Zane’s hand finds my hip, warm and heavy, grounding me in a way I wish it didn’t.
“Your family is wonderful,” he murmurs against my ear.
“They haven’t even said hello to me yet,” I whisper back.
He shrugs as if that’s irrelevant. “They can sense greatness.”
“Oh my god,” I mutter. “You’re unbearable.”
“Yet here you are,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss to my temple. “Bearing me nice and easy, like a very good girl.”
And unfortunately, here I am, because the stupid ridiculous truth is that I have fallen for this man in a way that should terrify me far more than it currently does.
My family loves him.
They love him so aggressively I actually suspect they might love him more than they love me, which should annoy me, but instead it warms something tender and fragile in my chest.
He fixes the hinge on my mom’s screen door without being asked. He carries my aunt’s heavy grocery bags like he’s moving feathers. He sits at the kitchen table and listens to my cousins’ chaotic stories about their kids and their jobs.
He plays peekaboo with my cousin’s toddler.
It is…too much.
Too good.
Too sweet.
Too domestic.
And the worst part is that every time I see him in this environment, relaxed, and grinning, sleeves pushed up, tattoos out, letting my mom shove extra food onto his plate, it hits me again and again that I am so completely, stupidly gone for him that I might never recover.
But love doesn’t erase fear. It makes it worse.
Sharper.
Heavier.
On our second night,I wake up thirsty and wander to the living room for water.
And that’s when I hear it.
Soft piano notes, low and gentle and heartbreaking in a way I wasn’t ready for.
I get out of bed and creep downstairs on silent feet, pause in the short hallway and peep around the corner.
My heart catches when I see Zane, shirtless, sitting at the upright piano my aunt keeps for decoration, his back straight, fingers moving with an ease that makes my breath catch.
He’s humming under his breath. My hum. The hum he says resets him. The hum that started everything.
And then he sings…just a few quiet lines, but enough to turn my knees unreliable.
I feel you before you’re real.
I dream you before you breathe.
Come here, come home, come to us.
Us.
