Chapter Fourteen False Smile
Media day was always a strange kind of limbo.
Not a match. Not training. Something in between—performance without sweat, pressure without motion. Eli had learned early that it took a different set of muscles. Smile on cue. Speak in clean sentences. Be interesting but not revealing. Authentic but not specific.
This morning, every part of him hurt.
Not catastrophically. Not in a way anyone would notice.
Just the deep, echoing soreness that lived low in his body, a reminder of last night every time he shifted his weight or straightened his spine too quickly.
His hand ached dully beneath the wrap—knuckles swollen, skin tender where he’d been careless with himself—but it was the other ache that kept catching him off guard.
The slow, intimate throb that made sitting an exercise in control and walking a careful negotiation.
It was the kind of soreness you didn’t get from training.
It was the kind you earned.
Eli sat on a folding chair near the edge of the warehouse space, elbows braced on his knees, boots planted wide. He looked relaxed if you didn’t know him well. If you didn’t know that he was counting breaths, adjusting subtly, grounding himself in small movements so his body didn’t betray him.
Across the room, lighting rigs buzzed softly. Sponsor banners had been clipped into place against temporary walls—logos arranged just so, colors bright enough to be optimistic but not garish. The place smelled faintly of coffee, sea air, and the ozone tang of cables warming under lights.
Somewhere outside, gulls screamed like they were being murdered for sport.
“Lucas Byrne. Five minutes.”
The name cut through the noise like a blade.
Eli didn’t look up right away.
He didn’t have to.
He could picture Lucas exactly—straightening his jacket, tugging once at the cuff, shoulders rolling back into that precise alignment he slipped into the moment someone said his name with expectation attached. Captain first. Always.
Lucas passed him without breaking stride.
Not cold. Not dismissive.
Just… contained.
Eli swallowed, slow and deliberate, and pushed to his feet when his own name was called, joints protesting quietly. He stepped into a smaller setup near the windows, where grey light slanted in off the river.
“Hi! Eli, right?” The sponsor rep held a tablet like a shield. “We’re just doing a few lifestyle shots. Very casual. Think ‘approachable excellence.’”
Eli smiled automatically. “That sounds expensive.”
She laughed, relieved. “Exactly.”
They posed him near the sill, the city blurred behind him. He leaned back, arms loose, weight shifting to take pressure off his hips. The photographer snapped a few frames, then paused.
“Can we soften it just a bit?”
Eli adjusted without being asked—shoulders dropping, smile easing into something warmer, less sharp. It came easily. Too easily, sometimes. That version of him—the one people liked at first glance, the one that didn’t ask anything of them.
“Perfect,” she said.
The shutter clicked.
Eli held still and thought about the fact that twelve hours ago, Lucas had known exactly how to touch him to make him fall apart. Had known where to hold him, how to steady him, how to pull something raw and unguarded out of him without ever asking for permission out loud.
And now Lucas couldn’t even look at him.
When they wrapped, Eli wandered back toward the cluster of players waiting their turn. A few sprawled on crates, phones out. Someone had hijacked the coffee cart and was pouring espresso with reckless confidence.
“Oi,” a lock called when he spotted Eli. “You hear the latest?”
Eli lifted his cup. “I’ve been here ten minutes. I assume yes.”
The lock grinned. “Lucas’s agent’s a wizard. Evelyn-fucking-Cross. I’m flat jealous and I’m married.”
There it was.
Again.
Eli took a sip. Burned his tongue. Didn’t react.
“Evelyn Cross,” another back added. “Massive. My sister’s obsessed.”
“Smart move,” someone said. “Shuts everyone up.”
Smart.
That word again.
“Have you ever actually seen Byrne with anyone?”
The question drifted out, unguarded, and the air changed around it. Phones lowered. Eyes flicked sideways, then away.
Eli felt it like pressure behind his eyes.
Someone laughed too loudly. “He’s married to the job.”
“Bloke probably sleeps with a playbook,” someone else offered, quick and safe.
The moment wobbled.
Then—inevitably—someone turned to Eli.
“What about you?” a winger asked. “You seeing anyone?”
Eli blinked once.
He smiled.
Reflexive. Easy. A smile he’d been using since he was seventeen.
“Nah,” he said. “Too busy being a public menace.”
Laughter broke the tension. The moment passed.
But something stayed lodged under his skin.
Because it was true. And it wasn’t.
Because the man who had left him sore and loose and humming last night wasn’t a hypothetical.
Eli had woken up with Lucas’s weight still ghosted along his spine and wanting to say yes and choosing not to felt like swallowing glass.
He drifted away after that, toward a quieter corner, watching Lucas across the room—mid-interview, posture immaculate, hands folded neatly. Lucas smiled when expected, nodded at the right beats, deflected questions with practiced grace.
He didn’t look once in Eli’s direction.
Professional. Sensible.
Eli hated how much it stung.
They broke for lunch at a café down the street—concrete floors, too many plants, long tables pushed together. The team took over, noise rising as soon as food appeared.
Eli sat near the end, listening as conversation turned to the last match. Someone argued about whether Lucas’s offload had been instinct or calculation.
“Both,” Eli said without thinking.
They looked at him.
“He does the math,” Eli added, shrugging. “But he trusts it.”
A murmur of agreement. Respect.
Someone said, “You know him well.”
Eli held their gaze for a beat. “We play together.”
It was true.
It wasn’t enough. This is not enough.
Lucas was pulled away early by PR. Eli watched him go, watched the space open around him without anyone noticing they were doing it.
Power, Eli thought. Quiet. Unquestioned.
He wondered what it would feel like to be chosen openly. To have someone say this is mine without worrying about headlines.
The afternoon dragged. More smiles. More questions. More carefulness.
By the time they were released, Eli felt scraped thin.
He skipped the bus back and walked instead, phone heavy in his pocket. When it buzzed—Lucas—he stopped in the middle of the pavement and answered.
“Hey.”
“Where’d you go?” Lucas asked.
“Needed air.”
“You okay?”
The question hooked something sharp in his chest.
“Yeah,” Eli said. “You?”
“Same.” A pause. “I didn’t mean to—earlier.”
“I know,” Eli said. Too fast.
Silence stretched.
“You shouldn’t have to,” Lucas said quietly.
Eli smiled, tired. “We said we’d be careful.”
“I know.”
“We are.”
The words matched. The meanings didn’t.
That evening, at the harbor event, it got worse.
The lights. The donors. The proximity. Lucas in a blazer, immaculate. A woman—confident, beautiful—standing close, hand light on his arm.
Eli felt the jealousy hit this time. Hot and immediate and ugly.
Not because he thought Lucas wanted her.
Because everyone else did.
Because the world got to imagine Lucas belonging somewhere Eli couldn’t reach.
He left early, leaned against the railing by the water, breathing through it.
When Lucas texted—You left—Eli stared at the words longer than he meant to.
Come back?
Eli typed: Not tonight.
Lucas replied immediately: Okay.
That hurt more than an argument would have.
Eli stayed by the water until the cold bit deep, until the ache in his body outweighed the ache in his chest.
He wasn’t angry.
Not yet.
But something was changing.
Careful had been a starting point.
Now it felt like a ceiling.
And for the first time since this began, Eli wondered—not what he was willing to hide—but what it would cost him if he kept doing it.
The water moved on, indifferent.
Eli watched it and knew, with quiet certainty, that whatever came next would require more than patience.
It would require Lucas choosing him in a way the world could see.
And he wasn’t sure Lucas knew how to do that yet.