Archive of Our Own

Mia is used to not getting attached to anything and anyone, she’s a champion in that, because getting attached means giving others the power to hurt her and she doesn’t want to. 

She would like to say that nothing can hurt her by now, but she would lie: she’s a target for feelings, she has always been, so shutting everything out it’s easier. It requires a lot of strength at first, but she fights to not let anything go through her and into her daily life, made of habits and hard work, so it’s easier in the end: mostly she’s the one hurting herself, instead of the others, but that is quite alright. 

Every relationship in her life in the past five years has been no string attached, whether they were hooks up or friendships, they would have been temporary, just to please, fill time and be done before anyone could get too involved. Her life isn’t the one she planned at fifteen or sixteen and, even though she says out loud it’s because she doesn’t want others to be dragged into her chaos, what she thinks is that she doesn’t want to get used to people she might lose for a reason or another. 

Rafe Cameron getting dressed in the back of her expensive shop it’s a nice compromise: he’s still the boy with nothing to worry about that he was in school, someone that knows how to keep secrets to himself because he doesn’t trust almost anyone and a wish to keep his status of free man. He says it helps with women, because they usually think they might be the right ones. He laughs every time he tells her that and she thinks that probably he’s right: he’s wanted, because he’s good looking but also naturally charming, but the way he runs from anything serious turned him into a man to dream of. A treasure to put more than eyes over. He has kept running, anyway, not really trying to stop for everyone asking for his attention: Mia has been an exception just because she says she doesn’t give a shit about settling down with a man, that she has priorities at the moment and the last thing she wants is for anyone to crash her family balance. Mostly a man. She has her life of responsibilities and habits and she lets him simply fit in her spare time, or when they want to. When it started, he had been clear about not expecting him to take part of her life out of their affair and she was quite thrilled about agreeing. 

“So, tonight there’s a party” he starts, already knowing the answer. She’s swinging her naked legs as she sits on a worktable, tools on one side to make space and her thighs that have been ripped off and discarded somewhere. He closes the zip, when he looks up and smiles at her expression that is asking if he’s serious. “It was worth a try”

“Have fun” she tells him, watching his hands pushing his hair back from the forehead and letting out a low laugh. When he decides he has everything in his place, checks if his phone is in the pocket of his trousers and if he looks decent on the nearest mirror, he walks up to Mia. His hand slips under the hem of her dress, feeling the goosebumps from the coldness over her skin and against his warm hands. “But don’t do anything stupid" 

He looks down when she says that, because she always does, she always gives him the speech: he may be a free bird still enjoying life and they might try to keep their lives separated, but he has been in bad troubles and she doesn’t want to see him there again. They grew up together and she was younger when it happened, but she remembers him losing control over himself years prior. Mia’s hands stop him from rising the length of her legs. 

"You know I won’t” he mutters, before leaning against her lips and stealing any answer she might have ready for him. She almost surrenders when he pushes her head back by kissing her jaw, but as her grip around his hands loosens, he pulls himself away anyway. She doesn’t let the disappointment in her stomach show on her face. “I have to go before my dad starts calling to ask where I am”

“Surprised he doesn’t know that already” she whispers, when he gives her a gentle squeeze of her thighs and watches him making a face. 

“You’ll kill me, if I’ll let him find out” Rafe mutters and that’s true. Not literally, but she has been really careful with the secrecy of their affair for many reasons. When Rafe’s blue eyes land on Mia’s amber one, he can’t help but notice the frown on her face and space out expression painted over her features. “My mouth is shut. Promise" 

This catches her attention back at him, standing between her open legs. She blinks and without a doubt she knows he can trust Rafe with that. "I know”

“Good” he gets away from her, this time for real and leaves her watching him walking away, towards the back door. He smiles at her and nods at her thoughtful eyes behind a new fringe. “I don’t know if I can make it tomorrow, I have a work lunch, but see you on Saturday, right?" 

"Saturday?” Mia asks with urgency, observing him already opening the back door of her office and glancing at her after he heard her tone. He stops, narrowing his eyes and keeping the exit open with his foot. 

“Seriously? We talked about it, like, two days ago” he tells her, trying to figure out if she’s being serious. When Rafe notices Mia’s lost expression, he sighs. “It’s Wheezie’s birthday. You told me you would have come. You even made her dress”

Something lights up in the back of her head and Rafe tries to not tell her she’s too distracted, because he knows she has a lot on her mind to actually scold her for a forgotten birthday party. She nods vigorously, when he decides he wouldn’t have been able to do half of the things she did in the past years and she’s one of the best people he has ever known. 

“I just lost track of what day it is today, sorry” he nods to her words and she does back, frantically, looking like she’s trying to convince him, when she’s actually the one she is trying to convince after all. “See you there, no problem" 

"Sarah is coming” Rafe tells her, voice without any particular inclination, but telling her like it’s something she should know. “Probably we won’t have the chance to even talk with her monopolizing you, so-" 

"It’s fine” Mia assures. “Lucas will be there too, so it’s better if we don’t-" 

Phrases hanging between the two of them, they nod to each other because they don’t need to finish them to understand what they were about to say. All they need it’s a moment of stall to make sure no one of them is gonna add something else, before nodding or waving goodbye. 

Once Rafe disappears, Mia stays quiet and sits on the table for the following ten minutes, thinking about a lot of things, all at the same time. Rafe doesn’t cross her mind for the rest of the minutes, because all she can think of is to pay the electricity bill waiting for her on the furniture near the entrance for the past four days, to schedule the appointment with the social services that she has been postponed for a week now, go pick Lucas from school in two hours hoping he didn’t fight with anyone and see when she can go buy groceries because the fridge is begging to get stocked as fast as she can. This made her realize she doesn’t have a clue about what they are gonna eat tonight, which is a problem and that is solved when Mia contemplates calling for a pizza and gets away with it. She thinks of Rafe then for a second and swears under her breath: losing track of the time, she completely forgot to buy a present for Wheezie. She groans, thinking that lack of time is a pain in the ass for someone maniacal like her, a people pleaser that wants to always say and do the right thing. Which means taking her time to choose a nice present. 

When her two employees get back from their lunch break, she runs away with a bag full of unfinished orders, asking them to take care of the close that afternoon and promising to work from home for the rest of the day: she thinks, she can fit both a little grocery shopping for surviving for at least two days and the buying of Wheezie’s birthday presents, before picking up Lucas from school. 

Sometimes, she wishes to just lie down and take a long nap. 

M ia is not gonna say she remembers when Wheezie was born, because she was too young, but she can definitely remember the younger running around as child, their three -almost four- years of difference and Mia always being up for letting the little Cameron crash Sarah and her plans to play games as children. They never protested too much about it, maybe just growing up and turning into annoying teenagers, who didn’t want their plans to buy makeup and gossip about stupid boys ruined. Thinking of it now, watching Wheezie swinging in a colourful room full of balloons and lights for her eighteen birthday party, Mia thinks she’s been the stupid one: before her teenage years finished with an abrupt end, she never gave the right weight to things and people and, for most of the people around her now, it’s just too late to hope for that kind of attention. Wheezie isn’t one of them, of course she’s not, like no one of the Camerons is: they have been in the picture for too long to not be already on the very short list of people Mia cares about. She knows things can get complicated with what Rafe and her are doing, but she thought that if she cared already about him there was very little she couldn’t do to worry about him: she relies on him keeping feelings in check and, until no one finds out, they’ll be alright. 

Leaving Wheezie dancing with some friends on the dance floor, with a drink in her hand, Mia looks around. She almost coughs, as she sips her champagne and notices Rafe talking to her brother near the bar, trying to figure out what they might have to say to each other and when was the last time she saw them interact. All that comes into her mind it’s that her fourteen years old brother didn’t stop complaining about him going to the party and mostly about him talking shit about Rafe: he could easily let Sarah and Wheezie have the best of him, as he thinks they aren’t that bad , but when it comes to Rafe Mia thinks it’s really a lost cause. As she walks towards them in her turtleneck and dress, she frowns when the older of the two sees her and sighs in relief, almost like he’s watching a miracle happening in front of him. Lucas, next to Rafe, is still talking, without even noticing her approaching. 

"What’s going on here?” she asks above the music, already getting ready for the worst. She looks between one and another, as her brother finally sees her and shuts his mouth. 

Rafe glances at Lucas, curly hair falling around his face, as his head bends down in a way that tells his sister he’s guilty. About what, she can guess. It’s the oldest answer. 

“Nothing. Just an exchange of opinions” Rafe lies and gives Mia a glance that says enough already, when she makes an apologetic face.

“Sorry about whatever he said” she tells Rafe and he shakes his head, but Mia is already watching her younger brother. “I’ve already said to not-" 

He shakes his head and sighs, desperation dropping down his breath, but showing also on his face when their similar eyes meet. "You say a lot of things”

Mia watches him walking away as she offended him and it’s an involuntary instinct, the one in which she squeezes her jaw to let everything slip past her. Take a breath and don’t let the venom go under her skin, because it’s been going on like that for months now and she doesn’t know how much shit she’s gonna handle and for how long. Did she act like a total bitch when she was fourteen? It feels like a lifetime ago, but she’s sure she didn’t, even though, as she thinks of it, she knows her teenage years haven’t been like Lucas’s. Not even a bit. She had everything, now he has just a sister who’s barely able to look out for the two of them. 

“It’s just a phase” Rafe says to Mia, when their eyes meet again and he can see the hurt behind hers. “I’ve been there" 

"I’m sorry about whatever he said” she tells him with a serious voice and face, as she leaves her glass on the counter behind him. She knows what Lucas might have been told to Rafe, because he considers the oldest Cameron everything he hates the most: a classist asshole, with little to lose and a really low consideration of hard work and hard workers. A lot of time Mia reminds her brother that he lives in a two floor mansion in Figure Eight, has always cash in his wallet because she makes sure he never goes out without it and that he never had one day of work in his life. Sure, he’s fourteen and she doesn’t expect him to go to work, but she knows Rafe better than Lucas does. He’s been through a lot and she won’t let her ten years younger brother talk shit to or about him. “But stay out of it, Rafe”

The older man doesn’t say anything but just looks at her with a seriousness that matches hers, leaning on the surface behind him with an elbow and the light blue shirt that moves at his every movement. He simply blinks, before talking, when she asks for a refill to the bartender. “Believe me, the last thing I want is to mind your business. But we’re still friends and I was being a decent one" 

She sighs, feeling like he’s talking to a child. He’s literally the only one who does it, probably because she has turned into a grown-up woman without anyone daring to consider her anything but an adult since she was seventeen, almost eighteen. Except for Rafe, who always liked challenges since he was a kid and drove like crazy in the Outer Banks streets with his bike, or him letting drugs almost take his life away more than once when he was younger. Lucas, on the other hand, never questioned her being the adult of the pair, but usually he likes to question her being his only left parent. 

"Sorry” she admits to Rafe, grabbing her refilled the glass and giving the boy an apologetic smile. He shrugs and she’s sure he would say something, if it wouldn’t for someone catching his attention. Mia guesses who might be, when he narrows his eyes and shifts uncomfortably: though, he doesn’t leave his spot and stands still and tall near Mia, not bothered by his sister catching her friend and him having a conversation. Sarah’s arm wraps around Mia’s shoulders a moment later and it’s an instant exchange between her and the older Cameron, before she turns towards the last arrived. Technically, they have already met, but Sarah has been caught in a dance of greetings from her relatives and Mia muttered to her that they would have caught up later. Apparently, later has arrived. 

“Is Rafe bothering you?” she asks first, giving a glance to one and another. Mia notices John B Routlege waving shyly at her, when Mia’s eyes slip from Sarah to her boyfriend, a nice boy living down The Cut, the less lucky side of the island, and who works for Ward Cameron. They have been a thing for years now, to Rafe’s annoyance. When Mia waves back at the boy, who looks like he would like to be anywhere else, and focuses on Sarah again, she shakes her head.

“No, I’m sure I just saved him from one of my brother’s speeches about classism and maybe something about capitalism too?” she mutters, pretending it’s nothing, when it actually starts to get on her nerves. But her blonde friend, who goes to college and goes back to a loving family and an ever more loving boyfriend every time she can, doesn’t know that. “He literally asked me for the new playstation last week" 

Rafe laughs quietly, but if Sarah notices, she doesn’t let it show. Instead, she smiles at Mia. "You look good" 

It takes the other a moment to actually answer, because it’s been five years and some people still treat her like her mom’s just passed away the month prior. Though, coming from Sarah, she can feel the honesty of her words, not some said like an apology to what happened to Lucas and her. 

"Thanks” she mutters with a smile and sipping from the glass. “You too. Did you bleach your hair? I like it”

It is not much later that someone else asks for Sarah’s attention again, this time Rose asks her stepdaughter to talk to some old couple looking forward to greeting Sarah, the favorite child. The young Cameron apologizes to Mia, telling her she will stay longer in the Outer Banks so they might catch up, if they wouldn’t be able to talk again at the party, and the other nods. Left alone, John B tries to make conversation with Mia, as Rafe still plays to be a statue who barely shifts from time to time, and the two of them start a very interesting exchange: at least, until Sarah calls John B to introduce him to the couple she’s talking with. He gives Mia a look that quietly asks her for help, when she cracks a smile and mutters an apology. He sighs, before disappearing. 

“Nice conversation you had there” she says to Rafe, once alone and he just lifts an eyebrow at her. His annoyance for her sister’s choice in life -about boyfriends, at least- is not a private topic. Actually, it is quite public knowledge: when they were younger -Rafe two years older- his lot and John B’s one had more than a fight, letting bad blood drip between a group and another. “My ears hurt from how much you talked, really, can you shut up for a moment?" 

He smiles, it’s a soft one. A rare one, Mia would add. "Want to have a nice conversation? Just me and you in the bathroom? Your ears will be in pain" 

She knows what he’s talking about, as her cheeks start to burn up: he’s talking about a quickie while their families are a couple of feet away and, as much as tempting it is, she makes a face and shakes her head. "Too risky" 

Rafe sighs, snatching her glass and finishing what’s left of her drink, which is very little of champagne. He doesn’t drink much since he has been back from darker places when he was around his twenties and all he did was drink alcohol and sniff coke. "Fine. I’ll go have a cigarette then, I’m getting bored" 

He walks away from her after that, just to be caught by Wheezie while approaching the exit and already looking for his pack of cigarettes into the pocket of his trousers. A slower song starts and a moment later he finds himself giving his little sister a dance, talking to her and laughing at something the younger says. Mia watches their swing at the rhythm of the song and remembers all the time Rafe and Sarah fought as kids, giving in to each other nerves, but for Wheezie he would have stolen the moon. 

"S o, how’re things going?” Sarah asks as her voice sounds relaxed like the calming smile spreading on her face. Mia shrugs meaning like usual , but she’s not sure about what to say, what she should tell her childhood friend or what to keep to herself. She does not want pity and even though she would trust Sarah with her whole heart, she spills just enough to not feel like she’s lying. 

“Fine, maybe just a bit tired” she tells her friend, sitting at a coffee shop with two empty plates that once were filled with a sandwich and a salad in front of them. She doesn’t tell anything about Lucas’ fights at school, or that he wants to be transferred to the Kildare High School down The Cut because all his friends go there, or that she has been thinking about moving. Not out of the island, but into a smaller house that she will be able to manage better and that won’t cost them more than what they really use. “The usual" 

"Is Lucas giving you troubles?” Sarah asks and she’s frowning, showing concerns. “I talked to him at the party the other day, he seemed a bit off. Is he okay?" 

"Yeah, just-” Mia shrugs again and maybe she doesn’t know what else to do. “He’s in the worst age, he’s making friends out of our circle and he’s just a lot to handle like every fourteen years old. But I’ll make it" 

"I would like to say I can help you, but I’ll leave soon” Sarah tells. “And I also remember Wheezie’s fourteen. She could have held the grudge to me for a whole week without having any clue about what to do or what I did for deserving radio silence" 

"We’ve all been there” Mia agrees, but she is conscious that both she and Sarah know that for Lucas it’s different from any of them, growing up without any parents since their mom’s accident when he was nine. Their dad has never been in the picture since Lucas’ was born and Mia remembers pieces of him. The Camerons grew up most of the time with a father and a sometimes questionable stepmother, at least. 

“Yeah. Do you remember Rafe’s?” Sarah asks and she laughs, when her company does the same. “I would have slapped him every time we asked him to let us play with him and he closed his door in our face. Or when he found us going through his porn magazines. Gross" 

Mia laughs again, genuinely, but then she finds herself more concerned about the opinion Sarah might have of her if she’d known about Rafe and her, than the fact that her brother might watch porn. Surely he doesn’t own magazines, because there’s something like ten years difference between him and Rafe and today people simply Google things. And also because she regularly checks his room when social services come over.

"People like him, you know” Mia tells Sarah and explains herself, when her friends make a questioning face to her. “Your brother. People don’t think he’s gross, I’ve seen girls and boys shamelessly flirting with him, he has literally everyone wrapped around his fingers”

“Still gross” Sarah mutters, before eyeing her and looking at Mia like she’s studying her. For a moment, the other thinks he screwed up. “Don’t you think he’s gross?" 

Mia’s mouth opens and close, looking for something consistent to say without selling herself away and without sounding dumb. She decides to be fair and honest. 

"He’s hot, Sarah. Literally, anyone would see that” she confesses, but she tries to keep her voice relaxed and cool, even when Sarah frowns doubtfully. “But I remember his porn magazines and that time he cut badly his hair to make Rose pay for something she said about him and I had to give him a buzzcut, because he had planned on staying in his room until it would have grown back" 

"I remember. He tried to not cry and the moment you told him you can cry, it’s really shitty hair , he exploded and didn’t stopped until my dad came home” as Sarah says those last words there’s bitterness in her voice, which shows that despite what they say to each other, every fight and argument between them, she cares about Rafe. Both Sarah and Mia heard many times Ward tell his son to man up and that crying was from frightened girls. 

“He gave me his old Pokémon card collection that time” she confesses to Sarah, ignoring the discomfort in her stomach thinking about Rafe growing up. “As a thank you. He said he didn’t play with them anymore" 

"What?” the blonde girl’s head snaps and her mouth open in confusion and surprise. “I’ve been asking him for years and always refused because they are a collection, what’s the purpose of having them if I don’t collect them . I’m quoting. And probably half of the time I asked, you had them” she frowns more. “Why didn’t you tell me?" 

Mia shrugs apologetic, she even attempts a smile. "He asked me to not" 

"What an asshole” Sarah mutters in the end, thoughtful, but then giving an offended glance to Mia as well. “Both of you" 

A waitress approaches their table asking them if they want something else and, as Sarah refuses with a sudden warm and gentle smile, Mia orders a coffee, mind already back to her boutique and the work waiting for her. She never considered following her mom’s career, sure, she taught her daughter how to create pieces of art with one piece of fabric, but Mia never meant to end up working at the boutique, doing clothes for some rich people: faith brought her owning half of the place, working her ass off to actually keep her mother’s name an high brand and try to get as close as possible to her mother talent. She knows she doesn’t have half of it, but does her best as duty and because, she’s gonna be honest, it still pays the bills and the house, the lunch she just had and Lucas’ playstation or comics. 

"Speaking of my brother-” Sarah starts calling Mia back from her thoughts. “Are you-are you seeing someone?”

The other frowns, shifting in her seat like she has been caught guilty. “What does it have to do with Rafe?" 

"He’s a boy” Sarah casually says, like it has a logic behind it and, after a moment of confusion for Mia’s reaction, she smiles. “Unless you have something to say about you swinging the other way" 

"Oh. No, nothing to confess” Mia takes a little breath of relief, that she hopes to not be too visible and smiles. “But no, I’m not seeing anyone" 

"You should get back in the game, after Mark-” Sarah stops, almost afraid she talked too much, but Mia doesn’t show any emotion about the name of the boyfriend she had when her mom died and she had to start over for Lucas. The first person she cut her relationship with was her two years long boyfriend, saying he was distracting her from what mattered, which was Lucas and Lucas only. Sarah never said she thought Mia needed something nice too after all the bitterness, but she never told it to her friends because, really, Mia never seemed to suffer from the break up and maybe it had to go that way. “Have you seen anyone after him?”

Your brother has been the longest person I slept with, it’s been more than a year and half of great sex she thinks watching Sarah waiting. But Mia shakes her head, knowing that Sarah won’t like the truth and that surely she might want to know about someone serious in her life. “No. Just casual from time to time. But I don’t go out much anymore, I don’t have time" 

Sarah seems about to tell something, maybe that she should get herself in the game again, but then she reconsiders it, probably because she gets that until she’ll have Lucas to watch out and take care of, she won’t be able to have a social life. She can’t remember the last time she has been to a party and the last person she hooked up with, excluding Rafe, was a tourist that she met last summer while in line to order her coffee during a break from work. He invited her to have something to drink with him and she accepted just because Lucas was surfing with his friends, or she couldn’t have accepted the coffee and the fuck in the man’s hotel room. The day after, Rafe said it was really dangerous to go to some strangers rooms without being sure of their intentions and, weirdly, she agreed. Thinking of it, the man’s behaviour has been very eager to get to know her under the sheets, between a flirt and another: she gave herself of the stupid for not being a bit more careful and her mind rushed at Lucas and the fact that she has turned into his only relative. When he saw Mia’s concerned face, Rafe told her to not think too much about it since she had been lucky and to be careful for the next time. Clothes off, she temporarily forgot about the man of the coffee. 

"Just don’t shut people out” Sarah tells Mia with clear concern in her voice. “They might be helpful" 

"I’m doing fine” the other assures and cracks a smile. “Don’t turn this lunch into a therapy appointment about me”

“I didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable" 

"You didn’t" 

"It’s just that I love you” Sarah insists and bends towards the table, to grab Mia’s hand lying over the surface. “You’re my bestfriend and my sister, it’s just my duty to worry about you as much as I worry about Wheezie. Or Rafe. Just because I’m not here-" 

"I know, Sarah” Mia turns her hands in a way that their palms are touching. She squeezes her friend’s one and smiles at the blonde girl in front of her. “What’s going on with you? How’s college?" 

Sarah’s lips purses, painting a thoughtful expression before answering and then grinning at Mia like there’s a joke. The other just doesn’t think she quite caught it and looks lost, as she has no clue about what’s going on. 

"Can I say something to you?” at first, Mia blinks, but after metabolizing Sarah’s excitement she nods, realizing she has to answer her friend’s question. “Promise you won’t tell anyone. I mean no one , Mia. You promise?" 

"Yeah, sure” the brunette mutters, feeling Sarah’s excitement growing in her confusion. “Promise" 

"It’s about John B” she anticipates, clearly not having anything to say about college. She’s almost done, so she’s probably going through getting her exams done. “Unless he brought it for someone else, but I don’t think so, I found a ring in his room the other day”

Mia blinks, paradoxically even more confused than before, probably because her mind would like to not understand. “What?" 

"I think he’s gonna ask me to marry him" 

T he appointments with the social services are always a nightmare. Not because Mia has anything to hide or she’s doing something wrong in taking care of Lucas, but because she’s an anxious person by nature. She gets stressed, even when she knows everything is under control and when it’s been five years of planned appointments to make sure Lucas has everything he needs.

It usually starts with her brother’s designated social assistant, Cheryl, that wants to talk with the boy, so Mia walks around the kitchen and glances to the living room almost maniacally, knowing they might go to see Lucas’ room before the social worker would get back down the ground floor and meet his sister for a quick chat. 

The time with Mia it’s always shorter, but she never really taught herself to keep her heart calm and see if time might look shorter, if she’d just stop stressing over every breath the assistant takes. It’s like going through the same pain again, again and again. 

When finally Cheryl stands from the couch in the living room, she doesn’t ask the boy to go upstairs and give her a tour around, which in Mia’s mind sounds like a good thing. She has already been there, to Lucas nerd room full of comics, Playstation games and toys to collect and that her sister keeps buying him, like her mother never refused to do, because that’s what he likes. Nerd stuff. When Cheryl says to Lucas that she’s going to talk to his sister, Mia repeats it’s good: she doesn’t need to check the boy’s room again because she knows there’s nothing weird in it, nothing to report. Like locks on the outside, which Mia thought was just something people do in movies, but she’s not sure anymore. 

When Cheryl enters the kitchen, Mia pretends to not know she is done with Lucas and attempts a smile at the older woman’s gentle look. She even asks if she wants something to drink, knowing the other will decline as usual. 

When she sits at the table in her formal tailleur, Mia follows her example. 

"How are things going?” Cheryl asks straight away, but with some tact. “How do you think things are going with Lucas?" 

Mia smiles and, again, like she did with Sarah, she shrugs. "Fine. No particularly news" 

"What about school?” Cheryl asks again and Mia knows it’s a tricky question, because something on the woman’s face says she knows already. Probably Lucas told her. 

“He’s-” Mia stops, trying to formulate a sentence with the right words, without giving a bad picture of the whole situation. It’s difficult, considering her brother got three days of detention for a fight with a schoolmate just two weeks prior. “He’s having some trouble with his behaviour lately, but I’ve already talked with him and grounded him. He got involved into a fight with an older guy at school and I don’t want it to happen again, to turn into a habit" 

Cheryl nods not impressed by the news, so maybe Mia wasn’t wrong after all about suspecting that the social worker might already know. "Why do you think he acts like that?" 

"Because he’s a fourteen years old boy going through his teenage years, without parents to look up to?” it comes out like a question and Mia notices Cheryl glancing to her hands fidgeting on the surface of the table, so she nonchalantly hides them under it. “It’s a phase. It just happens to be more difficult for him, I guess. Right?" 

The woman nods. "He said you want to take your mom’s place. Do you?”

Mia blinks, almost feeling like Lucas just sold her away, with what she can imagine being an angry tone he shows off lately and the conviction that she’s trying to substitute their dead mother. 

“Did he say that?” Mia asks and Cheryl nods slowly. “I’m not trying to replace my mother in the sense that I want to be like her. I wouldn’t even try, she was… Unique. As a mom, as a person. But, at the end of the day, I have to be the parental figure right? That’s why you’re here talking to me, because we don’t have anyone and I’m the older, so I’m the one to take the responsibility to be seen as the bad parent. That’s what it is. He has to deal with it”

“He knows why you’re doing it” Cheryl assures and when she says so, Mia can’t stop looking at her and figuring out if she’s been sincere. “He recognizes your figure as the parental one, don’t think he doesn’t”

“He keeps telling me I’m not her anyway, trying to hurt me” and as Mia confesses it, she feels like she might cry. “It’s his answer for everything lately. It’s like he knows it will hurt me, so he says it every chance he has" 

"You told it yourself” the social worker whispers and bends her head down, when Mia avoids her eyes. They lock them, eventually. “He’s fourteen and went through a loss. You’re doing your best now to see the results when he’ll grow up and he’ll become the men you thought him to be" 

"It’s just a hell of a job” Mia confesses, without adding she’s supposed to be in college, going to parties and actually have a good time whenever she would like to go back home to her brother and her still alive mother. She doesn’t add that being anyone’s mother isn’t her job, because it’s a very selfish thing to say. “He wants to change schools. He wants to go to Kildare High" 

"Because of his friends” Cheryl nods. “He told me, it might help him”

“Yeah, I’m thinking of it” Mia nods back and when glances up from her hands, the woman is waiting for a further explanation why she doesn’t look convinced. “The Academy in Figure Eight it’s closer to my workplace and our house, it’s logistically more comfortable. And it might help him with college if he would like to go" 

"His grades will get low anyway, if he’s in a place where he doesn’t want to be” Cheryl tells Mia. “A good school doesn’t make good grades”

“Yeah, I know” the younger whispers back, pursing her lips hearing what the assistant has right to say. “I’ll just have to see what I can do. I’d still work on this side of the island and I know it’s not far away, but… I don’t know. I’m figuring it out. Really" 

"Speaking of work” Cheryl starts and before she can keep talking, Mia is already answering that she will send her the monthly financial documents of the boutique, to prove she’s stable enough to cover for everything Lucas might need. 

When the social assistant asks if she’s seeing someone regularly -a question she taught to not take personally- she almost thinks that Cheryl might know something about her lying, when she shakes her head and insists that there’s no one. She doesn’t want questions about her romantic or sexual life if she has been careful to keep it separated from her family dynamics. 

Rafe and Lucas are two parallel lines that forcefully meet just at rare friendly events, like Wheezie’s birthday party. Then they go their separate ways. 

R afe’s hand is playing with Mia’s hair for at least the past ten minutes, giving it a touch, or playing with it around his fingers. Sometimes he stops, but it doesn’t last long and, when Mia looks up at him, he looks like he’s thinking about something else. She has been thinking about asking if he was okay a couple of times already, but because her breath was still short and frantic, she decided to wait. She glances now to the ceiling of her room as well and, if he sees something in it, she has no clue about what it could be. 

After ten minutes of long painful silence, in which the girl would like to say something, or do something, she stops lying with her back on the mattress and turns. She feels her short hair bouncing at her back, before falling from her naked shoulders when she leans on her elbows inside the space between his torso and his open arm. Some of her locks stay tangled to his fingers, when she turns on the bed to look at him. 

“You okay?” she finally asks, the same moment Rafe realizes her movement and the fact that their faces are a couple of inches apart now. Blinking, he pushes her hair behind her ear and distractedly adjusts the fringe on her forehead. As he does so, he finds himself thinking she had one when she was little. 

“Yeah. Fine” he mutters, before slipping his hand from her hair and down her shoulders. When he finds them naked and uncovered, he pulls the sheets up to cover her skin and she takes his gesture like an invitation to get comfortable. She leans more against his chest, but stays on her elbow to look at him, not really convinced about what he’s saying. He looks somewhere else. 

“You don’t look fine” she tells him, observing him and frowning. “Did something happen?" 

"No” it’s a lie and Mia knows it, Rafe can barely keep eye contact when he’s lying and gives himself away so easily. When he realizes she’s sceptical, he bends over her mouth to kiss Mia’s lips. She pulls away. “Come on”

“Don’t do that ” she says back to him. “You always do that”

“Do what?” he asks playing dumb and blinking. “I don’t do shit" 

"Yes, you do” Mia insists and narrows her eyes when he tries to kiss her again, pushing her open hand on his mouth before he can try again. He laughs quietly, because he knows what he does. He always kisses her, hoping to get away with whatever she doesn’t like and Mia doesn’t like to say it, but she falls for it almost every time. She rolls back on her shoulders and face at the ceiling, this time. “Kissing me to avoid to talk" 

"There’s nothing to talk about” he assures her, maybe even underlining a point of their deal, following her in the middle of the mattress and laying under her chin. Despite everything, when he covers her naked chest again, she wraps her arms around his shoulders. “Except the fact that you told Sarah about my Pokémon card collection. It was a secret" 

She sighs, imagining she should have known that her friend would have gone to refer everything to her brother. "Did she tell you?" 

"Did you tell her?” he asks back, sarcasm in his voice. “It had to stay between me and you. That was personal" 

"I thought ten years were enough for me to keep a secret of that kind” she tells him, shrugging a bit and leaning with her cheek against his head. “And didn’t think it was that personal. Definitely less than me kissing you at Kelce Smith’s fifteen birthday party" 

"That-” Rafe says and he’s not laughing like she expected him to, which kind of scares her. “That was a bold move considering I was two years older. One year and I could have been in troubles" 

"We already talked about it” Mia sighs, pretending amusement, but his seriousness holds her back. “ I kissed you , because Sarah thought that the strawberry Martini was good. It tasted terrible, by the way, but I drank it because I thought it was cool”

“You throw up in my car” he mutters and then sighs, Mia feels like they’re done, because Rafe’s breath is heavy and still not amused. “I remember" 

Silence falls on them, so peaceful and light like a caress that Mia even closes her eyes and can picture Rafe doing the same behind her closed eyelids. She can relax because she knows the house will be empty until the day after, which means Rafe’s presence there is safe and not questioned. Sometimes they do that, slipping in Mia’s room when her brother is not at home and, if she doesn’t think about the details, she could almost feel like the teenager she had to leave abruptly behind. That day, Lucas is at his friend Mike’s house, where Mia drove him and talked to the boy’s parents like she always does, thanking them for their generosity. She always adds that they might come over sometime, Mike and Lucas’s other friend, Brad, but her brother never really lets them: the truth is that, probably, the boy doesn’t want them to see where he lives, all the things he owns and that, half of the times he talks about political issues like he knows what he’s talking about, like capitalism, his shelves fill with first hand comics and the collection unopened toys scream how hypocrite he may look. 

The peace is broken when a phone rings briefly, announcing probably a text. Mia knows isn’t hers because she has a different sound and also because Rafe is leaving her uncovered by his body to see who might look for him. He starts searching for the phone on her nightstand, under his discarded t-shirt, but he finds it in the pocket of his jeans lying on the floor. He sits on the edge of the mattress, sheets left behind for Mia to cover herself as she lies back on the bed and watches the muscles of his back flinch as he types probably an answer. 

The girl stretches her arm to touch his shoulders in the same moment in which he looks at her behind him. He scans her naked body, partially covered by the sheet, when his face paints in something that Mia feels uncomfortable to describe as sadness. 

"I have to go” he tells her in a soft whisper, but doesn’t attempt to move. Instead, he stays still, as he keeps looking at Mia. 

She gets up from the mattress, leaning her body weight on her elbows. “I was asking you if you wanted to stay for the night. We could have ordered something and overslept and-" 

"Not today” Rafe mutters, shaking his head and finally taking a breath to push himself off the bed and away from Mia, her warmth, her broken eyes that are now looking at him almost like she had plans . For them. And he just destroyed them. “I have a dinner at home and, believe, I’d like to skip-" 

"Useless for me to insist and ask you to really skip?” Mia attempts, sitting on the centre of the mattress to watch Rafe getting dressed. 

He nods. “Really. I can’t stay" 

"Alright” Mia mutters, before silence falls again between them. This time isn’t peaceful, because she’s sitting in the middle of the mattress, feeling sudden cold and hearing the sound of Rafe’s clothes as he keeps dressing himself piece after piece. When she talks again, the boy stops what he’s doing, t-shirt in hand and the jeans still open, and looks expectantly at her. “Can I ask you something before you leave?”

He frowns in confusion, maybe even nervousness from Mia’s serious face. “I guess. Why not" 

"Promise you won’t tell anyone. This is kissing at Kelce’s party kind of secret, not the Pokémon collection one, Rafe” she tells him, almost like a warning and the boy automatically sits next to her, legs out of the mattress and torso turned towards her. He notices her hands fidgeting with the floral sheet she should cover herself with. “I need advice from a competent person and we’re friends. We keep each other secrets, the important ones, right?" 

"What’s going on, Mia” he simply asks, because she’s just buying time asking him questions that she already knows the answer to. 

“Can you-can you give me an estimate of my house?” she asks and when she does so, he honestly doesn’t know what to think because it’s a weird question and he expected literally anything, except that. “You do that at work, right? You give a price, you buy, restore, sell. Your family lives off that. Can you help me figure something out?" 

Rafe’s confused expression is the one she expected. "What are you talking about?”

“Maybe I want to sell the house, I’m not sure yet” she explains, faking nonchalance. “Thought you might help me with that" 

"Sell the house?” Rafe asks and his expression is even more confused, as he observes if Mia is being real. She is, apparently, and he lets out a nervous laugh. “What do you mean by selling the house ? Where are you going?” a breath like it’s costing him everything. “ Why ?" 

"It means exactly what you think it means, Rafe. Give it to someone else and have money for it, so I can buy another one” she tells him, almost impatiently. She still thinks that Rafe was the right person to ask, if she wanted to avoid Ward and explain it to him, but the expression on his face is annoying her. She tries to not hold it against Rafe. “Lucas is giving me some issues to think about and-" 

"What’s going on with him now?” Rafe asks and his tone is almost bored as he says so. Mia is not used to bringing Rafe into her business with her brother, that’s unspoken but real, except now that the older boy looks expectantly. “He asked you that? For going where?" 

"No, he doesn’t know” Mia explains, ignoring how his voice cracks when he asks her where she’s planning on moving. “I don’t even know if he will agree with it, with the house issues. But has been on my back from a while about me asking to transfer him to Kildare High" 

"Okay, so?” Rafe lifts an eyebrow. “Questionable choice, but Kildare High is less than ten minutes from here. This place isn’t exactly a metropolis. What’s the problem?”

“He has his friends there, he literally spends all his time with them in that side of the island-" 

Rafe’s expression suddenly enlightens, finally getting exactly where Mia is going with all her questions and what she’s thinking of doing. He stands abruptly from the mattress, letting her alone in a too big bed and not even watching his t-shirt falling on the floor. "You want to move to The Cut?”

“No, I-” Mia sighs, recognizing the judgment in his face and voice. “Maybe. I don’t know”

“The fucking Cut? Really?” he asks again. “Tell me you’re kidding" 

"It’s a possibility” she tells, crossing her arms over her naked chest, on the defensive from Rafe’s eyes. When she sees him simply looking at her like she just told him a blasphemy, she masks her discomfort by slipping out of the bed as well and starting to get busy. “You know what? Forget and leave" 

"Don’t fucking dismiss me like that” Rafe blurts out, when Mia grabs both her pants and his fallen t-shirts from the floor and pushes the latter against his chest. She starts to get dressed a moment later. “When people don’t agree with you, you always dismiss them like you’re the only person having any right to talk. You asked me, I’m talking now”

“I made one mistake” she spats then, slipping into a sweatshirt and a pair of sweatpants she forgot under a pile of other clothes in the chair near her desk. She used to be a person who always folded her clothes and cleaned her room, almost maniacally, but in the last few years she had other things on her mind and hands.

When she tries to walk out of the room, Rafe stops her in her tracks by pushing himself in front of the door and cutting her dramatic exit. He sighs, when she asks if he can move and possibly leave. “Let’s talk. Civilly”

“I was talking civilly ” Mia tells him, voice higher than she meant to. “I came to you for help and you has been an asshole" 

"Okay, let’s start over” he suggests, his face still contracts as he proposes it to her, waiting for Mia to disagree. When she barely blinks to his words, he slips into his t-shirt with quick movements, takes her by the shoulders and walks them to the bed again. They sit. “Why can’t you just stay here and still move him to Kildare High? It’s not that far" 

"Because it would be easier for him to build a life” she explains, with a tone that suggests to Rafe that she almost doesn’t get him . He would like to laugh, but he doesn’t or she will kick him out, this time for real. “He could go back and forth from school or his friends’ houses without me having to drive him around, he’ll feel more independent and maybe he will stop picking fights at school. Or with me”

“He will stop picking fights with you. It’s just a bad moment" 

"The social assistant says that changing schools might help him” Mia tells. “And, frankly, I think so too”

“Yeah, fine, I can get that. What I don’t get it’s how the school and the house are anyway linked, sorry to insist there” the boy shrugs. “Changing one doesn’t mean you have to change the other" 

"This place is anyway too big for us, Rafe. It would be convenient” Mia mutters, looking around her room like she’s doing a mental tour of the house. “There are rooms where I don’t even go to. There’s just two of us and a too big place, we need a smaller house where he’ll feel like bringing his friends over" 

"There were three of you before your mom died” Rafe whispers, glancing at Mia to see her reaction to his words. She doesn’t even flinch. “It’s not much of a difference, quantitatively speaking. And, really, there are rooms in my house that I haven’t been in years probably, rich people like big houses”

“Not me apparently” Mia says and she’s categorically in that serious voice and blank face. “I stay here less than a quarter of my day, I just literally use it to sleep and bring work from the boutique. I sat in one room and when Lucas is home he closes himself in another”

“Well, I think there’s another problem here” Mia lifts an eyebrow, not really confused because she knows where he’s going. “Don’t take it the wrong way, but you work too much. You’re at the shop or here bending over a sewing machine. If you’d do other things, maybe you’ll enjoy coming home too. Same for for Lucas”

Mia laughs at that, but it’s nervous, it’s like she’s about to scream in frustration or explode into a hysterical crying. She doesn’t know what’s the best option. “I have bills to pay, a fridge that’s always constantly empty, which I don’t even know how it happens, and clients to satisfy because I’m not my mom, okay? She knew how to separate work from family, I don’t and everyone expects to have the same quick but perfect service. I’m slow, I get distracted the moment I lift my eyes from the piece of fabric, I can’t manage everything. I’m sorry”

“You’re doing your best, everyone knows that, I’m not suggesting the contrary” Rafe says with urgency. “I wouldn’t know how to do half of the things you did in the past five years. It’s just that sometimes you deserve a break”

“I can’t take one” she answers flatly, like there’s no space for arguing. Then she says something else that no one of them would have imagined her to actually say. “You’re the closest thing to a breath of fresh air, let’s not screw it up, okay?" 

An instant of silence is what follows and Rafe doesn’t know if he should feel flattered or scared, if she wants him to think of it, or not. In the end, he exhales. "If you’ll give me the documents of the property and a couple of days to make researches at work when my dad isn’t around, I’ll give you an answer about what you asked" 

Mia takes a breath of relief. "Thank you" 

"It doesn’t mean I like what you’re planning on doing, okay?” before she can say anything, he keeps talking. Head down. “I know you don’t want my opinion on that, but I’ll give it to you anyway. I still think that moving down The Cut will be a mistake, even though Lucas spends his time there. You have to think about a long-term future. He’s gonna be sixteen in two years and probably will want a car like every sixteen years old kid in this country, which will completely dismiss you from driving him around. He won’t even want you to say hi to you in the streets, I’ve been there. You’ll be the annoying sister. In four years he’ll probably leave for college, right? Because he’s that kind of kid, isn’t he? The curious one, too invested in the world to not go to college and go do big things out there. You should have listened to him talking the other night at the party, my worst nightmare. But you’ll be on your own by then, you’ll have to start over with your life and you have to consider your happiness sometimes too”

He doesn’t say that Lucas’ opinion of him scares him, because Mia always listens to his brother’s thoughts, even when she doesn’t seem to want to. Sure, they’re hooking up, but they are doing it quietly at the younger’s back and he knows that, when things will go wrong, Mia will cut everything between the two of them. Lucas will always win over anything and anyone if Mia won’t find a compromise and, even then, it must be worth it. She won’t let a fling go between his brother and her. 

“What if he won’t go to college?” Mia asks, not mentioning the fact that he’s right and she has been pushing her happiness aside for five years now. “He’ll stay here and I have the duty to provide him a life" 

"He will be an adult by then” Rafe mutters. “He’ll have to take his responsibilities, right? I know it might sound rich coming from me, but I’m saying it because he’s not anything like me. Like, at all. I’m sure he knows that you can’t look after him forever, or break your back to make sure he has a roof over his head, food to eat and hot water running because you remembered to pay the bills”

Mia scoffs. “Yeah. Rich coming from you" 

"I know, I know” he mutters, bitterness in his voice. “I’m a hypocrite, I know that already, thanks. Everyone remembers it for me every day. But we both know he won’t stay here, Mia, let’s be honest, he’ll probably come over for holidays and you’ll find yourself alone the moment he’ll go away to do his things”

In the end, shouldered in a corner by the truth coming from Rafe’s mouth, she nods. “I’ll keep your words in mind" 

"Good” his sure hand quickly flies from his lap to Mia’s hair, pushing it aside from around her face and a moment later he’s giving her a kiss on the cheek. It’s unvolutary to lean on the gesture, because Mia has promised to not get too involved, but Rafe is a constant begging for affection and starving for touches kind of person. He doesn’t look like that, not at first, but if he decides he can trust the other, which comes after a long time of pondering, he’ll show himself as someone that craves affection. 

“I don’t even know if he actually wants to change the house, you know?” Mia admits quietly, when he just leans with his forehead against her temple. “Probably he will say he doesn’t want to move from here. I won’t even be surprised if he thinks it’s a crazy idea. But at the same time he hides it from his friends. I asked him, more than once, why he doesn’t invite them over sometimes and he just looks at me like I’m saying something horrible. I think he’s ashamed of owning a house so big and full of things that are probably worth more than his friends’ families will ever be able to afford. But it’s not our fault if we were born on this side of the island, isn’t it?”

Rafe sighs. “It’s not, Mia. But you can’t let anxiety eat you alive like that” he kisses her, when she tries to protest and for a moment her lips are busy, the one after he’s breathing over her parted mouth. “Sometimes you have to say and do what you want and tell people to find a compromise on their own. Lucas included”

When Mia presses her lips over Rafe’s, breathing him it, he pretends to not feel the single tear feel down her cheeks and that’s exactly why they usually don’t talk about anything outside their relationship or superficial matters. The air turns heavy and they are two emotional wrecks, repairing damages as best as they can when no one is watching. 

Mia’s watery eyes blink in confusion when he leans away and with a forced relaxed tone asks: “Want to crash a dinner to set me up with a girl I don’t even like? It’s at my house and my dad is a bit too eager" 

W hen Rafe invited Mia over, convincing her with an almost amused tone to tell everyone that they casually meet in the street and that he casually asked her to join the Camerons, she wasn’t even remotely ready to face what she saw the moment she stepped into the living room of the mansion.

Rafe didn’t bother to tell who the girl his dad wanted him to be interested in might be and the moment her feet walked into that cage of eyes all over her, her steps faltered. Rightfully. 

She was sceptical at first, because she wasn’t sure his family would have believed them: sure, they got along almost always, which was something unbelievable considering Rafe’s personality, but they never were too close for a reason or another. However, it cost Rafe to insist just once, telling her that Wheezie would have been there and that Lucas wouldn’t have known, for her plans to change. She would have preferred to stay home and eat pizza again, two dresses for a client to finish for Monday morning, but Rafe assured her they would have been safe and that he needed a hand. She pitied him at that moment, forced into something he didn’t want to, so she drove behind him nervously: he told her to take a break once outside his front garden, that it wasn’t her first dinner at the Camerons, but she didn’t expect Peach Lane quietly doing conversation with Rose as she entered the room and to look at her like just saw a ghost. 

Something in the back of Mia’s head screamed at her to step back and run away, but, almost like reading her mind, Rafe placed a hand on her shoulder over her blue floral dress, in a way everyone would have seen. He patted her in a friendly way.

"Hope it’s okay if Mia will join us, we met around and invited her over” he says now, all eyes on them and, looking briefly into his dad’s. He knows he’s not gonna get away with that, but he never really asked the older one to find him a date. He could have found one himself, if he would have liked. What’s going to help him anyway it’s that -the purpose of the dinner aside- his family loves Mia. “She didn’t want to come. I insisted" 

Wheezie, as expected, is the first to greet her, leaving the phone she was busy typing on until a moment prior and walking towards Mia. "Hey" 

The older girl wraps her arms around her shoulders almost like she could take her away and save her from the trap she agreed to join. Sure, Rafe didn’t mention who their guests were, but she knows she would have let him convince her anyway, somehow. "Hey, kid. It’s good to see you" 

"You too, but don’t call me kid, I’m as tall as you” Wheezie mutters, giving Mia a long squeeze and then letting her go. Before she can move to let her pass, her eyes briefly meet Rafe and she whispers her next words. “You’re in deep shit" 

"I know. I know” he mutters, before squeezing Mia’s shoulder, as his hand is still leaning there, quietly inviting her to walk inside. 

“It’s a pleasure to have you over, Mia” Rose greets her with another embrace, when finally Rafe let’s her go. For a moment his mind spins, watching his dad smiling at Mia and giving her a kiss on the check that she answers with a gentle pat on his shoulders. Rose keeps talking, when Rafe focuses on the girl’s shoulders, as his stepmother introduces her to the guests. “Those are the Lanes, Matthew and Anne. You surely know Peach, weren’t you two in the same year at school?" 

"Yeah, we were” Mia says and Rafe notices how she tries to keep her voice steady. It comes out forced, but can’t do anything if not looking at her squeezing everyone’s hands -Peach included- and being exceptionally polite. He follows her example and greets everyone after him, earning a glance from Rose when he squeezes Peach’s hand, instead of kissing her. 

He knows he has been a bit of a dick for not telling Mia who was the girl his dad wanted to set him up with, but honestly he had thought about the two girls’ past just once in his car: he was older, he wasn’t even at school anymore, when Mia’s old boyfriend cheated on her with Peach (they got back together after he begged for forgiveness) and his now friend also saw her college scholarship snatched from under her noise from the same girl. Technically, the latter issue between the two was completely fair: when Mia’s mom died in her last year of school, she had already won the scholarship and rejected it once she had to take care of what’s left for her in Outer Banks. Suddenly, college for Mia wasn’t an option anymore and the prize of her hard work went to the second in the list. Peach. Rafe would have remembered it, if he wouldn’t have been a total mess that year and someone -probably Sarah- told him after a while. 

“Sorry, I forgot-” he starts with a whisper when Rose invites everyone to go take a seat and bodies start moving around the room. 

“I’ll survive. And we’re fair now” she mutters and gives him an encouraging half smile, though he doesn’t think they are. Then she notices they are both walking towards the last two free seats around the table, one purposefully next to Peach and one added at the last moment after Mia’s arrival. She slips next to her old schoolmate before Rafe could sit next to her and, if Rose or Ward notice, they are careful to not look too intensely at Mia. When Rafe gives her a blank but long stare, she knows he’s thanking her. 

She doesn’t smile, not so openly, where everyone could see, but can’t help to think about the conversation they had in her room, after he asked to join the dinner. 

Because I’m twenty-four, I own a company and he thinks that me being on the run from commitment isn’t a good thing for our family he had explained to her and talking about his dad, when she asked why set him up for a date, almost resentfully. 

She knows, it’s always been complicated between the two of them, Rafe and his father. Ward Cameron always had a particularly intense relationship with his son: Rafe worshipped the older man, everything he did and everything he said, but his father didn’t have the same respect, love and admiration for his first born. It was public knowledge that Sarah was the favorite daughter, that he would have accepted everything from her, but not the same from Rafe. Wheezie was almost another completely different story. 

Mia remembers, it was the same time that her mom died and the girl entered the world like a new person, that Rafe lost himself in drugs and alcohol at twenty and wouldn’t have made it, if it wasn’t for Rose’s stubbornness. After cleaning up, Rafe probably submitted to his dad even more, thinking he needed to please the man to be loved: Ward provides Rafe material things, like a roof, a job that other same age people would dream of, extras that are most of the time useless to survive, but he doesn’t know how to proper give his son love. Ward has been kind with Mia and Lucas, especially in the last years for obvious reasons, and she thought he has been a good man to them, but good man doesn’t mean good dad and Rafe is still suffering from it. When the boy asked Mia to join him to his family’s dinner, he told her that he was simply doing what his dad told him to do: showing up, just in his own way. 

Mia almost forgot how boring those kinds of dinners were, how she hated when her mom was the one inviting important strange people over. Now, sitting at the Camerons table and listening to business talk or typical gossip of Figure Eight, her only distraction is Wheezie smiling or chuckles at her from time to time, to which she feels grateful for being able to actually answer back. Sometimes she turns to look at Rafe, especially because it’s clear they want him and Peach to be the focus of the conversation in a way or another, but she can’t do more than exchange a glance with him. For most of the time, she stays silent on her chair, knowing her presence is anyway loud enough for Ward to remember his son showed up with another person to a dinner that was meant for him. Until she’s called into the conversation, at least. 

“So, Mia” Matthew Lane tells her with a deep voice of a fifty years old man, surprising her into her seat. She sees in the corner of her eye Rafe flinching in his, before taking his glass and sipping his water. “You said Velasquez, right? Are you Maria’s daughter?”

Hearing her mother’s name said aloud after a long time, it’s almost like a slap in her face. She knows that it has been five years, so it’s completely fine to hear it or even talk about her without crying, but lately no one ever had to call her mom out loud to her and she thinks of the woman every day, sure, but rarely brings her name up. She nods anyway. 

“Yeah, it’s me” she mutters and smiles. “She passed away a couple of years ago, anyway" 

"Yeah, we know” Anne says to Mia with an apologetic smile. “She was a good woman. We were really sorry when it happened”

“Thank you” it’s all that the younger can force out of her mouth, giving a smile back that should say it’s fine, really . Something in her stomach protests, but she ignores it, when Rose bends over Peach to look at her. “Where’s Lucas? We would have liked to have him here" 

"Sure he wouldn’t have liked it” Wheezie says amused and Mia cracks a smile in her direction, when Rafe calls her out, inviting his sister to keep thoughts to herself. 

“He’s at a friend’s house” Mia explains, getting back to Rose and the rest of the table. “He’s staying over because tomorrow it’s Sunday, or I wouldn’t be here alone" 

"Sure” Rose whispers looking into Mia’s eyes and cracking an encouraging smile. Then she turns towards her guests. “She takes care of her younger brother. I admire her, honestly, she’s a really good sister”

“She is” Ward mutters, smiling at Mia as well when the girl meets his stare. “My kids wouldn’t have done half of the things she did”

“Rafe doesn’t even know how to do his laundry” Wheezie laughs at his brother and he gives her a false bored stare, mimicking her to shut up. Contrary to the advice, Wheezie turns towards the rest of the table, her eyes landing on Peach. “His room smells and it’s honestly a mess, wouldn’t recommend it to anyone”

The girl cracks an unsure smile, pulling the short black hair behind her ears, and wondering like everyone else where’s Wheezie going with her words. Rafe and Mia exchange a confused stare -the latter knowing Rafe’s room isn’t that bad- questioning each other if they should be glad that his little sister is actually doing everything in her power to give a bad impression of him, or not. 

“My room is fine” Rafe decides to interrupt, giving Wheezie a stare that says enough . His sister lifts an eyebrow at him, but doesn’t try to step further. 

“You know Rafe is working in the family business, so he’s busy” Ward tries to explain to Matthew and Anne, sipping his red wine very slowly. “Until he shows up at work in time and work for what he earns, it’s fine" 

"Absolutely” Mathew comments when her mothers adds: “Peach is about to graduate”, almost like she’s saying see, they match . “She’s a major in economics and a minor in statistics. We’re really proud how hard she’s working" 

” Mom “ Peach whispers and, honestly, Mia heard her talking not more than three or four times, every single one when asked for her to. "Come on" 

Anne’s eyes slip on Mia and it’s clear they remember she’s the one that was supposed to have the scholarship that her daughter is using to graduate. They all could have afforded to pay for college: if Mia was the one to actually keep the price, Peach would have gone to college anyway, and if Mia’s mom wouldn’t have died and Peach would have legit had the scholarship, Mia would have had a bank account for her education waiting for her. The same as Lucas’. She just decided she couldn’t go when she found herself alone with a nine years old boy to take care of. 

"Mia’s taking care of the family business as well” Rafe interjects and everyone turns to look at him, figuring out if he’s talking to his dad that just pretended to praise him, or to Anne. He looks over to his sister. “She led the company her mom left to her and her brother. She made the dress from Wheezie’s eighteen birthday party all by herself" 

"She did” Wheezie mutters and Mia flutters her eyes shut into thankful expressions. She smiles, giving it to both the siblings. “It was really pretty, everyone liked it" 

"It was” Rose says and she seems sincere, but he gives Ward’s a look anyway, clearly noticing the fact that the kids are sabotaging the dinner and its purpose. 

“Admirable. It was an already built company” everyone turns towards Matthew, even Peach gives a long heavy stare to his dad. “Right?" 

"Excuse me?” Mia asks, not harshly, but honestly confused about the man’s words. She doesn’t want to think he meant to say she has been advantaged because she already had an existing company. But she thinks that’s exactly what he meant. 

“Your mom left it to you already well known on the island, didn’t she?” Anne says, looking down, maybe a bit mortified. “That’s what my husband is trying to say. You had the path ready”

Mia laughs and she would notice Rafe getting tense next to her and Wheezie giving him a stare that’s suggesting to not getting involved. Or to let Mia handle it.

“If you mean that my mom left me an already existing physical place and a society with her name on it, yeah, my path was ready” Mia tells with the calmest tone. “If my mom left me with the knowledge about how to manage money from my family, how to give paychecks to employers that are older than me and how to make sure I grow up a nine years old boy by myself, no she didn’t. I made it up by facing problems one by one when my mom died in a car accident down the bridge between The Cut and Figure Eight and I had to leave my scholarship to your daughter so she could graduate in economics and statistics. I would have studied English, by the way, I wasn’t planning on spending my life sewing expensive clothes for rich people”

When she’s done, she tries to relax against the back of the seat just to notice Rafe looking at her. He bends a little when he talks, but his voice is loud enough for everyone to hear. 

“I’m in an already built up company, did you know? Family business as well” he says to her, before pointing to his half full plate and pointing to his vegetables. “Hey, want mine? There are broccoli, you do like them, don’t you?" 

She exhales a soft thank you when everyone is forcefully brought back to other conversations and she doesn’t expect Peach to look apologetic at her, when Rafe gives Mia his food, exchanging their plates like it’s okay to do it. Like Ward isn’t looking at them like he’s solving a puzzle. 

"I’m sorry” Peach tells her when her parents are turned to talk to a now distracted Ward and Rose. Mia’s heart skips a beat, but cracks a smile before starting eating Rafe’s food. 

I t’s clear she’s the topic of the conversation when she’s walking down the hallway of the first floor of the Camerons mansion, looking for Rafe and Ward to greet them after the dinner. 

Peach’s family has already left and Mia has stayed over a bit longer to share the leftovers of the chocolate dessert (honestly the best thing of the night) with Wheezie and Rafe and under Rose’s stare. She was talking about the night, making it sound better than it was, trying to convince Rafe to agree while she kept refilling her wine glass. 

The scene went for a while, receiving mostly disinterested uhm s from the stepson and unsure I don’t know s from Mia whenever the woman asked for her opinion. Until, at least, Ward appeared, gave everyone a look and then asked Rafe to go with him upstairs for a moment. Mia gave the boy a concerned look, but for safety reasons he didn’t acknowledge, leaving his spoon on the dessert container and giving her his back. 

They disappeared for at least five or more minutes before Mia checked her wrist watch and decide it was time to go: if Rose wouldn’t have gone somewhere with her glass full of wine and wouldn’t already gave Mia her goodnight, she would have probably stopped the girl from going look for Rafe and Ward, but her only left company was a Wheezie busy with her phone and a chocolate spoon in her mouth. All she needed to do was kiss her head and go upstairs, calling for the men’s names so she wouldn’t have been unannounced. They didn’t hear her anyway when she walked towards some muffled voices and the open door of a room she knew was Ward’s studio. She has been there plenty of times to know most of the place, from private rooms to the work wing of the house. 

Almost there now, after all the walk, she’s about to introduce herself to the two men, when she hears far more clearly what they are saying, things that some moments prior were unrecognizable. Her feet stop in the shadows, before she can step in front of the open door and into the light. 

“I still don’t get what you wanted to prove” Wards is saying, voice low, but bitter. “I like her, you know I do, but you shouldn’t have brought her here tonight”

“You didn’t specifically ask me to be here alone. You wanted me here and I obeyed” Rafe’s tone is almost bored, but he’s faking it and Mia doesn’t need to see his face to know it. “I met Mia and asked her to join us. It’s not a big deal. She’s everyone’s friend" 

"I know she is” this time Ward’s voice is higher. “For you it is a big deal. Take it out of your mind, Rafe" 

"I don’t know what you’re talking about" 

"She’s a mess you don’t want to get involved in. You’re playing with fire, you’re gonna get burned” his father insists and Mia frowns. Does Ward know? About Rafe and her. “You think you can handle it, but you don’t. She’s has too much in her plate for you to keep up" 

"You don’t know anything" 

"She’s literally a single mother, Rafe” Ward spats and when his son tries to protest, he stops him. Mia feels like this is literally the worst thing that could have happened that night in which she should have stayed home, doing her business because Rafe and her don’t snoop into each other’s lives more than the other wants to. She swallows hard the pain and the need to cry. “You’re the last person she needs. And she’s the last person you need. She’s an adult, Rafe, she has everything on her shoulders since she was barely legal. What can she do with you? She looks for stability and you’re the last person that can give it to her with all your issues and your personality. You’re difficult to have around, she won’t want you to”

A moment of silence and then a laugh that is deep and barely audible, but makes Mia frown in confusion when she realizes it’s Rafe’s. 

“First of all, I’m fine” he says, playing with fake amusement. “I don’t have anger issues anymore. Not like before. And, even if what you’re accusing me to do would be true, she knows about that. She has been around our family since forever and she saw every part of me, the anger, the drugs and the fact that I’m clean now. So that’s really the last thing that I think could get in the middle” a pause. “Second, really, dad, things aren’t like that. You don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re making up your mind, on what? On me inviting her over for a dinner I didn’t want to happen in the first place? I’m not crushing Mia, I’m not in love with her or something like that just because I don’t want to see Peach . Mia and I are just friends, that’s all”

“So tell me, Rafe” Ward starts, when a tear falls down Mia’s cheek, hidden a couple of feet away from them. She doesn’t even feel guilty about overheard a conversation she isn’t supposed to hear. “Do you make four hundred dollars gifts to all your friends for Christmas? We can afford that, son, but I don’t think that’s the right way to spoil just friends " 

Automatically, one of Mia’s hands moves towards the wrist of the other arm, feeling under her fingertips a couple of bracelets and looking down when she finally touches the one that Rafe has given to her as a present for Christmas. He said it wasn’t something big, when she opened the box and found a chain made of small golden hearts: she didn’t think it was something strictly romantic, because she had an identical one when she was little and she knew they talked about it once. He  remembered it from their childhood and she told him that it was her mom’s and that she lost it. When he gave the presents to her on Christmas Eve, during the only moment they had away from Sarah, however, the gesture left her a bit surprised, speechless for a moment: he dismissed it, with his usual blank face, almost absent, but his thought for her had been the best gift anyway. What she couldn’t know was that it cost more than she could have accepted by anyone. Rafe included. 

"Are you keeping tabs on me now?” the boy asks harshly. “Though we were over this" 

"It’s for different reasons now” Ward admits and Mia can imagine him shrugging.

“Great, we went from keeping me away from the coke to keeping me away from Mia” Rafe spats. The girl hears clothes shifting and she straightens her posture, scared they might get close. “I’m sorry to break it to you, but there’s nothing between me and her. Maybe I just like to give her expensive presents because I can afford it, with money that I earned for my work. Right?”

“Rafe-" 

"Don’t get in the middle, dad” Rafe sounds deadly serious this time. “Stay out of my personal life. Don’t check my payments. What I give to her or anyone else, or what I don’t. Don’t try to keep Mia away from this family just because you think I’m in love with her. I’m not, but even if I would be, it wouldn’t be any of your business" 

"Do you hear yourself talking?” Ward asks, but Mia thinks she heard enough and shuts off their voices, as they keep arguing in the man’s studio. She sniffs a little, quickly drying her cheek as she walks down the hallway and then steps down the stairs as light as she can to reach the ground floor. And the exit. The main door never looked so far, so small, trying to reach it and feeling like she might slip on the last step. 

She doesn’t, heart full of feelings and throat filled with the need to take a breath of fresh air, to not explode. She does, when she grabs her bag and Mia is out of the mansion in a blink of an eye: she lets herself go to a cry just once inside her car, behind the steering wheel and out of the Camerons property. 

When she lets her emotions out, she doesn’t even know what she’s exactly feeling. She’s angry at Ward wanting to decide for her, or for his son, trying to have a word over what’s right or not for them to do. She’s grateful for Rafe to have kept their secret theirs, even to his dad -and he’s usually so loyal to that man. She’s confused because, well, she doesn’t like to admit it, but Ward seemed sure about his accusations: he didn’t cleary know the details about Rafe and her, but there was a painful sincerity in his voice when he tried to extrapolated information from his son by making assumptions about him. And the gift. For a moment, she touches the chain as she drives into her front garden. Should she take it off? It costs too much for her to wear it everyday and she’s not sure it isn’t, in the end, a gift from someone that might be crushing her. 

Ward gave her something to think of. 

Tears don’t stop from falling until she falls asleep on her mattress, after she undresses, removes her makeup and  on the sweatshirt on her chair with mechanical gestures and a constant sob coming from her throat. 

Rafe texts her from the moment she steps into the house, to the second she turns off the lamp on the nightstand, asking where she is, why she didn’t wait for him and why she doesn’t answer. She keeps with the radio silence, planning on eventually answering him in the morning, as her eyes keep letting tears go. 

Instead, Mia texts Lucas goodnight and that she loves him. He answers with a throwing up emoji. 

W hen Rafe and Mia started hooking up, their deal seemed easy and convenient. He assured her that getting serious was the last thing he wanted with anyone and she convinced herself that, if Rafe would have liked to change his habits and look for commitment, she surely was too problematic to be on top of the list. 

This was what helped her to go through it and accept: she didn’t want to fall in love with anyone because she didn’t want to get attached and then risking to find herself alone again and she knew that, Rafe accepting to actually sleep with her once, then twice until they lost count, wasn’t something that other people were up to do. Since her mother died, a lot of once friends and acquaintances said they were sorry about the loss -and maybe they were- but then she disappeared for obvious reasons from the social scene and no one looked how she was doing, where she was hiding. Two months after the tragedy, but five years later as well. Rafe came into the picture after a while, finally cleaned and not looking like he was a relic of a man, but someone healthy that was around her whenever she least expected him to.

The first time they had sex, she told both him and herself that it wouldn’t have happened again. The second, she convinced herself that she was just desperate because he was hot and nice enough to her, when the only people looking at her like that were the ones that didn’t know about her family situation or they would have run away. Rafe stayed around and, well, when he said that he didn’t want to get dragged into her problems, she thought that maybe luck was turning for her too. A man that wanted to sleep with her while conscious of what her life looked like was like winning the lottery for someone that didn’t have anyone in her bed for more than a rare night stand for almost four years. And Rafe lack of interest in getting serious, Mia thought, could have benefit her for to not think of him like her best friend’s brother she had a crush on since she was little and kissed at fifteen, but someone she knew well and that she couldn’t fall in love with because he would have pushed her the exact instant she would have made one mistake. Rafe was an almost safe pick, families feuds aside. 

What she didn’t consider was that he may have bluffed for all the time they’ve been together: sure, she doesn’t know concretely now, but Ward’s words and tone as he talked Rafe out of whatever was going on in his head gave bad thoughts. She is someone who knows how to feel, maybe too much, but she considered her heart to be safe until Rafe would have kept it that way. Distant. Far away. A place for pleasure only. She’s scared now, because there’s a constant in her head that keeps repeating that he might have been in love with her all along, that he’s just pretending to be on the run from her, when he’s actually just running in circles around Mia. And Ward might be right. 

The more she thinks of it, the more she wants him and now herself to be wrong. She would like Rafe to come to her and say straight into her face, with a convincing tone, that he’s not in love with her. That he’s not crushing her like they are kids, because they are not kids anymore. But Mia doesn’t even give him the time to try to convince her, because she shut Rafe off like he’s another temporary relationship in her life. She wants to put a stop to avoid getting hurt if things might go wrong. 

She is literally the best self sabotaging person, because she ponders options and never really makes sure to find out which one can be the right one: she simply assumes the worst scenario and builds a defense around that. 

A mong the things she’s used to, there’s not Rafe Cameron walking inside the boutique in the middle of the day, during opening hours, through the front door. Usually he uses the one in the back, during lunch breaks, when Mia’s employees are eating their lunches somewhere nearby and customers are kept out from the fact that the place looks, in fact, closed. 

Lately, however, Mia made sure Rafe couldn’t get in through the back either, pretending she wasn’t even inside, working and eating a sad salad brought in the morning, when he knocked the first days after her coldness through the phone. He eventually got the message and stopped bothering walking by her workplace, calling her and then reduced the text to the bare minimum. 

Until he literally does everything she didn’t expect him to do, with his tall body and his broader shoulders that look always like he’s constantly tired. He walks inside her elegant boutique in the exact instant she’s serving a client whom she just took some measurements for a cocktail dress, dressed with his work suit and elegant shoes. But the button of the white shirt is unusually open, his hair a bit dishevelled like he has been touching it, as he does whenever he’s anxious, and a concern in his face that should all be warnings for Mia to start getting worried. Red flags. 

“Claudia, finish serving Mrs. Henderson here for me, please” she mutters politely to one of her employers, the same instant she spots the boy walking inside the place, ringing the bell above the main door and automatically forcing everyone to look at him. She frowns in Rafe’s direction. “What are you doing here?" 

In the same instant, Veronica Henderson, the blonde middle aged customer she was serving -and that Mia remembers since she was little walking around always on wheels that are painful just to watch- greets him with a mix of stupor and confusion. "Hello, Rafe" 

"Hello, Mrs. Henderson” he answers, but he’s distracted by Mia approaching like a fury and probably about to kill him right there, as he’s breaking another of their rules just by breathing around the front door of the shop, even worse when there is someone around to watch. His eyes meet Mia’s and it’s when he lifts his hands on the defensive that the girl’s steps falter at the sight of blood through the fingers of one of his hands. He whispers to her his next words and she doesn’t know if he’s trying to not be heard, or reassuring her. “Calm down, okay?" 

"What’s going on” she asks, not really questioning him, but feeling short of words. They come less when he points to his back, to the front door of the shop and she sees Lucas holding on the door with one hand -almost like not getting completely inside will help him with his sister later- and pinching the bridge of his nose with the other. Blood falling into his upper lip and mouth and coloring the skin in different shades of red. “What the hell. Lucas?" 

She runs past Rafe quicker than he ever saw her, almost bumping into his shoulder to get to her brother, who would step back from Mia’s rush if she would have already grabbed him by his shoulders. 

"I’m fine” he assures, voice that doesn’t try to crack and show how bothered he feels by her sister maniacally checking his face. She keeps studying him, pushing his face from one side to another, squeezing his cheek as she does so. “I’m fine, I’m trying to stop it, if you would let me go" 

"What happened to you? Is your nose broken?” she asks, she doesn’t hide the apprehension. “Why aren’t you at school? You should be at school" 

"I had to leave” Lucas tells his sister, almost like it’s not his fault if they are in that situation. “The guy I picked a fight came at me, but I’m fine. I swear" 

"He came at you?” Mia asks and, in any other circumstances, she would tell his brother to behave, to act properly and to not scare the customers, but now she’s even forgetting where they are. “Or did you start it this time too? You may have your nose broken" 

"No!” Lucas exclaims, almost offended by her sister’s accusation. But he’s lying and she knows that, so she just stares at him, until he breaks. His jaw squeezes. “I didn’t do shit. I just told him some things he deserved. And my nose is fine, the blood is stopping, I think" 

"Hey. Language ” Mia scolds him, finally remembering where they are and that there are ears in sight that might not appreciate the terminology. As fast as she thinks of Mrs. Henderson, her eyes glance back to the customer and her employers observing the scene, when Rafe moves obstructing Mia’s view and theirs as well. She looks up at him, almost like she forgot he was there. “What part do you have in all of this?”

He opens his mouth caught off guard and lifts his shoulders, like he didn’t expect her to ask him that. Which is stupid, thinking of it now, because it has been his constant for all the ride towards the center and her workplace. He called her many times, but she never picked up. 

“I saw him walking on the side of the road, dirty with blood. Should I have left him there?” he tells her, using a low tone, but definitely not soft. It’s harsh, maybe even hurt , Mia would dare to say, and she’s just paying for the treatment she gave to him. “You would have known we were coming if you would have just picked up the phone when I called you, like, ten times" 

Truth to be told, she was busy with Mrs. Henderson and her cocktail dress, so she didn’t hear her phone vibrating. "I was working. Must have missed the phone ringing" 

"What about the calls from the days before?” Rafe asks and he doesn’t look at Lucas, when the boy frowns at his words and flinches in pain right after. Mia gives him a long and deadly stare, easily translated into another word and you’re a dead man , so he recognizes the mistakes and the fact that he doesn’t want strangers to hear and lowers his stare. “He’s fine. It’s not broken, he just need to clean it up" 

"And how do you know that” Mia says, almost resentful, even though it’s not fair. She can’t just see straight, for her to admit it yet. The girl starts checking Lucas again, but Rafe knows she doesn’t know what’s happening to her brother, she’s just guessing. “I should get him to the hospital”

“ No ” Lucas says in a rush and then something weird happens, Mia thinks, something that never happened before and that she never thought she would have seen: her brother’s eyes meet Rafe’s at the girl’s back almost begging for help, almost like there is some kind of unspoken conversation going on between them. Mia would gasp in shock, if she wouldn’t be so worried. 

“No, no hospital. Let’s go in the back” the older boy tells her, getting close and, this time, using a less hard tone. “He’s fine. I’ll clean him and all in your bathroom" 

"No, Rafe, he-" 

"Hey, Mia” he calls her, when she tries to protest. “Trust me, okay? No hospital needed" 

There’s a moment in which Mia looks at Rafe like he’s crazy, like she can’t believe he’s siding with Lucas and not her, when her brother is losing blood from his nose after a fight. Her eyes lock in his for a long moment, confusion painted on her face, while her feelings know she trusts Rafe. No matter what’s going on between them, or if he lied, she’s the kind of person who knows how to discern people’s actions if they are good people. She doesn’t even know if Rafe actually lied about his feelings for her and even if he did, Rafe stays a person she would be always propense to trust. In the end, she nods and a moment later she’s letting the boys walk finally completely inside to reach the back. 

She follows them, last of the line, apologizing to Mrs. Henderson for the inconvenience and telling Claudia to give her a special discount. 

Rafe orders Lucas to sit on a free space on the table, where Mia keeps her tools and where the two adults found themselves many times kissing in the best scenario, leaning while he was inside her in the worst. She doesn’t say anything about it, neither does Rafe, but she follows him to the little nearby bathroom to look at what he’s doing. He cleans his hands and opens the cabinet over the sink with a bit too much nonchalantly, knowing exactly where everything is, so Mia is glad that Lucas can’t see. 

"You sure you know what you’re doing?” she asks, almost breathing down his neck. “Maybe I should drive him to be checked by a doctor" 

"It’s just a bleeding nose, Mia” Rafe tells her, annoyed mostly to not tell her to give him some more space. “I had plenty of those when I was younger, right? Do you think I went to the hospital? No and I’m fine now, he’ll be too”

“Why didn’t you go to the infirmary?” Mia asks Lucas then, still pinching his nose, going back behind Rafe to the room. She wonders if the older told her brother to do that, because he really got in so many troubles when he was younger that he should probably be someone to trust and call for in a case like that one.

“No, it wasn’t-” a pause. “Safe" 

Rafe orders Lucas to leave his nose and keep his head steady and straight, as he starts cleaning him up. Probably to see if once removed the almost caked blood, others will keep flowing. 

"What do you mean?” Mia asks, confused, glancing at Rafe’s hands getting dirty again of her brother’s blood. “There’s nothing wrong with asking for help, we talked about it”

Again, Lucas and Rafe exchange a look and, this time, Mia feels almost furious. She doesn’t know if it’s because it happened while she was distracted, or because apparently she can’t be part of it. Rafe sighs, but Lucas is the one talking. 

“I’m not stupid” he says. “I want to change school, but I don’t want to change town because social services thinks I shouldn’t stay with you and put me on foster care" 

Then, Mia finally gets what’s going on with Rafe, but especially Lucas. She sits next to her brother with a sigh of relief. "Social services won’t put you in foster care because you got into a fight”

“You don’t know that” Lucas insists and Rafe tells him to not move, as he’s almost done cleaning her brother. He’s producing tons of stained cottons, but the kid’s face is getting better and cleaner. “I’ve already ended up suspended once and Cheryl knows it. She likes you, but she writes maniacally her report, you know that" 

Mia nods. "I know" 

"So I wanted to avoid authority again” Lucas explains. “If I would have gone to the infirmary, the principal would have known and he would have contacted the social services. If I would have gone to the hospital, they would have contacted the social services anyway" 

"Maybe you should just avoid picking fights, did you think of it?” Mia asks rhetorically. “You skipped your last two periods and they’ll call me anyway because you can just go out of school like that. And let’s not talk about the fact that you’ll have some bruises over that nose in the next few days, so I’m not sure it’s better for me that my brother goes around like he has been beaten and people could assume I did that”

“I’ll say you didn’t, it will believable after the last fight-" 

‘We’re watched, Lucas, don’t screw it up" 

"Maybe you should just transfer me to Kildare High” the boy spats and if the harshness wasn’t there before, it’s there now. Mia should have expected it. Rafe throws her a glance, one that reminds her what they talked about.

She sighs. “I’m still thinking of it, okay? Maybe next semester" 

"Why not now?” Lucas insists, a tone that lets out how he really doesn’t get Mia and her decision. “I hate that school, you know it and you still make me go”

“The Academy isn’t that bad” Rafe intrudes and doesn’t look at any of them when the siblings look at him with questioning faces. He keeps cleaning what’s left of Lucas’ blood to remove. “We all have gone there and, I know you would disagree about me, but we are all decent people. Your sister went there, same as Sarah and Wheezie and they are okay. I know you think that of them, at least" 

"They are okay, but that place is a living hell” Lucas scoffs, as he should have expected Rafe to tell him something like that. “And I don’t think your decent just because you’re helping me now" 

"That’s very ungrateful and uncalled for” Mia exclaims and looks down to her brother, sitting next to her. If she notices Rafe’s quick stare on her, she doesn’t give it away. “He could have left you by yourself, or dropped you and left you here for me to drive you to the hospital. But he didn’t do any of that, so don’t be an douche and actually say thank you" 

"He offered” Lucas says, almost bored . “Didn’t ask for him to" 

” Hey !“ 

"Whatever” Rafe mutters and his voice doesn’t sound hurt or offended. “I didn’t expect him to like me all of a sudden” then he looks into Lucas’ eyes. “But don’t be an asshole to your sister, man. She’s doesn’t deserve it and we know it”

“Rafe-” the scolding tone is palpable on the girl’s voice now, but it’s softer than the one previously directed to Lucas. The older boy ignores her. Don’t get involved in this she is saying, but she’s ignored, because, well, he’s in front of her cleaning his brother from his own blood. He already got involved. 

“Well, would be helpful if she would move me into Kildare High” her brother is saying, ignoring her too. “It’s not that difficult. She need to sign up some papers and it’s done" 

"Well it would be helpful if you would go easy on her anyway. Really, I’ve been a stressful kid and things didn’t go well for me in the past” Rafe tells the other. “It’s not that difficult. She told you she’s thinking of it, so she will" 

"It’s taking her too long" 

"It takes her how much it needs to take” Rafe says flatly and Lucas shrugs. “Plus, getting into fights in the meantime will just get Kildare High further. So, my unrequited advice is to keep a low profile and wait for your sister to decide" 

"It’s not my fault everyone hates me there" 

"Does everyone hate you?” Mia frowns because she never thought his brother could be hated in school. It’s a big word, especially for someone that lately likes to pick fights first and she knows he did that. He admitted it more than once that he was the one starting stupid arguments, clearly showing signs he was uncomfortable there, but not hated . 

“Sure they don’t like me” Lucas tells her with an exclamation. “They thinks I don’t fit”

“There’s a difference between like and hate , use words appropriately” Mia tells him. “You can’t like anyone and that’s fine. But if someone hates you, there’s a problem somewhere" 

"Damn, I hate when you do moral speeches”

“So” Rafe cuts Mia before she can answer back and he stops bending over Lucas’ face, observing his done work. “You should clean your hands first and then put some ice on your nose, it will help with the bleeding and the pain. It will probably turn yellow in the next hours, or days, but you’ll be fine”

Lucas mutters a thank you under his breath that it’s barely audible, but he says it anyway, when he glances at his sister and she gives him a long scolding look. One of those that leaves unable to actually do the opposite thing she’s ordering. Then he jumps down the table and walks towards the bathroom nearby, leaving Mia suddenly alone with Rafe, something that hasn’t happened in days. He’s trying to clean his hands as best as he can, probably waiting for his turn to wash himself in the bathroom, when he feels observed and looks up. 

“Thank you” she whispers and he shrugs as an answer. “Really, you could have just dropped him and left”

“I didn’t” he tells her with a flat tone, blinking when she purses her lips and something goes through her face. “You should tell him you’re thinking about transferring him for real" 

"I told him. He needs to wait" 

"Did you tell him about the house too?” he asks and her mind can’t help but fly to him, sending her an email with everything she asked him to, even though she didn’t get him the documents of her property. He coldly wrote to her he did research about similar houses in the same area and just sent everything to her: in her shell of diffidence after what she heard the night of the dinner at the Camerons, she was grateful anyway. 

Mia shakes her head. “No, I didn’t. I’ve been thinking about what you said, actually" 

"Oh, so you thought of me” Rafe comments but his irony sounds forced. “Though you tried to erase me from your life, like, permanently”

“I just needed time” Mia tells him in a rush. “I need it, Rafe”

A low deep laugh comes out from his throat and he shakes his head. “From what? Was the dinner at mine? Because last time you had the courage to look into my eyes we were in my kitchen and you were fine. Did I say something?” a breath. “ Do something?" 

By reflex Mia’s hands touches vaguely her wrist, the one with the bracelet she thought about stop wearing and that never actually took off, she doesn’t even notice it because she’s in her own thoughts and Lucas appears behind Rafe’s back, interrupting the brief heavy exchange. But Rafe notices and the casual gesture settles inside him in a weird way, like he knows there’s something under his nose, but he can’t figure out what. 

Before it can consume him, he walks away. Mia watches the older boy do so and step heavily past her brother, before slipping inside the bathroom with his head down and his mouth shut. He leaves the door as it already was, half open. Lucas gives Mia a look, one that she doesn’t like, after she realizes she has been staring into a void point for several instants. "What" 

"Did I say something?” he asks, but his face tells Mia he surely has a lot to say about a lot of things. She ignores him and doesn’t insist, proceeding with turning completely into the parent that after apprehension usually takes the hard decisions. 

“You’re grounded” she communicates to his brother, watching his face drop. “One week and this is not negotiable" 

"What?” Lucas asks, surprise spreading on his face. 

“Are you really surprised about it?” Mia asks. “I’m not planning on taking care of a hothead who picks fights, so you better accept your one week punishment, because it’s gonna be two if you say a word and many more if this rebellious phase is gonna turn into a habit” Lucas tries to protest anyway, but Mia cuts him. “Ah! Not a word or it’s two weeks for real. You want two weeks without playstation or friends? No more fights and Kildare High is yours next semester" 

This seems to actually give Lucas something to lose, something worth keeping his mouth shut for. He still stomps heavily towards the back door and Mia lets him take some time to stop fuming and to say bad things about her under his breath. She notices, but lets it slip, when the door shuts with a loud sound and Rafe appears from the bathroom. 

"I’ll go now” he says to her with a calm tone, but his forehead is frowning a bit and his eyes are thoughtful. 

“Thank you, really” Mia tells him and she means it, but he shakes his head, almost not wanting to hear her. 

“I have to go” he repeats and when he looks up at Mia, then throws a glance to the door that leads to the front and back at Mia after that. “I know you won’t, but call me if you need me”

“I’ll-” Mia swallows, still sitting on the table and feeling vulnerable watching Rafe flinching in front of them. Even though he wants to keep an appearance, she sees his real emotions on his face. “I’ll keep it in mind. Thanks”

He stalls a moment, heads down and then nods. “Okay. See you, alright?" 

Mia shakes her head positively, when watches him adjusting the collar of his shirt and starts walking towards the exit of the room. Him disappearing it’s both helpful and painful to watch, finding herself alone with an offended kid and a hurt man going in different directions. 

"Do you like him now?” is what the teenager asks her, with the front of his t-shirt dirty of blood and judgment over his face, while he sits on the stairs on the secondary street in the back of the shop. She has just handed him a pack of ice, remembering what Rafe told him: if they want to avoid the social services, they’ll need to limit the physical damage to the bare minimum, so less people will question the bruise. “Really?" 

Mia feels anger boiling, but doesn’t let the constant judgment in his brother go through her because, sometimes, she thinks he does it on purpose. She doesn’t even push his words back, pretends to be offended, because she knows he knows when she lies in the same way she knows when he does it. In the past, Mia even considered that she never actually stopped crushing Rafe since she was little. Things and events with much more priority just got in the middle through the years and for a while, after they got back to their feet, she thought hers had been just a childhood crush, something that would have stayed a nice secret memory inside her heart and mind, to move to someone new in some better future. Eventually. When they started sleeping together, at first she never considered getting back to that stage, the one in which she was in love with him or something cheesy as it, she really thought that it could have been just fun and really counted on him to keep his word. She realized her heart didn’t feel the same way just once she heard Ward and Rafe talking and revealing more than what has been said. 

"Don’t be so hard on him” Mia asks resentfully. “He’s better than what he gives away. And he just helped you, so you don’t have much in your hands to complain" 

Lucas shrugs. "Seems like a douche to me. And mom didn’t like him" 

"Mom didn’t like him before she died, because he was in a bad place at the time” the girl tells her brother, knowing he doesn’t have a vivid and exact memory of what happened back then. “He-" 

"Drugged himself, I know”

“Don’t constantly use that tone” Mia says to him and this time she’s serious and categorical. “Don’t constantly judge people like you’re better than them. You always do that, but others won’t like you if you keep thinking you’re a better person. And stop doing that to Rafe, okay? You don’t know half of the things he has been through and what he does to keep himself clean and sober. Addiction keeps breathing down your neck even when you’re out of it. I really hope you’ll never go through something like that in your life”

With that she waits a moment, not more, for Lucas to have something to say to her, even a spat. But nothing comes and she watches the boy looking away, ice pressed on his nose and face dark of feelings he’s clearly holding back to not fight with his sister too. Mia thinks it’s better like that, if he can keep them to himself for once. 

“I have work to finish” she announces, standing from the stairs and cleaning the back of her tartan trousers with her hands. “Get inside when you’re done moping, or plotting against me, so we can get have lunch somewhere”

“I can smell the alcohol from here” the words come out maybe too harsh, surely pushed by the night she just spent waiting for him, covered in two blankets and her bigger jacket under them, fighting the humidity of the night. Honestly, she thought he would have come to her house at least one or two hours prior, but he didn’t show up until past 1 a.m. and she contemplated going to bed more than once. It would have meant a restless night, knowing she wouldn’t feel okay with falling asleep, until she wouldn’t have known he was okay. 

“I’m sorry” Rafe mutters with a low tone that matches hers, but with urgency in it. “I’ve been at a friend’s house and I completely-" 

"I’ve called you for hours” Mia tells him, still sitting on a bench under her porch, as he moves nervously from one foot to another, knowing she’s gonna kick his ass and he’s gonna deserve it. 

“I know” he sighs and, Mia thinks, at least, he didn’t bring up the fact she hasn’t answered his call either lately. “I’ve lost track of the time and the phone was somewhere in my jacket… I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t mean to”

“She was waiting for you” she tells him, no inclination now in her voice and his head bends down into maybe shame, or guilt. Maybe both. “Before calling me she said she had been waiting for you for almost one hour, because you were supposed to pick her up and she said no one else was at home. I brought her and Lucas to the diner hoping you would have appeared out of nowhere with an excuse-" 

"Yeah, I-” Rafe swallows, before pushing his hair back and locking his eyes with Mia by mistake for a moment. He shouldn’t have because now that his eyes are getting used to the darkness, he can almost spot her tired face and his heart feels pressed by the pain. “I read your texts. Late, but I did. Where is Wheezie now?" 

She takes a moment to actually answer and when she does she ignores his question. "How much did you drink?”

“Barely two beers, okay?” Rafe exhales suddenly, like he expected that question and he knew his answer already. Mia is clearly not sure about the sincerity in it, when she stares at him to figure out if he’s being honest and keeps her mouth shut. The coldness of the night is getting over him, but he doesn’t dare to complain about it because she probably has been waiting for him there for who knows how long. “I swear, I’m not drunk. I can still drink one beer?" 

"Weren’t they two?” Mia asks and lifts an eyebrow in his direction, before standing. Rafe takes a breath, knowing she’s just worried. She always was, she had always recommended him to be careful at parties and to not drive if he was drunk, to even call her if anything happened. He always wondered if she cared about him after his dark year, or after her mom’s death, so he was convinced it was for both things. Now, Rafe watches her take two blankets that are too big against her chest and ignores the way she shivers, when she finds herself fighting the coldness of the night. She walks toward him, standing under the porch, close enough to be a couple of feet apart. “She’s sleeping in one of the guest rooms, you’re not gonna wake her up to get home now. You’re gonna crash on the couch”

He sighs, when Mia pushes the blankets against his chest and he’s forced to hold them. Her arms fall on her sides. “I can go home and pick her up in the morning”

“I’m not letting you back in your car, when you smell like that” she tells him, pointing to his vehicle parked in front of her house. “You stay here for the night and you’ll take Wheezie at home when you both will be awake and lucid in the morning”

“I’m not Lucas, you can’t-” he starts, but she interrupts him by grabbing the collar of his jacket and pulling him close. 

“I can’t do what, Rafe?” she asks, shaking him a bit to have an answer she doesn’t get. “Uh? Worry about you? Avoid letting you crash with your car at almost 2 a.m after a party? Or staying awake for hours hoping you would show up in one fucking piece? Shit, to late for that”

“You have a weird way to show your concern” he tells her, voice lucid enough to go through Mia, which means that probably he’s not really drunk. After a moment of hesitation, she decides against asking him what he means because she knows exactly what he’s referring to and she wants to avoid getting there, mostly when she just wants to sleep and him probably too. 

“Get some rest, Rafe” she lets go of his collar and steps back, ready to get inside and finally crawl into her bed and under her sheets. Feeling like she will collapse the moment her head will touch the pillow. “You need it”

She turns her back at him to get inside and to hope to forget his words, hinting to something she has been avoiding for a while now. She almost reaches for the doorknob, when Rafe stops her run anyway and she freezes caught off guard. 

“I know what’s going on with you” he tells her, cold like the weather. “You gave yourself away with the bracelet I gave to you, so after a suspect I had just to ask Wheezie what happened after I left to talk to my dad that night. She said you came looking for us before leaving, but we didn’t even meet, so I guess you heard” he pauses and Mia wonders if he expects her to say something. She doesn’t and he starts again. “You heard my dad doing the speech, right? And I think the problem is that you think I am, in fact, in love with you, because God forbids if anyone could get attached to you. It’s your way to avoid the risk: if people don’t get attached, you can’t either. You told me that a couple of times when we started seeing each other, if I was sure I wasn’t getting my feelings in the middle. You sounded paranoid, but now I get why. What I don’t get is, if me being potentially in love with you is such a big problem, why are you still keeping the bracelet? Legit question, don’t you think? Who would keep something so expensive and sentimental gifted by someone they are supposed to be casual with? Fuck buddies. Friends with benefits. Whatever. I mean, I’m not your sugar daddy or something like that -we also have two years difference, I’m too young for that and I’m sure you could afford a bracelet like that, if you’d like one- so why is it still on your wrist? You know it has a meaning for you and for me by reflex, why I gave it to you. To make you happy, by the way, Mia. You wouldn’t have kept wearing it, if you wouldn’t have wanted to have anything to do with me anymore. So, that’s the funny part, want to hear that? I think that maybe you still have feelings for me after all. Uh?”

Mia swallows, feeling like a kid getting caught with her hand dirty of chocolate. It gives her some sense of satisfaction on hearing him finally say that and start a conversation that she just postponed, but also fear to get hurt. Like too much chocolate can get sick. And what does to make you happy means? Wanting someone happy doesn’t mean being in love with them, but it can be an option. A real one. And still? You still have feelings for me after all keeps repeating in her mind. She has been crushing Rafe since she was little, with a lot of events, people and things getting in the middle. Did he know? 

Her head spins and it doesn’t even keep up with the heart beating so damn fast in her chest, sounding like a drum in a quiet place. What does this mean? The fact he just did this half drunk speech without letting slip out of he’s actually in love with her back, but throwing just hints, gives her nausea.

“Can you, please, turn and look at me? Talk to me and get me out of my misery” Rafe asks. Begs. “Because I’m losing my mind trying to figure everything out by myself" 

This time, Mia shakes her head and reaches the doorknob with sweating trembling hands. "I want to sleep. I need to sleep" 

” Mia -“ he calls her, but she’s already getting inside where the air is definitely warmer and welcoming. 

"Goodnight, Rafe” she leaves him outside with an half open door and an half confession: two things that haunt her for the whole time she slips in her bed and wonder if he’ll get inside and sleep on the couch, or if he’ll find him in the morning and they’ll talk about it. She eventually falls asleep because exhausted from thinking. 

T he morning comes and Rafe is the last one to wake up in the living room, entering the kitchen with the pale face of someone that had a rough night. Wheezie refuses to talk to him, or even look at him, and Mia guesses she will explode on their way home, kicking his ass worse than she has already done weakly the night before. She, on her little corner by the counter, watches the younger two eating their breakfasts, hoping to disappear, but her heart -the way it pounds in her chest- will give her away. 

Lucas gives Rafe a questionable look from head to toe when he walks inside the kitchen and he’s next to Wheezie, eating his cereals and drinking his milk at the table. He smiles at Rafe then, but it’s not friendly, it says something like you screwed up, congratulations and Mia watches the whole exchange holding herself from telling Lucas to stop. Mostly because Rafe looks like he could kill her brother and also because she hopes to not catch attention too quickly. So she opts to keep that exchange silent and pretends she’s busy with her milk and coffee. 

Her head falls down, so she doesn’t even notice the older one inside the room collecting the courage to walk up to her and quietly asks her if he can have some of what she’s having, if there’s coffee in it and that’s all they said to each other after an unsure thank you from him to her, after she gives him a filled mug. Mia drinks it in record time and, after just a moment of awkward stall, she announces to three quiet people that she’s gonna shower: she’s running away and they all can sense it. When Rafe doesn’t try to stop her, though, she convinces herself that it’s better this way. 

It’s somewhere in the middle of her time in the bathroom that Lucas knocks and shuts with a bit too much excitement your boy has left . She’s sure that her neighbors heard her threatening her brother to start running, and do it quickly, before she can’t wait to get her hands over him. 

She’s sure it wouldn’t play in her favor with Cheryl, if the woman would find out. 

M ia has been in the Camerons workplace just a few times. Mostly through the years in which her mom was still alive and they had to drop Sarah off to Ward. After the accident five years prior, Mia never had the chance or the need to go there, except for one or two times to discuss things with Rafe’s dad. Years later, the place looks the same: rooms with offices, as workers walk around in masons’ clothes probably there to talk to Ward and ready to go to one of the sites dislocated around the island. Seems that, for the Camerons, there aren’t ever enough houses to get their eyes and hands on. 

As Mia enters the place, though, she realizes she has never been there since Rafe started working with his dad. And if she did, she never discussed businesses with him in his office: she knows he has one just because he told her and she listened to him talking about it during their lunches in the back of her shop. 

She pushes her hair back and clears her throat, when she approaches the first person dressed in formal clothes she can find, who happens to be a girl, barely older than Mia, with a polite smile and the longest straight blonde hair that the other has ever seen. When she asks if she can help her, after seeing Mia clear uncomfortable presence there, her voice sounds even more gentle than her body language. 

“I’m looking for Rafe” Mia tells, swallowing the fact that this intrusion into the boy’s place is giving her anxiety and palpitations. “Can you-can you tell me where his office is? I’m a friend, I need to talk to him" 

"I’m sorry, but he already left for lunch” the girl mutters and shrugs, showing an upset expression for Mia. She knows she’s faking it, but she appreciates the effort, as she follows the girl when she starts walking away. 

“That’s not possible” Mia tells her, watching her hair bouncing to every step she takes over her Chanel pink double piece. “I mean, it’s possible, don’t want to be rude. But he usually goes to lunch in half an hour, we’ve-we’ve been having lunch together for almost the past two years. I knows his-" 

"Mia” someone calls her and, well, there was just one person she wanted to avoid and this one was hundred percent Ward Cameron himself. She thought that if she wanted to confront Rafe about her -theirs, also- feelings, she didn’t want to face his dad too. Especially before having the proper time to go through everything with the only person that matters in her relationship with Rafe, which is for obvious reasons Rafe. Mia thought that, whatever would have happened, whether it would have been a failure or not, she would have faced Ward once his son would have already rejected her, or openly admit that he had been pushing her that night because he was in love with her as well. 

Meeting Ward before Rafe is what she would describe as her worst nightmare. He smiles at her. “Hey" 

"Mia” he says again, with open arms, ready to hug her. She takes a deep breath when she lets him embrace her, knowing this is an I love you as Sarah’s friend and not an I love you as Rafe’s whatever you two are kind of squeeze. “What are you doing here" 

When he let’s her go, she collects all the courage she needs to actually give him an answer by being afraid to confront him, after what she heard him say about her. He loves her, but her life is a mess for her to be even considered by his son. 

"I was looking for Rafe” she tells with the steadiest voice she can find. “I need to talk to him”

“Unfortunately, he’s out” he says and she never thought to hear Ward use such a false tone with her. He’s not sorry and it hurts a bit, but Mia stands still while she accepts the hit. “He’s out on a date. With Peach. The dinner worked out, after all" 

This takes Mia’s breath away. It’s like feeling like she has been running for the longest she can think of and being still far away from her goal: she has been running for five years trying to stay away from any solid relationship and almost two from Rafe, that, now, when she thought the arrival could be just around the corner, she feels like she did everything -the self sabotaging and the pain to people around her- for nothing. Now, with Rafe’s words about finding her happiness too echoing in her head, she knows she was just too slow at running: she never liked running. Truth to be told, she never was the sportive type, so it’s logical now for Rafe to stop looking for her, helping her trying to keep up. She really thought, maybe, that the chance of him being in love with her might be true. 

Mia blinks at Ward, cracking a smile that must be sad, because the man’s lips purse, but nods. Nods to herself when she thinks that both Ward and her share half of the responsibilities for Rafe being on a date he doesn’t really want to be, because she knows that. She feels that. 

"Does this make you feel better?” she asks to Ward, but he plays dumb and asks her to repeat. She knows he heard. “Force Rafe into a planned scheme. One where he looks good-”

“I’m not-" 

”-but he doesn’t feel good" Mia keeps talking, ignoring any attempt from Ward to interrupt her. “You can decide who he dates, but can’t decide who loves. That’s out of your power”

Ward laughs at that, it comes from his throat and it’s low and deep. “Do you think he loves you ?”

“No, it can be anyone” Mia explains calmly. “Literally anyone he wants and I will be fine with it anyway. Every person chosen by him will be better than an arranged relationship you want for him. He’s a good person under all that bullshit you force down his throat" 

"He’s my son, I just want the best for him-" 

"You manipulate him" 

”-and you’re not what’s best for him" Ward ends with a sigh, facing Mia’s big hurt eyes and this wasn’t what he wanted -hurt Mia, never in a million years- but protect Rafe from a life that’s not cut for him? That’s what he wanted. He sighs again and tries to take the girl he saw growing up under his eyes by the shoulders, but she moves away. He eventually surrenders to her wish to stay far away from him. “I love you, Mia, like a daughter. If you’d ask me anything, I’ll do whatever is in my power and help you. But Rafe’s my legit son, you get that, right? He’s a Cameron. He has a difficult personality, so I have to help him first. He’s someone that gets attached the moment someone gives him their hand. He’s made like that, he doesn’t trust anyone until the people offer him attention, love and affection and he loses his mind for that. So I can’t let him get involved with you and your life, just because you gives him those things: you have priorities that aren’t my son, we both know that, so I can’t let him think it can work, when probably it’s gonna crash before anyone could expect it”

“You don’t know that” Mia whispers and she doesn’t cry because it would be like giving him something else to judge her for. A weakness she’s not ready to show. “You don’t know my feelings for him”

“If anything would happen, who would you pick between Lucas and Rafe?” Ward asks and he’s smiling behind his beard and his white teeth: probably he wants to look like he’s being honest and doing something good at the same time, but Mia can’t think of him like that. 

“If anything would happen, who would you pick between Sarah and Rafe, Ward?” this question comes out of her mouth before she can think of it, but it’s hypocritical of him to ask her that. Isn’t it? A parent shouldn’t do favoritism between a child and another, like a parent won’t ever love anyone more than her own children. And Lucas, despite all the arguments and the fights, it’s both her brother and the son she didn’t need to give birth to love as such. And she won’t ever keep it hidden from anyone serious who will come into her life, and Rafe knows that already. It’s no secret that Mia will do anything in her power to provide and protect Lucas before anyone else, and love him more than anyone else. Now, with all this bravery of her walking into the enemy territory and looking for Rafe, she is just searching for some honest happiness, one that everyone knows has to survive with the big presence that her brother is in her life, but that she will make work anyway. Or she hopes so. Wards frown at Mia’s question, when she steps back showing all her disappointment. “Congratulations, shitty dad of the year" 

T he delivery with their pizza is late and Mia is ready to take the phone and start the complaining calls. She’s hungry, she would literally eat everything right now and she would also eat the pizza too once it will arrive. Flipping through the pages of a comic they brought two days prior, considering he’s still grounded and banned from friends and Playstation, Lucas keeps sending her glances. Not nice ones, because his sister is literally doing nothing, sitting at the table, just watching the clock on the wall and breathing. Loudly. She’s stressed, he can say that from her actions but also her face lost in the void. 

After too many minutes spent reading the same page, Lucas eventually surrenders, leaving the book on the table surface and sighing to Mia, even though she doesn’t notice him doing so. 

"What’s going on with you?” he asks and she finally turns to share a look with her brother. Her face stays unreadable, but she shrugs. 

“Nothing” Mia answers, voice flat and eyes lost. “The delivery is late. I’m hungry”

“You’ve been like that the whole afternoon” Lucas says and he knows what he’s talking about, he knew something was wrong the moment he walked towards her waiting for him outside school, windows rolled down like she wasn’t freezing and attention lost on the street in front of her. “What happened”

“Nothing, I-" 

"Listen, I know I’m an asshole to you most of the time and sometimes I’m sorry about it” Mia blinks to his words, but then she cracks a shy unsure smile. “But if there’s something that worries you, you can tell me. I could help” a pause, in which Mia doesn’t give him any answer. She just stares at him. “Is it something at work? Or about the paper you hide in the drawer of your desk?" 

She frowns, thinking about the house documents she should have sent to Rafe, but never did. "Stay out of my room" 

"You always snoop through my stuff” Lucas shrugs like it’s not a big deal. “What are you scared of? That I will find the condoms inside the box on your nightstand? I’ve known about them under a pile of piece papers for years now and I’m glad you use them, wouldn’t want you to get pregnant that young”

Mia doesn’t know if she should laugh or cry for the nervousness she feels it’s suffocating her. In the end, she just blinks at her brother another time without saying anything. “I’ve been seeing the same man for almost two years now”

For a moment, on Lucas’ face there’s surprise, almost like he didn’t expect her to confess that . Then it’s gone and he nods. 

“I know. It’s Rafe Cameron” he says with all the nonchalance of the world. He shrugs. “Took you a while to tell me, but I guess better late than never" 

Mia swallows, feeling the world slipping from under her feet and being thankful she’s sitting. "How do you-" 

"Except the fact that you basically told me you like him in the back of the shop less than a week ago?” and Mia blinks, having forgotten completely about that conversation. Which, however, can’t be considered a confession for what she did in the past year and half. “When I asked, I knew already. I mean, I wasn’t sure about the fact that’s you two were serious-”

“We weren’t. I think” Mia exhales, suddenly feeling a bit too much better for taking off this burden from her shoulders. “Not at first, at least. But how-" 

"How did I know?” the boy asks, lifting an eyebrow. “Want a written down list? Or can I give just some examples of what gave you away?" 

"Just a few examples are fine, I guess” Mia mutters, completely out of her mind about the unexpected conversation they are having. 

“Let me think” he starts, painting a fake thoughtful face. “Well, there was the Seger baseball cap that I found once in your room and you told me it was yours, which was a dumb excuse because you never had baseball caps. You think you look bad with them, you always try them and put them back when we go shopping. So I just had to figure out who I saw wearing it, it wasn’t that hard. Then I watched you two sneak out at Christmas, you came back separated, but it was obvious. And gross. Another time you gave me your phone to search for an address while you were driving and he sent you a text saying he couldn’t meet you at lunch, but that he wanted to see you anyway in the afternoon because he missed you. Which was cheesy as fuck”

“ Language ” Mia tells him, but pouts. “He doesn’t have his name memorized on my phone. Could have been whoever" 

"You literally use his initials. That’s a dumb choice to fool anyone, by the way” the boy says, before both of them falls silent, thinking, until Lucas adds something else to his list. “I saw him kissing you once. We were at the Camerons, it was maybe last summer. I came looking for you to ask if we could have left and you two were talking in the back of their garden. It actually looked like you two were arguing and you seemed mad at him. But then he kissed you, while you were talking. I knew already that something was up between the two of you, but thought you would have, like, punched him for shutting you up like that or something. Instead you literally… melt ? Fell over him? For him? I left after that, by the way, so I didn’t see any more gross stuff”

Mia knows what he’s talking about. It was the day Sarah and Wheezie invited Lucas and her at theirs, but also John B and his friends over to chill and celebrate the start of the summer. Then Ward stuck them all to have dinner at the Camerons, after he got early from work. No one expected him to appear while they were relaxing around the pool, but, even less, they didn’t expect the offer. That day, Mia got mad at Rafe because he told his sister he would have joined them, if Mia was staying too, exposing them even though Sarah shrugged him off without paying attention. But someone else was and it was JJ Maybank, John B’s sidekick, an eccentric kid who doesn’t miss a beat if something shady is involved and a good person, but also with a big mouth. He’s just incapable of staying shut for one moment, which is always fun for Mia, but not that day in which the glare he reserved for her was more than what she could have handled. She shut Rafe out of every interaction that day, focusing more on stopping Lucas from drowning poor Wheezie, who was just too nice to tell him she didn’t want to play with him, and also talking to Sarah’s friends, to Rafe’s great annoyance. When he tried to talk to her, considering she was usually the only person in Sarah’s circle that actually liked him, she excluded him. She was making him pay, but also being protective of what they had built in the previous months, over one year of relationship. It was fragile, but it was everything they had.

“Why didn’t you say anything about it?” Mia asks in her kitchen, looking for an explanation from her brother. “Except for those last days. When you asked me if I liked him, or when you called him my boy " 

"It wasn’t my business” Lucas says and he gives it a weird questioning inclination to his answer. “Until last week, at least. I mean, you never tried to drag me into whatever was going on and I wasn’t going to get myself between you two, or anyone else, if it wasn’t something serious. But then he helped me out the other day and the both of you seemed weird about it, so-" 

"There was a rule” Mia tells Lucas and she sighs, maybe too loudly. “No getting involved in each other’s personal life. Lately, it went to shit" 

” Language “ the younger boy scolds Mia and she laughs quietly at him. "Seemed like he didn’t catch the meaning of it anyway”

“I don’t know, actually” she tells him, pretending nonchalance, but the boy doesn’t drink it. “Apparently he knows I like him, but it’s not like he told me if he likes me back. So maybe he was just being a good friend, you know. He went to a date today, with Peach Lane" 

"What a douche" 

"Ward probably forced him” Mia explains and laughs then, when Lucas frowns. “He’s not my biggest fan, did you know? Not for being Rafe’s something , though" 

"What a douche” Lucas repeats and, this time, Mia doesn’t correct him. She actually nods in the same instant in which the doorbell finally rings and all she can suddenly think of is eating. 

Lucas says he will go to open the door and Mia tells him there is cash by the entrance, next to her car keys. She knows his brother likes to talk to the delivery guy, because it’s a young boy that sometimes he meets at the comic shop and that never retreats from sharing even just a nerd joke with Mia’s brother before getting back to work. 

As Lucas goes at the door, she grabs the comic he left on the table to make space for the pizza boxes next to two plates and glasses, but she frowns when she hears what she thinks is her brother and the delivery guy with small tones, not even audible from the kitchen, which is unusual. Generally, they tend to be uselessly loud when they ask each other if they got some last numbers of some collection. Now, the way the exchange isn’t reflecting the past gives Mia a weird feeling, so she walks towards the entrance ready to take both the situation and the pizza in her hands. 

“Is everything okay?” she asks in the same instant she’s turning the corner between the kitchen and the hallway that leads to the main door. Her steps falter over the marble floor, as she spots the presences by the entrance: Lucas with the boxes in his hands and Rafe who’s making sure the younger one has a solid grip on them, before leaving him to carry them inside. When the man looks up, called by Mia’s voice, though, he looks almost surprised to see her there. Which is a paradox considering it’s her house and she’s the one not expecting him. 

“What are you doing here” she asks, taking some steps ahead and watching Lucas narrowing his eyes at her, as he brings the food inside. He walks past Mia, leaving for the kitchen, before disappearing. 

“I interjected your pizza on your front garden as I was coming to knock. I thought I could have offered it as a peace symbol” he breathes out like it costs him a lot. He pushes his hair back, when Mia gets always closer and she reaches the door. She grips the doorknob and leans on it to hide she might be shaking a little. The girl doesn’t say anything though, her mouth stays shut, and Rafe’s does the same for a moment of long contemplation: she notices he doesn’t look away from her eyes, which is surprising. “I know you came by today" 

Should she have expected it? Sure she should have, but it feels like she didn’t consider the possibility of him confronting her on how she made a fool of herself when he was on a date. She nods anyway. "Yeah, I did. Nothing important" 

"Nothing important” he repeats and it’s clear he doesn’t believe it. “Marianne says you talked to my dad and that you didn’t look happy when you left. Want to say to me what did you two talk about? Nothing important, but I would like to know" 

"Rafe” she starts, knowing she has her shoulders against the wall, no way to escape. She wonders if Marianne -which she suppose could be the girl in the Chanel two pieces- heard and told him already, so now he could be there just to test her. “What do you want me to say?" 

"The truth" 

"You know everything already” she explains, lowering her eyes to the ground not able to bear his stare. “It’s been the same conversation you had with him the night I ran away from your house. He doesn’t want me in your life and that’s what it is, I’m too much for you and, honestly, isn’t he right?”

“What did you come to say to me?” Rafe asks with urgency, as he takes one step towards her. Just one and she stands still against the open door. “Before he told you those bullshit" 

"Doesn’t matter" 

"It does” he tells her, blue eyes wide and incredulous from her stubbornness. “Forget about him. Tell me the truth, Mia" 

"I came to tell you that I’ve been in love with you since I was little, because I had a stupid crush on you even though you were two years older” she spats with a tone that say it still doesn’t matter , but his expression almost relaxes. “That when I kissed you at Kelce’s it wasn’t just because I was drunk. I had a huge crush on you because you treated me decently, you gave me gifts that I shouldn’t have told anyone about and you weren’t a complete asshole to me. I came to say that, that the feelings are still there and that you were right when you told me that you knew I was in love with you, okay? So I came to hope to hear you say the same things, because you threw all my feelings out but never really talked about your own, so I’ve been wondering for the whole time if you were lying to your dad that night or not, if I was deciding to put me and my fears in line for someone that could have rejected me, or not. That’s what I came to say today, just to be stopped by your shitty dad who couldn’t contain his excitement in telling me that you were out. On a date. With Peach”

Rafe stays quiet, but he doesn’t look mad, confused or surprised, his face is blank. But peacefully, like he doesn’t have just one bad thought to mask of going through his head. Mia looks up at him, ready to hear something coming from him, but receiving nothing except the bit leaning against the door. She swallows for the way his body bends on her personal space now, but doesn’t move a muscle. “Do you need me to tell you?" 

Mia feels stupid just for nodding. "Yeah, Rafe, I need you to tell me, because there are a lot of things between us and I don’t want to risk-" 

"Though me gifting you my Pokémon collection was enough for you to catch up” he murmurs. 

“Though you were on a date with Peach Lane just this morning" 

"She has a boyfriend” he tells her with a whisper. “From college. She doesn’t want to have anything to do with me as much as I don’t want to have anything to do with me. Her parents are just being terrible as mine”

“A boyfriend” Mia repeats confused. “A boyfriend, like-" 

Then, he’s closing the gap and shutting her before she can start rambling again. In the back of her head something reminds her the fact that this is a habit of Rafe -kissing her when she asks too many questions, she talks too much, but he doesn’t want to answer- and, as Lucas made her notice, she shouldn’t punch him like his brother indirectly suggested. However, the main voice of her thoughts shuts her that she doesn’t even care about that, as Rafe mouth presses against hers, warm and familiar, and how long it has been? An involuntary sob escapes Mia’s throat, but when he tries to separate, she puts a hand on the nape of his neck and holds him down against her. Eyes shut from them both, Rafe doesn’t let her tell it twice, but grabs her by the waistband of her sweatpants and makes their bodies collide, as he kisses her bottom lips. 

"This is gross and I’m hungry” a voice interrupts from outside the kitchen door, making the two adults separate in surprise and turning towards Lucas’ voice. If Mia’s eyes are wide, Rafe’s narrow in annoyance. “The pizza is getting cold, so if you would like to join me in the next minute, I’ll be waiting. If you’re gonna be late, I’ll start without you two" 

He leaves after that not bothering to spare them another glance, if not reserving them an expression that matches Rafe’s. Mia’s mouth opens and closes, when the boy left with her, fingers still gripping her waistband, interrupts her attempt. 

"He just invited me over” he mutters. “Right?" 

"He did” Mia exhales in the end, nodding slowly and confused. When he looks up at Rafe, she does not have the strength to actually give him a smile, but he appreciates the attempt and what her mouth cracks. “You don’t have to accept" 

"Don’t you want me to?” he asks and lets go of her almost like she burned him, but she quickly searches for his hand, slipping her hands in his. 

“Sure I do” she tells him sincerely. “But I don’t want you to be forced. I’ll get if you want to go slow down with it and see how-" 

She’s interrupted by Rafe shutting the main door behind him with a loud sound and his free hand, which leaves her a bit surprised. He slips an arm around Mia’s shoulders, squeezing her enough to pull her close to his side to leave a kiss on her head. How could she forget about the way he craves intimacy? The way in which she realizes how she missed this makes her almost stumble. He holds her tightly when she almost falls, but doesn’t say anything about it. "I’m hungry. I hope you didn’t pick some weird condiments like sometimes you do, because-" 

"It’s classic” Lucas explains, when they enter the kitchen and Rafe lets Mia pass through the door first, so they won’t bump against the frame. “Who do you think I am? She’s not gonna put some weird stuff on my pizza. Take a plate, dude, I’m sure you already know the house" 

"Lucas, spare us” Mia breathes out, already unsure about the choice to come out and let those two interact in the same room. She’s the one to take Rafe a plate and a glass, because he knows where things are, but he’s still a guess. When he sits in front and not next to her, Lucas in between in the short side of the table, she’s glad: it makes things simpler, as she opens the boxes and shows Rafe a classic tomato and mozzarella pizza. When they start talking, she doesn’t expect Lucas and Rafe to stop bickering, but she has grown used to it in the past, that she almost doesn’t say a word just to listen to them having a discussion about pineapple on pizza (she has some decency, she wouldn’t ever put that on), comics or Pokémon. Rafe tells he used to have a card collection once and when he adds he gave to someone, Lucas tells he’s dumb because they probably worth like a lot now. 

“We have one” her brother makes sure to tell him. “Mia keeps it in her room, in her off limits drawer. But I can consider it ours " 

"No, you can’t” she tells him, serving him another slice of pizza. “And I’ve told you to stop going through my stuff. My whole room it’s off limits for you. Stay out of it" 

After a while, moved to another topic already, however, Lucas eventually frowns and asks Rafe: "Who did you give your card to?”, clearly already made the addition by himself, but needing to ask anyway.

“Who do you think?” the older one asks skeptically and Mia smiles behind another piece of pizza, when no one is watching. “Do you really think I’m that stupid to gift my collection to some random person?”

Useless to say, Lucas answers yes .