Chapter Twenty What Comes After
They didn’t rush.
That was the first decision, made without discussion sometime between waking and realizing the rain had finally stopped.
Lucas came to slowly, the way he rarely did—not jolted awake by an alarm or the weight of anticipation, not already halfway through a mental checklist. Instead, there was warmth first. Then weight. Then the steady, unmistakable rise and fall of another person breathing against him.
Eli.
Eli was warm in his arms.
Not warm the way someone was when you’d fallen asleep together by accident, knowing one of you would slip away before morning.
This was different. This was unguarded. Eli lay sprawled on his stomach, hair a mess, one arm flung possessively across Lucas’s waist like he might wander off if not tethered.
Lucas didn’t move.
He watched him breathe for a long while, eyes tracing familiar details he hadn’t allowed himself to linger on in daylight before: the faint scar near Eli’s shoulder, the way his fingers twitched occasionally like he was chasing something in a dream.
And then it hit him.
Eli didn’t have to run off to his own room.
No scrambling for clothes.
No whispered goodbyes.
No calculation about who might see.
The realization was so simple, so devastatingly quiet, that Lucas felt his throat tighten before he even understood why.
This was allowed now.
He pressed his face briefly into Eli’s hair, inhaling deeply, grounding himself in the fact of it. The night before had been enormously loud, wet, irreversible. This was smaller.
And somehow, this was what broke him open.
Eli shifted, nose wrinkling as consciousness crept in.
“We alive?” he mumbled, one eye cracking open.
Lucas smiled, slow and real. “Barely.”
Eli huffed a soft laugh, tightening his arm reflexively. “Worth it.”
Lucas kissed the crown of his head, careful not to wake him fully just yet. “Yeah.”
They stayed like that until the light outside shifted from grey to something cleaner, the city scrubbed bright by rain. Eventually, Eli rolled onto his side, blinking blearily.
“You’re staring,” he accused.
Lucas didn’t deny it. “You’re still here.”
Eli’s expression softened, something open and almost shy flickering across his face. “Good morning to you too, captain.”
They showered together without urgency.
No choreography. No rush. Just the ordinary intimacy of sharing space—passing shampoo, complaining about the water pressure, Eli yelping dramatically when the temperature jumped and Lucas laughing into his shoulder.
It felt scandalous in its normalcy.
They dressed in clean clothes that still smelled faintly of detergent and dryer sheets, not sweat or rain or panic. Lucas watched Eli lace his trainers, the ease of it, the way his shoulders moved when he stretched.
Forward, he thought.
Just forward.
They didn’t turn their phones back on.
That part was deliberate.
Instead, they checked out like two unremarkable men who had slept badly and intended to find coffee somewhere else. The receptionist nodded politely. No whispers or cameras or sudden hush as they passed.
The city didn’t look at them like they were famous.
The taxi came quickly.
The driver glanced at them in the rearview mirror once, then again. Lucas felt the instinctive tension coil in his spine—the old reflex, bracing for commentary.
But the man said nothing.
Just pulled into traffic smoothly, radio low, eyes on the road.
The taxi ride back toward the training facility was quiet at first, the city passing by in clean lines and early light. Lucas rested his elbow against the window, fingers pressed to the cool glass, the low hum of nerves beginning to build beneath his ribs.
He’d known, intellectually, that this moment would come.
The day after. Daylight. The first look at what the world had decided to do with what he’d done.
Eli noticed the tension before Lucas said anything. He always did.
“Hey,” he said softly, leaning closer. “You don’t have to do anything today except breathe.”
Lucas nodded. “I know. I just—”
The taxi slowed.
Then stopped.
The driver leaned forward slightly, peering through the windscreen. “Well,” he said quietly. “That’s… a crowd.”
Lucas’s stomach dropped.
He leaned forward, heart already racing, the old instinct kicking in hard and fast.
The street outside the training grounds was packed.
News vans lined the curb, satellite dishes lifted like watchful insects. Cameras, tripods, clusters of people pressed up against temporary barriers. For a split second, Lucas’s mind filled in the blanks the way it always had.
Protest.
Anger.
Signs with words he didn’t want to read.
His breath went shallow.
Then the taxi edged forward.
And color flooded his vision.
Not placards of condemnation—but Pride flags, bright and unapologetic against the grey morning. Hand-painted signs bobbed above heads, imperfect and earnest.
LUCAS + ELI
THANK YOU
WE SEE YOU
PRIDE OF IRELAND
Someone had drawn cartoon versions of them — exaggerated hair, crooked grins, hearts floating overhead. Someone else held a sign that simply said LOVE IS LOVE, the letters outlined in glitter that caught the light.
Lucas’s throat closed completely and his eyes swam.
“Oh,” Eli breathed.
For a moment, neither of them moved.
Lucas’s chest felt too tight, like it couldn’t quite expand around what he was seeing. He’d braced himself so thoroughly for something else that this—this sudden, visible kindness—landed almost painfully.
Eli was already pulling his phone out.
He typed quickly, thumbs moving with practiced ease.
Eli: hey. we’re outside. can you open the gate for us?
The reply came almost immediately.
Aoife: Got it. I’ll tell security. Sit tight.
Eli showed Lucas the screen without comment. He murmured to the driver that security was working on opening the gate.
The driver glanced back then nodded. “I’ll pull forward when it opens.”
As they waited, Lucas felt the dam finally crack.
His breath hitched, sharp and sudden. He turned his face toward the window, coughing once as his eyes burned.
“Luke,” Eli murmured, already reaching for him.
“I’m fine,” Lucas started automatically—then stopped himself.
He took a breath. Let it shake.
“I’m… not,” he admitted.
Eli didn’t tease him. Didn’t try to fix it.
He just squeezed Lucas’s knee, solid and grounding, anchoring him to the seat, to the moment, to now.
The gates slid open smoothly, almost casually, as if this weren’t one of the most terrifying and hopeful moments of Lucas’s life.
The taxi rolled forward.
As the gates closed behind them, cutting off the noise and color and sudden swell of support, Lucas sagged back against the seat.
“Jesus,” he whispered. “I really thought—”
“I know,” Eli said quietly. “So did I.”
They didn’t say anything else until the taxi stopped.
Lucas met the driver’s eyes as they got out. “Thanks.”
The man nodded once, respectful, and said nothing at all.
Inside the facility grounds, the noise faded. The world narrowed again to familiar paths, familiar buildings. Lucas felt lighter with every step, like something essential had shifted permanently.
They didn’t go to the locker room.
Instead, they were intercepted by Aoife, who took one look at their faces and made a decision on the spot.
“Conference room,” she said briskly. “No cameras. Coffee first.”
Aoife didn’t stay long.
She poked her head back into the conference room, phone already pressed to her ear, eyes sharp and assessing like she was holding half a dozen moving pieces in her head at once.
“Stay put for a bit,” she said briskly. “PR’s working through some angles. I’ll come get you when it’s time. Coffee’s coming. Don’t turn yourselves into a problem while I’m gone.”
With that, she was gone again, the door clicking shut behind her.
The room settled.
Sunlight streamed in through the high windows, catching dust motes in the air. The table was scattered with half-drunk cups, a plate of biscuits no one had touched yet. It felt suspended — like they were between acts, waiting for the world to decide how loudly it wanted to respond.
Lucas leaned back in his chair and, after a moment’s hesitation, pulled his phone out.
“I should probably…” he said, mostly to himself.
Eli nodded. “Yeah.”
Lucas turned it on.
The screen lit up immediately — notifications stacking so fast they blurred together. Headlines. Missed calls. Messages. The familiar surge of adrenaline started to rise automatically, but he forced himself to breathe through it.
Ignore the noise.
One message sat at the top, calm and unmistakable.
Evelyn: Proud of you. Tell Eli that Paris would have LOVED that drama on their field.
Lucas frowned.
He read it again.
Then looked up slowly. “What… does that mean?”
Eli blinked. “What?”
Lucas slid the phone across the table. “That.”
Eli read the message.
His expression changed—not surprise exactly, but something like recognition catching up to him. He leaned back in his chair, exhaled through his nose, and scrubbed a hand over his face.
“Right,” he said quietly.
Lucas’s brow furrowed. “Eli.”
Eli glanced up at him. Held his gaze for a beat longer than necessary.
“That night in Paris,” he said. “Before the away match. When she was staying at the hotel.”
Lucas went still.
“I saw her with you and wanted to get some air,” Eli continued. “I was outside on the patio. She came out to smoke.”
Lucas nodded slowly. He remembered the night—remembered Eli disappearing early, remembered the ache he’d refused to examine.
“I was just going to walk away,” Eli said. “Didn’t want anything to do with her. Didn’t want to be near her.”
He paused, jaw tightening briefly at the memory.
“And she said—” Eli swallowed once. “She said, “I have no intention of taking him from you, you know.”
Lucas’s breath caught.
“That stopped me cold,” Eli said. “I didn’t even know what to say.”
He let out a short, incredulous laugh. “Turns out she knew. About us. All along.”
Lucas stared at him. “She… knew?”
“Yeah,” Eli said softly. “Said she saw it in body language. The way you watched me. The way I leaned toward you without thinking.”