Page 68 of Try Line Hearts
The restaurant was everything Lucas expected: warm light, money disguised as taste, privacy that existed only because it had been purchased. Declan escorted him inside—and then, mercifully, peeled off.
“I’ll leave you two to it,” he said. “Text when you’re wrapping.”
Evelyn Cross stood when Lucas approached.
She didn’t perform it. She just… stood.
Tall, composed, dark hair loose around her shoulders, eyes sharp but kind. She wore something understated that cameras would love because it didn’t look like it was trying—clean lines, soft fabric, the sort of outfit stylists called “effortless” and spent weeks engineering.
“Lucas Byrne,” she said, offering her hand. “Hi.”
“Hi,” he said, shaking it. Her grip was steady—firm enough to be real, not the polite suggestion of contact he’d half-expected.
“Thank you for doing this,” she added quietly, voice pitched just for him. “You look like a man being marched into diplomacy.”
Lucas blinked, then let out a short, surprised huff of laughter. “That obvious?”
She smiled—not wide, not dazzling. Knowing. “Painfully.”
They sat. Wine appeared. Water appeared. The choreography of expensive normalcy unfolded around them without either of them really participating in it.
For the first few minutes, Lucas stayed braced, shoulders held just a fraction too tight, answers clean and noncommittal. He’d done this before—panels, charity dinners, sponsor luncheons. Smile, deflect, don’t bleed.
Evelyn didn’t push.
She asked about the season in a way that suggested she actually understood the grind rather than the highlights. Asked what it felt like to captain at home versus away, how noise changed decision-making, whether leadership ever got lonely.
Notare you lonely?
Just…does it get lonely?
It was a small difference. It mattered.
She talked about touring like it was both a dream and a tax on the body. About waking up in hotel rooms and having to check the city name to remember where you were. About crowds that loved her and didn’t know her at all.
“You get used to people wanting access,” she said at one point, swirling her wine without drinking it. “They don’t actually want you. They want the version of you that proves something to themselves.”
Lucas felt something twist low in his chest, sharp and familiar.
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “That tracks.”
She glanced up at him then—not searching, not prying. Just… attentive. As if she were filing something away without needing to label it.
His phone buzzed in his pocket.
Once.
Then again and he drew it out and glanced at the preview on the lock screen.
Eli:how’s Hollywood?
Lucas ignored it on instinct, the way he ignored pain until it mattered.
Evelyn noticed. He could tell—not because she looked, but because her attention shifted, gentle and deliberate, like she was giving him space rather than taking it.
She didn’t ask who it was.
Didn’t tease.
