Chapter 21 #3
But it isn’t our apartment. It isn’t LA. It doesn’t hold our history. It’s lonely architecture with clean lines and too much space in the corners.
“It’s… fine,” I say, hating how defensive my voice sounds.
Rafe looks back at me, and I see what he’s doing. How he’s trying to soften the edges of my shame without making me feel like I’m being handled.
“It’s nice,” he says gently. “I mean it.” His eyes flick down to my mouth again. “And it’s ours for the week.”
The words wrap around my ribs like a promise and a threat.
Ours for the week.
Not ours, full stop. But I’ll take what I can get.
“Come in,” I say, voice rough. “Please.”
Rafe steps over the threshold. Once he’s inside, the door clicks shut behind him, sealing out the cold and the outside world and everything that isn’t us.
He shrugs his bag off his shoulder, setting it down by the entry table.
I stand there for a second like I’ve forgotten how to exist without distance between us.
He glances at the front door, then past me, his eyes flicking briefly to the small black camera mounted near the ceiling corner of the entryway. It’s subtle. Most people wouldn’t notice it.
He lifts an eyebrow. “Is that for me?”
Heat creeps up my neck. “Yeah,” I admit. “I want to make sure you’re safe while you’re here.” I gesture vaguely. “Extra alarms. Cameras outside. Motion sensors on the side gate.”
I hesitate, then add, quieter, “Your team coordinated with a local security branch. Same company you had overseas. They’ve got someone on call while you’re here.”
“Thank you.”
“Only if you leave the house,” I say quickly. “Inside, it’s just us. I wanted you to be able to relax. To not worry about someone figuring out you’re here.”
He exhales slowly, rubbing a hand over his jaw. “You didn’t have to do all that.”
“I wanted to,” I say. And then, more honestly, “It makes it easier. For both of us.”
He nods, accepting it without comment, but I can see the cost register anyway. Another layer. Another compromise.
“It’s all worth it to have you here,” I add.
Rafe looks back at me, softening. “Thank you,” he says. Not for the cameras. For the effort. Something in his expression shifts—something private. Something that feels like longing sharpened into need.
I move again. I reach for him, tug him close, and his hands come up instantly, gripping me like he’s been waiting all day to do it.
We kiss again, deeper this time, the carefulness cracking under the pressure of months apart.
It’s not frantic. It’s reverent. Like we’re both trying to remember the exact shape of each other.
My hands slide under his jacket, palms flattening against his back. I feel him inhale hard through his nose.
“Ollie,” he murmurs, and my name sounds like a prayer.
“I’m here,” I say, and it’s not just about this. It’s about everything I’ve failed to hold steady.
I guide him backward without really thinking, letting instinct take over. We stumble slightly down the hallway, half laughing into each other’s mouths, hands clumsy with urgency. Rafe’s fingers find the edge of my hoodie and tug. I pull it over my head, toss it somewhere unseen.
He does the same with his jacket, and his hoodie follows, leaving him in a T-shirt that clings faintly to his chest. He looks too good like this, cheeks flushed from the cold, eyes dark, lips swollen from kissing.
I feel dizzy with it.
We barely make it to the bedroom.
The moment we cross the threshold, the air changes. It’s warmer in here, softer. Less echo. The bed is made because I’ve been keeping things controlled, like neatness can substitute for peace. But the sheets don’t stand a chance.
Rafe’s hands find my face again. Mine find his waist, his ribs, the place under his shirt where I can feel skin.
We kiss, and the kiss turns into something that takes over my body completely.
Clothes drop in pieces, not torn, not frantic, just discarded because they’re in the way.
My hands shake slightly as I peel his shirt up and over his head.
I pause for half a second because seeing his skin again—uncovered, familiar, painted in ink I memorized long ago—hits me like a memory and a longing in the same breath.
Rafe’s gaze catches mine. He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t need to. He just reaches for me again and kisses me like we’re sealing a wound.
We hit the bed in a mess of limbs and breath, the mattress dipping hard beneath us.
Sheets tangle. Skin meets skin fast, clumsy, urgent—the air thick with our breathing, fabric whispering, the occasional breathless laugh when we knock knees or lose balance because kissing matters more than moving right.
It’s hands on skin that’s been starved. Mouths mapping familiar paths like we’re afraid we’ve forgotten them. Bodies that have waited too long finally collapsing into each other with a kind of reverence that feels almost holy.
Rafe buries his face in my neck, breath hot, voice rough. “I missed you so fucking much.”
Something in me splinters.
I lock my arms around him, holding on like gravity shifted. “Rafe, I need you.”
He nods once against my skin, already moving, reaching for the lube I left out without shame, without pretense.
His fingers slick, his body over mine, mouth dragging down my chest, heat following. His hand moves lower, and I spread my legs before he even asks, already open, already desperate for the connection.
Air punches out of me at the first touch. He watches my face, always watching, and when his fingers press in, I nod fast, breath breaking. “More, baby. I need you inside me.”
A feral “Fuck” leaves him as he takes my nipple into his mouth, fingers working with urgency and care that undo me completely.
“Rafe.” His name tears out of me—plea, command, confession. “Please.”
He doesn’t slow. He stretches me, opens me, relentless and focused, like this is the only thing that exists. Like this is oxygen.
“I’m ready, Rafe. Please, fuck me. I need you.”
Our gazes lock. The heat in his eyes, the love threaded through it, steals the air from my lungs. Rafe nods once, gathers more lube, and shifts, lining us up with careful intent.
“Lift your legs, baby,” he says, voice roughened to gravel.
I do, thighs rising without hesitation, open and exposed beneath him. His focus drops between us, and I feel it—the slow drag of him at my entrance, the teasing pressure that makes my breath hitch and my stomach tighten. I bite my lip as he presses forward.
He doesn’t rush. He slides in inch by inch, steady and controlled. The stretch pulls a guttural “Fuck” from my chest, my hands flying to him, gripping tight, urging him closer, deeper, until he’s fully seated and we’re flush, no space left between us.
“Fuck, you’re taking me so good, baby.”
I nod, breath shaking out of me as I adjust, the burn sharp and perfect. My body opens for him, remembers him.
“You with me?” he asks, voice strained, muscles trembling with restraint.
“Yes.” I press up into him. “Fuck me, Rafe.”
That’s all it takes. He moves—hard, fast, purposeful. Every thrust lands deep, driving the air from my lungs, pulling me with him. His eyes keep finding mine, holding there, like this is more than heat, more than need—like he’s trying to memorize me the same way I’m memorizing him.
I cling to him, wanting this to brand itself into both of us, something we can’t lose no matter what comes next.
“Ollie, fuck. I need your mouth.”
He shifts, just enough. I follow, closing the space, and our lips meet.
The kiss is not gentle. It’s desperate, open-mouthed, breath shared and stolen in the same second.
Teeth knock, noses bump, neither of us caring.
His hand slides into my hair, anchoring me, and I taste salt and heat and him.
Every exhale turns into a sound against my mouth, every movement pulling us tighter together, like we’re trying to fuse instead of just touch.
It’s messy and hungry, crammed with everything we never say out loud.
He breaks the kiss, eyes bright. “You are fucking perfect.”
“I love you,” I breathe as he drives into me.
He kisses me again, softer for a heartbeat before pulling back. “I love you. So fucking much.”
Emotion claws up my throat, sudden and fierce. It’s been too long. I swallow it down with a gasp as his hips snap forward.
“Jack yourself, baby. I’m not going to last.”
I nod, slipping my hand between us. He shifts to his knees and hauls me with him effortlessly. I love that he can. I love even more that he’s this desperate.
He grabs my hand, wraps it around my cock, strokes once, twice.
I’m already gone.
My vision blurs, my body clenching around him. Rafe groans, losing rhythm as pleasure takes over. The relentless brush inside me shatters what little control I have left. My head falls back, a broken sound tearing out of me as release hits, heat spilling between us.
He follows a heartbeat later, a rough curse falling from his mouth as he stills, buried deep, trembling.
Aftershocks roll through me, breath dragging in and out. It takes effort to focus. He’s looking down at me, chest heaving, gaze raw and open.
The world doesn’t rush back. It seeps in slowly, like morning light, as he eases out and leans down to press a slow, tender kiss to my mouth.
We lie tangled together, limbs heavy, skin warm, breath still uneven. Rafe is half sprawled across my chest, his head tucked under my jaw like it’s always belonged there. His strands tickle my throat. My hand rests on his back, fingers tracing small circles without thinking.
I hold him like he might vanish. Like if I loosen my arms, six months will stretch back between us and swallow him whole.
Rafe shifts slightly and tilts his head up to look at me. His gaze is softer now, less guarded. There’s a quiet vulnerability in it that makes my chest ache. He lifts his hand and traces my face with careful fingers. His touch pauses at the edge of my cheekbones, lighter than air.
I know he sees the signs there—of how hard I’ve been working, how I’m not sleeping as well as I need to.
“How bad?” he murmurs.
I swallow. “It’s fine.”
He gives me a look that says he knows my definition of fine is useless. His finger drifts along the cut near my brow like he’s checking for damage.
“You’ve been stressed,” he says quietly.
It isn’t a question.
I exhale slowly. “Yeah.”
Rafe’s eyes search mine. “Is it… this?” he asks, gesturing vaguely at the room, the house, the city. “Or is it—”
Us.
He doesn’t say it, but it sits there anyway.
I tighten my arm around him. “It’s everything,” I admit.
Rafe’s mouth presses into a thin line before he exhales and settles his head back onto my chest like he’s choosing peace over interrogation. “I’m here for a week,” he says after a moment.
My stomach twists immediately. Relief and fear, tangled. “I know.”
“I want it to be good,” he says softly. The honesty in it is almost worse than anger would be. “Not… perfect. Just… good.”
I close my eyes. “Me too.”
Silence stretches. It’s comfortable at first until it shifts as reality always finds us.
Rafe lifts his head again slightly. “What’s your schedule?” he asks, careful.
There it is. The practical stuff. The unavoidable stuff.
I swallow hard. “We’ve got two days off,” I say. “Then practice. Then games. But I can—” I hesitate. “I can make time.”
His gaze flickers, like he’s trying not to ask for promises. Like he’s trying not to sound like he’s begging. “I can work around you,” he says. “I don’t have anything planned. I just… wanted to be here.”
My breath goes soft. “I want you here too.”
Another pause follows as Rafe’s fingers trail absentmindedly over my sternum. “And after the week?” he asks, voice too light.
I freeze. Not because I don’t have an answer. Because I do. Because the answer is the same one that’s been slowly poisoning us since August. Since the trade in December. Since everything became harder.
After the week, he goes back to LA.
After the week, I stay here.
After the week, we return to screens and time zones and missed calls and voice notes that sound like transactions.
I force myself to breathe. “We’ll figure it out,” I say, because that’s what I always say.
Rafe’s eyes stay on mine a moment longer. He doesn’t argue, though. He just nods like he’s absorbing the truth behind my words. After a beat, he shifts closer again, pressing a slow kiss to my chest, right over my heart. The gesture is tender enough to make my throat burn.
“Okay,” he murmurs. “For tonight, though?”
“For tonight,” I echo.
We take a few moments to clean up and immediately get back into bed. Rafe settles fully into my arms again with a quiet sigh, his body relaxing like he’s letting himself believe in safety for a few hours. I pull the blanket up over us and press my lips to his hair.
He smells like home and something sharp underneath it that might be exhaustion. But he’s here. He’s warm against me, and for tonight, that’s enough.
When sleep finally starts dragging him under, I keep my eyes open a little longer, staring into the dim room.
This is love.
This is home.
This doesn’t fix anything.
But for tonight, I have him. And I choose that.