Chapter Seventeen Shattered #2
The blue sedan rolled forward, tires whispering on asphalt, tail lights glowing red before the car turned the corner and disappeared from view.
Byrne stood still.
He held the chocolate in his hand like it weighed a ton.
For a few seconds, he managed to keep himself composed. He stayed stoic. Tall. Captain. The version of him that survived.
Then the car was gone and the last of his control went with it.
His shoulders caved.
His breath broke.
A sound tore out of him—raw, ugly, the kind of sob he would’ve been embarrassed to hear from anyone else. He bent forward slightly, one hand braced on his thigh, the other clenched around the purple wrapper like it was the only solid thing left in his world.
Tears blurred the car park lights into smeared halos.
He didn’t wipe them quickly enough. He couldn’t.
He stood there, shaking, grief and shame and exhaustion crashing through him in waves.
He had no idea how long he stayed like that—minutes, maybe. Time went strange when your body finally stopped obeying.
Eventually, he forced himself to move.
He stumbled to his car, fumbled the keys, got the door open.
He slid into the driver’s seat and shut the door.
The enclosed space did nothing to stop the sobbing. If anything, it made it louder.
He pressed the heel of his hand to his mouth like he could muffle himself into dignity.
He stared at the chocolate in his palm.
Purple wrapper. Small. Ridiculous.
A lifeline from the one person he’d been letting slip away.
Byrne’s chest heaved. He tried to breathe properly. Tried to calm down enough to drive.
He was still shaking when there was a sharp knock at the window.
Byrne jolted so hard his heart nearly leapt out of his throat.
He whipped his head toward the sound, adrenaline spiking—his body primed for danger.
Maeve stood outside the driver’s side window.
In-person.
Arms folded. Expression like thunder held in a small Irish woman’s body. A hood pulled up against the cold, hair escaping anyway. Eyes sharp, worried, furious, relieved.
Byrne stared at her like he’d hallucinated her out of guilt.
Maeve pointed at the passenger seat with a jerk of her chin: unlock.
Byrne fumbled, hit the button, hands clumsy.
Maeve yanked the door open and climbed in like she owned the place, slamming it shut behind her.
For a second, she didn’t speak.
She just looked at him.
Looked at the red eyes, the wet cheeks, the way Byrne’s hands were trembling around a purple-wrapped bar of chocolate like a child.
Maeve’s expression shifted—anger still there, but something softer under it. Concern. Recognition. A kind of tenderness she’d rather swallow nails than name.
“Right,” she said finally, voice rough. “So that’s where we’re at.”
Byrne tried to speak.
His throat closed.
Maeve snatched a tissue from somewhere—Byrne didn’t even know he had tissues in the car—and shoved it at him.
“Wipe your face,” she ordered. “You look like you’ve been hit by a lorry.”
Byrne gave a strangled laugh that turned into another sob.
Maeve swore under her breath—Irish, sharp, familiar. “Ah for fuck’s sake.”
She waited until Byrne’s breathing eased enough for him not to choke on it.
Then she said, quieter, deadly: “Are you going to sit here bawling in your car like a tragic statue, or are you going to bring me to a pub so I can talk sense into you?”
Byrne blinked at her. “How did you—”
“I have a sense for these things,” Maeve said. “And a car. And a deep, spiritual hatred for Declan’s shite.” She glanced at the chocolate in his hand. “What’s that?”
Byrne’s voice came out cracked. “Evelyn.”
Maeve’s eyebrows shot up. “Evelyn Cross?”
Byrne nodded.
Maeve let out a slow breath and leaned her head back against the seat, looking up at the roof like she was speaking to God directly. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. This is getting cinematic.”
Byrne stared at his hands. “She… knows.”
Maeve turned her head toward him, eyes narrowing. “And?”
“And she wasn’t… she wasn’t cruel,” Byrne whispered. “She was kind.”
Maeve’s mouth twisted. “Of course she was. Women are almost always kind in situations where men behave like absolute gobshites.”
Byrne flinched.
Maeve held his gaze anyway. “I’m not calling you evil,” she said, voice sharper. “I’m calling you thick. There’s a difference.”
Byrne swallowed. “Maeve.”
“No,” she cut in, same tone she’d used his whole life when he tried to dodge the truth with manners. “You don’t get to ‘Maeve’ me. Not tonight.”
She pointed at the windshield like she was issuing a directive from the Taoiseach. “Drive. There’s a pub round the corner. You can cry in the dark like everyone else.”
Byrne managed, somehow, to start the car.
Maeve didn’t touch the radio. She didn’t fill the silence with jokes. She let the quiet sit heavy, the way Irish women did when they loved you and were furious at you at the exact same time.
They found the pub—low-ceilinged, warm, tucked down a side street. No photographers. No sponsor reps. Just dim light, wood polished by decades of elbows, and the steady hum of people minding their own business.
Maeve marched in like she owned the place.
Byrne followed, still hollow.
They slid into a corner booth. Maeve ordered without asking—whiskey for her, pint for him, and then another whiskey “for later, because I can tell already.”
When the drinks arrived, Maeve took a sip, set her glass down, and fixed Byrne with the look.
“Right,” she said. “Start talking.”
Byrne stared at the table. The wood grain looked too detailed, like the world had sharpened out of spite.
“I don’t even know where to start,” he admitted.
Maeve leaned forward. “Try the part where you’ve been acting like the lad you love is a shameful habit you’ll quit after the season ends.”
Byrne’s throat tightened. The word love—said so plainly, so casually—hit him like a punch and a relief all at once.
He tried to swallow it down. Failed.
Maeve’s expression didn’t soften, but her voice did. Just a fraction. “Go on.”
So Byrne talked. Not in the neat, controlled way he did with journalists.
Not in bullet points. In fragments, at first. The way the truth came out when it wasn’t rehearsed.
He told her about the weeks—about the carefulness that had started as a plan and turned into a cage.
About Eli’s silence that wasn’t sulking but self-protection.
About how Byrne had convinced himself that if he just held on a little longer—until after this match, until after this window, until after the season—everything would settle.
Maeve listened without interrupting, except to make small, brutal noises of disagreement when he said something especially stupid.
He told her about the ice bath. About Eli’s question.
Do you intend to keep me a dirty little secret forever?
Byrne’s voice cracked on it, his eyes burning again.
Maeve’s face went tight. “And what did you say?”
Byrne stared at his pint like it contained answers. “Nothing.”
Maeve let out a low whistle. “Christ.”
Byrne flinched. “I couldn’t—”
“Don’t,” Maeve snapped, then caught herself and exhaled hard. “No. Sorry. I know you’re not doing it to be cruel. I know you’re not sitting there twirling a moustache going, ‘How can I ruin Eli’s life today.’”
Byrne’s eyes flicked up, surprised.
Maeve tapped her fingers against her glass, choosing her words like she was trying not to make it worse. “You’re doing it because you’re scared,” she said. “And because you’ve been trained your whole life to treat your feelings like a liability.”
Byrne swallowed. “That doesn’t make it better.”
“No,” Maeve agreed. “It doesn’t. But it means you can fix it, if you stop treating honesty like it’s optional.”
Byrne’s hands tightened around the pint glass. “I don’t know if I can give him what he wants.”
Maeve’s eyes sharpened. “What do you think he wants?”
Byrne hesitated. “To not feel—” He stopped, breath catching. “To not feel like he’s only real when no one’s looking.”
Maeve nodded once, satisfied. “Aye. That’s a good start.”
Byrne’s chest ached. “I didn’t mean to make him feel like that.”
Maeve leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Intent doesn’t matter as much as impact, Luke. You can love someone to bits and still hurt them if you keep choosing the easy option for yourself.”
Byrne flinched again.
Maeve’s voice stayed steady. Not picking sides. Not making villains. Just cutting cleanly to the bone.
“You’re not a monster,” she said. “You’re just—” She grimaced. “You’re acting like an eejit.”
A weak laugh scraped out of Byrne, then died.
Maeve pointed at him with her glass. “And don’t you dare start blaming Evelyn Cross in your head.”
“I’m not,” Byrne said quickly. “She was kind.”
Maeve’s mouth twisted into something like reluctant approval. “Good. Because she’s not the problem. Declan’s not even the main problem.”
Byrne’s eyes narrowed. “Declan is definitely a problem.”
Maeve snorted. “Declan can get in the sea, like. But the real problem is you thinking you can keep Eli in a holding pattern until you’re ready to be brave.”
Byrne’s throat tightened. “I thought—”
Maeve cut him off, gentler this time but no less firm. “You thought silence meant he’d wait,” she said.
Byrne stared down at his pint like it might rearrange itself into an answer. The foam ring clung to the glass in slow, pathetic circles. He flexed his fingers once, then again—like he could shake the feeling out through his hands.
Maeve watched him. Didn’t rescue him. Didn’t soften it into something he could skate past.
“You know that man loves you, don’t you?”
The words hit Byrne like someone had cracked a window in a room he’d been suffocating in.
For a second, nothing happened—his face stayed still, his posture held, captain’s spine and public composure like an old habit.
Then his body betrayed him in the smallest way: a hard swallow that didn’t go down properly.
A blink that didn’t clear anything. His breath catching on the way in like it had snagged on a rib.
Maeve’s eyes narrowed slightly, like she’d seen the exact second the truth found the gap in his armor.