Chapter Eighteen NowNever #3
Eli’s mum, Mereana, moved through it all like she was the center of gravity.
She had a tea towel over one shoulder, a mug in one hand, and a look in her eyes that said she’d been holding her breath since kickoff.
She wasn’t sitting. She couldn’t sit. Every time the camera found Eli on-screen, she drifted closer to the television like her body didn’t trust distance.
Eli’s dad, Hemi, stood near the doorway between the lounge and the hall, arms folded, pretending not to care while caring very much — the posture of a man trying to be sturdy for everyone else.
He nodded at people as they arrived, offered quiet hellos, accepted plates shoved into his hands without argument, and every few minutes he muttered something under his breath at the television like the ref might hear him across oceans.
Aunties occupied every available surface.
One had claimed the arm of the couch like a throne.
Another perched on a footstool, plate balanced on her knees, eyes sharp as a hawk.
Cousins sprawled wherever there was floor.
Someone’s uncle had been banished to the hallway and looked perfectly content there, leaning against the wall with a beer, shouting tactical opinions no one had asked for.
They’d been watching since kickoff.
No one had said it out loud, but this wasn’t just any match.
That was their boy out there.
When the try was scored, the entire house — and half the street, probably — erupted.
Cheers, clapping, someone yelling “That’s our Eli!
” loud enough to wake the neighbors. A cousin in the dining room screamed and knocked over a bowl of crisps and nobody cared.
Mereana laughed, hand flying to her mouth, eyes bright with pride and something perilously close to tears.
“Look at him run,” she said softly, voice thick with the kind of love that could barely fit in a sentence. “Just like when he was little. Could never keep his feet still.”
Hemi grunted, but there was a smile tugging at his mouth. “Always had a good line.”
The match wound down. The win came. Relief rippled through the room like a shared exhale — people slumping, laughing, shaking their heads, already replaying moments out loud like prayer.
Then the camera cut to the pitch.
The reporter stepped up.
Kiri, perched on the back of the couch with her phone in her hand—because Kiri never did any large family event without streaming—stiffened.
“Oh,” she said quietly.
Mereana glanced at her. “What is it, kōtiro?”
Kiri didn’t answer. She leaned forward, eyes flicking between the television and Mereana — Lucas Byrne, captain, golden boy, the man she’d been quietly side-eyeing for months now.
The reporter asked the question.
“Do you want to dedicate this win to anyone special?”
The room went still.
Not silence — the kettle still clicked on somewhere, a baby still snuffled in the back room — but a pause that travelled through bodies. Conversations died mid-sentence. Plates hovered halfway to mouths.
“What’s he waiting for? He’s got a famous singer girlfriend.” Hemi asked, confusion setting in.
Kiri’s lips parted.
“Oh,” she said again. Louder this time. “OHHH.” Lucas looked past the reporter. The camera followed his gaze.
Straight to Eli.
Kiri slapped a hand over her mouth.
“No way,” she gasped.
Lucas looked back at the camera.
“I can’t do this anymore.”
The mic hit the ground.
The house burst into confused chatter and Kiri let out an excited shriek.
“What’s happening?” one auntie demanded, already half-standing.
“Is that allowed?” another asked, scandalized and delighted in equal measure.
Hemi pushed off the wall, heart suddenly pounding. “What’s he doing?”
Mereana stood very still, tea forgotten in her hand, like she didn’t trust herself to breathe—deep down she understood.
On the screen, Lucas crossed the pitch. The crowd went eerily quiet.
Kiri started laughing — breathless, disbelieving, eyes already wet.
“I knew it,” she said. “I knew it! I TOLD you all!” The cousin at her feet sighed deeply and stuck a $10 note in one of her hands—a bet had just been won and Kiri was the winner.
“Told us what?” Mereana asked, voice tight.
Lucas reached Eli.
He cupped his face.
Eli froze.
Kiri made a sound that might’ve been a sob.
When Lucas kissed him, the stadium roared.
So did the Kaine watch-party.
It wasn’t just cheers. It was a wall of sound — aunties shrieking, cousins screaming, someone in the hallway yelling, “GET IT, BOYS!” like this was the most natural thing in the world.
“Oh my God,” one auntie gasped, hands flying to her chest.
Mereana’s hand flew to her mouth. “Well, that’s something isn’t it,” she said softly, and the words sounded like shock and pride braided together.
Hemi exhaled hard, scrubbing a hand down his face. “Brave,” he murmured. “Bloody brave.”
Kiri laughed through her tears, pointing triumphantly at the screen. “I TOLD you! The picture from his apartment… You don’t look at someone like that unless you’re already gone.”
The cousin on the floor, the one who had paid her—voice soft — said, “Eli looks happy,” and the room quieted just enough for it to land.
On the screen, Eli kissed Lucas back — fierce, sure, unafraid.
The crowd kept roaring.
So did the house, but it had changed texture now: less surprise, more joy. The kind of joy that made grown women wipe at their eyes with the backs of their hands and then immediately pretend it was “just the onions” even though no one was cutting onions.
Mereana sat back down slowly, pressing a hand to her chest, as if her heart needed reminding to stay inside her ribs.
“He found someone,” she said, voice thick but steady. “He found someone who will stand up like that for him. In front of everyone.”
Hemi nodded once. “Good.”
Kiri returned to her phone, thumbs flying.
soooo when were you planning on telling us about the Irish rugby captain, cuz?
She couldn’t wait for the reply.
She looked up at the screen one more time, smiling wide and soft and knowing — and around her, the watch-party surged back into motion: hugs, laughter, someone yelling for more cups, someone else already arguing about whether this would make the papers in New Zealand or if it would melt the internet entirely.
“About bloody time,” Kiri said fondly.
Outside, Auckland stirred awake — unaware that halfway across the world, under rain and stadium lights, something important had just been claimed.
And inside the Kaine home, with the whole community crammed in and cheering like it was their own victory too, love settled in loudly, shamelessly, solid as bone.
Across Ireland, the moment didn’t explode.
It settled.
In pubs, in sitting rooms, in kitchens where kettles had just been switched on, people froze with drinks halfway to their mouths.
The noise from the stadium bled through television speakers, but the rooms themselves went oddly still, like everyone had inhaled at the same time and forgotten to exhale.
In a crowded pub off Camden Street, the cheer from the final whistle hadn’t even finished echoing when the camera cut back to the pitch. The barman leaned forward instinctively, polishing cloth dangling uselessly from his hand.
“What’s he doing?” someone asked.
Lucas Byrne walked straight past the reporters.
A few heads tilted. A couple of lads laughed uncertainly, assuming it was some bit of theatre, some captain’s flourish before the interviews wrapped up.
Then he kept walking.
“Oh,” someone said, very quietly.
When Lucas stopped in front of the winger—when he lifted Eli Kaine’s face in his hands…
The room shifted.
Not shouting. Not cheering. A low, collective murmur ran through the pub, chairs scraping as people stood without really deciding to.
“Is that—”
“Jesus.”
“No way.”
When they kissed, it was unmistakable.
There was a beat—just one—of silence.
Then the sound came back, different this time. Not a roar. A scatter of reactions layered over each other: laughter, sharp whistles, someone swearing in surprise, someone else clapping before they quite knew why.
“Fair play to him,” an older man said from the bar, nodding once like the decision had already been weighed and measured.
A woman near the window wiped at her eyes, laughing under her breath. “I wasn’t expecting that today,” she said to no one in particular.
Someone else scoffed, uncomfortable. “Christ, he picked his moment.”
“Yeah,” came the reply, immediate and calm. “He did.”
In a semi-detached house in Galway, a family who’d been watching in companionable silence stared at the screen as the camera lingered too long, then cut wide to the crowd.
The teenage daughter gasped, hands flying to her mouth.
“Mam.”
Her mother didn’t answer straight away. She watched Lucas rest his forehead against Eli’s, watched the way the noise in the stadium didn’t turn on them.
Then she said, softly, “Good for him.”
Her husband cleared his throat. “That took nerve.”
In a student flat in Cork, the reaction came faster — phones already out, messages flying before the broadcast had even caught up with itself.
did you just see that?
holy shit
the captain??
Someone replayed it on their phone, pausing on the moment Lucas dropped the mic.
“He knew,” one of them said. “You can tell. He knew.”
On social media, the response didn’t arrive as a wave — it came in bursts.
Short clips. Grainy videos of televisions. Still frames grabbed mid-kiss, rain streaking the lights. Captions weren’t clever. Mostly they were stunned.
Well then.
Didn’t see that coming.
Came for the game, stayed for the feels.
Commentators stumbled through the moment live, voices careful.
“Well,” one finally said, after clearing his throat, “that’s… that’s a first.”
“Yes,” his co-host replied, after a pause. “Yes indeed.”
In a small rural pub in Mayo, a white-haired woman watched the screen without blinking. The camera cut to the crowd, thousands on their feet, some clapping, some simply watching.
She leaned over to her friend and said, matter-of-fact, “Imagine how tired he must have been. Carrying that around.”