Chapter Twenty One And It Goes On
Lucas stood at the gate with his hands in his coat pockets, staring through glass thick enough to mute the world.
Beyond it, a wide-bodied plane waited under white floodlights, its tail marked with the silver fern.
Ground crew moved in slow, deliberate patterns, orange vests bright against the dark tarmac.
A baggage cart trundled past. Somewhere, an engine whined into life and then settled, as if the aircraft itself was taking a breath before committing to the sky.
The airport hummed around him—wheels whispering over tile, the distant rise and fall of announcements, the low murmur of people suspended between places. It was late, the kind of late where everything felt slightly unreal, like the world had thinned and you could see the seams.
Lucas watched the plane like he’d been assigned to it. Like if he stayed still enough, if he didn’t blink, he could keep it there. Hold it in its white-lit pocket of night.
“Final boarding call for Air New Zealand flight one-zero-seven to Auckland. All remaining passengers, please proceed to gate twenty-four.”
His chest tightened on a soundless exhale.
He hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath.
A month ago, a year ago—any version of Lucas before the pitch, before the rain, before the mic hitting mud—he would’ve had a plan for this moment.
He would’ve made it tidy. He would’ve managed it.
He would’ve been captain, composed, helpful.
He would’ve carried the sadness like it was something he could control if he held it properly.
Tonight he just let it sit.
He let his forehead rest briefly against the cool glass. The cold steadied him. His eyes tracked the plane as if committing the shape to memory: the curve of wing, the darkened windows, the small, blinking lights that made it feel alive even standing still.
Some goodbyes didn’t start with words. They started with the body recognizing what the mind had tried not to.
The sadness was sharp but quiet, the kind that didn’t demand anything, just waited heavy in the chest.
He straightened, shoulders rolling back out of habit—though there was no one here who needed him to look like a captain. He was just a man at an airport, watching a plane that mattered to him prepare to leave.
He wondered, briefly, what it would feel like if Eli were on it.
The thought came uninvited and cruel, his mind offering up the old fear like a habit. Eli disappearing down a jet bridge, turning once for a final wave, then gone. Lucas left behind with his throat closed and his hands empty.
Lucas swallowed hard and forced his gaze to the floor for a second.
Don’t borrow grief, Maeve would say. It’s expensive and you never get a refund.
He almost smiled at that. Almost.
A familiar warmth brushed his side.
Lucas stilled.
Then a soft press—barely a touch—kissed his temple.
“You look like you’re about to propose to the aircraft,” Eli murmured.
Lucas closed his eyes.
Relief hit him so hard it almost hurt.
He turned, hands coming up automatically, fingers curling into the front of Eli’s jacket as if making sure he was real.
Eli’s hair was still damp from the fine drizzle outside, curls soft at the edges.
His cheeks were pink from cold. He smelled faintly of coffee and clean soap and something uniquely him—warmth even when the air was freezing.
“You’re cruel,” Lucas said quietly.
Eli’s mouth curved. “You love it.”
“I absolutely do not.”
“You absolutely do.”
Lucas huffed a laugh that sounded suspiciously like it might break into something else if he let it. He didn’t let it. He leaned in, pressing his forehead to Eli’s for half a heartbeat, grounding himself in the solidness of him.
Then he looked past Eli’s shoulder and saw the cluster of people gathered a few meters back—familiar shapes, familiar faces.
Mereana Kaine with her scarf pulled tight around her neck, eyes already shiny like she’d started crying in the car and hadn’t stopped since.
Hemi beside her, hands in his pockets, jaw set in an expression that was absolutely not emotion because Hemi didn’t do emotion, except the tell was in the way his thumb kept rubbing the edge of his boarding pass like he might wear it smooth.
Kiri leaned against a pillar with her suitcase, grinning like she’d discovered an infinite source of chaos and wanted credit for it.
Two aunties were already fussing over someone’s backpack strap as if the strap might spontaneously break if not blessed by three sets of hands.
A younger cousin—half asleep—clutched a stuffed toy under his arm.
Eli’s family.
Their family.
Lucas’s throat tightened anyway.
“Last minutes,” Eli said, nodding toward them. “Mum’s already crying. Dad’s pretending he isn’t.”
Lucas glanced at Hemi’s rigid shoulders and murmured, “Your dad cried when you left New Zealand the first time.”
“That was allergies.”
“On a rainy day?”
“Very aggressive pollen.”
Lucas snorted.
Behind them, the announcement repeated, more insistent this time. The queue at the gate thinned and then swelled again as late passengers jogged up, breathless, clutching passports like they were precious.
Eli shifted closer, his hand slipping into Lucas’s pocket the way he’d started doing without thinking—fingers threading with Lucas’s inside the warm fabric, hidden from casual eyes and yet no longer secret. It was such a small thing. It still felt like a miracle.
“You alright?” Eli asked softly.
Lucas nodded. “Yeah. Just—sad.”
Eli’s expression softened, no teasing this time. “Yeah.”
Lucas looked back out at the plane. The silver fern gleamed under the floodlights. A door was still open. A figure in a high-vis vest pushed loaded carts of food and drink inside from a scissor-lift truck.
He swallowed again, the ache pressing behind his ribs.
It wasn’t the fear he’d lived with for years—fear of being seen, fear of being named, fear of losing everything he’d built.
This was different.
This was the ache of having something good and real and knowing it could still leave. Not because someone was punishing him. Not because he’d failed to manage it. Just because life moved people around the globe and called it normal.
Eli leaned in again, lips brushing Lucas’s temple in the exact same place.
A mirror.
Lucas felt it immediately—felt the echo of a memory he’d carried since the first third of the season, back when the idea of this kind of touch had made him ache and panic in equal measure.
An airport. Two men. One of them leaning in, casual and tender, kissing the other’s temple as if it belonged to him.
Lucas had watched them then the way starving people watched food. He hadn’t known he was watching prophecy. He’d only known his chest had hurt and he’d looked away too quickly, terrified someone would see the want in his face.
He hadn’t been brave enough to imagine himself inside that moment.
And now here he was, living it.
Self-fulfilling, like the universe had taken one look at his stubbornness and said fine—if you won’t step toward it willingly, we’ll put it directly in your hands.
Eli’s voice nudged him back.
“You good?” Eli asked. “I told Mum I’d wait ‘til the last.”
Lucas stared at him as if it were even a question. “Of course. I’d be offended otherwise.”
Eli’s smile flickered, small and grateful. “Good.”
They stood for a minute, watching the Kaines gather themselves. Mereana pressed a tissue to her eyes as if the tears were misbehaving. Kiri waved enthusiastically at Lucas, even though he was standing right there, as if waving would make him feel less like he was about to lose something.
Kiri called, too loudly, “Don’t cry, Byrne! We like you better when you’re scary.”
Mereana hissed her name. “Kiri!”
Kiri shrugged, unapologetic. “What? He looks like he’s about to melt into the floor.”
Lucas exhaled a laugh and lifted his hand in a small wave, acknowledging the absurdity.
Eli leaned close. “They’ll text you. Constantly.”
“I’m prepared.”
“You say that now.”
Lucas’s phone buzzed in his pocket just from the vibration of air, as if the universe was mocking him. He didn’t take it out. Not tonight. Tonight belonged to endings done gently, not to whatever headlines were still circling like gulls.
The line thinned again. Families hugged. Hands touched shoulders. People stepped back and then forward again like they couldn’t quite commit to the separation.
Lucas found himself studying Eli’s family the way he’d studied opposition teams all his life—watching patterns, trying to predict what would happen next.
But this wasn’t something you could strategize. This was just love, messy and real and loud in its own quiet way.
Eli returned, hesitated, then kissed him again—soft, brief, public in the quietest possible way—and turned to join his family.
Lucas watched him go, heart full in a way that still startled him.
He watched Eli become son again for a moment; standing a little straighter, shoulders broad under his coat, accepting Mereana’s hands on his cheeks, accepting Hemi’s firm grip on his shoulder that lingered half a second longer than a handshake should.
He watched Kiri throw her arms around him like she was trying to crack his ribs, and Eli laughing into her hair.
He watched the aunties fuss with Eli’s scarf like he was eight years old and not a professional athlete with national headlines still orbiting him.
And he realized, with a small, sharp tenderness, that he was watching his own future too.
Because they hadn’t treated him like a scandal when they’d met him.
They’d treated him like family.
Not cautiously or politely. Not with distance.
They’d adopted him the way big families did—without paperwork, without ceremony. One day you were just there, and then you were theirs.
Lucas’s chest squeezed.
He turned back to the glass as Eli’s family disappeared into the jetway. The plane waited.
“Final boarding call for Air New Zealand flight one-zero-seven…”
Lucas tracked the movement like it mattered. Like if he witnessed it properly, it would hurt less.