Page 112 of Try Line Hearts
Byrne blinked. “What?”
Maeve’s mouth curved into something almost smug. “I’ve already dropped my bags at your apartment.”
Byrne stared. “Maeve—”
“I’m invoking my emergency key privileges,” she said cheerfully, like she was reading out terms and conditions.
“Your what—”
“My emergency key privileges,” she repeated, as if he was slow, which—fair. “I’m staying with you until you figure out if this is going to be a fairytale or a funeral.”
Byrne let out a strangled sound. “That’s—”
“Correct,” Maeve said. “It’s intrusive, bossy, and absolutely necessary.”
Byrne stared at her, still wrecked, still stunned, still shaking with the aftershock of sayingI love himout loud—and then, despite himself, his mouth twitched.
Maeve lifted her glass in a small toast. “To the miracle,” she said dryly. “The big idiot finally caught up with his own heart.”
Byrne swallowed, eyes stinging again. “Maeve,” he managed.
“Aye?”
“I really did mess it up,” he said, quieter. “Spectacularly.”
Maeve’s gaze held his—steady, fierce, unsentimental. “Then stop standing around admiring the wreckage,” she said. “Get up tomorrow and try to be worthy of the lad you love.”
Byrne’s breath hitched. He nodded once—small, but real.
Maeve sat back, satisfied, and waved at his pint like it offended her personally. “Drink that,” she ordered. “Eat something. Then we’re going home. You’re not sitting alone in your flat tonight spiraling.”
Byrne gave a weak, broken laugh.
And underneath it—still terrifying, still enormous—was the truth, newly spoken, newly alive: He loved Eli. And now he had to act like it.
An hour or so later, Maeve knocked back the rest of her whiskey and exhaled like she’d been holding her breath too. “Right,” she said. “You drank, you ate, we’re going home.”
Byrne managed a weak smile. “Bossy.”
“Irish,” Maeve corrected.
Byrne laughed—small, broken. “Fair.”
Maeve stood, shrugging on her coat. “Come on,” she said, softer now. “We’ll get through it.”
Byrne slid out of the booth and followed her toward the door.
Outside, the cold hit his face and cleared the last of the pub warmth from his skin. The streetlights threw pale gold onto wet pavement. The night smelled like rain and smoke and distant river.
Byrne stuck his hand into his jacket pocket and pulled out the chocolate. Purple wrapper, slightly crumpled. A small, ridiculous proof that someone had been kind to him when he didn’t deserve it.
Something in his throat tightened again.
Maeve noticed. Of course she did. She bumped her shoulder against his lightly. “One step at a time,” she murmured, as if she could read his brain. “And try not to be a complete gobshite tomorrow.”
Byrne huffed a laugh through a swallow. “Yeah,” he said, voice hoarse. “I’ll try.”
But as they walked toward the car, Byrne felt the truth humming under everything else—quiet, relentless, undeniable: Trying wasn’t going to be enough anymore. He was going to have to choose.
