The waitress looks startled. The older couples stare. Someone laughs nervously.
Rafe lifts a hand. “Hey,” he says, trying to sound calm. “Hey, guys?—”
They push closer. One of them reaches for him. Her fingers grab his forearm, and something inside me snaps.
Not violently. Not irrationally.
Protectively.
I’m on my feet before I even realize it. The booth feels suddenly too small. Too vulnerable. Rafe is boxed in. Miles is already moving, sliding out, and Drew stands as well, but I’m the biggest body in the room.
And in this moment, my size isn’t a liability. It’s a wall.
“Back up,” I say, voice low but carrying.
It cuts through their noise enough that a few of them blink. Surprise flashes across their faces as they register me, my height, the fact that I’m not smiling.
One girl pouts. “We just want a picture!”
“Not right now,” I say. “You’re crowding him.”
“I’m not hurting him,” the one holding his arm protests. Her grip tightens.
Rafe’s eyes flick to me behind his sunglasses, and I see the fear there. Small, contained, but real.
That’s it.
I step forward into the space between them and the booth, blocking the view of him completely. My body fills the gap. There’s no room to argue physically.
“Let go,” I say, quieter now, sharper.
She hesitates.
Miles speaks up from beside me, voice firm. “Let go of him. Now.”
Something in his tone—trained, cold—makes her flinch. Her hand drops away.
The girls protest immediately, their excitement curdling into frustration. “This is unfair!”
“We came all the way here after seeing a post on Insta!”
“He can take one photo!”
Drew leans in. “Not like this.”
Eli, for once, isn’t joking. He’s tense and pale, eyes darting like he’s calculating how bad this could get.
The café feels too small now. Too exposed. The doorway is a funnel. More people are pulling out phones.
I keep my voice steady. “You need to move back. You’re scaring him.”
That last part does it.
They hesitate, confused, and in that second, Miles makes a sharp gesture. “Now,” he says to us.
We move.
It’s fast, controlled. We’ve all done versions of this before, just never like this—never in daylight, never over pancakes. Miles leads. Drew clears space. Eli grabs his coffee like it matters. Rafe stays close behind Miles, shoulders hunched, trying to keep his face hidden.
