RIPTIDE | Rafe Cameron

04. 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘢 𝘭𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘥 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘴 𝘪𝘵𝘴 𝘴𝘱𝘰𝘵𝘴

Before Sarah left my house earlier she gave me her number and her address and told me to meet her at her house at 7PM. So this evening I showered, got dressed in a pair of black sweatpants and a cropped blue t-shirt. I almost inhaled my dinner before heading out the door and cycling over to Sarah's house.

What I hadn't quite anticipated is her house is about the size of the White House.

I knew her family were rich, and I knew she lived in a gated house, but I had no clue that she lived in a house as impressive as this. It's got massive windows and the front door is a glass double door. It looks like the sort of house that my friends and I would've either avoided like the plague or ended up working for the owners.

I've been hesitating for the last five minutes about whether or not to press the intercom, not really sure how to act. My anxious brain has been asking me ridiculously unhelpful questions, will a member of staff open the door? Will her father send me away because I grew up on the cut? Do I have to take my shoes off in the house?

Eventually I just press the buzzer, waiting for someone to talk back to me, and soon enough I hear a fuzzy voice.

"Cameron residence, what's your name?" An unrecognisable voice, most likely their private security, answers.

"Sidney Monroe." I answer quickly.

"Who are you here to see?" The voice asks.

"Sarah Cameron." I reply.

"Okay, make your way up to the front door, thank you." The voice replies as the gate begins to open slowly.

I pace up the driveway slowly, feeling very small surrounded by all these trees. And of course, being on Figure Eight now, a lack of electricity isn't something that I have to be concerned about.

As I approach the front door, Sarah appears, a big smile on her face. It seems like we got the memo for comfy clothes as she's wearing a pair of grey sweatpants and a black top.

"Hey, did you get here okay?" She asks as she wraps me in a hug.

"Yeah, it was fine, cycling through figure eight is much easier than I assumed it would be, you guys have actual tarmacked roads." I reply, realising how mundane it probably sounds, but I don't want to say something stupid about how big her house is.

"Come inside, just leave your bike there," She gestures to a nearby tree, so I do as she says before following her in, closing the door behind me.

"You've got a lovely home," I smile as she leads me into the grand foyer area that can hardly be called a hallway.

"I hate it," She sighs with honesty, "It's so over the top, and I can't stand being home alone here."

"Is it just us here tonight then?" I ask as she leads me down a spiral staircase to the basement.

"No, Wheezie and Rafe are both upstairs in their rooms," She tells me as we arrive in the basement, "Dad and Rose are out at some sort of fundraiser dinner on the mainland."

"Right," I nod as she puts a key in the lock of an old wooden door, unlocking it to reveal a proper wine cellar, probably stacked with wine from every wine from the last forty decades, "Do you know anything about wine?"

"No, I just know that it's good for getting drunk," She smiles, grabbing several random bottles, handing me two and clinging onto two herself, "We can always come back downstairs for more if we need to."

"Good idea," I nod, watching as she locks the wine cellar and leads me back upstairs to a long corridor lined with various closed doors, which I assume are bedrooms.