Chapter Nineteen The After
They didn’t say it out loud at first.
It was just there, hanging between them as they sat in the PR office— the quiet knowledge that neither of them could face their own front doors tonight.
Not Lucas’s apartment, with its memories and its silence and the weight of expectation pressing in from every wall.
Not Eli’s, already too exposed, too close to streets that would be crawling with people who suddenly felt entitled to know him.
Lucas leaned back in the chair, head tipped against the wall, eyes closed.
“I don’t think I can go home,” he said finally, voice low and flat.
Eli didn’t hesitate. “Yeah. Me neither.”
That was it. No justification required.
Lucas pulled his phone back out, turning it on just long enough to send one message.
Luke: still alive. need somewhere discreet. you’re annoyingly good at this.
The reply came almost instantly.
Maeve: Already booked... it was gonna be a surprise. You just won the world cup and a boyfriend – I need sleep so you need to bang it out elsewhere. Five-star. You’re paying me back. National icons can afford it.
Lucas let out something like a laugh and something like a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.
He typed back thank you and turned the phone off again.
Aoife handled the rest with ruthless efficiency.
She appeared at the door like a stage manager, already holding keys. “Right,” she said briskly. “We’re leaving. Now. Delivery entrance. No one’s looking there.”
They didn’t argue.
They pulled their hoods up, heads down, slipping through service corridors that smelled like cardboard and disinfectant instead of sweat and history. Aoife’s car was waiting, engine running, lights off. She ushered them in, slammed the doors, and pulled away before either of them had time to think.
Only once they were several blocks away did she speak.
“You did good,” she said, eyes on the road. “Both of you.”
Lucas swallowed. “You don’t have to—”
“I do,” she cut in gently. “Because you’ll hear enough noise soon. You should hear at least one clean thing before that.”
She dropped them outside the hotel, waited until they were safely inside, then drove off without ceremony.
The hotel was too nice for hiding.
That was Lucas’s first thought as the car pulled away and the doorman disappeared back into the warm gold glow of the lobby. Marble floors. Soft lighting. The kind of place that smelled faintly of old wood and money. Central Dublin—discreet, expensive, and blessedly anonymous at this hour.
At the reception desk, the clerk looked up—and stilled.
His eyes flicked from Lucas’s face to the television mounted discreetly behind the bar, where the sports recap was looping silently. Then back again.
Lucas felt his shoulders tense automatically.
The clerk smiled instead. Not wide. Not performative. Just… warm.
“No one will bother you here,” he said quietly, handing over the keycards. Then, after a pause, he looked directly at Lucas. “Thank you. For being brave when some of us can’t.”
The words landed harder than any cheer.
Lucas nodded, unable to trust his voice, and followed Eli toward the lifts.
The room itself was quiet in that way only good hotels ever managed—thick walls, distant city hum softened into something almost soothing. Rain streaked the windows, blurring the lights below into watercolors.
They stood there for a moment, neither quite sure what to do now that there was no one watching.
No cameras.
No questions.
No microphones hovering at chest height.
Just them.
Eli broke first, because of course he did.
“Well,” he said, voice light but frayed at the edges. “This is… dramatic.”
Lucas huffed a quiet laugh. “Maeve said it qualified as an emergency.”
“Oh, absolutely,” Eli said. “You kissed me in a monsoon on live television in front of the literal world. That’s at least a category four.”
Lucas stepped closer without quite meaning to. “You okay?”
Eli considered that honestly. “Ask me again in twelve hours.”
They moved through the space slowly, like they weren’t entirely convinced it was real yet.
Shoes were kicked off without ceremony, landing wherever gravity took them.
Jackets were draped over the backs of chairs they’d probably never sit in, expensive fabric sagging under the careless weight of damp wool and adrenaline.
The room was quiet in that thick, insulated way only good hotels ever managed — the city muffled into a distant, abstract hum.
Lucas stood near the window for a moment, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his hoodie, watching rain smear the lights below into soft, bleeding color. His reflection stared back at him in the glass, older somehow. Hollowed. Changed.
Behind him, Eli wandered toward the television, drawn by instinct more than intention.
“Maybe don’t—” Lucas started, the words already too late.
The screen flickered to life.
Immediately, it was noise.
Rain and stadium lights and color flooded the room, too bright, too sharp against the calm they’d just stepped into. The footage cut between angles rapidly; sideline cameras, overhead shots, shaky close-ups—the broadcast already packaged into something consumable.
Lucas froze.
He saw himself.
Not as he felt: not the tight, terrified coil of resolve in his chest, but as he looked. Soaked through, hair plastered to his forehead, eyes bright and a little wild. He looked… unmoored. Like someone who had just stepped off a ledge and was still falling.
He hadn’t realized his hands had been shaking.
He saw Eli next—mud-streaked, breathless, laughing at something off-camera before Lucas entered the frame. Unaware. Open. His face completely unguarded in a way Lucas hadn’t let himself notice in the moment.
The reporter’s question replayed.
Do you want to dedicate this win to anyone special?
Lucas flinched.
He watched his own face change—the subtle pause, the way his gaze slid past the reporter without touching her. He watched himself look through the lens, searching.
Finding.
The clip cut to a wider angle as he dropped the microphone.
The sound of it hitting the mud echoed far louder in the hotel room than it had in his memory.
Lucas’s breath caught.
He watched himself walk.
Not rush. Not hesitate.
March.
Straight through the frame like a man who had already made peace with what it would cost. The camera struggled to keep up, jostling as reporters scrambled, the image briefly blurring before snapping back into focus.
Then he was there.
He saw his hands come up—steady, sure—cupping Eli’s face. He watched Eli’s confusion, the flicker of disbelief, the way his eyes searched Lucas’s like he was trying to confirm this wasn’t some cruel trick.
Lucas’s chest tightened painfully.
He hadn’t realized how gentle he’d been.
He saw his mouth move, the words lost under the roar of the stadium, but he knew exactly what he’d said. I love you.
The kiss filled the screen.
Unmistakable. Unavoidable. Slow enough that no one could pretend it was anything else.
Lucas felt heat rush to his face—embarrassment tangled with awe and something dangerously close to grief. He hadn’t known he could look like that. Like someone so certain. Like someone with nothing left to hide.
Beside him, Eli let out a small, breathless laugh; half disbelief, half nerves, and reached for the remote.
The screen went black.
The sudden quiet rang in Lucas’s ears.
“I’m sorry,” Eli said, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Morbid curiosity.”
Lucas shook his head slowly, still staring at the blank screen like it might start playing again on its own.
“It’s okay,” he said, voice low. “I think… I needed to see it once.”
Eli glanced at him. “Yeah?”
Lucas nodded, swallowing hard.
“I don’t remember feeling brave,” he admitted. “I remember being terrified.”
Eli stepped closer, close enough that their shoulders brushed. “You looked like you knew exactly what you were doing.”
Lucas huffed a soft, disbelieving laugh. “That’s new information.”
Eli smiled gently. “Well. Whoever that guy is on television?” He reached out, his fingers brushing Lucas’s wrist, grounding. “He loves me. I’m a fan.”
Lucas finally turned away from the dark screen and looked at Eli instead.
Up close. Real. Warm.
The version of him that mattered.
“Yeah,” Lucas said quietly. “Me too.”
And for the first time since the final whistle, the tightness in his chest eased just a little as the world narrowed back down to something he could hold.
They didn’t talk much after that.
The silence between them wasn’t awkward — it was full. Heavy in a way that didn’t demand to be filled. Lucas sat on the edge of the sofa, elbows resting on his knees, while Eli scrolled through his phone with one thumb, pausing occasionally as messages stacked up faster than he could read them.
“Spice bags?” Eli asked eventually, glancing up. “There’s a place around the corner. Open late.”
Lucas smiled faintly. “That sounds… exactly right.”
Eli ordered without ceremony. Lucas watched him with quiet focus; the way his brow furrowed briefly, the way he leaned back once it was done, exhaling like that small decision had taken more out of him than it should have.
When the knock came, Lucas answered it barefoot, hoodie sleeves pushed up, accepting the paper bag that steamed faintly in the hallway light. The smell followed him back into the room—salt and vinegar, fried onions, something spicy and grounding and unmistakably Dublin.
They ate on the couch, cartons balanced between them, knees brushing now and then. Lucas leaned back, head tipped against the cushions, chewing slowly. Eli sat sideways, one foot tucked under him, shoulder pressed lightly into Lucas’s arm.
They didn’t speak.
They didn’t need to.
Every so often, one of them would glance sideways and catch the other already looking—a brief smile shared, unguarded and real. Lucas felt something loosen in his chest with each one, like a knot being worked free patiently, over time.
When the food was gone and the cartons set aside, Eli stretched, arms lifting overhead, shirt riding up just enough to draw Lucas’s eyes without effort.