Page 23 of The Hearts We Fumble
Tatum wipes her mouth with a napkin, then fixes me with a look. “Zane is the furthest thing from a brother to you.”
My stomach tightens because she’s right.
The second she says his name, my mind drags me back to the night of my eighteenth birthday.
To him climbing the tree outside my window, just like he always had.
To the way his eyes lit up when he saw how I made his favorite for us, waiting on my desk.
To the way he plucked one off the plate, then searched my room for a candle. He grabbed a Bath & Body Works candle from my nightstand, lit the wick, and set it between us.
He whispered the lyrics to “Happy Birthday” even though we were the only two people in the house.
When I blew out the candle, he asked me what I wished for. The look in his eyes told me he already knew. And when he leaned in, pressing his lips to mine, all I could think was—It’s finally happening.
For years, I had been in love with Zane Kinnick.
And maybe, just maybe—he had been in love with me too.
Three nights later, on the anniversary of my dad’s passing, he climbed through my window again. No words, no hesitation—just Zane stretching out beside me on my bed and pulling me close.
He held me as I talked about my dad. Listened as I poured out the pieces of my grief I rarely shared with anyone. Wiped my tears away when the weight of it became too much.
And when I finally drifted off to sleep, exhausted from missing someone I’d never get back, he was still there.
But by morning, he was gone.
I didn’t text him. Not at first. I wasn’t upset that he left. It wasn’t the first time he had disappeared before dawn. But when my texts went unanswered, when an entire week passed without so much as a glance from him—I knew.
That gut feeling that had never steered me wrong tightened in my stomach.
And when he finally showed up?
When he stood in front of me, avoiding my eyes, voice strained as he said the words?
I already knew.
He regretted it.
The kiss I had dreamed of for years, the one moment that had felt like everything—to him, it was a mistake.
I could still taste the bitterness in my throat when he said it. When he apologized and told me it shouldn’t have happened. When he said it was wrong and I was like his little sister.
My chest had burned with humiliation, anger, and heartbreak. But somehow, I managed to hold myself together long enough to kick him out of my room.
He hasn’t stepped foot inside it since.
That night, I buried my face in my pillow, breathing in the last traces of him left behind. I made myself a promise that I would never give my heart to Zane Kinnick again.
He had proven exactly the kind of player he was.
The kind that ran when the game got tough.
And loving him?
That would be like handing him the game-winning pass, only to watch him fumble it on purpose.
Chapter Seven
