Page 4 of Try Line Hearts
This time Byrne adjusted—stepped in earlier, closed the space before Kaine could gather himself, wrapped low and drove with his legs and the quiet fury of a man who refused to be surprised twice.
The hit landed clean.
Momentum carried them both down, boots skidding as the grass gave way beneath them, cold and slick and unforgiving. Byrne felt the impact ripple through his body, felt Kaine’s weight meet his in a way that was balanced rather than chaotic, controlled rather than clumsy.
They went to ground together.
Byrne landed half atop the winger.
And froze.
It wasn’t the position—that happened a dozen times a match. It wasn’t the contact—he lived in contact, thrived in it. It was the sudden, unwanted awareness of detail.
Kaine beneath him was solid and warm, muscle packed tight under the thin stretch of kit. Byrne felt the line of Kaine’s thigh against his own, the firm press of his torso, the strength held in check even pinned. There was no softness to him—just heat and density and the unmistakable vitality of someone entirely at home in their body.
Byrne’s palms were planted on the turf beside Kaine’s ribs. He could feel the expansion of Kaine’s breath through the fabric. In. Out. Steady. Unbothered.
Too steady.
Kaine’s face was inches from his.
Droplets clung to his lashes, caught there like glass. Rain and sweat traced slow paths down his temples. His eyes—dark, alert—flicked up to Byrne’s, not startled, not rushed. Just present.
Byrne became abruptly, disastrously aware of where his gaze had landed.
Kaine’s mouth.
Slightly parted, breath warm, lips darkened by cold and exertion. Byrne knew he should look away. Knew it in the same instinctive, urgent way he knew how to set a defensive line or read a break.
He didn’t.
The realization hit him even as it betrayed him—that he was staring, that he’d lingered a fraction too long.
Kaine noticed.
Something shifted in his expression—not surprise, not alarm. Recognition. A flicker of understanding that sharpened the moment rather than diffused it.
Warm breath brushed Byrne’s cheek.
The scent hit him then—eucalyptus, sharp and clean beneath sweat and rain and crushed grass. It was absurd, the way his mind catalogued it, the way his body reacted as if this were something to be learned rather than avoided.
For one suspended beat, Byrne didn’t feel like the captain.
Didn’t feel like the responsible one, the managed one, the man who kept himself carefully contained.
He felt like a man standing on the edge of a cliff he’d sworn never to approach.
Kaine shifted beneath him.
Not abruptly. Not carelessly.
He rolled his hips as he moved, just enough that they brushed—brief, unmistakable, intimate in a way no one watching from a distance could have named. It lasted less than a second.
It was enough.
Byrne’s breath caught, sharp and involuntary.
Then Kaine was gone—rolling smoothly out from under him with an ease that felt deliberate now, controlled, like he’d chosen how to leave the contact. He was on his feet in a heartbeat, mud streaking his shorts, breath barely elevated.
