Page 12 of Try Line Hearts
Blue eyes shadowed from restless nights.
Stubble darkening a jaw the media obsessed over.
Influencers online called himdevastatingly hot.
The union called himmarketable.
Teenagers plastered his face on bedroom walls.
Byrne, national captain—carefully assembled fantasy.
He called himselftired.
He stripped and stepped into the shower, letting the hot water crash down over his shoulders. It loosened muscle, steamed the glass, filled the tiny room with a thick, enveloping heat that pressed in from all sides.
But the lingering warmth wasn’t from him.
Kaine had been here moments ago.
Humming.
Bare-chested in their shared room.
Speaking through the door like intimacy was effortless.
You good?
It was too much.
Too real.
Too damn tempting.
Byrne pressed his palm flat against the tile, breath going shallow, his forehead dropping forward as if the wall might hold him upright. He tried to think of drills. Of formations. Of anything utilitarian and safe.
But every thought curved back, traitorous and insistent.
The warmth in Kaine’s eyes.
The steadiness in his voice.
The way he moved through the world like nothing in it had ever taught him to be afraid.
Heat coiled low in Byrne’s spine, sudden and undeniable. His body knew this terrain even if his mind refused it.
He fought it.
He failed.
The moment broke him open with terrifying ease. He bowed his head, breath thin and shaking, reaching for himself in a gesture born of desperation more than desire. Shame threaded through it, sharp and biting, but longing cut deeper.
His mind betrayed him in flashes—Kaine under running water, droplets tracing his shoulders; the curve of his smile when he saidmorninglike it meant something; the quiet patience in his voice when he asked questions Byrne never answered.
It was quick.
Urgent.
A fracture disguised as relief.
