Page 70 of Try Line Hearts
She smiled once more, stepped back, and slid into her waiting car like this was all part of a language she spoke fluently.
Lucas stood there a moment longer, the echo of it still buzzing under his skin.
Eli saw the photo twelve minutes later.
He was still at home, towel over his shoulder, phone in his hand, telling himself he was fine. That this was expected. That this was the price of proximity.
Then the image loaded.
Lucas in a tailored jacket. Evelyn Cross smiling beside him. Her lips brushing his cheek. Her arms around him in a way that looked—out of context—intimate.
The caption beneath it read something breathless and stupid.
Eli stared.
The photo sat there on his screen, frozen and perfect in the way only things designed for consumption ever were. Lucas in a dark coat, posture easy but controlled. Evelyn Cross close enough to read as intimacy if you wanted it to. Her hand at his arm. The cheek kiss—soft, familiar, harmless to anyone who didn’t know what it was erasing.
He felt it then. The burn. Hot and ugly and immediate.
Not surprise.
Not betrayal.
Jealousy.
Pure and vicious and deeply unfair.
It climbed up his spine and settled behind his eyes, a pressure that made his jaw lock. His expression didn’t change. Anyone looking at him would’ve seen nothing but stillness. Blankness. Control.
He knew better. He knew exactly what this was.
He knew Evelyn was a bystander, a willing cog in a machine that chewed people up and called it strategy. She didn’t know Eli existed. Didn’t know how Lucas’s hands felt when they shook afterward. Didn’t know what Lucas sounded like when he said Eli’s name in the dark—quiet, like it was something he wasn’t sure he was allowed to want.
Eli couldn’t be angry at her.
Which meant there was nowhere for the feeling to go.
He locked his phone.
Set it facedown on the coffee table with deliberate care.
Then he stood.
At first, he just paced.
Back and forth across the apartment, bare feet silent on the wood floor, hands flexing and unclenching at his sides. The city lights bled in through the windows, painting everything in silver and shadow. His breath stayed even. In through his nose. Out through his mouth.
Again.
Again.
His shoulders stayed loose. His face stayed empty. The kind of calm he’d learned young—when reacting only made things worse.
He turned at the end of the room and paced back the other way.
Again.
The image replayed anyway. The angle. The closeness. The way Lucas looked like he belonged there, like he fit into that world of curated softness and strategic affection.
