Chapter 21
OREGON, OLD ROOTS, NEW CRACKS
RUBY
Oregon smells like damp pine needles, cold air, and childhood mistakes, and the second we step off the plane, my lungs feel both lighter and heavier at the same time.
Lighter because this is home.
Heavier because Zane Draven is here, towering behind me like a tattooed, silver-eyed dragon who looks at everything as if he’s debating whether to burn it or claim it.
The man has no chill.
None.
He walks through the tiny airport like he’s headlining the Grammys and not stepping into a place where the biggest local event is the annual chili cook-off.
My family meets us outside baggage claim, and the moment my mom spots him, she makes a noise that can only be described as “demonic fangirl being exorcised.”
“Oh my goodness, Ruby,” she gushes as she barrels toward him. “You didn’t tell me he was so handsome!”
I close my eyes.
Here we go.
Zane doesn’t flinch when she hugs him. He hugs her back tighter.
He’s charming. He smiles that slow, dangerous smile that melts underwear and weakens political alliances.
My mother nearly swoons and my cousins hover behind her, whispering like I’ve brought home royalty. One of them actually fans herself.
Another one whispers, “I didn’t know rock stars looked like this in real life.”
I want the ground to swallow me whole.
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.
My throat closes.
Who is he singing to? Me? But I’m right here. Or… someone who doesn’t exist yet? Someone he wants to exist. I shake my head, scared of the thoughts building.
I should walk away, go back to bed and pretend I didn’t hear any of this.
But I freeze.
I listen.
And the ache inside me, the too much too soon one I’ve been trying to ignore, grows teeth.
Vicious teeth that will maul me if I’m not careful.
But all the same, I listen as he sings the song three more times, curse myself when my throat swells every time. On the fourth, I gather the strength to pry myself from the wall.
Stumble back into bed.
Later that day, we’re helping my mom clean out the garage, and casually, without meaning to, I pay for a bunch of repairs she needs.
A few roof patches, a new water heater and a safer ramp for the back porch. The invoice is barely a drop in the ocean of what I have now.
But Zane’s eyes narrow slightly when he sees me sign a check.
“You didn’t tell me you were giving money to your family,” he says quietly. “I would’ve taken care of it, baby.”
I force a smile. “It’s my money, Zane. And there’s no need.”
He watches me too long. “Of course. I didn’t say it wasn’t.”
But the look stays. Suspicious. Possessive. A little panicked.
And that knot in my stomach tightens again.
The next morning, I leave my phone on the bed without a second thought, too caught up in helping my mom wrangle her overgrown garden to remember that I am currently living with a man who treats privacy the way a toddler treats bubble wrap.
I don’t think twice about it.
I really, really should have.
When I walk back into the bedroom an hour later, he’s standing there with my phone in his hand.
His posture is deceptively relaxed, his shoulders loose and his stance casual, but his expression tells a very different story.
His face is composed, unnervingly calm, yet his eyes are burning with a contained thunder I can feel from the doorway.
“I didn’t know you were looking at houses,” he says, the words steady but threaded with something sharp.
My heart sinks straight into my stomach.
I swallow hard, aware that panic is rising in slow, creeping inches. “I was browsing,” I manage, trying to sound nonchalant even though my pulse is doing acrobatics.
His gaze doesn’t waver. “In Oregon.”
I rub my forehead. “It was just curiosity, Zane. I didn’t put in an offer.”
“You were looking,” he says again, voice lower now, steady in that way that signals something dangerous is approaching.
My pulse spikes and the room suddenly feels smaller. Hotter.
“Ruby,” he says quietly, “are you planning something you’re not telling me?”
And there it is. The first real crack. Sharp and undeniable.
“I’m not planning anything,” I lie, because the truth is too messy to hold. “I was just…looking.”
His jaw flexes. He places my phone gently on the dresser, as if afraid it will shatter.
Then he closes the distance between us and takes my face in both hands, eyes burning with too much emotion for me to name.
“I won’t lose you,” he murmurs, voice raw. But there’s also a threat in there. The words he doesn’t speak out loud.
And I’ll do perfectly deranged things to make sure I don’t.
Something inside me stumbles.
Because I’m beginning to feel the same way.
And that terrifies me more than anything else.
That night, while Zane is in the driveway helping my uncle fix the flickering carport light — which really means my uncle is handing him tools while Zane does ninety-eight percent of the actual work — my mom quietly hooks her arm through mine and guides me out onto the porch.
The boards creak under us, familiar and worn, and the cool Oregon air wraps around my skin in a way that almost makes me feel seventeen again.
She turns to me with that steady, perceptive look mothers get when they’ve already pieced together the entire emotional puzzle you’re still struggling to hold upright.
There’s no judgment in her eyes, just a soft, sad sort of understanding.
“You love him,” she says, not as a guess, but as a certainty she arrived at days ago.
I stare down at the peeling paint on the porch railing, the one I used to chip at with my nails when I was anxious as a kid.
“I’m afraid I do,” I admit, the words spilling out in a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding.
She squeezes my hand gently, thumb brushing over my knuckles in that comforting, grounding way she’s done my whole life.
“I’d love nothing more than for you to come back home and your cousin said you asked about realtors?”
God, does everyone know I had a moment of complete wobble and considered buying a house in Oregon?
“But I don’t think you should make any big decisions yet, sweetheart. Zane said you’re heading to Europe next week?”
I nod.
“Then wait. You’ve been going full steam ahead since you met him. Give yourself space to see the whole picture.”
I inhale slowly, feeling the air sit heavy in my chest. “I know. You’re right. I’m trying. I’m just…thinking,” I murmur, though the truth is I’ve been overthinking so much my brain feels like an overworked blender.
She nods with a small smile, patient and wise in a way that makes me feel both comforted and exposed.
“Think all you need to,” she says softly. “But don’t let fear be the one deciding things. Fear doesn’t care about what you want. It only cares about keeping you exactly where you are.”
A knot forms in my throat.
Fear and longing swirl in me, tangled so tightly I don’t know where one begins and the other ends.
Every time I close my eyes, I see Zane’s hands on me, his chest rising against mine as he holds me through the night, his voice cracking open something raw every time he tells me I calm him, I center him, I steady him.
But beneath all that tenderness, there are jagged edges too — wicked sharp flashes of possessiveness and control that scare me in the same breath they thrill me.
From the yard, Zane’s laugh rings out low, rough and unmistakably him, and the sound sinks into my skin before my brain can stop it. I feel pulled toward him even from here, like something in me recognizes something in him on a level I don’t have words for yet.
My mom follows the direction of my gaze and her lips curve into a small, knowing smile. “You’ll figure it out, sweetheart,” she murmurs. “Just don’t rush toward something big…or away from it.”
I swallow hard, blinking against a sudden sting behind my eyes.
God, I wish it were that simple.
Because I don’t love him halfway or with one foot hovering on the brakes.
I love him in that terrifying, irreversible way that sneaks up on you and takes root before you notice, and by the time you do, it’s too deep to untangle without ripping the whole thing out by force.
But I’m also starting to see things I didn’t want to see before.
The way his eyes darken when someone else talks to me and the way his hand tightens on my hip when I mention Oregon.
The softness in him that can flip to something consuming so fast it leaves me breathless.
Europe is coming fast.
New countries, new stages, new versions of this insane life.
And underneath all the excitement and fear and want, there’s a quiet, trembling truth rising between us, one we’ve both been avoiding, one we’ve both been pretending isn’t there.
But it is.
And it’s getting harder to ignore.
Zane
Zillow & Other Things
I knew something was off the second she walked back into the room.
I could feel it before I even turned around, a shift in the air, a hesitation in her footsteps, that soft, careful inhale she does when she’s bracing for a conversation she doesn’t want to have.
But nothing prepared me for what was staring back at me from the glow of her phone screen.
A fucking Zillow search page.
A list of houses.
In Oregon. With actual listings of neighborhoods she knows. Places close to her family. Homes she could vanish into if she ever decided she needed distance.
It hits me harder than any punch I’ve ever taken and by the time she walks back through the door, I’ve already memorized the addresses.
She freezes when she sees me holding the phone, and every part of me goes tight.
I keep my voice even when I ask, “I didn’t know you were looking at houses,” even though what I want to say is, Tell me you’re not planning to leave me.
She gives an answer that is meant to sound casual — browsing — but her pulse jumps at her throat, and I know her tells now. I know her too well to pretend I didn’t hear the tremble beneath that one word.
The blow lands harder. This is the place where she could rebuild a life that doesn’t include me.
The thought makes something inside me claw at the edges.
I try to listen to her responses without going full cyclone on her. And I fucking commend myself for succeeding. Just about.
But the second she leaves the room, I text my tech guy and upgrade the monitoring on her phone.
It’s silent. Invisible.
Nothing that would ever cross her radar. It’s not about reading her messages. It’s not about invading anything private. It’s about prevention.
If she searches Zillow again, I’ll know.
If she emails an agent, I’ll know.
If she downloads a rental app or checks moving services or even scrolls for Oregon listings again, I’ll know before she can finish typing.
I don’t feel guilty.
I feel relieved.
Because loving Ruby isn’t something I can approach halfway or with caution. Loving her has already tipped something inside me past the point of return, and losing her — even as a distant hypothetical — is not a possibility I can tolerate or entertain.
Europe is coming, and thank God for that.
The tour will be chaotic and loud and relentless, which means she’ll be in my orbit every hour of the day. No Oregon. No fucking Zillow.
No opportunities for doubt to bloom into something reckless.
I need her close. I need her next to me.
I need her to see our future the way I see it, the way I’m building it, piece by piece.
When she falls asleep that night, curled against my chest, I lay awake and refine the details of what I’ve already been planning.
Operation Forever Ruby.
Permanent because she is it.
She is the only ending I’ll accept.
And Europe is where we make it real.