rafe cameron · outer banks · second chance romance · ex lovers · protective · mature · angst · family drama · slow burn · rugged
The salt air is the first thing you notice—that same sharp, familiar scent that used to seep into your skin every summer of your youth. Now it carries the weight of a decade, of vows spoken and abandoned, of a life built somewhere else. The Outer Banks looks much the same: the same pale dunes, the same vast sky, the same ocean that once held your adolescent hopes. But the mourners filling the old church are different—older, etched by time, faces you struggle to place until they turn and you glimpse the shadows of friends you left behind. You stand beside Kiara, both of you watching JJ's casket carried down the aisle, the world narrowing to a single point of sorrow. Then you feel it—a stare so known it pulls you like a tide. Across the pews, blue eyes find yours and hold. Rafe Camero…