Chapter Twenty What Comes After #2
He shook his head, half-amused, half-wrecked. “Told her it was my first time in the City of Romance, and I was outside feeling sorry for myself with the woman the world thinks is sleeping with the man I love.”
Lucas closed his eyes briefly, the words hitting him square in the chest.
“I was standing there,” Eli went on, voice rough but steady, “losing my fucking mind because I’d finally admitted it to myself. That I loved you. And do you know what she did?”
Lucas opened his eyes. “What?”
Eli smiled despite himself. “She laughed. Told me the French would’ve loved the drama of it all.”
A soft, disbelieving sound slipped out of Lucas—half laugh, half ache.
“She knew,” he murmured again, this time with something like wonder. Then, quieter, rueful and fond all at once: “Bright one, she is.”
Eli nodded. “Yeah.”
Lucas picked his phone back up and set it face-down on the table.
For a long moment, neither of them spoke.
The room felt smaller now, not closed in, but contained. Safe.
Lucas leaned back, staring up at the ceiling, the weight of that night in Paris rearranging itself in his memory; the things he hadn’t let himself see, the truth that had been standing patiently nearby.
When he looked back at Eli, his chest felt tight in a different way than before.
Eli leaned back in his chair, one ankle hooked over the other, the faintest smile still lingering from the Paris revelation.
“So,” he said lightly, breaking the quiet. “Guess that explains the text.”
Lucas huffed, rubbing a hand over his face. “Apparently Evelyn Cross has been ten steps ahead of us and just… watching us blunder around like idiots.”
Eli’s mouth twitched. “She’s terrifyingly perceptive.”
Lucas snorted. “You know we can never introduce her to Maeve.”
Eli blinked. “Why?”
Lucas deadpanned, “Because together they’d absolutely take over the world. And I don’t think the Earth is ready for those overlords.”
That got a real laugh out of Eli—short, surprised, bright. It cut through the tension like a window cracked open.
“God,” Eli said, shaking his head. “Maeve would adore her if she got to see the real her.”
“Exactly the problem,” Lucas said. Then his expression shifted, not dark, not heavy, but thoughtful. He leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees, fingers loosely clasped.
“There’s something I should probably tell you,” he said.
Eli stilled. Not wary—just attentive. “Okay.”
Lucas exhaled slowly. “This… didn’t start yesterday for me. Not really.”
Eli nodded once, giving him space.
“When Evelyn and I were done,” Lucas went on, choosing his words carefully, “there was a moment. In the car park. She handed me something.”
Eli’s brow furrowed. “What?”
Lucas’s mouth curved faintly, but his eyes didn’t. “The chocolate you gave her.”
Eli went very still.
“She told me,” Lucas continued quietly, “that a very wise man once told her it helped people feel better.”
Eli swallowed.
“And in that second,” Lucas said, voice tightening just a fraction, “I realized how much I’d misunderstood everything. Not just her. You.”
He lifted his eyes to Eli now, holding them.
“She said you were trying to survive it too. That you cared about me. That trying wasn’t the same as choosing.”
Eli’s breath hitched softly, barely audible.
“I stood there holding that stupid purple bar,” Lucas said, almost smiling at the memory despite the ache, “and it hit me all at once. I wasn’t managing my life. I was rationing it. Parceling out pieces of myself and calling it responsibility.”
He shook his head slowly. “And I realized I was about to lose you—not because you were asking for too much, but because I kept offering too little.”
The room felt very quiet.
Eli didn’t look away.
Lucas swallowed. “That’s when I knew. Properly. That I loved you. Not in a vague, future-tense way. In a right now way.”
Eli let out a breath he’d clearly been holding. “Fuck.”
Lucas smiled, small and rueful. “Yeah. That was about my response too.”
Eli leaned forward, forearms on the table now. “And Evelyn?”
Lucas’s smile softened. “She told me she hoped I could be happy someday. Not managed. Not packaged. Not rationed.”
Eli closed his eyes briefly.
“She kissed my cheek,” Lucas added. “Like a blessing. Like she was letting me go.”
Eli opened his eyes again, gaze warm and steady. “She was.”
Lucas nodded. “She was.”
For a moment, neither of them spoke. The world outside the room hummed faintly—voices in the corridor, the distant clink of cups—but in here, it felt contained. Honest.
Eli reached across the table and rested his hand over Lucas’s wrist.
“So,” he said quietly, “when you walked across that pitch…”
Lucas met his eyes. “I wasn’t brave,” he said. “I was done lying.”
Eli smiled then—soft, wrecked, unmistakably fond. “That counts.”
Lucas squeezed his hand back. “I hope so.”
Eli tilted his head, studying him. “For what it’s worth,” he said, voice low but sure, “Paris really would have loved the drama.”
Lucas laughed, breathless and real this time. “Apparently.”
They sat there like that until Aoife eventually returned, armed with coffee and a list of things to say and not say—but for those few minutes, before the world resumed its demands, Lucas felt something rare and steady settle in his chest.
He had chosen.
And Eli knew it.