Chapter Four Fracture Point #2
Kaine tilted his head like the question was obvious. “Because you don’t do things halfway. If you hate me, you’ll do it properly. If you care…” He shrugged. “You’ll do that properly too.”
“I don’t—”
“I know.” Kaine’s mouth curved, teasing returning. “You don’t care. You only protect me on the pitch, cover for me with the media, and walk around the city with me on your day off out of pure hatred.”
Byrne’s mouth twitched despite himself. “You’re infuriating.”
“So I’ve been told.”
They sat in a quiet pocket of peace, watching Dublin hurry by in shades of grey and green.
Byrne’s phone buzzed once.
He ignored it.
Another buzz. Then another.
His brow furrowed. He fished it out of his pocket and saw the banner at the top of the locked screen:
THE WORLD’S BEST TEAM CHAT — 27 NEW MESSAGES
His stomach dropped.
He unlocked it, thumb suddenly clumsy, and opened the thread.
A photo filled the screen.
Him and Kaine near the busker on Grafton Street. Kaine leaning in, laughing about something, shoulder pressed to Byrne’s. Byrne turned half toward him, eyes crinkled in an expression he didn’t recognize on his own face—unguarded, open. Happy.
Someone—one of the teenagers, probably—had tagged the official team account and a couple of players.
The caption was green heart emojis and: “Spotted on Grafton #captainandkaine”
The group chat had done the rest.
Prop_2 (Finn): DATE DAY
Darren: lads we’ve lost him, captain’s taken
Wing_3 (Jamie): soft launch much?
Hooker (Mick): this is the cutest thing I’ve seen all week and my wife just had a baby
Lock_1 (Rory): who wore it better, Byrne’s beanie or Kaine’s hair
Darren: WHO LET THEM BE THIS CUTE IN PUBLIC?
Messages kept coming. Hearts. Crude “ship names.” Someone had already edited a cartoon heart around their heads. Another had slapped a wedding veil on Byrne.
Stupid. Affectionate. Oblivious.
Byrne’s vision tunneled.
Heat roared up his chest and then dropped away, leaving everything cold. His hands went numb around the phone. The café dimmed, the chatter muffling under the roar of his pulse.
If this spreads—
If someone runs with it—
If sponsors see—
If family sees—
His thoughts fractured at the edges.
Not here. In public where anyone could watch him crack.
“Hey.” Kaine’s voice cut through. “You okay?”
Byrne couldn’t answer.
He was suddenly aware of every person in the café. Every phone. Every possible angle. Every tiny movement of his face that could become a screenshot, a caption, a narrative.
His breath went shallow, caught in the top of his chest like a bird trapped under ribs.
Fuck.
Not now.
“Byrne,” Kaine said again, sharper. “Look at me.”
Byrne tried. His eyes wouldn’t focus.
The room swayed. Heat prickled at the back of his neck. Sweat gathered under his collar. His chest felt like it had shrunk, ribs welded closer together.
He needed to move. He needed—
A warm hand closed around his wrist—firm, grounding.
“Come on,” Kaine murmured. “We’re leaving.”
Byrne didn’t remember standing, only the sensation of motion, the blur of light and sound as Kaine steered them toward the back.
Not the front door—the back, through a narrow hallway near the bathrooms, past a staff-only door Kaine pushed open with the confidence of a man who assumed rules were negotiable.
Sudden quiet.
They stepped into a small sheltered yard—crates stacked to one side, bins along the wall, the dull hiss of the café’s extractor fan overhead. The air was colder here, rain pattering softly on the concrete.
Kaine guided Byrne to the brick wall. He didn’t crowd him. Didn’t touch him beyond the hand still around his wrist.
“Hey,” Kaine said, voice low. “Stay with me.”
Byrne dragged in a breath that felt like swallowing broken glass.
He squeezed his eyes shut.
“This is ridiculous,” he managed.
“Probably,” Kaine agreed. “But we can call it ridiculous after you’re breathing properly.”
“I am—”
“You’re not,” Kaine said calmly. “You’re doing an impression.”
The steadiness in his voice cut through the panic fog enough for Byrne to grab onto it like a rope.
Kaine’s fingers loosened slightly but didn’t leave his wrist. “Can I help?”
“I don’t need—”
“Can. I. Help.”
Byrne swallowed.
He gave the smallest nod.
“Okay.” Kaine’s voice gentled. “Do this with me. In for four, hold for four, out for four. No heroics.”
He exaggerated the breath so Byrne could hear it.
“In,” Kaine murmured. “One, two, three, four… hold… two, three, four… out… two, three, four.”
Byrne tried to match him. The first attempt stuttered, lungs snagging halfway.
“That’s fine,” Kaine said softly. “Again.”
They did it again.
And again.
Gradually, the buzzing in Byrne’s ears faded. His hands stopped tingling. The world stretched back out, edges returning, color bleeding back into the concrete and the rain.
He opened his eyes.
Kaine watched him carefully—no mockery, no impatience. Just assessment and something that looked dangerously like care.
“Better?” Kaine asked.
“No,” Byrne rasped. Then, after a beat: “…Yes.”
Kaine huffed a quiet laugh. “Pick one.”
Byrne didn’t.
His phone buzzed weakly in his hand.
He didn’t look.
Kaine tilted it gently instead, just enough to catch the preview—another group chat message with a cartoon GIF of characters kissing.
Kaine’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly.
“Idiots,” he muttered.
Byrne’s stomach clenched. “They don’t mean—”
“I know what they mean,” Kaine said. “I also know what it feels like when a joke hits the wrong place.”
The words were light. The truth underneath them wasn’t.
Byrne forced himself to speak. “It’s not just— I can’t have people thinking things. Even as a joke. Not like that.”
The last words came out raw, unfinished, heavy with implication.
For a moment, Kaine went very still.
Something flickered in his eyes—sharp, quick understanding, a puzzle piece locking into place.
He didn’t say I knew.
He didn’t say are you?
He didn’t make it a question at all.
“Oh,” Kaine said quietly.
Just that.
Not judgment. Not surprise. Just awareness.
Byrne’s stomach dropped for an entirely different reason.
He knows.
Kaine didn’t push. He shifted his weight, tone turning brisk with the kind of competence that saved lives.
“Right,” he said. “They’re having their fun. We can steer it.”
Byrne frowned. “What?”
“Watch.”
Kaine pulled out his phone, opened the group chat and typed, thumbs quick.
He tilted the phone so Byrne could see before he sent:
Kaine: relax lads lol captain just wouldn’t let me get lost on my first proper wander. man’s like an overprotective GPS
Kaine: also he refused to buy me a single pint so if this is a date it was the worst I’ve ever been on
He hit send.
Responses flooded in immediately.
Darren: LMAO
Finn: tragic date behaviour from the skipper ngl
Mick: “overprotective GPS” is killing me
Rory: so he IS the mum friend, I knew it
Jamie: fine fine we’ll stop calling it a date (for now)
The tone shifted—less romance, more banter. The hearts got buried under jokes about Byrne’s “dad energy,” Kaine’s “tragic standards,” and memes of GPS directions.
The pressure in Byrne’s chest eased by a fraction.
“You didn’t have to do that,” Byrne muttered.
“Yeah,” Kaine said simply. “I did.”
He locked his phone and slid it back into a pocket. “They don’t get to decide what you are. Or what we are.”
We.
The word lodged behind Byrne’s ribs like a small weight—dense, deliberate, impossible to cough up. Not heavy enough to crush him. Heavy enough to be felt with every breath.
We meant alignment. Proximity. Choice. It meant Kaine had already placed himself inside the sentence without asking permission.
Byrne stared at the gray sky, pulse ticking too fast in his throat. He hadn’t realized how carefully he’d been avoiding that word until it was suddenly there, undeniable.
“I should’ve laughed it off,” he said, voice tight. “Played along. Made it nothing.”
“Maybe,” Kaine said easily. “Or maybe you’re allowed to hate feeling like you’re being… branded.”
That did it.
The word branded scraped something raw. Byrne’s throat closed, and for a second he thought—absurdly—he might actually choke on it. On the years of practice. On the reflexive jokes. On the constant calculation of how much of himself was visible at any given moment.
He swallowed hard.
“You’ve figured it out,” he said, barely above a whisper.
Kaine didn’t look away. Didn’t soften his expression into something falsely gentle. He just watched Byrne the way he watched the pitch—patient, exacting, present.
“I figured out,” Kaine said slowly, “that if a joke about us being a couple sends you into a spiral, there’s more going on than media training.” A beat. “That’s all I need to know.”
He didn’t say the word.
Byrne didn’t either.
That was the mercy of it.
That was the terror.
Because once named, things could be handled. Filed. Managed. But this—this lived in the in-between. In implication. In shared silence. In a we that asked nothing and promised nothing and still felt like standing too close to the edge of something vast.
Kaine finally glanced away, deliberately, giving Byrne a sliver of privacy inside his own unraveling. A gift. A kindness.
“You don’t owe me anything,” he said quietly. “Not a story. Not a label. Not a confession.”
Something sharp rose behind Byrne’s eyes, sudden and humiliating. He blinked hard, jaw tightening, furious with himself for being this close to undone over so little. Over a word. Over the simple fact of being seen without being cornered.
“I’m pathetic,” he muttered.
Kaine snorted softly. “You’re under a microscope,” he corrected. “And human. Allegedly.”
A sound tore its way out of Byrne’s chest—ragged, unguarded. Almost a laugh. Almost a sob. He turned his face away into his sleeve, feigning a cough to cover it.