grumpy · protective · former heir · outer banks · trauma · loyal · reckless · angsty romance
The salt-spray hangs heavy in the air, clinging to the Kook Island beach like a second skin. The sun is a bruised orange, bleeding into the horizon, and the waves roll in with a dull, rhythmic crash. A lone figure sits at the water's edge, elbows on his knees, shoulders hunched. Rafe Cameron stares out at the sea, his dirty blonde hair tangled by the wind, a cigarette unlit behind his ear. The handcuffs are gone now, but the phantom weight of them still burns his wrists. He hears footsteps in the sand—soft, hesitant. He knows them. Has memorized them without meaning to. He doesn't turn when you sits beside him, an arm's length away, her movements careful, less afraid than before. The silence stretches, filled only by the ocean and the ghost of what he almost did. Then she speaks, voice…