Chapter Sixteen Distance
Paris always made things feel louder than they were.
Not because the city itself tried too hard — it didn’t — but because rugby did something to Paris.
It pulled the whole place tighter around the stadium like a fist. Even the air outside the hotel had that pre-match tang to it: cold rain, diesel from idling coaches, perfume from people who wanted to be remembered, and underneath it all the faint metallic hum of anticipation.
They were staying in a place Lucas had called “fine” in the way he called a broken nose “fine.” Polished lobby. Too many mirrors. Staff trained to look anywhere except directly at the famous faces. A bar that pretended it wasn’t a bar for athletes by offering cocktails none of them would order.
Eli should’ve been able to handle it.
Away weeks were routine. They were structure. They were rules. The day arranged itself around sessions and tape and sleep and the slow, deliberate narrowing of focus. He’d lived in that rhythm long enough that it usually calmed him — made everything simple.
But nothing about this felt simple anymore.
Not since the dinner.
Not since the cheek kiss and the hug and the whisper that had turned into a photo that wouldn’t die.
Not since Lucas had started wearing easy like armor—smooth answers, soft smiles, a version of himself polished until there were no edges left to catch on.
And looming over all of it was the World Cup.
Every match tightened the math. Every win made the speculation louder.
Pundits talked openly now—about qualification, about seeding, about what it would mean if Ireland went all the way.
About how the tournament itself might land on home soil, Dublin floated like a promise and a threat in the same breath.
A World Cup at home.
Global eyes.
No room for mistakes.
The pressure was insane—on Lucas, on the team, on everything connected to him. Every gesture suddenly mattered. Every story wanted a face, a hook, something easy to package and sell.
And easy was not this.
Eli stepped out of the lift with the rest of the backs and froze.
Evelyn Cross was in the lobby.
Not like the dinner— not styled for flash or framed for headlines.
This was quieter, subtler. Parisian, almost. Dark jeans that fit without trying.
A wool coat cut clean and expensive in the way locals recognized without staring.
Hair pulled back in a way that suggested her own hands, not a stylist’s.
She looked like someone blending in on purpose — and succeeding just enough to make it clear she never fully could.
Two publicists lingered a few steps off, alert without hovering, their attention split between the lobby’s reflective surfaces and the entrance.
The hotel manager hovered at a respectful distance, posture deferential, smile careful — the expression of a man aware that proximity itself had value, even if nothing else was required of him.
Lucas was there too, of course.
Eli didn’t see him at first. He felt him — the way his own attention snapped, the way his body went hot and tight as if the room had changed temperature.
Then he saw Lucas stepping out from a side corridor with Niamh from PR, jacket on, hair neat, expression already set to calm competence. He looked like the version of himself he used when the world was watching.
And Evelyn’s face lit.
Not flirtation, not performance — just warm, practiced familiarity. She said something to him that made Lucas’s mouth twitch into a small smile. Not the sponsor smile. The real one. The one that usually belonged to… to—
Eli’s throat closed.
He told himself, immediately, to get a grip.
This was exactly what they’d arranged. Exactly what Declan and Evelyn’s people would want: wholesome optics, big match weekend, famous singer in the same building as Team Ireland’s captain. A harmless story everyone could chew on without digging into the messier one.
No one was doing anything wrong.
And yet the jealousy hit anyway — not sharp, not explosive.
Slow.
Like something poisonous dissolving into warm water.
He watched Lucas’s posture shift as Evelyn spoke, the way he angled his body toward her automatically. The way she nodded, as if reassured by something.
Eli couldn’t hear the words. He didn’t need to.
He could imagine the headlines already, the fan accounts, the smug certainty of people who wanted Lucas to be simple.
He felt himself standing there too long. Felt his face going blank, the way it always did when he was trying not to show anything.
He turned slightly, as if he were just… moving on.
Just being normal.
But his lungs were too tight. His skin itched. The lobby lights felt too bright, every reflective surface catching him at angles he didn’t want to see.
Fresh air, he thought. Just five minutes, a breather.
He mumbled something to the lad beside him—didn’t even know what—and slipped away before anyone could clock his exit as anything more than routine.
The hotel had a patio tucked along the river side, half shielded from the street by tall planters and glass panels meant to suggest privacy without ever fully delivering it. It was designed for discretion: tasteful little clusters of people who wanted to be seen relaxing, not seen escaping.
Eli pushed the door open and stepped into air that smelled like rain and cold stone.
The Seine slid past below, dark and slow, carrying the city’s reflection in broken streaks of gold.
Beyond the rooftops, framed between buildings at an angle that felt almost accidental, the Eiffel Tower cut into the sky—lit already, pale against the damp slate evening.
Not the whole thing. Just enough to remind you where you were.
Paris.
City of light. City of romance.
Of course.
He rested his forearms on the railing and let his head drop forward, breath coming slow and deliberate through his nose.
In.
Hold.
Out.
Again.
His knuckles—still sore in that deep, lingering way—throbbed dully, like his body remembered what it felt like to need somewhere for the feeling to go. He flexed his fingers once and hissed quietly, then stilled.
He stayed there long enough for the tightness in his chest to loosen by a fraction.
Then the door behind him opened.
Softly.
Carefully.
He didn’t turn right away.
He smelled cigarette smoke first—not heavy, not clinging. Just a clean thread of it, familiar and oddly grounding.
When he finally glanced over his shoulder, Evelyn Cross stood near one of the planters, half turned toward the river.
“Hey,” she said.
Eli’s brain offered him fifteen possible responses. None of them were workable.
“Sorry,” he managed. “Didn’t realize anyone was—”
“It’s a patio,” she said mildly, a corner of her mouth lifting. “Plenty of room for everyone.”
He let out a short, humorless huff despite himself.
Back straightened, already pivoting around toward the door. “Right. I’ll leave you to it.”
He was halfway there when her voice reached him again—low, unhurried, pitched so no one else could mistake it for anything meant for them.
“I have no intention of taking him from you, you know.”
Eli stopped.
Not a pause. Not hesitation.
Stopped.
For a second he was genuinely certain he’d misheard her, that his brain had filled in something cruel and impossible because it was already primed for pain.
His back was still to her. His heartbeat felt loud enough to echo off the glass.
Slowly—moving like too much speed might shatter the moment—he turned.
Evelyn took a drag from the cigarette and exhaled into the wind, smoke unraveling harmlessly over the river. Her voice stayed calm, steady, almost conversational.
“I’m not saying that to be dramatic,” she added. “And I’m not asking you to reassure me. I just… think you deserve to hear it.”
Eli stared at her.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said finally, but the words were weak even to his own ears.
She tilted her head slightly. “Oh, but I do.”
“No one—” He stopped, swallowed. “No one knows.”
“I know,” she said gently. “Most people either don’t see it, or they see it and decide it’s something easier to explain.”
She flicked ash away with a small, precise movement. Deliberate. Controlled.
“Body language is its own language,” she went on. “Some people are fluent. Most people prefer subtitles.”
A laugh slipped out of Eli before he could stop it—short, rough, edged with disbelief.
“You’ve spoken to me for, what,” he said, “ten seconds?”
“Long enough,” she replied.
The city hummed around them. Traffic murmured. Somewhere nearby, glass clinked. The Eiffel Tower glowed on, indifferent and magnificent and completely uninterested in their small, private fracture.
Eli looked back out at the river, jaw tight, eyes stinging.
He didn’t trust anger. Didn’t know where to put it.
So he chose honesty instead—dangerous, but clean.
“This is my first time in Paris,” he said, voice tipping into something wry and fragile all at once. “The city of romance.”
He huffed out a breath that almost passed for a laugh.
“And I’m standing outside feeling sorry for myself with a woman everyone thinks is sleeping with the man I—”
The word caught.
Not because it was dramatic.
Because it was true.
“…the man I love.”
Silence fell between them, heavy and absolute.
Eli went still the second it left his mouth.
The weight of it hit him all at once—not the jealousy, not the situation, but the fact of the thing itself. He had never said it before. Not in his head, not in the dark, not as a joke or a half-thought. Never given it air.
Love.
Out loud.
Unmasked.
Unreturnable.
His chest seized like his body had finally caught up to his heart.
For a beat, Evelyn said nothing.
Then she laughed—soft, warm, entirely without cruelty.
“How very French,” she said gently. “The Parisians would wholeheartedly approve. C’est un drame.”
That shouldn’t have broken him.
It did.
Eli laughed too, the sound quiet and unsteady, already dissolving into something else. He dragged his good hand down his face, thumb catching at the corner of his eye like he could stop what was coming if he moved fast enough.
“Jesus,” he muttered. “That’s—ridiculous.”
“Human,” Evelyn corrected softly.
He shook his head, staring out at the river like it might offer him a way to put the word back where it had been before.
But it was too late.
The world had shifted around it.
He turned to her again, eyes glassy, voice stripped down to something bare and honest.
“Have you ever,” he asked quietly, “had a hurt inside you so beautiful and painful it makes the colors of everything else brighter?”
The question wasn’t rhetorical.
It was a plea.
Evelyn didn’t answer right away.
When she did, her voice was certain. Grounded.
“Yes.”
She stepped closer—not invading, not crowding. Just close enough to share the cold between them.
Her fingers closed around his damaged hand.
Gentle.
Anchoring.
No pity anywhere in it.
“I won’t pretend it’s easy,” she said. “Fame. People deciding who you’re allowed to be. People profiting off the distance between who you are and who you’re seen as.”
Her thumb brushed the edge of healing bruises, careful not to press.
“But you both deserve happiness,” she said quietly. “Truly.”
That was what finally undid him.
Not the kindness.
Not the understanding.
The both.
The acknowledgment that this thing he’d just named—this love—was real enough to be spoken of like a shared truth, not a mistake.
Tears slipped free before he could stop them—hot, immediate, humiliating in their honesty. He turned quickly toward the river, shoulders tight, jaw clenched as if he could muscle the feeling back down now that it had escaped.
But it was too late.
He had said it.
And the world—Paris, the lights, the river, the woman beside him—hadn’t ended.
Which meant the love was real.
And that terrified him more than anything else ever had.
“I hope,” Evelyn said quietly behind him, “that someday your heart gets its wish.”
He nodded once, unable to speak.
After a moment, he eased his hand from hers—not abruptly. Just needing space. He reached into his hoodie pocket with his good hand and pulled out a small rectangle wrapped in purple foil.
Cadbury Dairy Milk.
He held it out without looking at her.
“It always makes me feel better,” he said. “Don’t ask me why.”
She took it—and instead of opening it, she slipped it into her coat pocket like it mattered. Like it was something to keep.
“Thank you,” she said softly.
Eli wiped at his face, squared his shoulders, and turned back toward the door.
Inside, the warmth and noise rushed to meet him.
Lucas was there—mid-conversation, eyes flicking up the second Eli stepped through the glass. Relief flashed across his face, followed quickly by something wary and hopeful.
“Eli—” Lucas started, already moving.
Eli didn’t stop.
He passed him with a nod that was polite, distant, unmistakably final for the night.
Lucas turned, caught off guard. “Can we—?”
“Not now,” Eli said gently, already angling toward the lifts.
The doors opened. He stepped inside without looking back.
Lucas stood there, words stranded on his tongue, as the elevator doors slid shut between them.
The tower outside kept shining.
And for the first time, Eli didn’t look back at it.