Page 134 of Try Line Hearts
No calculation about who might see.
The realization was so simple, so devastatingly quiet, that Lucas felt his throat tighten before he even understood why.
This was allowed now.
He pressed his face briefly into Eli’s hair, inhaling deeply, grounding himself in the fact of it. The night before had been enormously loud, wet, irreversible. This was smaller.
And somehow, this was what broke him open.
Eli shifted, nose wrinkling as consciousness crept in.
“We alive?” he mumbled, one eye cracking open.
Lucas smiled, slow and real. “Barely.”
Eli huffed a soft laugh, tightening his arm reflexively. “Worth it.”
Lucas kissed the crown of his head, careful not to wake him fully just yet. “Yeah.”
They stayed like that until the light outside shifted from grey to something cleaner, the city scrubbed bright by rain. Eventually, Eli rolled onto his side, blinking blearily.
“You’re staring,” he accused.
Lucas didn’t deny it. “You’re still here.”
Eli’s expression softened, something open and almost shy flickering across his face. “Good morning to you too, captain.”
They showered together without urgency.
No choreography. No rush. Just the ordinary intimacy of sharing space—passing shampoo, complaining about the water pressure, Eli yelping dramatically when the temperature jumped and Lucas laughing into his shoulder.
It felt scandalous in its normalcy.
They dressed in clean clothes that still smelled faintly of detergent and dryer sheets, not sweat or rain or panic. Lucas watched Eli lace his trainers, the ease of it, the way his shoulders moved when he stretched.
Forward, he thought.
Just forward.
They didn’t turn their phones back on.
That part was deliberate.
Instead, they checked out like two unremarkable men who had slept badly and intended to find coffee somewhere else. The receptionist nodded politely. No whispers or cameras or sudden hush as they passed.
The city didn’t look at them like they were famous.
The taxi came quickly.
The driver glanced at them in the rearview mirror once, then again. Lucas felt the instinctive tension coil in his spine—the old reflex, bracing for commentary.
But the man said nothing.
Just pulled into traffic smoothly, radio low, eyes on the road.
The taxi ride back toward the training facility was quiet at first, the city passing by in clean lines and early light. Lucas rested his elbow against the window, fingers pressed to the cool glass, the low hum of nerves beginning to build beneath his ribs.
He’d known, intellectually, that this moment would come.
