𝐡𝐢𝐠𝐡 | 𝐫𝐚𝐟𝐞 𝐜𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐨𝐧

０２０．

For the first time in days, Rafe couldn't sleep.

Even with Ren tucked into his side, even after the exhausting night he'd had, he couldn't sleep. He kept hearing the gunshots and the panic in his father's voice, kept seeing Eberhimi's unseeing gaze as they'd dragged his corpse through the sand.

He couldn't keep doing this. The lying and the hiding and the fucking murders -- he couldn't do it anymore. It was going to drive him insane.

It might already have.

Rafe carefully untangled himself from Ren, running a shaking hand through his hair as he sat up and dragged in a shaky breath.

He didn't want to go home. He didn't want his dad to come back and find him. He didn't want the cross or the gold or the money. He just wanted to live a normal life, worrying about normal shit. He wanted to be back in the Outer Banks, living like he had before his father had ever gone out in search of the Royal Merchant.

He wished he could just stay here, in this bed with this girl. Just let his father go, get away from all of the stress that came from existing in Ward Cameron's orbit. Let his father take the gold and the cross and do whatever with it.

But that would mean abandoning Wheezie. It would mean going back on his promises. And Rafe wasn't sure there was anything that was worth that.

A glance down at Ren, though, made him wonder if maybe there was.

Rafe let out a long sigh as he nestled back into the blankets, wrapping his uninjured arm beneath Ren and gathering her against him. She stirred slightly, blinking her eyes open and looking up at him. She furrowed her brows together as she squinted, scanning his face.

"What's wrong?" She asked, voice hoarse from sleep.

He shrugged, burying his face in the crook of her neck in an effort to mask whatever had been on his face that had given his feelings away so easily. "Nothing," he replied. "Just can't sleep. I'm sorry for waking you."

Rafe felt gentle, slender fingers drift over his brow bone and down the line of his jaw before Ren tilted his chin up, forcing him to look at her. Even in the darkness of the room, the green of her eyes stood out, pale and almost glowing in the moonlight spilling through the window. He'd never really noticed how green her eyes were.

There were a lot of things about Ren that he'd never really noticed until he'd let himself admit that he cared for her, things that he hadn't stopped noticing since the pseudo-confession of his feelings outside of her apartment earlier. The way she wrinkled her nose when she laughed, the fact that she had a French accent on certain words from speaking with the locals, the way she blushed uncontrollably at the slightest embarrassment or surprise.

He hated that he noticed those things and that they made him care even more. He couldn't get attached, not with shit as precarious as it was at home. But he couldn't bring himself to leave her alone.

And he couldn't bring himself to stop her as she kissed him, soft and gentle and intoxicating. When she pulled away, she stayed close, her nose brushing against his as she said, "You haven't slept at all?"

Rafe shook his head.

"You need sleep, Rafe," she said, as though he wasn't already more than aware.

He realized with a start that if it had been anybody else who had said that to him, especially with that knowing tone, he likely would have come back with a smartass comment. But all he wanted to do was kiss her again.

Rafe leaned in, and Ren leaned back, putting distance between them once more. She smiled, clambering out of his arms until she was seated, and crossed her legs as she looked at him. "Let's do something, then. Get you tired, since you somehow aren't already exhausted."