The cold hit differently in Ann Arbor than it did back home in Pittsburgh.
It wasn't necessarily harsher, but it carried a sharper edge, one that found the exposed skin around Zane's jaw and slipped beneath the collar of his jacket. Snow lined the walkways in neat piles where it had been shoveled aside, and students bundled in maize and blue hurried between buildings with their heads down against the January wind.
Zane walked through the center of campus with his hands tucked into the pockets of his black varsity jacket, taking everything in with a pair of eyes that had seen far more since the last time he had stood here.
He remembered that first visit vividly.
Back then, he had been nothing more than a rising high school recruit trying desperately to convince himself he belonged among the country's elite prospects.
He had spent most of the weekend with Cam, trying to fit into a crowd that never really felt like his. Everyone had seemed louder than necessary, more interested in appearances than conversations. The coaching staff had barely looked his way outside of the scheduled recruiting events, and it had become painfully obvious that he wasn't the priority. He had felt more like an extra body invited to help fill out a summer training camp than someone Michigan genuinely wanted to build around.
The memories only got worse from there.
He remembered the expensive restaurant where every plate looked like a work of art but somehow tasted forgettable. He remembered the party afterward, where the music shook the walls and alcohol flowed like water.
It had been the wildest environment he'd experienced at 18 years old. People stumbled through crowded hallways, strangers disappeared upstairs together, and someone had nearly started a fight in the backyard before campus police showed up. He'd left feeling exhausted more than impressed.
Michigan had expected that weekend to sell itself.
It hadn't.
Now everything felt different. He had changed. Life had changed him.
In a little over a year, he had lost both of the people who had raised him. He had watched his grandmother die after days spent clinging to hope in a hospital room. He had learned that his father had taken another man's life in revenge for his grandfather's murder. He had moved on from falling in love for the first time while still carrying pieces of someone he had once foolishly believed he would spend forever with. Somewhere in the middle of all that, he had become the most coveted wide receiver in the transfer portal.
The winner of the Shaun Alexander Freshman of the Year Award.
And suddenly, Michigan wanted him.
Really wanted him.
The difference had started before he had even landed.
Last year they had flown him in economy, squeezed between strangers on a commercial flight before ushering him toward a fancy dinner and assuming the rest would take care of itself.
This time, Tyson had texted him his itinerary the night before. First class. Private transportation.
A personal meeting with head coach Kenny Dillingham before anything else.
No waiting around or wondering where he stood. Coach Dillingham had been direct from the moment they sat down together.
He had spread out depth charts, offensive metrics, and recruiting boards without overwhelming him with numbers.
"We're loaded," he had said matter-of-factly. "Quarterback. Offensive line. Running backs. Defense."
Then, he tapped the receiver column.
"This." Another tap. "This is what's missing."
He leaned back in his chair, a grin building on his face. "You ever watch the 2007 Patriots?"
Of course Zane had. Coach Dillingham hadn't waited for an answer.
"Tom Brady was already Tom Brady." He pointed across the desk. "But when Randy Moss showed up, the offense absolutely erupted" He spread his hands.
The comparison had been ridiculous.
It had also been effective.
Tyson had echoed much of the same afterward, telling Zane that Michigan's NIL package wasn't just competitive - it was among the best they'd received.
"You told me they weren't on your list," Tyson had reminded him over the phone.
"They weren't."
"But?"
"But they're making me think."
Now those thoughts lingered in the back of his mind as he walked beside Bryce Underwood through campus.
Bryce had his hands shoved into the pockets of a thick Michigan jacket, his breath visible every time he spoke. He looked every bit like the face of the program.
After several quiet minutes, Bryce finally broke the silence.
"So."
He glanced sideways.
"You really considering it this time?"
There was something about the way he asked. Zane couldn't quite place it. The words themselves weren't unusual but the tone felt somewhat off.
Last year Bryce had been composed and measured. Similar to how he was in the pocket - impossible to rattle. It was something Zane had grown to expect and appreciate about him.
Today, there was something tighter beneath the surface. Impatience. Cracks in the armor.
Zane decided not to read into it. "Yeah," he answered honestly. "I'm considering Michigan."
Bryce nodded slowly.
"Where else you been?"
Zane shrugged.
"Penn State."
"Texas."
Another.
"Miami."
Bryce nodded again. "And after here?"
"Two more visits."
"The Zane Jones tour keeps rolling." The sarcasm was impossible to miss this time.
Zane glanced at him but said nothing. Bryce looked straight ahead as though he hadn't said anything unusual.
He chose to let it go until about ten seconds later Bryce muttered again, just loud enough for Zane to catch it again.
"Hope you ain't wasting my time again."
Zane stopped walking. His boots crunched into the snow. Bryce took another step before realizing Zane wasn't beside him anymore.
He turned.
"What?"
Zane looked at him evenly. “You got a problem, bro?”
Bryce frowned. “Fuck you talking about?”
Zane shrugged. “You doing too much right now, man. If you got something to say, say it with your chest.”
Bryce let out a short scoff, his eyebrows lifted. "Don't start thinking just because you Freshman of the Year and everybody bigging you up that you can't get checked."
Zane held both hands up.
"It ain't even about that." His voice stayed calm. "I'm asking if there's an issue."
Bryce stared at him for several seconds, his jaw flexed. Eventually he exhaled through his nose.
"You doing too much." He looked away. "Let's just keep it moving."
The answer wasn't really an answer. It was clearly avoidance.
Zane studied him for another moment, trying to understand where the hostility was coming from.
After another long moment, he gave a small nod.
"Aight."
Bryce returned the nod, and without another word the two resumed walking through Michigan's snow-covered campus, the silence between them far heavier than the winter air.
***
The knock at Bianca's door was so soft that she almost convinced herself she had imagined it.
She lifted her head from the pillow and listened. Beyond the window, thick snow drifted lazily beneath the amber glow of the campus streetlights, muting the usual sounds of Ann Arbor into something peaceful.
Her phone rested forgotten beside her, the screen dark after another evening spent pretending to read while her thoughts wandered somewhere hundreds of miles away. She inhaled deeply through her nose, steadying herself before swinging her legs over the side of the bed.
The hardwood floor was cold beneath her feet as she crossed the room. Before reaching the door, she caught her reflection in the narrow mirror mounted beside it. Black sweatpants. An oversized Michigan hoodie. Her hair had been tied back loosely, though several dark strands had escaped and framed her face. She brushed them behind her ear with one hand, exhaled, and pulled open the door.
Her breath caught.
Zane stood in the hallway, his broad frame nearly filling it. Snowflakes clung to the shoulders of his black jacket before slowly melting into dark patches. His locs had grown considerably since she'd last really looked at him, now hanging just above his shoulders, giving him an older, rougher appearance than the boy she remembered. The grief etched into his features hadn't disappeared, but it had settled into something quieter, something heavier.
For several seconds neither of them spoke.
Bianca simply stepped aside.
Zane nodded once in silent thanks before ducking inside. The room suddenly felt much smaller with him in it. His eyes wandered slowly across the space - the bookshelf crammed with textbooks, medals hanging from a hook near the closet, framed family photographs resting atop her dresser, and the string lights stretched across the far wall that cast the room in a warm amber glow.
"So," he finally said, turning back toward her with the faintest hint of amusement, "this is the dorm room I've heard such good things about?"
A reluctant smile found Bianca's lips.
"I didn't expect you to actually show up."
He shrugged casually before walking over and lowering himself onto the edge of her bed, his hands resting together between his knees.
"You asked me to stop by while I was visiting." He looked up at her. "So, here I am."
Bianca remained standing for a moment, studying him. Even sitting down he looked enormous in the tiny dorm room. The silence between them wasn't awkward. It was familiar. It reminded her of all the afternoons they'd spent together where words hadn't been necessary.
She folded her arms lightly across her chest.
"How are you doing?"
The question lingered.
Zane let out a long breath, his shoulders sinking.
"You know me - just trying to survive, as per usual."
There wasn't any dramatics in the way he said it. No attempt to earn sympathy. It sounded like simple fact.
Bianca nodded slowly. "I figured."
He rubbed his palms together before looking back up.
"What about you? How's Michigan? Getting ready for the season?"
She leaned back against the bookshelf, crossing one ankle over the other.
"It's been alright, I guess. Don’t love having to wait all year to compete.."
He waited.
"Katie and I have actually been doing a lot of research."
"About?"
She smiled faintly. "Where we're transferring after the semester."
Zane's eyebrows shot upward.
"You're transferring?"
"You didn't know?"
He shook his head.
“Why would I know that?"
Her smile widened just enough to tease him.
"I suppose we would actually have to talk every once in a while for you to find things like that out."
Zane couldn't help laughing quietly.
"Fair enough." He lifted both hands in surrender. "You got me there."
The tension eased for the first time since he had arrived. Silence settled over them again, softer now.
Outside, snow continued drifting past the window while distant laughter echoed somewhere down the hallway before fading away completely.
Zane stared down at his hands for several moments before finally asking the question that had clearly been sitting inside him.
"Do you think-" He hesitated, choosing his words carefully. "Do you think we could ever just be friends?"
Bianca's smile disappeared.
She looked toward the window instead of him. Her chest rose and fell once before she slowly shook her head.
"No."
The answer came so gently that it almost hurt more.
She looked back at him. "I don't think I could."
Zane watched her quietly.
"No matter what I've done," she continued, her voice barely above a whisper, "no matter how much I've tried to move forward, no matter where I've been or who I've spent time around."
Her eyes found his.
"It's always been you."
Neither of them moved.
After a long pause, Zane tilted his head slightly.
"Who have you been spending time around?"
A laugh escaped Bianca despite herself.
"There was a brief thing with Bryce Underwood." She shrugged. "It never became anything."
Understanding flickered across Zane's face as pieces of his visit to Michigan suddenly fell into place.
"So that's why he was acting weird."
Bianca gave a tiny nod. "I guess."
She pushed herself away from the bookshelf and slowly crossed the room until she stood directly in front of him.
For a moment she simply looked down at him.
The months apart. The missed phone calls. The breakup.
The funeral.
Everything they had lost and everything neither of them had found the courage to say seemed to fill the tiny dorm room.
Very gently, she lifted both hands and cupped his face.
He reached up slowly and rested one hand over hers, his thumb brushing lightly across her fingers.
She searched his face for another long moment before whispering, "I've missed you for so long."
Zane swallowed hard.
"I've missed you too."
The words were quiet, but they carried every mile that had separated them.
Bianca leaned down slowly. Their foreheads brushed first.
Then, with all the hesitation of two people carrying far more history than certainty, she kissed him.
It was gentle. Familiar.
A moment suspended between everything they had been and everything they still hadn't figured out.
***
The house greeted Zane with a silence that had become impossible to get used to. After two relentless weeks of airports, rental cars, hotel rooms, and football facilities spread across the country, the old Jones home should have felt comforting.
Instead, the quiet pressed against him the moment he stepped through the front door, as though the walls themselves remembered who was missing.
He let out a slow breath and closed the door behind him, lingering there for a second while the familiar scent of old wood, laundry detergent, and the faint remnants of Mary's cooking seemed to exist only as ghosts.
His shoulders sagged beneath the weight of travel. His body ached from sleeping in airplane seats and unfamiliar beds, and all he wanted was to shower, climb into his own bed, and stop making decisions for a few hours.
He dropped his keys into the bowl beside the entrance and stood there with one hand gripping the handle of his duffel bag, allowing himself to replay everything that had happened over the last fortnight.
Penn State had offered him home. Coach Campbell had spoken about legacy, about staying close to family, about carrying Pennsylvania football forward in front of people who had watched him grow up. It had been emotional in ways Zane hadn't expected.
Texas had been something entirely different. Austin had overwhelmed him from the second he'd stepped onto campus, the scale of everything making Syracuse feel microscopic by comparison. Coach Sarkisian had barely bothered discussing contracts or NIL figures because Texas knew money wasn't the selling point. They had sold him a lifestyle, a vision, a chance to become larger than life in the heart of the SEC.
Michigan had stirred up feelings he thought he'd buried months ago. Walking through Ann Arbor again had felt like reopening a scar that had never completely healed. He had imagined wearing winged helmets long before Syracuse had ever entered the picture. Now the Wolverines suddenly wanted him more than almost anyone in the country. Their College Football Playoff run had only reinforced how dangerous they were becoming, especially with Bryce Underwood commanding the offense. Even without Bianca, it was difficult not to imagine what catching passes in the Big House would feel like.
Miami had offered something similar to Texas - sunshine, confidence, swagger - but it also carried something Texas couldn't provide. Malik was there. Having someone who knew him as well as Malik did mattered more than Zane had realized before the visit.
He still had two official visits remaining, and despite how exhausted he was, he had promised Tyson he would see every school before making a decision. He owed himself that much.
Still lost in thought, he hauled his duffel bag toward the staircase, each step echoing throughout the house. He had only reached the first stair when a soft clink of glass drifted from somewhere deeper inside the home.
He froze.
The sound was unmistakable.
Not the settling of the house. Not the heater kicking on.
Glass.
His eyebrows knit together. Slowly, he lowered the duffel bag back onto the hardwood floor. Every muscle in his body tightened as he quietly made his way toward the kitchen.
The room beyond sat almost entirely in darkness, only a sliver of pale moonlight slipping through the window above the sink. Zane reached around the doorway and flicked the light switch.
The kitchen exploded into warm yellow light.
Rasheed sat alone at the table.
His father winced immediately, lifting one hand toward his face against the sudden brightness. A nearly empty bottle of Jameson rested beside him, only about a third of the amber liquid still remaining.
A rocks glass sat in front of him with a few melting cubes of ice drifting lazily around another pour. Judging by the bottle, he hadn't just started drinking.
He had been sitting there for quite a while.
Rasheed grimaced.
"Did i ask to have the damn light on?"
Zane stared at him for a second before letting out an incredulous breath through his nose.
"It's weird drinking in the pitch black."
Rasheed simply shook his head as though that explanation bored him. He picked up the Jameson, tilted it over his glass, and let another measure splash over the ice. The cubes cracked sharply beneath the whiskey before settling again.
Rather than continue the argument, Zane walked past him toward the sink. He opened the faucet and held a crystal glass beneath the stream of cold water. The rushing sound briefly drowned out the silence between them.
As the glass filled, something caught his eye.
One porcelain teacup still rested inside the sink.
A faint pink smudge of lipstick marked the rim.
The sight hit him harder than he expected.
His chest tightened so suddenly he forgot to breathe. He closed his eyes for a brief moment, gripping the edge of the counter while memories assaulted him without warning - his grandmother carrying that same cup through the house every morning, steeping tea while humming old gospel songs, laughing with friends over the phone while absentmindedly washing dishes. Somehow no one had cleaned that final cup.
Or maybe no one had wanted to.
The water continued overflowing into the sink until he finally reached forward and shut the tap off.
He stared into the now motionless glass. Without turning around, he spoke quietly.
"Are we ever going to fix things?"
Behind him came the sound of Rasheed lifting his drink. He took a long swallow before placing the glass back onto the table with enough force to make it knock against the bottle.
"Fix what things?"
Zane remained facing the sink.
"Our relationship, Dad." He swallowed. "What the hell are we? Roommates until I ship back off to college?"
Rasheed shrugged so casually it almost looked rehearsed.
"Might as well."
Zane's jaw flexed.
He tightened his grip around the glass until his knuckles turned white.
"So what are you gonna do?" he asked, finally turning around. "Keep murdering people around the city while I'm gone? Hole up in your parents' house until somebody puts two through your temple?"
Again, Rasheed shrugged.
He leaned farther back in his chair now, facing his son directly. His eyes had become glassy from the whiskey, but they remained alert.
"I stand on my belief system," he answered evenly. "At least I don't tie my whole personality to whoever happens to be standing closest to me."
Zane frowned.
"What the hell does that mean?"
A dry, humorless chuckle escaped Rasheed.
"The last thing I thought I'd ever raise was a son with no damn sense of self."
That finally pulled Zane's attention completely away from his own anger.
Rasheed leaned forward slightly.
"I've watched you," he continued. "All these little friends. All these girls you've had around you. Them boys know exactly who the fuck they is. Those girls too. Maria or Mariah, whatever her name is. She ain’t over here waiting on your ass to figure shit out."
His finger slowly pointed toward Zane.
"But you?"
He narrowed his eyes.
"You're a mirror."
Zane didn't interrupt.
"You reflect whatever you think the person in front of you needs you to be. Around one person you're this. Around somebody else you're something different."
Rasheed stared directly into him now.
"So tell me."
His voice lowered.
"Who the fuck are you?"
Silence filled the kitchen.
"At the core of what makes a man a man," Rasheed continued, "who are you?"
Zane slowly set his glass down on the counter. He crossed his arms tightly across his chest.
"So that's your defense?"
Rasheed lifted an eyebrow.
"You choosing to be a gangbanger and standing on it somehow makes what you do okay?"
A smirk tugged at one corner of Rasheed's mouth.
"No." He shook his head. "It doesn't make it okay."
His expression flattened again.
"But it's who I am."
He tapped his own chest. "For better or worse, this is the road I chose."
His gaze drifted briefly toward the hallway, toward the rooms where Felix and Mary had once lived.
"Your granddad was stubborn as a damn goat," Rasheed muttered. "Wouldn't bend for anybody. Your grandma was a pacifist. Tried to keep peace wherever she went."
He looked back toward Zane.
"But both of them stood on who they were."
He paused.
"You stepped to me at that hospital because you thought that's what you were supposed to do."
Another pause.
"Not because it's what you actually wanted."
Zane felt irritation flare hotter inside his chest.
He shook his head slowly.
"It's incredible you think you know me at all." His voice hardened. "You spent the last decade failing at being a father."
He took one deliberate step closer.
"And before that?"
Another step.
"You failed at being a son."
Something shifted across Rasheed's face.
His mouth opened.
Then closed again.
For the first time since Zane had walked into the kitchen, the older man seemed unsure of himself.
Zane bent forward until they were nearly eye level despite Rasheed remaining seated.
"Killing Grandpa's killer doesn't erase 20-plus years of being a disgrace of a son."
Every word landed deliberately.
"It doesn't absolve you."
His voice softened - not with forgiveness, but disappointment.
"I was just hoping-"
He swallowed.
"-that you'd use whatever time we still had together to at least try being my father."
Neither man spoke. The heater kicked on somewhere inside the walls.
Its familiar rattle echoed through the kitchen.
Zane held his father's gaze for another long second before straightening back up.
He turned toward the doorway.
"I guess I was wrong to think that."
Without waiting for an answer, he walked away, leaving Rasheed alone beneath the harsh kitchen light with nothing but a half-empty bottle of Jameson, the untouched silence of the house, and words that lingered long after Zane's footsteps disappeared upstairs.
