Page 132 of Try Line Hearts
Lucas picked it up.
It felt heavier than it should have.
He stood there for a long moment, fingers curled around it, heart pounding with a familiar, aching regret. This… this stupid, well-intentioned gesture that had been a fault line. Not the cause, but the crack where everything had begun to split.
He went back into the bedroom.
Eli had pushed himself up onto one elbow, watching him with quiet curiosity, hair mussed, sheets twisted low around his hips.
Lucas crossed the room and held the chocolate out wordlessly.
Eli frowned slightly. “What’s that?”
Lucas swallowed.
“I hear,” he said, voice rough but steady, “it makes you feel better.”
Eli stared at the chocolate.
Then understanding dawned.
“Oh,” he breathed.
Something shifted in his expression—surprise giving way to something softer, heavier. He took it slowly, like it might dissolve in his hands.
Lucas sat down beside him on the bed, close enough that their knees brushed.
“I’ve been carrying that,” Lucas said quietly. “Not the chocolate. The moment. The way I didn’t say anything. The way I let you think you were alone in it.”
Eli’s fingers tightened around the wrapper.
“You weren’t,” Eli said gently.
“I was,” Lucas replied. “I just didn’t know how to be brave yet.”
Eli’s eyes burned. He blinked hard, once, then laughed softly under his breath.
“You know,” he said, voice unsteady but warm, “I don’t even really like that chocolate.”
Lucas let out a breath that was almost a laugh and almost a sob.
“Figures.”
Eli shifted closer, leaning his shoulder into Lucas’s chest. “I like the idea of it,” he admitted. “That I can do something to help someone I care about feel better.”
Lucas rested his forehead against Eli’s temple.
“When I saw you on the pitch,” he said, the words coming easier now, “it wasn’t just that I wanted you.”
Eli hummed quietly, listening.
“It was that I realized I couldn’t live like that anymore,” Lucas continued. “Watching you take pieces of yourself and hand them to other people because I was too afraid to claim them.”
He turned his head then, really looking at Eli — at the familiar curve of his mouth, the softness in his eyes that had always undone him.
“I couldn’t live without telling the truth anymore,” Lucas said. “Even if it cost me everything.”
Eli lifted his head, eyes shining.
