Page 92 of Try Line Hearts
Lucas stayed where he was, listening to nothing, feeling the weight of the choice he’d been postponing settle fully into his hands.
He had assumed he could hang on.
He hadn’t realized Eli was already letting go.
Lucas found Eli in the weights room.
It wasn’t locked—nothing ever was for them—but the rest of the facility had gone dim and echoing, lights reduced to a handful offluorescents that hummed like they were tired of their own existence. The place smelled faintly of disinfectant and iron and old sweat. Familiar. Safe, once.
Eli sat on a bench near the squat rack, elbows braced on his knees, phone face-down beside him. He wasn’t lifting. Wasn’t stretching. Just… sitting there, staring at the floor like he was waiting for something to finish passing through him.
Lucas stopped a few feet away.
“Hey,” he said.
Eli looked up. His expression softened automatically—habit, not feeling—and that hurt more than if he’d stayed blank.
“Hey,” Eli replied.
They stood in the quiet for a moment that stretched too long.
Lucas cleared his throat. “Can we talk?”
Eli nodded once. “Yeah.”
Lucas waited for him to say more. To joke. To fill the space.
Eli didn’t.
Lucas exhaled slowly and stepped closer, leaning back against the rack across from him. He crossed his arms, uncrossed them, settled for resting his hands on his hips like he was bracing for impact.
“I heard you earlier,” Lucas said carefully. “In the lounge.”
Eli’s gaze flicked away—not guilty, just tired. “Ah.”
“I didn’t mean to,” Lucas added, because it felt important to say. “I wasn’t listening on purpose.”
“I know,” Eli said. He picked up his phone, turned it over in his hands without unlocking it. “You don’t strike me as the eavesdropping type.”
The words weren’t sharp.
That somehow made them worse.
Lucas swallowed. “You said you don’t know anymore.”
Eli nodded. “Yeah.”
“About me,” Lucas pressed.
Another nod. Slower this time.
Lucas waited for anger. For frustration. Forsomethingthat would let him argue, defend, explain.
What he got instead was honesty.
“I don’t know where I fit,” Eli said quietly. “And before you say anything—I know. I know why. I know the reasons. I’m not pretending they don’t exist.”
Lucas opened his mouth.
