The silence stretched between them like a taut wire. Maddox watched the ice lt in Elira’s drink, each drop sliding down the glass like tears she refused to shed.
Outside the booth’s window, the match continued. Players ran across the green field under bright lights. The crowd’s cheers filtered through the thick glass, muffled and distant.
Elira set her glass down with deliberate care. Her fingers drumd against the polished table, a nervous habit that seed at odds with her usual composed deanor.
"You know what I think?" she said, her voice cutting through the quiet.
Maddox looked up from his beer. Her blue eyes had that sharp focus again. The kind that made him feel like she could see straight through him.
"I think you’re lying to ."
The words hit him like a physical blow. His hand tightened around his glass, foam rising to the surface of his beer.
"Elira—"
"No, let finish." She leaned forward, her voice dropping to a whisper that sohow felt more dangerous than a shout. "I think you’ve been lying to for months. Maybe longer."
Heat crept up Maddox’s neck. She was right, of course. Just not in the way she thought.
"The Eric I knew would never sit there like a statue while I’m falling apart." Her voice cracked slightly on the last words. "He would have reached across this table by now. He would have touched my hand. Said sothing to make laugh."
Maddox’s chest felt tight. Due to the feelings left behind by his predecessor, every fibre of his body told him to do exactly what she described. To comfort her. To be the man she rembered.
But he forcefully suppressed those feelings. He didn’t have those mories. Those shared monts that had built the foundation of whatever they’d had together.
"Maybe you don’t know as well as you think," he said quietly.
The words ca out harsher than he intended. Elira’s face went pale, then flushed with anger.
"Don’t." Her voice was sharp now, all vulnerability gone. "Don’t you dare turn this around on ."
She stood up so quickly her chair scraped against the floor. The sound cut through the quiet bar like a knife.
"I’ve spent months trying to figure out what I did wrong. What I said. How I pushed you away." Her hands were shaking now, but her voice stayed steady. "I thought maybe it was the pressure from your job. Or maybe you were having second thoughts about us."
Us. The word hung in the air between them, heavy with aning Maddox couldn’t fully grasp.
"But you know what I realized tonight?" She grabbed her coat from the back of her chair. "I realized I was asking the wrong questions."
Maddox stood too, his heart racing. "Elira, wait—"
"The question isn’t what I did wrong." She turned to face him, and he saw tears in her eyes for the first ti. "The question is who you really are. Because the man sitting across from isn’t the Eric Maddox I fell in love with."
The words hit him like a punch to the gut. Love. She’d said love.
Eric hadn’t just been having an affair. He’d been in love with soone other than his wife. ’What the hell has bro gotten into?!’
"Are you avoiding because of your wife?"
The question ca out of nowhere, cutting through his thoughts like a blade. Maddox almost dropped his glass, beer sloshing dangerously close to the rim.
His mind went blank. ’She knew. She’d always known.’
The shock must have shown on his face because Elira’s expression softened slightly. She sat back down, her movents careful and controlled.
"I’ve always known, Eric." Her voice was gentler now, but there was steel underneath. "But I never resented you for hiding it from all this while. Because I love you enough to disregard your faults."
Maddox’s mouth opened, but no words ca out. His brain felt like it had short-circuited. In all his seventy-plus years of living—both lives—he’d never faced anything like this.
A woman who knew he was married. Who loved him anyway. Who was sitting across from him with tears in her eyes, waiting for him to say sothing. Anything.
"I..." He cleared his throat, tried again. "Elira, I don’t know what to say."
"You don’t have to say anything." She reached across the table and took his free hand in both of hers. Her skin was warm, her grip firm. "I just need to know if there’s still an ’us’ to fight for."
Her eyes were bright with unshed tears, but there was hope there too. Desperate, fragile hope that made his chest ache.
The smart thing would be to end this. To tell her it was over. To walk away and never look back.
But looking at her face—at the pain and love and determination written there—he couldn’t bring himself to destroy her completely.
"It’s complicated," he said finally.
"Everything worth fighting for is complicated." Her thumb traced across his knuckles. "I’m not asking you to leave your wife tomorrow. I’m not asking you to make any grand gestures. I just need to know if you still feel sothing for . Anything."
The booth felt smaller suddenly. The air thicker. Elira’s perfu—sothing light and floral—mixed with the sll of leather and polished wood.
She was stunningly beautiful. There was no denying that. Even with tears threatening to spill down her cheeks, even with her carefully styled hair slightly mussed from running her hands through it.
And she was looking at him like he was her whole world.
"I do," he heard himself say. "Feel sothing, I an."
It wasn’t entirely a lie. He did feel sothing—remnant feelings of guilt, confusion, and a strange protective instinct he didn’t fully understand.
But it was enough for Elira. Her face lit up like sunrise, hope chasing away the shadows in her eyes.
"Then that’s enough," she whispered. "For now, that’s enough."
She stood up again, but this ti her movents were fluid, purposeful. She walked around the small table until she was standing beside his chair.
"Eric." Her voice was soft, almost uncertain.
He looked up at her, and sothing shifted in the air between them. The noise from the stadium faded completely. The match, the other patrons in the bar, the world outside their booth—all of it disappeared.
There was only Elira, standing close enough that he could see the gold flecks in her blue eyes. Close enough to count her eyelashes.
She reached out slowly, giving him ti to pull away. Her fingers touched his cheek, thumb brushing across his skin with feather-light pressure.
’Damn... Why am I feeling violated, like I’m losing lots of aura in this mont?’ Thankfully there were no witnesses
"I’ve missed you," she breathed.
And then she was leaning down, her face inches from his. He could feel her breath against his lips, warm and sweet with gin.
Every rational thought in his head scread at him to stop this. To pull away. But when her lips touched his, soft and tentative and full of months of longing, rational thought disappeared entirely.
The kiss was gentle at first. A question more than a statent. But when he didn’t pull away—when he found himself kissing her back—it deepened.
Her free hand tangled in his hair. His arms ca up to circle her waist, pulling her closer. She made a small sound against his mouth, sothing between a sigh and a sob.
When they finally broke apart, both of them were breathing hard. Elira’s cheeks were flushed, her lips slightly swollen.
"Co ho with ," she whispered against his ear, her voice rough with want. "Please. Just for tonight."
Maddox’s hands were still on her waist. He could feel the rapid beat of her heart through her thin blouse. Could sll her perfu and the faint scent of her shampoo.
He should say no. Should make up an excuse. Should walk away before this went any further.
Instead, whether due to the beer or sothing else entirely, he found himself nodding.
"Okay," he said quietly. "Just for tonight."
The relief and joy that flooded her face made his chest light. She pressed another quick kiss to his lips, then stepped back to gather her things.
"My car’s in the parking garage," she said, her voice steadier now but still carrying that note of barely contained excitent. "We can slip out now. Less chance of being seen."
Being seen. Right. Because Eric Maddox was a married man, and Elira was his secret lover.
As he thought that, Maddox caught a glimpse of their reflection in the booth’s window. A man and woman about to make morally bad choices.
But which human doesn’t make such wrong decisions once in a while?
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