He smirks. “Exactly.”
Heat detonates low in my belly but I force a breath. Force a sliver of logic into the room. “Zane… we need to talk.” How to start? I have no fucking clue.
His entire body recoils like I slapped him. “About what?” he mutters, then he shakes his head. “Actually hold that thought. We could skip the talking part. Go straight to the part where you climb me like a tree.”
“Zane,” I insist, touching his wrist. “We need to talk about…the humming.”
His jaw locks and he looks… almost scared. Or like talking about this might make him unravel. “I don’t want to fucking talk about it.”
“We have to.”
“No,” he snaps, then softens instantly. “Baby, no. Talking ruins things. Talking makes things real.”
I hold his gaze. “Tell me what triggers your episodes.”
He goes still.
“Do you know?” I ask softly.
“No,” he says.
Too fast and too sharp. And I know he’s lying.
“Zane.” I inject enough steel into my voice to cut glass.
Probably not enough to dent his titanium will, but hey, maybe I get points for trying before he steamrolls me with a guitar and feelings.
His jaw clenches. His shoulders rise and fall like he’s gearing up for a sprint.
“You don’t want to know,” he mutters. “And I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Does that mean you haven’t ever talked to anyone?—”
“I don’t need anyone.” His eyes flick to mine, burning. “Not now I have you.”
My stomach flips in seven directions at once and my voice lowers. “Zane, I’m not a doctor.”
He goes quiet. A whole beat of silence thick enough to choke on.
Then he blurts it out—fast, raw, like the words tear out of him.
“I’ve got a thing,” he mutters. “Some brain-wiring bullshit. Sensory-emotive dysregulation. Too much noise, too much light, too much emotion, and it hits me wrong. Hard. There’s nothing to fix. Nothing to cure. It’s just… how I came built.” He laughs once, dark and humorless. “Lucky me.”
My breath catches.
He nods at my expression. “Yeah. Exactly. It fucked up my childhood. Fucks up my life sometimes. Doctors said it’s chronic. Management-only. Whatever the hell that means.” His gaze falls away, voice scraping thin. “I hate talking about it, Ruby. It makes me feel… broken.”
“No! Don’t say that about yourself.”
The air changes, sharp and soft all at once.
He swallows, eyes finally lifting back to mine. “My mom helped,” he mutters. “When it was bad. She could tune me. Reset me.” His gaze drags over me slowly, hungrily, like I’m a drug he didn’t know existed. “But I don’t need that anymore. I’ve got you.”
“Oh,” I breathe as pressure slams into my chest, sharp, bright and terrifying, becauseof coursehe drops something this huge, this jagged, this heartbreakingly human right into my lap.
Part of me wants to wrap him up, shove him under a blanket, and repeat that he’s not broken, just wired differently.
Another part wants to run screaming into the nearest cornfield, because this is big. Bigger than the contract. Bigger than the sex. Bigger than the tour, the fame, the insanity. This is real. And real is terrifying.
