✧ Summary- Rafe Cameron used to avoid love, only having flings and never getting close to anyone. Now 27 and raising his 3-year-old daughter Harper alone, he wants something more, a real connection. Tired of being judged on the island, he tries Hinge and sets his location to the mainland. After days of no matches, he finds your profile and is instantly drawn to you.
✧ Prompt- for hingematch!rafe could you do one where hes been busy with his daughter and doesnt realise hes left her on delivered and she thinks hes ghosted her?
✧ Prompted here
It had been a month. A month of back and forth texting, FaceTime calls, and learning more about each other. Rafe surprisingly opened up about a lot to you, other than the fact that he had his daughter. He still didn’t know how to bring this up. Now worried it would ruin everything.
You had off today so you and Rafe had spent all night on the phone. You had fallen asleep first so when you woke up you wanted to make it a point to text him.
9:29am: Hi, how pathetic am I fallen asleep on you like that?
9:30am: My first year residency is kicking my ass, I’m shocked that I even stayed up as late as I did.
9:31am: I’m free all day today, finally have a day off, so don’t be shy in texting me! 🥰
9:44am: I’m sure you’re at work and busy. Like I said I’m free all day. I just can’t wait to hear your voice again.
You hadn’t mean to sound desperate. This past month you and Rafe had been on top getting back to each other the second with of you had texted. You had both shared your schedules, you knew when he’d be in meetings and he knew when you’d be working at your internship. The second either was over, one of you was immediately sending a text. Unless there was an emergency meeting he got pulled in to, this was a bit of a strange break in the pattern.
You busied yourself as best as you could. You made yourself a nice breakfast, something you barely get to do anymore. Then, you caught up on some of your tv shows and when they were done you began a new book. You took a full pamper shower, cleaned up your nails, did your hair routine, your skincare, and applied some makeup.
It had been 4 hours and when you finally picked back up your phone it was still radio silence from Rafe. You let out a sigh of defeat. Mind racing that something that seemed so precious could already be over. He hadn’t even read the texts. You don’t mean to jump to conclusions, but no matter how well this seemed to be going, he was only just an online dating match who ended up living 5 hours away from you.
On the other side of North Carolina, Rafe was a mess. Harper had claimed she had a stomach ache and refused to go to school, meanwhile he caught the toddler in the pantry sneaking cookies and gummies 3 times this morning. He told her the only thing she was allowed to do was lay in bed and get rest if she was that sick. This lead to full blown tantrums and Rafe wanting to pull out the short hair of his buzzcut.
Between Harper fighting him all morning and having to rearrange his business schedule, this glued Rafe to his office desk. His personal phone was forgotten on his nightstand and he didn’t get a chance to think about it. He left the office door open, which gave him a perfect view of Harper’s and the hundreds of times he caught her sneaking out of it.
“Harper get back here!”
“No daddy, I want more snacks.”
“You said your tummy hurt, were you lying to me?”
“No.”
“Don’t lie to daddy, Harper.”
“Yes.”
Harper bowed her head in defeat. A cute way of defeat only a 3 year old could get away with. This caused Rafe to kneel in front of his daughter, lifting her chin delicately with his fingers.
“Why’d you lie Harper?”
“I don’t like school, I wanted to be with you. You mwake me safe.”
“Why would you need me to keep you safe baby?”
“Cause kids are mean and I don’t like ‘em.”
“Oh baby, I’m sorry. How about this, we spend the rest of the day doing anything you want? Snacks, movies, tea party. How’s that sound?”
Harper’s face lit up and she threw herself into her dad’s arms, wrapping hers around his neck and hugging him tightly.
“Yes daddy! Come!”
Rafe laughed as he allowed the toddler to drag him into the kitchen. She pulled out the tea set from the lower cabinet that was designated for all her stuff. Rafe put on some water to boil, then she went to pantry to pull out snacks she wanted for tea time.
They brought up everything to her room. Harper knew exactly how to set everything up. A setting for her, a setting for Rafe, and two other settings for her stuffed elephant and American Girl doll Sarah had gotten her.
They spent the entire day doing what Harper wanted. Rafe let his assistant know he would be unreachable as he just wanted to focus on his daughter. This was the first she brought up having problems at preschool. How the hell were 3 year olds already having issues. He got her to open up about it and it was 2 boys that would take her crayons and break them when she’d color or steal her gummies at lunch time.
Rafe took offense to that personally because he was always proud of himself for making her lunches every morning. But he quickly shook off the feeling of being pissed off at a 3 year old. Heloved being a dad and making Harper happy. He didn’t want to be sad or afraid to go to school. So to just do this little thing for her to see her smile, he was more than ok to do it.
When the time came around for Harper’s bedtime, he brushed through her now dried hair from the bath and tucked her into bed.
“You’re gonna have to go to school tomorrow Princess. I know it’s scary, but you’re a tough girl, I’ll come in with you tomorrow and talk with your teachers. We’ll figure this out together. Ok?”
Harper gave a soft sigh and looked like she wanted to plead with her dad to not go in another day. “Ok. Ima tough girl.”
“That’s right. I love you little one.”
“I love you daddy.”
Rafe had given her one final kiss before making his way to his bedroom and plopping down onto his sheets. He had forgotten about his phone all day and had decided to pick it up. There were notifications from Sarah, Topper, Kelce and all the way at the bottom there were four missed messages from you.
He ran his hand over his face. He never missed a text from you. He always had Do Not Disturb on and you’ve been the only one this past month that could still get through to him. He was stuck on what to say. His entire day was spent making sure his daughter had been happy. His daughter, you had no idea about. What could he even say?
It was now 8:30 at night. You had just cleaned up the kitchen from cooking dinner earlier. Mind finally at ease from the doubt and wary feeling about being ignored. You knew you shouldn’t have gotten attached, no matter how good it felt. He probably found someone closer to him and forgot all about you. Online dating has never turned out great for you. This was just another disappointing failure.
You sat on the couch, trying to push aside your thoughts as you engulfed yourself in your favorite movie. Your phone is next to you laying face down. It was almost 9 and even with a relaxing day of doing what you loved you were already feeling tired again. You rested your head in the palm of your hand as you our eyes began to close, a ping from your phone shot them right back open.
Embarrassingly, you reached for it quicker than you’d like to admit. You look at the notification and see it’s Rafe. You hold back a smile, not ready for what it says.
8:55pm: Hi. I’m really sorry about today. From the second I woke up chaos was erupting at the office. I had to get up and ready and rush out the door. I completely forget my personal phone at home and just got back. I missed you today. 🩵
You let out a breath that you didn’t even realize you were holding and smile warmly at the message. You were scared of rejection and know he feels this way you reply instantly not caring how it makes you look anymore.
8:57PM: No need to apologize Mr. CEO. Some things are unpredictable, it’s easy to get caught up, I’m still here for you.
Rafe took a sigh of relief at your response. He didn’t want to ruin this. But the gnawing guilt of lying to you about Harper made him terrified of what was yet to come. You said you loved kids. But would you love him when you found out he had a daughter?
For now the only thing to do was to continue to talk to you. Learn more about you. Hopefully you would understand why he was doing what he was doing. It was to protect Harper. You’d understand, right?
