Chapter 15 ~ Rafe
His plan sucks, but fuck it, I’m in
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“We need to talk, like in person; it’s Minho-related, so it's important.” Bellamy’s words from yesterday ring in my head as I am halfway through my fifth lap in the pool when I hear the knock.
Water sloshes around my shoulders as I stop, pushing my wet hair out of my eyes. Steam rises from the surface of the pool, curling into the evening air. Bellamy never showed at the shop, so I closed as usual and went home for my late-night swim, which I do every other night.
For a second, I thought I had imagined it—the knock, as if it were a trick of the bright underwater lights pounding against my skull like a migraine or from the cicadas screaming from the oak trees lining my property.
Then it comes again, three sharp, insistent knocks against the front door that tell me whoever it is knows I am home and doesn’t plan on leaving until I answer. I realise the backyard doors are wide open, which means I only heard it because Seb didn’t close the doors before he left.
I haul myself out of the pool, water streaming down my chest and legs, leaving dark footprints on the travertine. I grab my towel hanging from the back of a lounge chair on my way through the open glass doors, simultaneously drying myself off just enough not to soak the marble flooring of my house.
The foyer is dark except for the light spilling in from the backyard, and I can almost make out a silhouette through the frosted glass of the front door. And I know who it is before I open the door, in time for Bellamy to look me over before snapping his eyes to mine.
“Rafe.” He says my name like he’d rehearsed this moment and needed time to come up with an excuse for why he is standing on my front porch.
“Bellamy.” I lean against the doorframe, crossing my arms over my chest and letting my towel hang loose around my neck. “I told you to meet me down at the shop hours ago, not my home.”
His eyes betray him for a second time as they drop to my chest, my stomach and then lower before he swallows and meets my gaze again.
“I—Well, you... I overslept, nearly missed practice, then I tried studying for a class I thought would be easy, and then Minho’s been spending time with this guy all day, a very popular guy, might I add, like sex god popular and well,” he pauses, and it's then I notice how flustered he is. “I thought after we kissed and I made him come yesterday, he’d maybe meant it when he said he was done scheming, but—”
Oh wow.
Lots to unpack there.
“But you just realised he’s decided to toy with your feelings,” I finish for him with a chuckle. “You’ve pushed him into a corner, so now he’s going after the one thing he knows he can manipulate; it's—genius.”
“It’s exhausting,” he counters with a scowl. “He had fucking Armani Valentino in our apartment and made the guy lunch, not me, the model and then they went for a run.”
I laugh; I shouldn’t, but I can’t help it, not when Bellamy is visibly wearing jealousy like a hoodie and believing Minho would ever be the first to call for a cease-fire after an orgasm.
It's comical.
Oh, how this is beginning to get way more interesting.
Wait.
“What do you mean, Valentino?” I ask, and Bellamy smirks as if he finds my sudden realisation of what he said. “What the fuck is he doing in town?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.” He laughs.
“I figured when he showed up yesterday, talking to Minho, and then they kissed, it was to get a rise out of me, but as I said, they’ve been hanging out with Nyla all fucking day, and he hasn’t responded to any of my texts...
Do you think they're dating? Minho and Armani.”
I can’t help but burst out into a fit of laughter, even more so when Bellamy looks at me as if I’ve grown two extra heads.
“They are not dating.” I wipe away tears and straighten myself. “Did Minho ever tell you about the boarding school he went to before you two met?”
He shakes his head. “Obviously no.”
“Yeah, well, he went to St Bishop’s Academy, and there he met one Armani Valentino,” I explain.
“The two of them were inseparable during the summer, from what Colton has told me, but then something happened the last year Minho went to that school, and I figured he and the Valentino kid were no longer close.”
“What happened?” Bellamy asks, and I’m not sure whether he genuinely cares or if he is looking for an angle to exploit to get between them.
“A kid died,” I say, keeping my face void of emotion. “Was found in the school theatre and later ruled a suicide.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“Did—”
“No,” I cut him off. “Minho didn’t know the kid personally, but Armani and a few others did, so Colton pulled his only son out of that place, and they don’t talk about it, ever.”
“Got it, so don't mention this to Minho or Coach because I technically shouldn’t know,” he sums up with a gentle nod.
“Unless you want to explain to either of them why you were here so late, then no, you don’t.
” It would be best if everything I shared stayed buried.
The last thing I want is for Minho to be thinking about that year.
Especially since he works so hard to be the person he is today, and bringing up the kid who bullied him for years after his mom left would trigger him into a spiral Bellamy has never seen before.
“Why do you think Armani is here now?” He asks the question so lightly, like a whisper; it's so silent that I nearly miss it. “Do you think now that they are both openly out that they’ll try to date or maybe they are, and Minho isn’t saying anything to either of us because—”
“You need to breathe, maybe have a beer.” I stop, take in his dishevelled hair and bloodshot eyes. How long has he been overthinking all of this shit?. “Or two and maybe consider eating something.”
He waves me off. “I’m not hungry.”
“Come inside, Hockey Barbie.”
He glares but looks past me, into the house, eyes widening at the vaulted ceilings, the marble floors, the massive staircase that curves up toward the second floor.
I see him take it in, the wealth that I have spent most of my teenage and all my adult life pretending isn’t mine.
And something shifts in Bellamy’s expression.
“I knew your parents were disgustingly rich, but damn, Rafe.” He whistles as I take a step aside for him to come inside, and he does before I close the door behind us. “Where are your infamous parents anyway?”
“My father is in Italy or Rio, last I heard,” I answer without much care for wherever he truly is. “Mother is in California with her sister, but I believe she will be meeting up with my father soon.”
“Curiouser and curiouser,” he muses as he takes in the family portrait of me, Seb and our parents all together, smiling as if we are a real family full of joy and love when truthfully, we couldn’t have been further from that in the past or now.
I tilt my head to the side. “Is there a point to your nosy question, or are you finally going to tell me what was so important you needed to come here?”
“No point.” He shakes his head. “I just... didn’t know what else I could do on the whole Minho thing.
I did have one idea, but then as I drove here, I realised how stupid it would be because his dad is your friend, and the chances of you actually wanting to help me are slim.
However, I saw you tattooed what I asked, or so I figured I would ask, but still, stupid idea, not likely to be executed. ”
Oh my God, Minho has turned his playboy stepbrother into a sappy, heart-eyed puppy who rambles like a child full of candy.
I don’t know whether to find it frightening or adorable.
I lead him through the house, past the living room with its floor-to-ceiling windows, into the kitchen where Seb left a bottle of whiskey open on the counter—again.
I swear I need to hide my shit from him.
“Drink?” I ask, grabbing two glasses before he even answers.
“Yeah, thanks.”
I pour two fingers for each of us, slide one across the island to him and lean against the counter on the opposite side.
“So you have a plan but aren’t sure whether I will like it?” I hate even bringing this back up, but the poor fool clearly needs help, and I am guessing Yeseo isn’t in the helping mood anymore.
“Yeah.” Bellamy picks up the glass but doesn’t drink.
He simply holds it, turning it in his fingers, watching the amber liquid catch the light from the pendant lamps above the island.
“And it's funny, you know? I kissed him after the game he won, and now I am attempting to ask another man to get involved.” He laughs dryly. “It’s so stupid.”
I keep my face neutral. I knew about the kiss before Bellamy came here.
Minho called earlier, and from the tone of his voice alone, I knew he couldn't decide whether he felt guilty or hopeful, for what?
I don't know, but I am not about to admit any of this.
The part of them having a quickie in the locker room, now that I can work with.
“I know,” I say. “About the kiss, Minho told me this morning.”
Bellamy's eyes snap up to mine. “You already knew?”
I shrug. “I did.” I take a sip of my whiskey, letting the burn settle in my chest. “He first promised to get back at me for helping you and then told me everything.”
“Right.” Bellamy lets out a breath that is almost a laugh. “Right, because you are the better option, the better man who's known him since forever and didn’t hurt him—you're not me, his stepbrother he’s sooner spit on than kiss ever again.”
“Since he was sixteen and his dad brought him to a barbecue at my parents' house, yeah.” I correct him. Before then, I only knew Minho and Yeseo through pictures while I travelled. I set the glass down. “What’s your point, Bellamy? Do you still want help, or are you too pussy to tell me your supposedly stupid plan?”
He finally drinks, takes one long pull that empties the glass, and when he sets it down, his hand is shaking just enough for me to notice.