Chapter Eighteen NowNever #4
Outside, the country kept moving.
Cars passed. Someone laughed too loud on a footpath. A door slammed. Life didn’t stop — but something had shifted, slightly, perceptibly.
By the time the players left the pitch, Ireland hadn’t agreed on anything.
But it had seen it.
The captain hadn’t framed it.
Hadn’t explained it or asked permission.
He’d chosen, in the open, and let the rest of the country catch up in its own time.
And that—more than cheers or silence—was what made it real.
The locker room was almost empty when they got there.
They’d slipped off the pitch quickly, heads down, moving fast, a silent agreement passing between them without a word exchanged.
Security and teammates helped hold back a throng of reporters and cameras, questions being shouted rapidly.
Just a staffer holding a door open and looking politely at the floor.
The noise from the stadium dulled the moment the door shut.
Inside, it was quiet in that strange, hollow way rooms got when they were meant to be loud. Benches lined the walls, kit laid out where they’d left it at halftime. Steam still clung faintly to the air, carrying the ghost of sweat and grass and muscle rub.
Lucas sat on the bench to the left.
Eli took the one opposite.
They faced each other across the narrow aisle, knees muddy, boots unlaced but not yet off, both of them breathing like they’d just finished running—which, in a way, they had.
Neither spoke.
Lucas’s hands rested on his thighs, fingers slack, still trembling faintly. The adrenaline hadn’t burned off yet. It buzzed under his skin, electric and unreal. Every few seconds his mind replayed it; the mic into the mud, the walk, Eli’s face when he said the words.
I love you.
He waited for the other shoe to drop.
For the moment where the room turned cold. For the awkward clearing of throats. For someone to make it a joke sharp enough to cut.
Eli watched him carefully from across the room, eyes soft but steady, like he was anchoring something invisible. Like he was ready to stand if Lucas needed him to.
The door opened.
Boots thudded in. Laughter spilled in with the rest of the team, damp and exhausted and still riding the high of the win. Jerseys were peeled off, tape ripped away, someone swore loudly about a cramp.
The noise swelled — and then faltered.
Someone clocked the distance between the benches, noticed the silence.
Someone connected the dots they’d all watched live, whether they’d wanted to or not.
For a heartbeat, the room hovered.
Lucas didn’t look up.
He felt it anyway — the shift in air, the collective awareness settling heavy and awkward and unavoidable. His jaw tightened without his permission. This was it. This was the moment.
A few more lads filtered in. Someone shut the door properly this time.
Then Rory Keane cleared his throat.
It wasn’t dramatic. Just the sound of a big man making space for words he didn’t usually bother with.
“Well,” Rory said.
Lucas lifted his eyes.
Rory stood in the middle of the room, hands on his hips, towel slung over one shoulder. He looked from Lucas to Eli and back again, like he was checking alignment.
“That was some carry, Eli,” he said first, easy. “Nearly gave me a heart attack.”
A few chuckles rippled out, grateful for the normality of it.
Eli huffed a small laugh. “That makes two of us.”
Rory nodded, then shifted his weight, expression sobering just enough to matter.
“Right,” he said. “So. I reckon I’m speakin’ for the room here.”
Lucas’s chest tightened.
Rory scratched the back of his neck, glancing around. No one objected. No one looked away.
“We don’t care,” Rory said simply. “About… any of that.”
A pause.
“We care that you’re our captain,” he added, nodding once at Lucas. “And that you put your body on the line for us every bloody week.”
He jerked his chin toward Eli. “And that you ran like your arse was on fire in that weather.”
Laughter bubbled up again — warmer this time.
“And,” Rory finished, voice quieter but steadier, “that if anyone gives either of you shit for today, they’ll be dealin’ with all of us.”
For a second, Lucas couldn’t breathe.
Cillian crossed the room and clapped Lucas on the shoulder — firm, familiar. Darren followed, slinging an arm around Eli and squeezing like he always did when he was pretending not to be emotional.
“Christ,” Darren muttered. “You couldn’t have picked a less subtle moment.”
“Rain and all,” someone else added. “Very dramatic.”
“On brand, though,” another said. “Captain waits until the whole country’s watchin’.”
There were hugs — awkward, masculine, brief but real. Backslaps. Someone handed Lucas a bottle of water and then immediately took it back because it was apparently the wrong one.
No one made it weird.
No one made it heavy.
Lucas stayed seated, stunned, smiling faintly like he wasn’t entirely convinced this was real yet. He didn’t trust his voice. If he spoke, something might break loose that he wasn’t ready to manage.
Eli stood eventually, crossed the narrow aisle, and stopped in front of him.
He didn’t touch him.
Just waited.
Lucas looked up at him and finally, finally let himself breathe.
Around them, the locker room returned to its normal chaos — jokes, complaints, the hiss of the showers kicking on. Life resumed, imperfect and loud and mercifully ordinary.
Lucas leaned back against the bench, smile still small and disbelieving, heart hammering.
The hammer hadn’t fallen.
Not yet.
And for the first time in his life, he wondered if maybe — just maybe — it wasn’t coming at all.
The PR office was smaller than either of them had expected.
A narrow room off the media corridor, windowless, fluorescent-lit, with a table that had seen better decades and two mismatched chairs pulled up like an afterthought.
Someone had left a tray of untouched sandwiches on the counter, curling at the edges.
It smelled faintly of stale coffee and printer toner.