Page 139 of Try Line Hearts
Eli went very still.
“She told me,” Lucas continued quietly, “that a very wise man once told her it helped people feel better.”
Eli swallowed.
“And in that second,” Lucas said, voice tightening just a fraction, “I realized how much I’d misunderstood everything. Not just her. You.”
He lifted his eyes to Eli now, holding them.
“She said you were trying to survive it too. That you cared about me. That trying wasn’t the same as choosing.”
Eli’s breath hitched softly, barely audible.
“I stood there holding that stupid purple bar,” Lucas said, almost smiling at the memory despite the ache, “and it hit me all at once. I wasn’t managing my life. I was rationing it. Parceling out pieces of myself and calling it responsibility.”
He shook his head slowly. “And I realized I was about to lose you—not because you were asking for too much, but because I kept offering too little.”
The room felt very quiet.
Eli didn’t look away.
Lucas swallowed. “That’s when I knew. Properly. That I loved you. Not in a vague, future-tense way. In aright nowway.”
Eli let out a breath he’d clearly been holding. “Fuck.”
Lucas smiled, small and rueful. “Yeah. That was about my response too.”
Eli leaned forward, forearms on the table now. “And Evelyn?”
Lucas’s smile softened. “She told me she hoped I could be happy someday.Not managed. Not packaged. Not rationed.”
Eli closed his eyes briefly.
“She kissed my cheek,” Lucas added. “Like a blessing. Like she was letting me go.”
Eli opened his eyes again, gaze warm and steady. “She was.”
Lucas nodded. “She was.”
For a moment, neither of them spoke. The world outside the room hummed faintly—voices in the corridor, the distant clink of cups—but in here, it felt contained. Honest.
Eli reached across the table and rested his hand over Lucas’s wrist.
“So,” he said quietly, “when you walked across that pitch…”
Lucas met his eyes. “I wasn’t brave,” he said. “I was done lying.”
Eli smiled then—soft, wrecked, unmistakably fond. “That counts.”
Lucas squeezed his hand back. “I hope so.”
Eli tilted his head, studying him. “For what it’s worth,” he said, voice low but sure, “Paris reallywouldhave loved the drama.”
Lucas laughed, breathless and real this time. “Apparently.”
They sat there like that until Aoife eventually returned, armed with coffee and a list of things to say and not say—but for those few minutes, before the world resumed its demands, Lucas felt something rare and steady settle in his chest.
He had chosen.
