into Topper’s YouTube account, mostly out of a somewhat morbid curiosity to see what kind of videos his friend has on his homepage. It’s almost exclusively college hockey and NHL highlights—with the exception of one ASMR hairdresser roleplay that Rafe makes the active choice not to question. 

He scrolls through a couple various hockey podcast episodes and opinion-pieces on player signings, but doesn’t make the commitment of actually clicking on any. Finally Rafe lets out a heavy sigh and stops pretending like he doesn’t already know what he’s going to watch, navigating to the YouTube search bar.

It’s a video he’s watched so many times, he probably has it memorized. Sometimes he would sit on his bed, pull it up on his phone, and just watch and rewatch it until his phone battery died. He doesn’t really know why he keeps doing it to himself, even the ASMR video would probably be better for him, but Rafe types in the exact title of the video he’s looking for and clicks on it without a second thought. 

The video opens on a wide shot that shows off the entire University of Connecticut ice rink. In the top left corner a small graphic highlights the score—4-3 in favor of Boston College—and the time—8 minutes left in the second period. One of BC’s players is in the penalty box and the camera cuts to him looking up at the jumbotron, counting down the seconds until the power play is over—42.  

The feed cuts back to game-play and the announcers’ voices fill the room though Topper’s surround sound, luxury speakers. 

“—UConn wins the face-off. Thornton gets possession of the puck and quickly passes it back to Cameron.”

“UConn is gonna have to be smart if they want to make the most of this power play, Boston College has one of the highest penalty kill percentages in the country. I mean, we’re almost a minute and a half into the power play and UConn still doesn’t even have a shot on goal. Boston’s good at defensive plays like this, even a man down, they’re not gonna make this an easy goal for UConn.”

“You know, normally, I’d be kind of surprised at UConn sending Rafe Cameron’s line out for this power play—He’s obviously a phenomenal forward, but his strengths this season have seemed to be in his defensive plays more than offense, you know? He can certainly keep puck possession, but it’s not like… You know, JJ Maybank, who can consistently get pucks into the net. But I don’t know what kind of locker room speech Coach Bront gave those guys because Cameron’s been on fire tonight.”

“There’s no doubt Cameron’s having a great night. I mean, he’s played a role in all of UConn’s goals tonight, scoring two of them and picking up an assist on the third. Honestly, we haven’t seen this level of play from him since his freshman season. But I wanna go back to what you said at the beginning of that, Dale, because I think I might have to disagree with you—,”

“Here we go…”

“—I just think his defensive play is… Cameron’s a big guy, he’s—he doesn’t get pushed around, you know, and he’s not afraid to—Well, let’s just say, he’s not afraid to get physical clearing the slot. I think UConn’s gonna need that against a team like Boston.”

“Yeah, but I wouldn’t say we’ve been seeing much of that from him this season. Aside from tonight, he’s been—Oh, a quick one-timer from Ivanov!—Blocked by Patterson! Boston can’t get to the puck and Thornton regains possession, he passes to Cameron. Cameron to Ivanov. Back to Cameron—,”

In the left corner of the screen, 15 seconds are left in the power play.

“—Cameron passes to Thorn—No! He fakes the pass and passes the puck to Adelsköld who’s at the blue line. He passes it back to Cameron. Cameron—Oh! Cameron takes a hard hit from Maybank!”

“Oh, I think Maybank might’ve—I think that might’ve been a check from behind.”

“Was it? I didn’t—Well, Cameron’s teammates certainly seem to think so. Thornton’s dropped his stick and has Maybank pinned against the glass right now—,”

“Looks like everyone’s getting involved in the extracurricular activities now. Yeah, the refs are coming to break it up.”

“Thornton definitely got a couple hits in—,”

“Cartwright, too.”

“—I think a lot of guys are gonna be getting penalties for this.”

“You think Maybank checked Cameron from behind?”

“I’m not sure, I think—I’m gonna wanna see the replay first, I’m not sure.”

“Cameron’s not getting up though.”

“No, he isn’t. He’s grabbing his shoulder and—Okay, some of UConn’s medical team are heading onto the ice now. This is Cameron’s first game back since a shoulder injury back in January, it looks like it’s the same shoulder—,”

The camera cuts to a slow motion replay. Rafe watches as his own body turns as he passes the puck to his teammate. To make the pass, his body had shifted to be facing the glass. The puck comes back to him, but the pass is a bit sloppy. The puck gets caught in his skates, Rafe looks down to get it back on his stick. And then JJ is crashing into him at full speed, Rafe never even saw him coming.

He watches—in painfully slow, HD clarity—how his head snaps back before he falls forcefully to the ice, his right shoulder taking almost all of the impact. The slow motion video is silent, but in his head, Rafe can still hear the agonizing sound of his shoulder blade pushing away from his collarbone.

“Oh, that’s—that’s definitely a check from behind. I’d be surprised if Maybank doesn’t get a major for this.”

“Yeah, that’s—it’s unfortunate, I think, because I don’t think Maybank was—Like, I don’t think he expected Cameron to turn around so suddenly, you know. From his perspective, it should’ve been a clean hit.”

“Yeah, I mean, he was doing all the things he was supposed to do. You’re on the penalty kill, the other guy has the puck, you should check him—but, obviously, this isn’t…”

“The refs have gone to review the footage. To me it looks pretty cut and dry, like, it looks like an accident definitely, but I don’t think it can be anything but a check from behind.”

“I mean, I’ll say the same, but then I always end up wrong about these things. It looks like Cameron still hasn’t been able to get up yet, some of the medical team is looking him over right now. I can’t lie, Dale, he looks like he’s in a lot of pain…”

“I think you’re right. This might be the end of the season for Rafe Cameron.”

The video ends then, YouTube already queuing up another video—‘Top 10 WORST College Hockey Injuries’. Rafe turns the TV off before the video can load.

Another night later, Rafe finds himself back at the Norfolk International Airport, though this time he’s on the other side of it. He and Topper are back in the pickup lane outside one of the terminals, though this time there aren’t nearly as many people surrounding them, the airport significantly less busy at 1:00 in the morning. Next to him, Topper is pinching the bridge of his nose, his phone pressed to his ear.

“Dude, just—Have you gotten your luggage from baggage claim yet? …No, I’m—I wanna go home, man.” Whatever Kelce says on the other end of the line makes Topper groan. “I’m not saying that, I get that it was the soonest flight—No, you don’t need to call Sapphire right now—…Because you just called her! You called her before you called me!”

Rafe quickly busies himself with his phone to hide his amused smile. Out of habit, he opens Instagram, figuring he’ll just watch silent Reels until his friends are done arguing on the phone.

“Fine! Then she can pick you up from the airport, if she’s so great—!”

The app loads, bringing a photodump Sarah had posted a few hours earlier to the top of his feed. Rafe scrolls through the carousel indifferently. The pictures aren’t anything unusual—Sarah and her friends in bikinis, girly looking drinks, artsy pictures of the beach. The second to last picture is a group photo of her and all her friends along with a couple guys that Rafe doesn’t recognize. Rafe almost swipes past it, until something makes him freeze. He brings the phone closer to his face to make sure—after a few failed attempts of trying to hold his phone and zoom in on the picture with the same hand—plenty of people look like that blond-headed dickhead, it probably isn’t…

He sends the post back to his sister with a demanding dm.

Rafe Cameron: Why tf are you hanging out with JJ Maybank

Only a second later, three typing dots appear and he watches them impatiently.

sarah 🌺🦋: omg, chill. he knows kiara

Rafe Cameron: That doesn’t answer my question

sarah 🌺🦋: 🙄

sarah 🌺🦋: he and his friends came to cancún too

sarah 🌺🦋: SEPARATELY!!! 

sarah 🌺🦋: and then kiara posted something on her story and he dmed her and realized we were all in the same place and they wanted to meet up  

Rafe’s tongue swipes across his teeth in annoyance, his thumb hovering above the keyboard as he contemplates leaving his sister on read.

sarah 🌺🦋: look i know you hate him or wtv but he does seem genuinely sorry about what happened

Rafe Cameron: You talked to him about me??

sarah 🌺🦋: i mean when he found out i was your sister he asked how you were doing and stuff

Rafe Cameron: What did you say?

sarah 🌺🦋: i said you were doing better

sarah 🌺🦋: not that i would know bc you’ve been ignoring all my texts

Rafe Cameron: Yeah cuz you go and immediately spread that shit to Maybank

sarah 🌺🦋: YOU DIDN’T EVEN KNOW THAT I KNEW HIM

Rafe looks up when Topper gets out of the car suddenly. When he turns his head to look out the passenger side window, Kelce is walking over the car, wheeling two, large suitcases behind him.

Rafe Cameron: Just don’t fucking talk to him about me

sarah 🌺🦋: i mean i wasn’t 🙄 but fine

sarah 🌺🦋: and answer my texts next time asshole

Rafe clicks his phone off just as Kelce makes his way into the backseat. A glance to the review mirror shows that he’s left Topper to deal with the task of fitting his two, over-packed suitcases into the trunk.

Kelce closes the car door before patting Rafe’s good shoulder excitedly. “Hey, man! How’s it goin’?”

“It’s been alright.” Kelce has taken the initiative of leaning forward until he’s resting against the center console so that Rafe doesn’t have to turn too much to look at him. “How was the flight?”

“Dude,” Kelce leans back with a groan. “You’d think a red-eye would be chill, but I got stuck next to a crying baby the whole time. Had to give my complimentary coffee to the mom ‘cause I felt bad.”

Rafe chuckles as Topper gets back into the driver’s seat. He turns to glare at his friend in the backseat.

“Gee, man, thanks for the help with your luggage!”

Kelce grins with a mock salute. “Always happy to help, Thornsy.”

Topper flips him off and starts the car. As soon as the center console screen turns on, Kelce is reaching forward to connect his phone to the car’s bluetooth. Topper tries to slap his hand away a couple times, before finally relenting—”Dude, I always get aux!”—and Kelce leans back into his seat as the beginning instrumental of some J. Cole song fills the car.

“So we throwing a massive rager tomorrow night, or what?” Kelce asks after a couple minutes of scrolling through all the less important notifications he missed while he was on his flight.

“Big time.” Topper’s eyes flick to the rearview mirror to look back at him. “Kyle said he’d bring all the alcohol if he can invite a bunch of people and Ruthie’s bringin’ all of her sorority friends.”

Rafe grimaces slightly at the name. 

Ruthie was Topper’s on-again-off-again situationship. They only ever hooked up in the summer—when they were both back in the Outer Banks—and then would completely cut contact as soon as the fall semester started. Rafe didn’t really see the appeal in Ruthie, to be honest. She was hot, sure, but she had the ability to overpower any social situation in a way that Rafe thought was exhausting.

Ruthie also got crazy jealous, getting in long, loud arguments with Topper if he so much as looked at another girl—not that Topper was totally innocent either, Ruthie wasn’t wrong in accusing him of flirting with other girls, just annoying—and that always resulted in her basically moving herself into the beach house to “keep an eye on him”. Rafe could barely handle her on a good day and, ever since his injury, he’d been having very few good days.

“Think you can keep up, Cameron?”

Kelce receives his second middle finger of the night. “Which one of us had to be carried home after two mojitos?”

“That was one time!”

“No, it definitely wasn’t.”

“Like you can talk, Topper—!”

The bass is pumping so loud it’s giving Rafe a headache as he navigates through Topper’s overcrowded house. It’s so loud, he can’t even hear what the song is, just loud, obnoxious buzzing he can feel all the way to his feet. Someone knocks into Rafe’s right shoulder as he moves past them, sending a searing pain through him so suddenly that he has to clamp down on his tongue to keep from shouting out in agony.

The guy doesn’t care, not even looking up from the girl that’s currently grinding on him long enough to notice what had happened. Rafe has to take a moment to let the worst of the pain pass, before he turns so that his back is facing the guy, shoving him hard as he makes room to keep walking out of Topper’s living room. Rafe can’t help but feel a twinge of satisfaction as he sees the guy stumble into the girl dancing on him.

The party had been raging on for a few hours now and showed no signs of stopping any time soon. Aside from the loud house music, he’s surrounded by the sounds of cheering from the beer pong table and somewhat distant screams and splashes from Topper’s pool outside. 

Rafe grits his teeth as he finally pushes past enough tightly packed college students to make it to the stairs. He’s still slightly buzzed from pregaming with the guys earlier, but it isn’t leaving him with the easy feeling it usually does. Instead he feels weirdly tired and sore, and his temples feel tight like it’s only a matter of time before he gets a killer migraine.

Topper and Kelce had left him ages ago. Topper to go “talk with”—have sex with—Ruthie and Kelce said he needed to go call Sapphire and then never came back. Rafe had entertained himself with a few sorority girls, but with the sling he wasn’t really in the mood to dance or go off somewhere to hook up and he and the girls all realized quickly that none of them had ever actually been interested in talking to each other. With drinking and girls removed from the equation, there wasn’t much left for him to do at a house party and he just wanted to go to bed and sleep this whole thing off. 

There’s a strong smell of weed coming from the closed door of one of the upstairs rooms that Rafe knows Topper is definitely going to complain about in the morning, but Rafe just walks past it, ignoring the weird noises coming from most of the upstairs room until he finally makes it into his own.

As he steps inside and closes the door, Rafe’s brows furrow. The main light in the room is on—which he’s pretty sure it wasn’t when he left earlier—and the door to his en suite bathroom is closed—which, again, it wasn’t when he left. Rafe moves to go open the bathroom door, but is met with resistance and the door handle only jiggles.

“One second!” A voice Rafe doesn’t recognize calls out from behind the closed door. “I’m just, um, getting sexy for you…”

Rafe lets his forehead hit the wood of the door with a soft thud—that he instantly regrets. He’s really not in the mood for this right now. He tries the door handle again before the door swings open suddenly and he’s met with a pair of frazzled eyes.

“Listen—Oh… You’re not Paul.”

“Who the fuck is Paul?”

Rafe isn’t really sure where to look first. The curtains and rod that were hanging over his small bathroom window and are now on the floor next to two mega packs of toilet paper stacked on top of each other like some kind of macgyvered step stool or you, the clear perpetrator. You somehow seem more confused than he is, eyes darting around his frame nervously.

“That’s not—What are you doing here?”

Rafe lets out a rude laugh. “It’s my room.”

Your eyes widen. “Oh.” And then suddenly they open even wider. “Oh. Listen, I think I messed here—,”  

Before you can finish explaining what exactly you’re doing in Rafe’s room, the bedroom door opens. The loud music and chatter that was slightly muffled from the door comes back full force as another person Rafe doesn’t recognize steps into his room.

The guy looks between the two of you with a dumb blink. He’s wearing a teal blue basketball jersey with the name and number ‘Hornets 15’ scrawled across his chest. Rafe’s sure that, if it were on anyone else, he wouldn’t have even really clocked the Kemba Walker jersey, but this guy is so sweaty that the fabric is practically fused to his chest. The guy’s whole body is flushed pink, his hair that must have been at one point styled now plastered in strands to his forehead.

“Paul…” You supply.

That’s Paul?

“Hey, what happened? I was waiting for you,” Paul steps farther into the room, much to Rafe’s annoyance. He sounds like that stupid turtle from Finding Nemo—which Rafe only knows because, for a couple of years in his adolescence, it was the only movie Wheezie would watch. He must have made a face or something because he catches Paul’s attention, who gives him a greeting nod. “You good, bud?”

At this point, Rafe thinks he’s genuinely going to lose it if he isn’t alone in his room taking his next dose of painkillers in the next five seconds. 

Nothing about this situation is making much sense to him because, while Paul’s gone back to looking at you, his eyes full of an obviously horny lust, you’ve moved slightly behind Rafe, like you’d rather be anywhere else. You meet Rafe’s eye suddenly and something flashes through them as you seem to try and communicate without speaking.

To really seal his fate, a small “Please?” passes your lips in a soft breath.

Rafe takes a breath, before turning back to Paul. “Yeah, bud, I’m good.”

He hesitates, his eyes glance back at you briefly to catch you staring at his bathroom window. Right. He lets out a strained sigh, tries to fight his oncoming migraine, and then says something he’s certain he’ll regret in the morning—not even, he’s regretting it now and he hasn’t even said it yet.

“Just trying to figure out why you’re talking to my girlfriend.”

There was nothing about the Mitchell estate that felt much like home to Bradley. Not the large rooms that all feel too wide and too empty, not the never-ending halls or intricately threaded bedding. Not the maids that scurried around him like field mice—the younger ones often giggling and whispering to each other if they passed him, always glancing in his direction—or the chef that had yet to learn how much Bradley detested blackberry jam. The whole house felt more like Bradley himself than a home, hollow. 

He said as much to his uncle Tom after their third night at the estate. They had now spent multiple evenings sitting uncomfortably between Pete and his wife during dinner, utensils clinking and conversation brief. He slept on too soft, cotton sheets, in a bedroom that felt much too empty yet much too small all at once. It’s over breakfast—imported cheeses and freshly sliced bread slathered in blackberry jam—that Bradley finally voices his concerns.

“Uncle?”

Tom Kazansky hums softly, hardly looking up from his book. Since they started their trek to the Mitchell estate, Bradley hadn’t felt much like talking and so his uncle had become accustomed to spending time with him in silence, and bringing something else of interest to pass the time.

Bradley hesitates. “Must I stay here?”

This causes Tom to look up, his eyes meeting Bradley’s with a gentle understanding and not a hint of surprise. There’s a spot of blackberry jam stuck at the corner of his mouth and he wipes it off with his handkerchief methodically before replying.

“It’s rather big, isn’t it?”

Bradley nods.

“You know,” Tom looks at his nephew thoughtfully, leaning back slightly in his chair. “It’s not all too different from your parents’ estate.”

“Yes, but—,” Bradley wants to argue that it is different. That, while the memories of his childhood home have somewhat dimmed with time, he knows that it didn’t feel like this. Like this all consuming loneliness. And the parts that do feel familiar are still devoid of homeliness. He can recognize some of the basic architecture but it’s not his mother’s garden or his father’s piano, just an empty replica. It’s like all the worst parts of the house he hasn’t dared to entire since his mother passed. It’s not too different from his parents’ estate, and yet it’s a foreign place haunted with ghosts. “Why can I not just keep staying with you?”

It’s a question that has been running through Bradley's head constantly. He’d escaped this fate the first time, though it had been little consolation at the time. His parents’ deaths were unexpected—his mother’s even more so—and, while it had always been understood that the responsibility of his care would next fall to his aunt and uncle, the suddenness of it meant that they were not the least bit ready. He would need all the things that a boy would need—a tutor most importantly—all of which the Mitchells did not yet have prepared. 

At the time, Tom Kazansky had just retired from his position as a military physician, an old leg injury flaring up to the point that it could not be ignored any longer. While not technically an uncle by blood, Tom Kazansky had been close to Bradley’s father for as long as he could remember, and it was he who tended to Bradley’s mother as she was succumbing to illness. To Bradley, Tom Kazansky was far more of an uncle to him than he ever considered Pete Mitchell to be. 

It had made enough sense to everyone at the time—Bradley did not wish to live with the Mitchells so suddenly, the Mitchells themselves weren’t ready either, and Tom Kazansky was not only educated enough to take on Bradley’s schooling but also in need of some practical help around the house with his limited mobility. And so Bradley went to live with Tom instead, spending years under his tutelage until his inevitable return to the Mitchells could no longer be avoided.

“Because, Bradley,” Tom lets out a soft sigh, not at all a stranger to this conversation. “There are things that you need to know that I am not in the position to teach you.”

“Like what?” Bradley challenges.

“Like…” Tom waves him off with his hand. “Like business things, high society things, I don’t know! Don’t question me so early in the morning!”

Bradley huffs, stuffing a piece of bread in his mouth in frustration, and only remembering a moment too late that it’s covered in blackberry jam. He grimaces, but chews and swallows it anyway. 

Tom softens at the sight of his nephew, letting out a breath before squeezing Bradley’s hand comfortingly. “I know it’s not the most ideal of circumstances, but I do think you’ll come to enjoy it in time.”

In response, Bradley huffs a soft breath of acceptance.

“Now.” Tom grabs his book again, seemingly uncaring of the jam staining his fingers as he grabs the pages with them. “Go out and explore, while you’re still young and spry, and leave this old man to his thoughts.”

After another slice of bread—with all the jam painstakingly scrapped off—Bradley takes his uncle’s advice. He dresses himself in the high quality pants, shoes, and jacket Pete had had tailored for him in preparation of his arrival, wraps a far too expensive scarf around his neck, and sets out into the quiet, cold morning.

He’s still growing accustomed to his aunt and uncle’s exorbitant wealth. He knows that his own parents were quite wealthy as well—and left all of it to him after their deaths—but his mother had always been more comfortable speaking the language of subtlety and much of his day-to-day life and belongings reflected that. Tom Kazansky was quite well off in his own right, but not nearly to the level of the Mitchells. Bradley supposes that it’s something he’ll have to get used to quickly, and one of these supposed reasons he has to live with the Mitchells in the first place. For, as soon as he is properly educated, he will be given the rest of his inheritance and be expected to continue his father’s businesses—for the time being, Pete Mitchell had been overseeing them—and this level of wealth will be the standard for him and his peers.

A seed of blackberry stuck between his teeth makes itself known by protruding itself into his gums—one of the many reasons Bradley hates blackberry jam in the first place—and he wrinkles his nose in disgust, pausing his walking to try to get it out with his tongue. As he stops, he looks around, truly taking in his surroundings for the first time since his walk began—not exactly the ‘exploring’ his uncle was urging.

He wouldn’t resolutely call it a forest, though there are many trees surrounding him, it’s not so far removed from society as he usually considers forests to be, he’d only been walking for a couple minutes. It still fills him with some sense of seclusion though. A few yards away, the trees clear out around a giant lake, completely frozen over from the winter weather. The morning air is still and the ceasing of his shoes crunching in the snow makes way for the soft sound of sniffled crying to cut through the silence.

It won’t be until many years later that Bradley finally admits to himself that the blackberry jam he’d always hated so much is the sole reason he’d met you in the way that he did.

“I see you’ve brought a wounded, little bird home.”

Though the statement is directed at Bradley, it’s the timid, shaking girl clinging to his arm that Tom is smiling kindly at.

It hadn’t taken Bradley much looking to find his uncle once the two of you had entered the house and currently all three of you were standing in one of the many downstairs rooms of the Mitchell estate.

“She fell and cut her hand open,” Bradley explains and you hesitantly hold out your scarf-wrapped hand as if to corroborate. “I was hoping that you would be able to help?”

“Of course.” Tom agrees in a gentle tone, he gestures to a soft looking chair. “Why don’t you sit down, darling, and let me take a look at it? Bradley, will you go upstairs and fetch my supplies?”

“Yes, Uncle.” Bradley gives you, what he hopes is, a reassuring smile.

Since you both stepped foot over the threshold of the house, you’ve looked downright petrified and certainly the cold weather and crying has caught up to you. He isn’t too worried about leaving you—albeit briefly. Tom Kazansky has always had a calming presence and, already, it seems that some of your fear has lessened. He drops your satchel near the chair and hurries out of the room to follow his uncle’s orders.

It doesn’t take him long to find his uncle’s medical bag and, by the time he returns, Tom has already unwrapped his scarf from your hand and began examining it. The splotches of blood are evident on the new scarf, even against the gray of the fabric, but Bradley hadn’t been that attached to it in the first place. He wonders briefly if Pete will be angry with him for ruining it, but he honestly finds little interest caring about that either.

After a short time, Tom looks up at you with another gentle smile. “Well, the good news is it doesn’t seem deep enough to require any stitching,” he assures you before he starts looking through his medical bag. “I think that a proper cleaning and bandage should do the trick.”

Both you and Bradley watch as he does just that with a refined precision he’d mastered from his years in the army. Throughout it all, he makes casual conversation with you.

“What’s your name, darling?”

When you murmur it out shyly, he looks up again, a flash of recognition in his eyes.

“Ah, you must be one of the Simpson girls, I presume?”

You seem surprised that he knows, nodding, and Bradley realizes with a sudden sheepishness that throughout this whole ordeal, he’d forgotten to ask your name or introduce himself. His uncle is already doing it for him though, kindly giving you both of their names as he finishes off the last bandage on your hand. 

You don’t react the way he’d come to expect from the people he’d met here, like he’s some mythological creature or a new, interesting fixture in this otherwise boring town. Instead you only meet his eye briefly before quickly looking back at his uncle with a shy, but more comfortable smile.

“It’s lovely to meet you.”

It takes Bradley exactly one day and half an afternoon to see you again.

After Tom tended to your hand—and you thanked him profusely for it—you left the Mitchell estate quickly. Bradley had offered to walk you home but you assured him that it wasn’t far and that you’d already taken up far too much of his morning. Bradley wanted to argue that, actually, you had been one of the most interesting mornings he’d had since he arrived, but it was kind of hard to relay that message to you when you were actively fleeing from the front gates. You were a surprisingly fast runner, which meant that you had left little time for him, and you, to realize that you’d forgotten your satchel before you were already gone.

It took a short and somewhat tense conversation with his uncle and aunt inquiring about your family, a handful of minutes getting lost in town, and far too much time than he will ever admit of confusing himself with different houses, before he is finally standing at your door with your bag and an embarrassed disposition.

“Hello?” A woman opens the door, eyeing him somewhat warily. She looks to be a few years older than him and is wearing an apron dusted in flour, that clings to the fabric the same way the beginnings of exhaustion cling to her features. She shares an apparent resemblance to you and his aunt Penny had informed him enough about your family for him to surmise that this must be your eldest sister Margo.

“Hello.” He starts to bow, before stopping himself, not quite sure, in the rules of society, if his gentlemanliness is more important than his social status or if it isn’t. This leaves him in an awkward, half-bent position and he straightens himself quickly. He lifts up the satchel in his hand “I believe I have something of your—,”

“Rosie, do not touch that, it’s still hot!” The woman—Margo, he corrects himself—whips her head back into the house suddenly, interrupting him with a shout and a stern expression.

“—Sister’s…” Bradley finishes, your bag swinging by his head from where he’s holding it.

There’s, what sounds to be, the whine of a child in response from inside the house, though he can’t quite make out any words from the doorstep. After a moment—and the distinct sounds of someone stomping away—Margo turns back to him with a strained smile.

“I’m sorry. What was it that you were saying?” Her eyes land on the satchel in his hand almost as soon as she finishes speaking, lighting up with recognition. “Oh, I see! Thank you, my sister has been looking everywhere for that.” She looks back into the house. “Just give me one moment, I’ll fetch her.”

The door closes before Bradley can even speak, leaving him to, again, stand awkwardly alone outside. It takes him longer than it should to realize that he’s still holding your bag up and he drops his arm quickly into a more relaxed position. He waits for enough time to sincerely consider if he should simply leave the bag at your doorstep before Margo opens the door again. This time, you’re standing next to her.

“I apologize for the wait.” Margo subtly pushes you in front of her, causing you to stumble. “It took me quite a few minutes to find her.”

Whatever had happened inside the house had left you sheepish and Margo slightly out of breath.

When Margo nudges you again, you clear your throat softly, before looking up at Bradley. “Thank you for returning my bag.”

Bradley can’t help but smile. “It was my pleasure.” He holds the satchel out for you, your fingers brushing his as you take it from him. “I would be remiss if I let an artist be without her tools for too long.”

You almost drop your bag at his words, a strained squeak coming out of your mouth in lieu of a response. Margo is barely concealing laughter from behind her hand. It takes a few more moments of stuttering before Bradley mercifully decides to take pity on you and reaches into his coat pocket to produce the second reason for his visit. 

“I was also hoping to formally invite your family to the Mitchells’ soirée tomorrow evening. I am having a, uh, belated introduction to the high society here and it would be an honor to have the Simpson family in attendance.”

Margo’s lips part in shock and she takes the invitation from him hastily, eyes widening when they land on the emblem on the wax seal. 

“Oh my—You’re—?” She stops, quickly composing herself before smiling at Bradley politely. “It would be our honor to attend, thank you for this gracious invitation.”

“Wonderful.” Bradley nods.

The three of you stand in silence.

“Well, then,” Bradley clears his throat. “I will—I will take my leave then… I will, uh, I will look forward to seeing you all tomorrow!” He, again, does his graceless half-bow that he fears may almost be becoming habitual and quickly walks away.

He’s beginning to think that his uncle may have a point when it comes to the importance of the new things he needs to learn.

If Tom Kazansky was not a distinguished doctor, Bradley thinks he would have tried to fake having a plague. The further along he gets into his introductory soirée, the more he’s considering trying to regardless of his uncle’s expertise. 

He’d spent the entire morning in Pete’s study, going through the monotonous ordeal of learning the names of different important figures in the upper class, and who to greet, and who not to greet, and how to greet them, and how to speak to them, and which fork to use for which meal, and when to dance, and when not to dance, and how to dance, and who to dance with. 

His uncle had been very clear about how important this evening—and Bradley’s behavior this evening—was, and the whole thing had left him with an ever looming sense of dread and an only half memorized list of expectations. He lets out a shaky breath as yet another person he doesn’t recognize enters the ballroom.

The beginning of the evening hadn’t gone terribly—but that was mostly because he didn’t have to do much of anything. Then he had his aunt and uncle to make introductions for him and prompt him in what he was supposed to do and say next. By this point in the evening, Pete had retreated into his study with some of the other men to talk about some kind of complication regarding an import—or export, or something equally hard for Bradley to understand—and Penny had stayed with him for as long as she could and now needed to go and properly greet and mingle with some of the women in attendance.

Tom had been with him briefly, but the cold, winter weather of the past few days had caused his knee injury to flair up and he retired early. Bradley is suddenly struck with the realization that his uncle might have also decided to fabricate an aliment to get out of having to attend the soirée.

But now Bradley was left to navigate this precarious, new world that he didn’t understand alone. Worse still, he thought that he’d be granted at least some reprieve once the Simpson family arrived—obviously they were all still strangers to him, but at the very least they were strangers he’s met before—but either they hadn’t yet arrived or they’ve already blended into his group of guests, because he has yet to have actually found them.

“Mr. Bradshaw, how lovely to meet you—!”

Bradley suppresses a sigh, plastering a polite smile on his face and turns to his guest, trying to remember all of the rules his uncle taught him.

The conversation is, unsurprisingly, dull, much like every conversation he’s had tonight. If it’s not gentlemen showering him in superfluous compliments and anecdotes he’s too young to remember, it’s young women batting their lashes at him in an obvious attempt to draw his interest, and if it’s not them, then it’s their mothers on their behalf—or worse, attempting to do the very same.

Bradley is finally granted the slight reprieve from conversation he so desperately craved when the orchestra started to play and couples started making their way over to the emptied floor—because this was when everyone is expected to dance as if it made any more sense than any other time in the evening—but the feeling was short lived once he remembered that this also meant that he was required to find a dance partner.

His eyes dart around the room tensely, searching for what, he’s not quite sure. They land on people who he only knows by name, and some that he’s already forgotten, and with every passing second his body fills more with dread. Around him, more and more people are finding dance partners, which is making his lack of doing so more and more obvious. Running out of options, Bradley decides that he must simply grit his teeth and ask the first woman he sees.

It’s then that he finally spots you.

As soon as he recognizes you, he’s hit with a rushing sense of relief. He doesn’t even get the chance to revel in it though, because the feeling is quickly overpowered so intensely by a different emotion—one that has him wishing that he could go back to his feelings of dread. 

The first time Bradley had met you, you had been slightly overshadowed by the fact that you were bleeding and that your face had become quite puffy from crying. The second time he had met you, you were too shy to even look at him for very long and he had gotten a better view of the top of your head than your face, as you had refused to look anywhere but your feet.

It was only now, his third time meeting you, that Bradley is struck very suddenly with the realization that you’re quite beautiful. 

His feet feel planted to the ground as he stares at you, eyes unable to stop drinking in your features. His hands feel clammy suddenly and, as he wipes them without thinking on his pants, he starts to lose his nerve to ask you to dance. Around him, he can tell that some of the other young women are beginning to realize that he has yet to find a dance partner and have already started to subtly circle him like vultures. It’s only a matter of time before he’ll be forced to face that problem.

Bradley rips his gaze away from you, before you fluster him further, shaking off his nerves and gathering his courage. When he lifts his head to look back at you, though, you aren’t there anymore.

Before he can find you again, a young woman is approaching him. He recognizes her physically and thinks he can remember her parents, but her name has completely slipped from his memory. 

She looks up at him with a coy smile. “Would you like to—?”

“I’m terribly sorry. I have to…” Bradley doesn’t even finish the thought before he’s racing out of the ballroom.

He knows he shouldn’t—that Pete had told him explicitly the importance of acclimating himself with all the high society people here. He will go back, Bradley assures himself. He won’t even be gone for very long. He just needs a few moments to gather himself, to collect his bearings. If anything, it should help his endeavors. He’ll be less likely to panic and do something he’s not supposed to once he returns.

Unsurprisingly, the more Bradley walks the long, quiet halls of the Mitchell estate, the less he wishes to return to the soirée.  

As he walks, Bradley is struck again with just how empty and hollow this house is. It all just feels so ridiculous, meaningless. All these things he’s supposed to do and not do, all these people he’s supposed to pretend to like and pretend he doesn’t know are doing the same. It’s only been a week and he’s already tired of it.

In front of him, light spills into the hall from an opened door and Bradley pauses. He was sure that the door to that study had been shut before guests had started to arrive at the house. Suddenly curious, he holds his breath. In the quiet of the hall he can’t hear anyone, but it doesn’t stop him from moving closer, his footsteps soft as he nears enough to peer into the room.

Almost immediately, he can see the person inside. She hasn’t noticed him yet, too immersed in the large map unfurled on the table in the center of the room. It had caught Bradley’s attention too, the first time he saw it. It’s big enough that you don't have to have to squint to read it, covered in detailed illustrations of mountains and rivers and drawn out routes for sea travel and trade. She’s bent over the table to look at it, her eyes full of awe, tracing different paths with a light fingertip. Bradley watches as her lips move to silently mouth the name of each country she passes with her finger.

As Bradley looks at her, he tries to place her in his mind amongst the other names he has memorized, sifting through all the new faces he’s seen tonight. There’s something familiar about her, something that pricks at something in the back of his brain, but nothing substantial springs to the forefront of his mind. He feels like he’s seen her before, and yet he equally feels like he hasn’t. 

There’s an air about her that almost makes her look like she’s wearing her dress haphazardly—which Bradley didn’t even know was something a woman could look like. Her hair seems to have, at one point, been pulled up into some kind of intricate style, but has now been taken out, falling just above her shoulders.

Curiosity once again getting the better of him, he clears his throat. “Excuse me.”

She lets out a loud yelp, nearly knocking over a stack of books as she whips around, clutching a hand to her heart. Upon laying eyes on what had so rudely startled her, she glares. “Do you always sneak up on people like that?”

Bradley fights the urge to smile. “Do you always sneak around houses that aren’t yours?”

She scoffs, crossing her arms defiantly. “That is hardly what I was doing.”

“No?” Bradley raises an amused brow. At this point in every conversation he’s had tonight, someone has said something superficial about him, or his parents, or his uncle. It feels almost like a soothing balm to have someone so openly seem annoyed by him.

“To sneak implies that I cared if someone caught me,” she lifts her chin up proudly. “And I hardly consider myself scared of the Mitchells. I’m not scared of anything.”

“I’m pretty sure I just scared you, did I not?”

Bradley lights up when she glares at him again. “Do you think you’re clever?”

Bradley shrugs playfully, leaning comfortably against the door frame and crossing his arms. “Only just.”

“What’s your name then?” And Bradley has to hide his surprise at the fact that she somehow doesn’t seem to know it yet. “Clever men can only have clever names,” she challenges.

“Bradley Bradshaw.” This time he can’t hold back his laugh when her eyes widen to saucers at his words. He grins cheekily. “And yours?”

“Oh…” She trails off, clearly embarrassed, seemingly not prepared to have her own question used against her. 

Bradley watches as she looks down, the inside of her cheek caught between her teeth as she thinks. She looks up at him suddenly, squints, shakes her head, and then goes back to thinking. Bradley’s grin grows at how oblivious she is to her own transparency.

He cocks his head teasingly. “You don’t know your own name?”

“Of course, I know my name!” She snaps at him. “Don’t be stupid, I just—Would you believe me if I told you my name is Archie Ringwald?”

Bradley snorts and then shakes his head with a chuckle. “You’re quite odd, do you know that?”

“Well, you’re quite boring. Has anyone ever told you that?” She bites back with another scoff.

Pushing himself off the door frame, Bradley enters into the room with the only person in this whole house who doesn’t seem to remotely care who he is. “I can’t say anyone has, Archie.”

“Funny.” She shoots him a dry look. “But perhaps they should because, currently, you’re the most boring thing in this room right now. So if you don’t mind…” There’s a dangerous smirk on her lips as she speaks and then she’s turning back to the map on the table.

Bradley lets out a laugh of disbelief. “You really aren’t scared of anything, are you?”

“That is what I said, isn’t it?” She scowls at him over her shoulder.

Bradley holds his hands up in mock surrender until she turns her attention back to the map. Truly, he thinks, she could not care less if he left right now—he honestly thinks she’d prefer it. Bradley can’t help but be enticed by how casually indifferent she is to him.

“You know,” he takes a step closer to her. “He keeps all his best maps in there.” Bradley gestures towards one of the large cabinets with his head.

He watches as she pauses, body frozen as it’s hunched over the table, the debate between ignoring him or letting him lure her into conversation evident on her face.

“Fine.” She decides. “I suppose you can stay if you know where all your uncle’s things are…” And then her eyes light up wickedly. “You don’t happen to know where his liquor is too, do you?”

In that moment, Bradley decides he likes this “Archie Ringwald” very much.