Chapter 19 #3
Rafe’s face stays closed as he stands. “Yeah,” he says, voice neutral. “Sure.” He doesn’t look at me as he moves toward the door.
Marco nudges me with his elbow. “Come on,” he says.
I stand on legs that feel too heavy and say goodbye. As we head for the front door, my pulse pounds in my ears, and I know exactly what Marco is doing. He’s getting us out and giving Rafe and me space.
He’s creating an exit without raising questions. He’s saving me again.
And Rafe is walking ahead of us, shoulders tight, expression unreadable, and I have no idea what I’m about to face once Marco is gone.
We step outside into the daylight, the porch creaking beneath our feet again. Rafe doesn’t turn around. Not yet. But I can feel it—the conversation waiting like a storm on the other side of this moment.
And I’m terrified I’ve made everything worse.
Outside, the air feels too clean.
The light is too bright, the street too quiet, like the world is deliberately calm to mock the chaos inside my chest. There’s no one on the sidewalk.
No neighbor watering their lawn. No dog barking in the distance.
Even the wind seems to hold back. The kind of suburban stillness that makes every sound feel amplified—my own breathing, the scrape of my shoes against the porch boards, the pulse in my bruised eye.
Marco keeps moving, because he’s smart enough to know exactly what’s coming. He offers a quick, pointed look that says I’ve got you, then heads down the steps toward the driveway. “I’ll… start the car,” he says casually, like we’re not standing on the edge of something sharp.
“Yeah,” I manage.
He doesn’t linger. He gives us the space like it’s a gift, and then it’s just me and Rafe on the porch, the front door shut behind us, the house pressing quietly at my back.
Rafe doesn’t speak immediately. He turns slowly, and the hurt on his face hits me like a blow.
Not fury. Not coldness. Hurt.
His eyes are dark and too still, like whatever he’s feeling is being held behind his teeth with sheer force. He looks… older, somehow, in a way that has nothing to do with time and everything to do with exhaustion.
“You told Marco?” he asks.
The words are calm, but the tone isn’t.
I swallow hard. “Yes,” I admit. “He… kind of found out this morning when I was spiraling.”
Rafe’s jaw flexes.
I rush on, because silence is unbearable. “I swear the guy can get secrets out of a priest,” I add, attempting a weak joke. “Like, I don’t know how he does it. He just—”
It lands like a dead bird between us. Rafe doesn’t smile. His voice goes harder. “So, let me get this straight.” He gestures with a sharp, controlled movement, like he’s drawing lines on the porch boards. “Your parents know. Your sister knows. Your basketball buddy knows.”
I flinch.
“And none of my family does,” he continues, voice clipped, “and they can’t.”
“The guys know,” I say quickly, because it matters. Because it makes it less—less like I’m choosing. “Eli and Drew and Miles. They’ve known from the beginning.”
Rafe’s eyes flash. “That’s not what I meant.”
I swallow hard. My mouth tastes like metal.
“And now Marco,” he says, as if the name itself stings. “Marco who has his own life and his own wife and his own team, and now he knows.”
“He’s not going to tell anyone,” I say immediately. “He wouldn’t.”
Rafe lets out a short laugh with no humor. “That’s not the point.”
I blink hard, forcing myself to be steady. “I didn’t—” I start, then stop, because I don’t know what I didn’t do. I didn’t plan for it. I didn’t want it. I didn’t think—
I’m still thinking when my gaze flicks instinctively toward the house. Something pricks at the back of my mind. The security detail. The fact that there’s always someone, somewhere, even when you think you’re alone.
I scan the windows before I can stop myself. And then I see him. Vinny.
He’s in the living room, half in shadow, standing near the window with the posture of someone who’s been trained to be still.
He’s holding a phone. When he notices my eyes on him, he gives a slight nod.
Professional. Neutral. A silent confirmation that, yes, he’s here.
Yes, he’s been here. Yes, he’s seen more than I want to imagine.
When I look back at Rafe, his face is tight with something that looks almost like resignation, and I realize what I just did—how I looked toward the window, how I searched for Vinny, how I proved Rafe’s point without meaning to.
People keep learning. The secret keeps expanding. Just never in the direction that would actually set Rafe free.
I open my mouth, panic rising. “We can—” I say quickly. “We can go in right now. We can tell them.”
Rafe’s answer is instant. “No.”
It’s so fast, so sharp, so vehement, it knocks the air out of me. I stare at him. “No?”
“No,” he repeats, harder. “Not like this.”
I blink, my brain struggling to catch up. “I’m trying to fix it,” I say. “I’m trying to—”
“Not once again on your fucking terms,” Rafe snaps.
The porch seems to tilt. My throat constricts painfully. “Rafe—”
He shakes his head, anger breaking through the careful restraint like a crack in glass. “Jesus, Ollie.”
“Don’t,” I whisper. “Please don’t do that.”
Rafe’s laugh is bitter. “Don’t do what? Say it out loud?
Say what this is?” His eyes burn into mine.
“We were supposed to be here together. Today. On purpose. You were supposed to meet them like my husband. Not—” He gestures toward the door, toward the house, toward the whole damn scene.
“Not like some stranger who happened to show up late with a black eye and a friend who knows more about my marriage than my mother does.”
The words punch straight through me. My chest feels too small for my lungs. “I know,” I say, voice shaking. “I know. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“You keep saying that,” Rafe says, voice rough. “And then you keep making me swallow it.”
“That’s not fair,” I say automatically, because I’m already drowning and my body is desperate for a lifeline. “I’m trying. You think I’m not trying?”
His eyes flash. “Then why does it always end up here? Why does it always end up with me having to be the one who understands? The one who waits? The one who gets pushed into whatever shape you need so you don’t have to face your own fear?”
My throat closes. I want to deny it. I want to argue. I want to claw back any ground I can find. But he’s not wrong, and that’s the worst part.
“I’m not doing this because I don’t love you,” I say, voice cracking. “I’m not doing this because I don’t want you.”
Rafe’s expression tightens, pain cutting through the anger.
“Since the moment we met,” I continue, forcing the words out, because if I don’t say them now, I never will, “you knew I didn’t want to come out. You knew that. I didn’t hide it from you.”
He stares at me, jaw clenched.
“I don’t want to be the first,” I say, the honesty ripping through me like a wound. “Honestly, maybe not even the second. I don’t want to be the headline. I don’t want to be the story.”
My skin prickles, sweat breaking out along my spine despite the mild air. My heart pounds hard enough that my bruised eye throbs in time with it.
“Just thinking about it makes me feel sick,” I admit, swallowing around the tightness in my throat. “It doesn’t mean I’m ashamed of you. It doesn’t mean I’m ashamed of me. I just—” I shake my head, helpless. “I can’t do it yet. I can’t.”
Rafe’s eyes glisten for a second, quick as a flicker of light, and then he looks away like he refuses to let me see it. When he looks back, the anger has drained into something quieter.
Something more dangerous.
Sadness.
He exhales slowly. “Okay.”
The word is soft, but it terrifies me more than the yelling.
“Okay?” I repeat, because my brain doesn’t understand. “What do you mean, okay?”
Rafe’s gaze holds mine. “I mean… okay. I hear you.”
My pulse spikes. “Rafe—”
“You should go home,” he says.
The sentence is simple. It’s also a blade. My stomach drops so hard I feel nauseous. “What?” I whisper.
He gestures toward the driveway, toward Marco waiting in the car. “Go back to LA,” Rafe says, voice steady but low. “We’ll… we’ll take a breath.”
My heart lurches violently. Panic floods my veins in a way that makes the edges of my vision shimmer. “What are you saying?” I blurt, the words tumbling out raw and desperate. “What—are you—saying?”
Rafe watches me carefully, like he can see the panic rising, like he’s trying not to push me over the edge. His voice softens by a fraction. “I’m saying I love you,” he says.
I freeze.
“And I’m saying,” he continues, “that I need to take a breath. So do you.”
My shoulders tense, chest aching. “A breath,” I echo stupidly, like repeating it will make it less terrifying.
“I’ll see you in a couple of days,” Rafe says quietly. “That’s all.”
My heart is pounding too hard. My lungs feel too small. Every fear I’ve tried to outrun for two years slams into me all at once.
I hear my own voice before I can stop it. The words tear out of me, naked and terrified. “So, you’re not leaving me?”
The question hangs in the air like a confession. I’ve never asked it before. I’ve never dared. Because saying it makes it possible. Makes it real.
Rafe’s face shifts. Pain, yes. But also something softer, something unbearably tender, like the question breaks his heart too. “No,” he says firmly. “I’m not leaving you.”
My knees go weak with relief, with grief, with exhaustion.
“Just go back to LA,” he repeats, gentler now. “We’ll reset. We’ll breathe. And I’ll see you soon.”
I nod, because I don’t know what else to do. I don’t know how to fix this in the space of a porch and a quiet street and a waiting car.
Rafe doesn’t kiss me. He doesn’t touch me again. He just looks at me for one long moment, like he’s trying to memorize the shape of me in daylight, bruised and terrified and still his. Then he turns, opens the front door, and steps inside.
He looks back at me once, his parting words soft as he whispers, “Happy anniversary,” before closing the door behind him with a soft, final click that echoes through my ribs like a slammed door.
I stand there staring at it, frozen, my chest aching, my throat burning, my wedding ring heavy against my chest like it weighs more than metal.
Marco calls my name from the car. I don’t answer right away, because for a second, I can’t move. For a second, all I can do is stare at the door and realize that Rafe disappearing behind it hurts in a way I didn’t know was possible.