LOGINZach’s POVRyder returned and held me again for a long time before either of us said anything else, long enough that my breathing finally started to even out against the steady rhythm of his own. When he finally pulled back, his hands stayed braced on my shoulders, thumbs brushing slow circles like he was trying to physically ground me in place.“Matthew’s downstairs, he needed me to explain what was going on,” he said gently. “We’re going to figure out how to handle this properly. Get ahead of it before it gets worse.”“How do you get ahead of something like this?” My voice came out raw, scraped thin. “It’s already everywhere, Ryder.”“I know you’re scared, and this is all so unfair. But you’re not alone this time, Zach. Let me worry about handling this.” He pressed one more kiss to my forehead before stepping back, and I felt the loss of his warmth immediately, like a door closing on something I wasn’t ready to let go of yet. “In the meantime I need you to sit tight for a bit. Don’t
Zach's POV“The best different.” He turned to look at me fully, firelight catching the gold in his eyes, softening every hard edge the day had carved into his expression. “Feels like the first place that’s ever actually been just mine to share, I mean it’s still an inheritance but with no strings attached.”I felt my breath catch at that, at the quiet weight behind the words, at the way he was looking at me like I was something precious he’d fought hard enough to finally deserve.We ended up in the bedroom upstairs sometime later, the fire banked low behind us, moonlight spilling silver through tall windows onto old wooden floors. Neither needing to rush anything, as the night stretched out slowly and unhurried, every touch deliberate, every glance heavy with weeks of longing finally allowed to surface without fear of interruption or discovery. It felt less like reclaiming something lost and more like building something entirely new between us, unburdened for the first time by every e
Zach’s POVThe city fell away in pieces behind us, glass towers giving way to sprawling suburbs, then thinning further still into stretches of open road lined with trees turning gold at the edges with the first hint of autumn. I watched it all blur past the window, phone off in my bag, the silence in the car, something neither of us rushed to fill.Ryder drove with one hand loose on the wheel, the other resting easy on the console between us, close enough that our fingers brushed every so often without either of us commenting on it. The radio stayed off. Just the hum of tires against asphalt, the occasional flick of his eyes toward me like he needed the visual confirmation every few minutes that I was actually still there.“Where exactly are we going?” I finally asked, an hour and a half into the drive, the last road sign I’d recognized long since disappeared behind us.“My grandfather’s place. Well, it was his. Now it just sits empty most of the year.” He glanced over, something almo
Zach’s POVRyder stood frozen in the hallway long after the door had closed behind his father, chest rising and falling in slow, deliberate breaths, like he was consciously reminding his own body how to function after everything that had just happened.“Ryder.” I stepped closer, hand hovering near his arm, uncertain whether touch would help or shatter whatever fragile composure he was holding onto. “Say something.”He turned to look at me, and there was none of the devastation I’d braced myself to find. Something quieter instead, something that almost looked like relief buried underneath the shock, and it confused me more than outright grief would have.“We should call him back,” I said, already reaching for my own phone out of some frantic instinct to fix what had just been broken. “Explain, apologize, something. Maybe if we give him time to cool down-”“Zach.”“-we could figure out a way to soften the blow, let him understand that you’re not just throwing everything away, that this
Zach’s POVRyder’s grip wasn’t hard, but it was absolute, fingers closing around my wrist with a certainty that stopped me mid-step. I turned back, startled, and found him already moving past me, putting himself squarely between his father and the door I’d been about to disappear through.The hallway felt suddenly narrower than it had a moment ago, the fluorescent light overhead buzzing faintly, throwing a pale, clinical glow over both of them, father and son, mirror images in bone structure and nothing else, facing each other down like two sides of an argument that had been building for far longer than this single morning.“No,” Ryder said.His father blinked, momentarily thrown by the single flat syllable, brow lifting in the particular way of a man unaccustomed to being told no by anyone, least of all his own child. His mouth opened, some sharp retort already forming.“You can save it,” Ryder said, quiet but unyielding, and something in his tone made even his father pause, jaw tigh
Zach’s POV“Who is it?” I asked, already rising from the stool, some instinct in me reading the shift in his posture before he’d said a single word.Ryder didn’t answer. He just opened the door, jaw tight, shoulders squared in a way I’d never seen from him before; braced, like he was preparing to absorb a blow.The man on the other side filled the doorway with a presence that made the entire apartment feel smaller. Tall, silver at the temples, dressed in a suit that looked out of place against the casual warmth of a Sunday morning, every line of him radiating the kind of controlled fury that felt more dangerous than shouting ever could.Ryder’s father.Nothing had prepared me for the sheer force of him standing there, eyes sweeping past his son and landing, briefly, coldly, on me, before moving on entirely, like I hadn’t registered as anything worth acknowledging at all.“Dad.” Ryder’s voice came out steady, but I caught the faint tremor beneath it, the same one I’d heard the night he
Zach's POVAfter that night, the quiet peaceful life I had envisioned for myself in college had crumbled to dust. Whispers of that night flooded every nook, cranny and hook.Headsplash, enemies with history.Gigi had given me an earful for my actions. Yeah, maybe I should've left immediately I bump
Zach's POVI was just about to let something cruel slip out from my mouth, something sharp and loud enough to wipe that damn smirk off Ryder’s face, but Ellis grabbed my arm and pulled me aside.“Not worth it,” he muttered under his breath, steering me through the crowd like I was a balloon about t
Zach's POV "Avoid him. Go to class, keep your head down. You are here for school, not high school drama," Gigi had said as she shoved me towards the Business and Leadership Building.“He might not even be in the same class as you are!” She added cheerfully, and that felt like a rush of sweet adren
Zach's pov College. Higher institution. A fresh slate. A new town, and a better place. The halls were white, the scholarship letter in my hands seemed like a breath of much needed air, and the boys....cute.Maybe the universe was finally throwing me a bone, considering that my highschool years wer







