Fuck…her fertile window is next week.
A perfect storm.
A perfect opening.
A perfect fate.
I’m halfway through imagining her belly round with my child, her madonna face glowing with the blessing of impending motherhood when I sense someone in the doorway.
Mama.
She steps into the dim room, eyes softening when she sees Ruby curled on my chest. Then her gaze lifts to mine, and it’s the kind of piercing and knowing that makes my insides squirm.
I might call her woo woo to hide my own unease but my mother has a spiritual intuitiveness that’s saved me many times.
I swallow now when she nods once, glides across the room to sink low beside the bed. Silver eyes I inherited from her burn into mine, steady and sure.
“The frequency lines are aligning better than I’ve ever seen them,” she whispers. “Move with them, Zane. Don’t wait.”
My breath shudders and for probably the first time, I nod without rolling my eyes or making a smart ass remark.
She presses a kiss to my forehead like she used to when I was a kid trying not to cry through a storm episode.
“I love you, Mama,” I murmur, voice breaking open in a way no one else ever hears.
“And I love the man you’re becoming,” she answers, cupping my jaw. “But hold on to her, Zane. Destiny doesn’t hand out second chances.”
She leaves as quietly as she came.
I lie there for another minute, then I slip out from beneath Ruby gently, covering her with the sheet. She murmurs in her sleep but doesn’t wake.
In the bathroom, I turn on the soft light and find her bag on the counter. I flip it open and there they are.
Her birth control pills, sitting on top.
I pick the pack up between my fingers.
Stare down at it for a long, steady moment.
And then, resolute…I smile.
11
HIS SIREN SONG
RUBY
It should bother me how quiet things get after the madness of Vegas.
After the chaos and the trending hashtags.
After Mama Draven whispering about “frequencies” like she’s diagnosing my soul. And especially after the jealousy and the stares and the piano and the thousands of strangers dissecting my life.
But now?
Here in Joshua Tree two days later, wrapped in the dim cocoon of Zane’s hotel room while the tour fades to distant echoes outside the windows?
Everything sharp and loud dissolves.
