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The line to get nachos was so long, and so boring.
Dicky was excited for the nachos, but he and Mama had been waiting in line for at least three hours and he was so bored. He wondered what was going on back in the hockey game. He looked around, wondering which way would take him back to the big cold stadium with the ice and the hockey. He liked the parts where the guys swooped around on the ice so fast, although he didn't like the parts where the guys hit each other.
He probably would like the nachos more than the hockey, he figured, but he liked the hockey more than the waiting in line.
He let go of Mama's hand to play with the rope between them and the next part of the line. He swung it a few times, until it smacked a guy in the next part of the line and he glared down at Dicky. Then he turned and played with the rope behind them instead, the part where there wasn't anyone in line on the other side.
That was when he saw it—a big sign down the corridor a ways, with a bunch of faces he knew! They were all cooks on the TV, from the shows he and Mama watched together on the Food Network. He saw Emeril and the Iron Chef and even the Two Fat Ladies!
He ducked under the rope and ran toward the sign, weaving around all the grownups in the way. He stood in front of it, just staring up at it for a while. He wondered if all the Food Network people were going to come here, to skate on the ice. That would be so cool! He hoped they wouldn't hit each other.
He turned around to ask Mama about it—but Mama wasn't there. Mama was still waiting for nachos!
Dicky looked around frantically, but he couldn't see the nacho place. There were so many grownups everywhere, he couldn't see far enough to find the ropes or the line or his Mama. He didn't know how he'd ever find Mama again.
Dicky started crying.
He'd only been crying for a minute when the door next to him, with the "Boys' Bathroom" picture on it, opened, and an older boy came out. Dicky hardly noticed him at first, but he stopped when he noticed Dicky.
The boy looked around, then came over to Dicky.
"Are you okay?" he asked. He talked kind of funny.
"I lost Mama!" Dicky whimpered. He wiped his eyes and looked up at the boy. The boy was tall, with dark hair and sad, pretty blue eyes.
"You're lost?" the boy said. "Did your Mama leave you here?" He said the word Mama even funnier than his other words.
Dicky shook his head. "We were waiting at the nachos," he explained, sniffling. "And I came over to look at the sign."
"Ohhhh," the boy said. "Here, I can help you get back to the concession stand."
He held his hand out for Dicky to take. Dicky looked at it.
"I'm not supposed to go with strangers," he said, even though he wanted to go with the boy.
The boy hunched over a little, until he could look Dicky in the eye. "I'm Jack. I promise I'm just going to walk you over to the concession stand, okay? If your Mama isn't there, we'll get a security guard."
"What's a consheshin stand?" Dicky asked. "My Mama is at the nachos."
"The concession stand is where they sell nachos," Jack explained.
"Oh," Dicky said. "Okay." He reached out and took Jack's hand. It was warm, and it felt safe.
They hadn't walked very far before Dicky saw his Mama rushing toward him.
"Dicky! There you are! Oh my God, Dicky, where did you go?" She didn't seem to notice Jack there.
"Mama!" Dicky met her halfway and was scooped up into a hug. "Jack was taking me back to the concesher stand!"
Mama looked up and finally saw Jack. "Well, that's very nice of you, Jack. Thank you for helping him."
Jack blushed and shoved his hands in his pockets. He suddenly looked smaller, somehow.
"He said he wanted to look at the sign," Jack explained, pointing to the Food Network sign.
"Dicky," Mama said with a sigh, "you can't just run off like that! Next time just ask; we could've come over here to look at your ad after we got our food. Thank you again, Jack."
Dicky smiled as he looked at Jack one more time. "I'm gonna marry Jack!"
Mama laughed. "Don't be silly, Dicky, boys can't marry boys! You'd better run along before your own parents start worrying, Jack."
Jack blushed harder, nodded, and mumbled something Dicky couldn't hear.
"Why not?" Dicky asked as his Mama turned away from Jack.
"Why not what?" Mama replied.
"Why can't boys marry boys?"
"Well, you have to have one boy and one girl to make a baby. Two boys couldn't have babies!"
Dicky nodded, considering this. His Mama had a good point. He was pretty sure he was going to marry Jack, though. "What if they're soulmates?"
Mama sighed. "Boys aren't soulmates with boys. Now stop it, you shouldn't talk about things like that. And just because someone was nice to you doesn't mean you need to marry them, boy or girl."
Dicky was still going to marry Jack, though.
—
They drove back from Atlanta after the hockey game. Dicky was asleep long before they got home, and when he woke up the next morning, he was in his own bed.
When he took his bath that day, he noticed a smudge on his leg. He scrubbed at it with soap, but it wouldn't come off.
When Mama came in, he showed her.
"I can't clean it off!" he complained.
"Oh my goodness," Mama said. "Rick, come in here quick!" she called out.
If she was calling in Daddy, Dicky must be in big trouble. "I didn't draw it!" he insisted. "I tried to wash it off!"
"I know, sweetheart," she said, running her fingers through his wet hair.
Once Daddy was there, they got him out of the bathtub and both took turns inspecting the smudge on his leg.
"Looks like you got yourself a soulmark, Junior!" his daddy said. "Must've happened while we were in Atlanta yesterday." He sighed. "Could be anyone."
"Oh, I bet it was that little girl you were playing with at lunch!" Mama cooed. "She was so sweet! Oh, Dicky, did you find out her name?"
Dicky frowned down at his soulmark. "No," he said. "It's Jack."
"What?" Daddy said. Mama sighed.
"Not that again. Dicky, I told you, boys aren't soulmates with other boys." She turned to Daddy. "Jack is the older boy who helped him when he got lost at the hockey arena."
"Ahhh." Daddy nodded. "Look, Junior, I'm sure you look up to this boy for helping you, but that's not the same as being soulmates. Your Mama's right, that's not how it works. Sometime yesterday, you touched a little girl who's your soulmate."
"But…" Dicky screwed up his face. He didn't have words for how he felt, why he knew he was right. "I'm supposed to marry Jack, Daddy."
His Daddy laughed and ruffled his hair. "You can't marry a boy, Junior, it ain't legal," he said. "Don't worry, we'll find her."
—
Jack was relieved when his mother let him go to the bathroom by himself. If she went with him, people would recognize her, and then they'd figure out who he was, and then they'd look at him in that way that they always did when they were thinking he was too chubby to take after his father. His Papa assured him that he, too, was chubby at Jack's age; that puberty would melt the fat right off and leave him a lean, mean, hockey-playing machine. When people gave him that look he doubted it.
Even if he knew he could already outskate and outshoot any of those people—along with half the Thrashers players, from what he'd seen so far that afternoon.
He slipped out of the family section and made his way down the busy corridor toward the nearest men's room, glad for the anonymity of being just a random nine-year-old to any of these people. In the Montreal or Pittsburgh stadiums, occasionally someone would recognize him as Bad Bob's kid even without his parents at his side—and those people were scary sometimes, so he didn't even ask to go anywhere alone.
When he came back out of the bathroom, the first thing he noticed was a little blonde boy, maybe three or four, standing a few feet from the door and crying. Jack looked around, hoping to see an adult coming to get the little boy, but when none of the adults nearby seemed to be giving him a second glance he figured he should probably at least try to help.
"Are you okay?" Jack asked, not sure what to do.
"I lost Mama!" the boy cried out, and Jack was amused to hear the same southern twang in his voice as in all the adults' around them.
At first he thought the boy meant that his mother had abandoned him there, but it turned out the boy had wandered off from the concession stand, which made a lot more sense.
As soon as he took the boy's hand, his stomach tightened with worry. What if they couldn't find the boy's mother? What if the security guards couldn't? What if he had been abandoned? He was responsible for the boy now, he couldn't leave him here all alone. Maybe Jack's parents would—
Jack was relieved to see the boy's mother rushing toward them soon after they'd set off toward the "nachos." She called the boy Dicky, and didn't seem to even see Jack until Dicky pointed him out (adorably mangling the word "concession" again as he did).
As he left them, Jack could hear Dicky's mother telling him that boys couldn't be soulmates with other boys. He almost wanted to go back to correct her; his mother's friends Nathan and Emile had matching soulmarks, and they were bonded, even if she was right that they couldn't get married. But correcting a strange adult sounded like the least fun thing Jack could think of… even if for some reason, it felt important to him that she know.
—
When he sat down that night in the hotel room to pull his pajama pants on and saw the mark on his inner thigh, his mind immediately went to Dicky and his mother. But that was crazy. Dicky was practically still a baby; he probably couldn't even read yet. He couldn't be Jack's soulmate, that would just be weird. He probably just thought of them because Dicky's mom had been talking about boys not being soulmates with boys.
He was still thinking this over when his mom came in and saw him poking at the mark.
"Oh my God!" she said when she saw it. "Bobby? Bobby, look!"
Jack's face burned as Papa came in and also stared at his thigh.
"Leave it alone," he muttered.
"Did that just appear today?" His father asked. Jack nodded, not looking at them.
"Oh no," Maman said, running her fingers through his hair. "You must've touched hundreds of people today. We'll put an ad in one of those soulmate-finding classifieds."
"Don't," he said. "I don't need to find my soulmate."
"Of course you do," Papa said, sitting down next to him on the bed and putting an arm around him. "Maybe not just yet, you're still young. But someday, you'll want to find her. We can put out ads when you're a little older."
"Or him," Jack corrected him. He didn't understand why his parents looked at each other so strangely when he said it.
"Do you think your soulmate is a boy?" Maman asked slowly. Jack shrugged.
"It could be, right? Like Nathan and Emile?"
"Well, yes," she replied, still talking slowly in a way that confused Jack. "Technically, it could be. But it's probably a girl."
"Probably," Papa agreed. "When you get old enough to look for them, I'm sure you'll want to look for a girl."
—
By the time Jack was fourteen, he'd decided he was glad he'd missed his soulmate—all the better to focus on hockey.
When he was eighteen, he let Kenny kiss him. Just a few weeks before, when they were kinda drunk, Kenny had said he hoped he never got a soulmark, so clearly he wasn't Jack's soulmate. Kissing him was safe; it wouldn't come with commitments or expectations. A bond.
A few days later, Kenny found the mark. Jack told him when he'd gotten it, and Kenny seemed strangely put out.
"Sorry I didn't tell you," Jack said with a half-shrug. "I didn't think you'd care."
Kenny gave him a look he couldn't quite interpret, before smoothing his face out into practiced nonchalance. "I don't," Kenny said with a shrug. "Now do you want a blowjob or not?"
Later, early in his sophomore year at Samwell, he sat with Shitty and Lardo on the roof of the Haus and listened to them talk about soulmates as they shared a joint.
"You think you'll be one of the lucky few?" Shitty asked, elbowing Jack. Jack grunted, a little annoyed at having to actually take part in the conversation.
"My soulmate's hockey," he mumbled with a shrug. He'd said it a dozen or so times over the past few years, but for the first time, as soon as it passed his lips it felt like a lie.
He wanted more than hockey in his life. He wanted a partner, kids someday. He still wasn't sure he wanted that partner to be the person with the matching green mark, though. And if it was, he definitely didn't want to find them anytime soon. Not at Samwell, certainly.
Because they might be a he, and Jack was in no way ready for that and everything that came with it. Soulmate or not, how would he know he could trust some random stranger with a secret he hadn't even told Shitty?
"Dude," Lardo said, passing the joint back to Shitty. "Twenty-five percent of the population finds their soulmate. One in four, right? Just like Samwell."
"Whoa," Shitty said. Jack sighed as his friends sat there, staring glassy-eyed at the stars. If they were faux-deep high, he should probably cut them off before Shitty veered into weepily-sentimental high.
—
By the time Eric was fourteen, the details of the day in Atlanta when he got his soulmark were foggy at best.
It was on his mind when he asked to change from figure skating to hockey. There was a good chance his soulmate was a hockey fan, after all, so maybe getting into the sport would lead Eric to him.
By then, he knew that same-sex soulmates did exist, and he was desperately hoping it was a him. It had to be a boy. Right?
His parents had taken out classified ads in the Atlanta paper way back then, in the Missed Soulmates section, looking for the mysterious girl with the matching green smudge. But, of course, no such girl materialized.
His Mama still posted on message boards online now and then, searching. Eric's stomach tightened each time she told him about it, sure that this time, through some strange twist of fate Mama would get a message saying that why yes, their little girl did get a soulmark while in Atlanta that day! Thankfully, it never happened.
It was on his mind again his senior year as he sat on his bed, stripped down to his underwear so he could poke at the green smudge. Laid on the comforter to his right was his hockey scholarship offer from Samwell. To his left was his academic scholarship offer from UGA.
If his soulmate lived in Atlanta (or had over a decade ago), was Eric more likely to find him again by going to UGA? Or was he more likely to find a gay hockey fan by playing for queer-friendly Samwell?
He wished he'd been more than four when he'd gotten the mark. Then maybe he'd have some clear recollection of some of the people—any of the people—he'd come into contact with that day. Of the boy who had apparently helped him when he'd been lost in the Thrashers arena. He had almost no memory of the experience, aside from the feeling of the boy's warm hand in his and the sudden certainty that he would marry that boy.
But whether that certainty was the product of meeting his soulmate, or of being four and terrified and latching onto the first friendly face he saw, he might never know.
The boy had been a good bit older—when Mama told the story she said the boy had been maybe nine or ten—so if that was him, Eric probably wouldn't meet him at college anyhow. And if he didn't find his soulmate at college, he could always move back to Georgia. He should choose a college based on where he'd be happiest, not where some unknown soulmate might be.
He picked up the letter from Samwell, flipped to the last page, and signed where he needed to to accept the offer.
—
"Dicky, you were so great!"
Jack stumbled a little as he trudged down the hall next to his father.
He hadn't heard the name Dicky in almost exactly fourteen years. Hadn't even thought about it in several.
Jack's memories of that day were fuzzy around the edges; he definitely didn't remember the details of what that Dicky's mother looked like, but she'd been blonde.
Like Bittle's mom.
He barely heard Bittle stuttering through an introduction to his father.
Bittle, with that southern accent. Bittle, who was from Georgia and a few years younger than Jack.
No.
Nope.
He was being ridiculous. "Dicky" sounded like about as southern a nickname as "Bubba" or "Junior." There must've been hundreds of toddlers running around Georgia back then with their moms calling them Dicky. A woman being blonde wasn't exactly rare, either.
And why was he even worrying about that? It wasn't like he really thought that kid was his soulmate. His soulmate was probably some girl he'd brushed up against at the airport that morning. So even if by some weird coincidence he'd met Bittle as a kid, it didn't mean Bittle was his soulmate.
Bittle couldn't be his soulmate. After the night he'd had, Jack would go crazy if he even had to entertain the possibility.
Especially while listening to his own father praising Bittle's goal, to both their parents talking about the two of them playing on the same fucking line. This whole conversation, this whole train of thought was ridiculous.
He escaped as quickly as possible.
Later, he lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling. He wasn't proud of what he'd said to Bittle. He was Bittle's captain; he'd have to apologize.
He felt a surge of protectiveness, the same one he'd felt around Bittle so many times since he first saw the tiny freshman and realized he wasn't someone's little brother. How fucked up was it that most of the time, the thing he wanted to protect Bittle from was himself?
It was a good thing for both of them that Bittle wasn't his soulmate.
—
"I'll take Nursey!"
Eric scrambled up onto Nursey's back, a much easier feat than Chowder trying to climb onto Dex. Ransom had no problem hopping up onto Holster; they probably had practice. While they got situated, Shitty jogged to the other side of the quad. When Eric had a chance to look, he was peeling his t-shirt off.
This whole race may well have been suggested purely as an excuse for Shitty to take his shirt off, but it was too late to back out.
Shitty held the shirt up like a flag.
"Three!" He shouted, turning heads all across the quad. "Two! One! GOOOOOOOOO!"
"Ugh, you're way heavier than Bitty," Dex grumbled from off to one side as Nursey took off. Of course, Dex was right, so Eric and Nursey took an early lead, with Ransom and Holster right behind.
They were halfway across the quad when they heard the shouting and general mayhem behind them. Eric looked back, then tugged on Nursey's shirt.
"Oh my God, stop! Stop!"
He hopped off Nursey's back and they trotted back to what was now a wild tangle of people sprawled across the grass. It turned out Dex had tripped on a sidewalk just as the girl's volleyball team was walking by. Eric was vaguely aware of Shitty somewhere behind him, declaring Ransom and Holster the winners by default. He rolled his eyes—of course they hadn't stopped. He glanced back and saw that they were, in fact, still going, disappearing off around the corner of the next building.
"I'm so, so sorry!! Are you sure you're okay? Let me help you up!"
"Yeah, no, I'm fine. The leaves broke my fall, y'know? Well, the leaves and you. Are you okay? I kind of… landed on you. A little."
Eric turned around to find Chowder reaching down to help pull a tall girl to her feet from the leaf pile they'd both fallen into.
"Are you sure you're okay? You don't have any cuts or bruises? I can get you a band-aid if you need one!"
As the girl continued to insist that she was fine, blushing and smiling at Chowder, Eric's eyes widened.
"Chowder! Chowder, turn around."
"What?"
"Turn. Around," Eric repeated. He pushed at Chowder's shoulder until he was facing the same direction as the girl.
And there, on the side of his neck, was the same purple streak that Eric had just watched run down the girl's neck.
"Holy shit."
"Chill."
Dex and Nursey were standing on either side of Eric.
The girl finally seemed to realize what they were looking at on Chowder's neck, and slapped a hand over her own.
"Do I—was that on your neck before?"
"Was what on my neck?" Chowder said, sounding slightly panicky as he ran his hands over his skin. "Am I bleeding?"
"No, sugar, look," Eric said, turning him back toward the girl. She uncovered the mark on her neck.
Chowder blinked at it for a minute before a light bulb went on over his head. "Wait, do I have one of those, too, now?"
The girl nodded and bit her lip. She held out her hand. "I'm Caitlin."
"Hi," Chowder said, shaking her hand. "I'm Chris. Uh, should we—do you—wow."
"I, um, we were on our way to practice," Caitlin said, blushing and looking down. "But would you want to meet at Annie's later?"
"Yeah!" Chowder said, nodding enthusiastically. Nursey, Dex, Eric, and now Shitty were all watching the exchange silently, heads bobbing from one soulmate to the other, not wanting to disturb the moment. "Annie's! That would be good! So we can, um. Talk. And stuff. Um, it was nice meeting you, except for the knocking you down thing, sorry about that. Have a good practice!" Caitlin's smile grew as Chowder babbled on.
"Get her number, Chow," Dex hissed.
Caitlin laughed and pulled out her phone as Chowder smacked himself on the forehead. "Right! Sorry, I'm just—wow, I'm kind of stunned, y'know?"
"Yeah," Caitlin said as she handed him her phone, "I get it."
Eric tugged on his other friends' arms, signaling them to leave the two in peace. They turned back toward the Haus.
"Who the fuck woulda guessed," Shitty said, shaking his head. "Chowder's the first one on this year's team to find his fuckin' soulmate." He sniffled loudly, wiping away an invisible tear. "I'm so fuckin' proud of that kid. He'll treat her right."
Eric didn't correct Shitty. It wasn't like Eric had exactly found his soulmate, after all. He wondered, for the thousandth time, if he ever would.
—
Jack was stepping out of the shower just as Shitty barged into their shared bathroom without knocking. Jack didn't even bother yelling "Jesus, Shits!" like he would have a couple years ago; he was used to it now.
What he didn't realize was that he'd been stepping out of the tub with his left leg when Shitty came in. Giving Shitty a perfect view of the inside of his left thigh, stretched out.
"Bro," Shitty said, stopping short as Jack toweled off his hair. "Bro, wait a second."
"What?" Jack said from under the towel.
"What's that thing on your leg?"
Jack froze.
"Thing?" He let the towel drop from his hair to his shoulders. Shitty was definitely squinting at—well, okay, it looked like Shitty was squinting at his dick, but close enough.
"You got a green thing," Shitty said, motioning to Jack's… groinal area. "On the inside of your thigh. Like high enough up, another half inch and it'd be on your taint."
Jack sighed and wrapped the towel around his waist. Really, it was a miracle he'd managed to avoid this for over three years.
"Yeah. It's my soulmark," he said, keeping his voice low.
Shitty, of course, didn't take the hint, all but shouting, "Your WHAT??"
"Shits," Jack hissed as he pushed past his best friend and made for his bedroom. "Keep it down, man. In case you hadn't noticed, I don't really want the whole world knowing."
"Bro. Bro. When did this happen? Was it at the kegster last weekend? Did you put an ad up to find her?"
Jack stopped rummaging for clean socks long enough to give Shitty an unimpressed look. "It happened when I was nine. "
Shitty literally stumbled backwards as Jack rolled his eyes and continued to pull out clothes for the day.
"I know, I know," he said before Shitty could start in, "you're wounded. I'm sorry. I just… I don't tell people, okay? It doesn't leave this room."
"So what's the story, man?" Shitty took a seat on Jack's bed. "Is this one of those kid-soulmate situations where you decided you'd both go out and date other people and get back together when you're 25 or something? Do you have some girl from grade school waiting for you back in Montreal? You can't be bonded yet; I know you've fucked at least a couple girls since you got here."
Jack shook his head. "My dad had a roadie over Thanksgiving weekend, so since I was off school my mom and I flew down to Atlanta for his game. That night, the mark was there. No clue who it was, but I'd been in two huge, packed airports and one full hockey arena, plus wherever else. Could've been anyone."
Shitty let out a low whistle. "You post on those websites and shit?"
Jack pulled a shirt over his head, then shrugged. "My parents have a couple times. I'm not in a big rush."
"Because your soulmate is hockey?" Shitty asked, eyebrow arched. Jack resisted rolling his eyes.
"I really did used to think like that."
"Oh, I know," Shitty said. "In fact, the fact that you just said 'used to' is a pleasant surprise."
"I mean, I want to find someone, someday. Get married eventually and everything. I just… don't really care if it's that someone. Not enough to go looking."
Shitty was quiet for a minute, and when Jack turned to look at him, he didn't like the way Shitty was looking at him. It was too calculating.
"You sound way too chill about this. If you don't care either way, why would you not even tell me? You've let me go on and on about Chow being the only one on the team who's found his soulmate!"
Jack stalled for time by taking his towel back into the bathroom and hanging it up. He could just tell Shitty the real reason he was kind of actively avoiding finding his soulmate at the moment. If he was going to come out to anyone, it should be Shitty. He just… wasn't ready yet. Plus, he didn't think he could take it if Shitty hounded him to look anyway.
"Well, it's not like I've really found my soulmate, right? I know that I have one, that's it." Shitty was still looking at him with a raised eyebrow. Jack sighed. "I decided when I got to Samwell that I wasn't gonna think about it for the next four years," he finally said, and it was basically the truth. "So why would I tell anyone, even you? Honestly, I still don't really want to talk about it after this conversation. Feel free to ask me about it again in like five years, okay?"
"Fine, fine." Shitty shook his head as he stood up and headed back to his room. "But I'm holding you to that! Watch me, five years from now."
Jack laughed.
He hoped that in five years, he'd be in a better position to find his soulmate—no matter who they were.
—
Eric turned off his camera. He had no idea how to process this.
He was in love with Jack Zimmermann.
Which was the stupidest thing ever. Not only was Jack straight, Eric had a soulmate out there somewhere! He'd come to college thinking that he'd date casually until he found the guy out there with the matching mark—if he found that guy at Samwell. Instead, not only had he managed not to date casually hardly at all, he'd gone and fallen head-over-heels, not-at-all-casually in love with one of his best friends. Who was straight.
So now there were two guys he couldn't have. One of them, he might have someday—hopefully—but that didn't help him now.
He rubbed his eyes and resolved not to think about it.
That didn't go well.
While he was trying to do his reading for the next day's lecture, his mind wandered back to the boy at the hockey game. The boy he hardly remembered at all, who he might not remember at all if his mother hadn't told the story so many times when he was younger (usually to new parents as a warning about how quick little kids can run off).
Was that boy the boy he was looking for? Little Eric had declared he was going to marry him—though his mother stopped telling that part of the story when he got older. Eric gave everyone enough reason to wonder about him; Mama clearly didn't see any need to stoke those fires. But until he was about eight or nine, she would laugh and finish her story, "and you'll never believe what Dicky said after it was all over. He said he was gonna marry that boy! Isn't that just adorable? You know, when I was that age I told everyone I was gonna marry my cat."
…Right, not thinking about it.
While he was making dinner, he tried to ignore the sound of Jack and Shitty wrestling in the next room.
Would he have that feeling again, if he did re-meet his soulmate? That certainty that this was the one, that he was destined to be with this man? Or had it just been a little kid's fantasy?
Because right now, he only felt anything like that for one man, and it wasn't a man he could have.
In bed that night, he stared up at his ceiling.
It wasn't like he'd fallen in love with Jack the moment he got to Samwell. Sure, he'd been attracted to him at first—Jack was gorgeous, of course Eric was attracted to him—until he'd started acting like an ass. His soulmate couldn't have treated him that way. But then, he wouldn't think the Jack he knew now could have treated him that way, either, so that didn't mean—
Great, apparently now he was trying to find reasons to think Jack could be his soulmate. He was an idiot.
He huffed a sigh, grabbed Bun, and held him tight as he closed his eyes and tried to will himself to sleep. If he tried hard enough, maybe he could ignore the hollow ache in his chest for three boys at once.
—
"I mean, it was fine. He's cute. He was very polite."
Jack could hear Bittle talking in the living room as he came down the stairs.
"Ouch, bro," Holster cut in. "Polite. That's the best you can say?"
"What's wrong with him being polite?" Bittle asked as Jack poked his head in, leaning on the doorway. He took in Bittle's neatly-combed hair and bow tie and remembered—he'd had a date that night. Jack's stomach twisted strangely at the thought.
Now Bittle was sandwiched between Ransom and Holster on the couch, with Shitty in the armchair. He did not look like he wanted to be there.
"The real question is," Ransom said, putting an arm around Bittle's shoulders, "did you check for a mark yet?"
"Did I what?" Bittle asked, looking at Ransom like he'd grown a third arm. "I just got home like five minutes ago!"
"Well go, then, bro!" Ransom took back his arm and gave Bittle a shove, but Bittle didn't get up. "You didn't touch anyone else, did you? The waiter or something?"
"You gotta go check now, before you touch anyone new!" Shitty added.
"He's not my soulmate," Bittle said, looking annoyed. Jack wandered into the room and sat in the other armchair. It sounded like Bittle might need someone to call off the dogs soon. "He was nice, he was cute, but not my soulmate."
"Bro, you can't know for sure if you don't check," Holster said, incredulous. "Not every soulmate meeting is fireworks and magic, y'know. Sometimes people have an off day."
"He's right," Shitty said, leaning forward. "My Aunt Jody, when she met her soulmate Donna, she didn't even like her at first. She was in a bad mood, and Donna's, like, super cheerful, so Jody was just pissed off all day. But they've been together for over a decade now! You never know until you find the mark."
Bittle looked more than annoyed now, arms crossed as he made a derisive noise in his throat. "That's lovely, Shitty, but I still do not need to stand naked in front of a mirror after every date. Now are we gonna watch the movie or not?"
"Not until you check," Ransom said, holding the remote out of Bittle's reach.
"For fuck's sake," Jack finally said, snatching the remote out of Ransom's hand. "It's ten PM, Bittle can look for a mark in the shower in the morning. Who's gonna touch him before then besides you? What were you idiots going to watch, anyhow?" He punctuated his question by turning on the TV. Unfortunately, that didn't end the conversation as cleanly as he'd hoped.
"Shitty has somehow never seen Mean Gi—" Bittle tried to tell him, but Ransom cut him off.
"Waaaaait a second," he said. "Bits, didn't we have, like, almost this exact conversation after Winter Screw? Holster, am I imagining things?"
"Don't ask me, bro, I was schwasted. Didn't you go home with March that night?"
Bittle deflated and closed his eyes, resigned to his fate.
"I mean the next morning," Ransom said. "I asked if you found a mark, and you said what, like you didn't know what I was talking about. Then you said he wasn't your soulmate but you might go out with him again, but it turned out you totally hadn't even checked for a mark yet."
Shitty and Holster both studied Bittle, a little too intensely. Bittle noticed and glared at them.
"Okay, fine," Bittle snapped. "Lord, I shoulda just pretended I checked for a mark every time. I mean, it's not like I'm hiding it or anything, I just don't like talkin' about it. Please save your pity, okay? I don't need to hear it."
Now Jack leaned forward, worried. "What is it, Bittle?"
Bittle glanced at him, and something like sadness flitted over his face for just a second.
"Hey, bro, it's okay," Ransom said, putting his arm back around Bittle's shoulders. "you can tell us anything."
Bittle covered his face. "Ugh, now I've made too big a deal out of it. I'm not dying, okay? I shoulda just told y'all before, it's not bad really—"
"Bro," Holster said, poking Bittle in the arm. "Just say it."
Bittle lowered his hands with a sigh. "I already have a soulmark, okay?"
The other four fell silent, eyes wide. Jack's stomach twisted again, but it wasn't exactly… bad? This time?
"Who?" Holster asked, just as Ransom asked, "When?" and Shitty asked, "Where?"
"I was four," Bittle explained. "I don't know who. There's no point in me checking for a mark after every date, 'cause even if the date is my soulmate, checking won't tell me anything. If I ever like a guy well enough to go on more than a couple dates, I'll ask him."
"Have you posted on the Swallow's board?" Shitty asked. The Swallow ran a board online where students who had met their soulmate at a party or somewhere else crowded could run an ad trying to find out who it was. Jack had read them a few times, but he'd always been too ambivalent about finding his soulmate to put up his own ad.
"I posted once at the beginning of each school year," Bittle explained. "I figured if he's looking, he'd check as soon as he gets here, right? And I'm not made of money, so it's not like I can just keep an ad up there all the time." The ads cost $20/week, which wasn't usually an issue because people used them right after finding their mark and most didn't need a second week. "I read 'em every week, though. Nothing yet."
"How have we never noticed?" Shitty asked. "Where the hell is it?"
Bittle blushed. "It's… not exactly in a spot you can see real easily. Especially with my clothes on."
Jack froze as their friends whooped and whistled. His heartrate picked up, which was silly, because that didn't mean anything.
"Bitty's got a soulmark on his dick!" Holster shouted, only for Bittle to smack him on the arm, hard.
"It is not on my genitals!" Bittle sounded scandalized, although Jack thought he really should have expected that response.
"It's totally on his dick!" Ransom crowed.
"Just for that, I'm not tellin' y'all where it is," Bittle said, crossing his arms petulantly.
"So wait a second," Shitty said, "if you got it when you were four, isn't it probably some kid in your hometown? Like, someone you went to preschool with or something?"
Bittle sighed, shaking his head. "We went up to Atlanta for the day. My daddy's not exactly a hockey fan, but you don't get a new pro sports team every day, so he took us all to a Thrashers game when they were brand new. Coulda been anyone at the game, at a restaurant, anywhere."
Jack's heart had stopped, he was sure of it. He forgot about breathing until he realized he was a little dizzy—the room was tilting, with Bittle as its axis. He couldn't hear what Ransom and Holster were saying about Bittle's soulmate being a hockey fan over the blood rushing in his ears.
He finally pulled his gaze away from Bittle to look at Shitty, who was already looking at him with a concerned expression. He looked back at Bittle, who was saying something he couldn't hear.
Jack stood up suddenly, making everyone in the room look at him as the TV remote tumbled from his lap to the ground.
"I've got a… thing due tomorrow," he mumbled as he fled from the room toward the stairs.
He must have made it up the stairs, because the next thing he knew he was lying on his bed. He blinked up at his ceiling and breathed slowly.
It was Bittle.
Well, probably.
He vividly remembered the first time he heard Bittle's mother call him "Dicky." He'd immediately thought of that day, of the little boy, of soulmates—then rejected the whole thing and had barely thought of it since, because Jack was a complete fucking idiot.
Wait. A complete fucking idiot? That was a little harsh. Why did he feel so stupid for ignoring—
"Oh," he said to the ceiling.
He wanted Bittle to be his soulmate. That was another level of revelation entirely, because how did he not notice before now?
He wasn't having a panic attack. The idea of Bittle having a matching green mark on his thigh didn't make his throat close up—it made his chest squeeze tight at how perfect it would be. It made him dizzy at the thought that he could possibly be allowed to have something so wonderful.
"I'm in love with him," he murmured to himself, trying the words on for size. They fit.
He sat up at the sound of a quiet knock at his door. For a brief second, he thought it was Bittle, coming to ask Jack if he was his soulmate. But that was stupid—how would Bittle know?
Shitty poked his head in before Jack could say anything. He took in Jack's stunned expression silently, then slipped in and closed the door behind him. He came over and sat down carefully on Jack's bed, leaving a good six inches between them.
Jack stared at the six inches. Why was Shitty acting like—oh. He thought Jack was having a panic attack, too.
"I'm fine," Jack said. Shitty eyebrows flew up.
"Yeah, I know whenever I'm fine I randomly blurt it out to people who haven't even asked yet," Shitty said. "Look, brah. You don't have to say anything, okay? I know sometimes you gotta deal with your shit in silence, that's fine. But if you're up for talking, I'll admit I'm wondering which part of this is the part you're freaked out about. Assuming it's not, y'know, all of it."
Jack frowned. "I'm not freaked out." He was about to say that he was happy that Bittle was his soulmate—if Bittle was his soulmate—wait.
Oh, no.
And there was the bad kind of tightness in his chest.
"Okay, never mind. I'm a little freaked out now," he admitted. "I wasn't, though. But now… now I am."
Shitty pursed his lips. "Okay, you're talking, that's good," he said slowly. "I'm gonna ask you about some possibilities, and you don't have to answer any of 'em, okay? Just say 'pass' if I ask a question you don't want to answer."
Jack squinted at him, confused. "Okay…"
"Are you freaked out because you had no idea your soulmate might be a dude?"
Jack snorted. "No."
"Okay. Is it because you basically just got outed? Only to me, bro, nobody else has any idea what's going on. But I'm assuming that's one reason you were so secretive about your soulmark."
"That's why I never talked about it, yeah. But I'm not freaked out that you know now. I thought about telling you a dozen times, I was just never quite there yet. If anyone had to find out, I'm glad it was you."
"Thanks, my brother," Shitty said, holding out a fist for Jack to bump. "I'm sorry it had to happen like that. So I guess the last option is… you're freaked out because it's Bitty."
"No," Jack said, shaking his head with a frown. Shitty thought that would freak him out even if he liked guys?
"You sure you're cool with that? Because I think Bits'll be an awesome soulmate, bro, but I know you two had a rough start."
Jack nodded. He licked his lip, then bit it, looking away. He wasn't sure he even wanted to give voice to his real worry.
"Welp, I hate to say it, but I'm out of ideas, Jackie O. If you're cool with this soulmate sitch, what's going on?"
Jack looked back at him. Took a couple of deep breaths.
"What if it's not him?" he finally asked quietly.
Shitty was quiet for a moment, blinking at him.
"Ohhh," he finally said, nodding.
Now that Jack knew he was in love with Bittle, how would he handle the humiliation and heartbreak if he was wrong? If it was all a big coincidence?
After so many years of finding the idea of his soulmate being a man first terrifying, then mildly annoying… now suddenly it was all he wanted. It would be hard, there would be problems, but he'd get to be with Bittle. For the rest of his life. That would make everything worth it.
He didn't know what he would do now, if he'd realized that only to find out he couldn't have it after all.
"I mean, that doesn't seem real likely, y'know?" Shitty said, putting a hand on Jack's shoulder. "You said you were nine, he was four, that woulda been around the same time. You were both in Atlanta for a Thrashers game when it happened. You both have marks that are almost impossible to see, even in the locker room, since you're not much of a nude manspreader. What are the odds of all that shit being a coincidence?"
Jack nodded. There was also Dicky. It had to be Bittle, right?
"You want me to go tell him you wanna talk to him?" Shitty said, standing up.
"No!" Jack's head jerked up. "Not yet, I—Shits, I know you're right, I know it's probably him, but…"
"Only one way to find out," Shitty said, eyebrows raised significantly.
"No," Jack pleaded. "Give me like a day or two to get my shit together. If I haven't talked to him about it in a week, you can tell him behind my back, okay? Promise."
Jack let out a breath when Shitty's face melted into his sympathetic expression.
"You got this, bro," Shitty said. "Just watch, you two are gonna be a fuckin' power couple."
Shitty left with one more pat to Jack's shoulder, freeing Jack from the responsibility of formulating a response to that statement. Which was good, because just referring to him and Bittle as a couple, let alone a power couple, had Jack's brain spinning. All he had to do was talk to Bittle about it. He could do that. He'd do it the next day.
He went to bed still imagining himself and Bittle, dating, moving in together. Jack was already leaning heavily toward the Falconers, but this clinched it. He'd get an apartment in Providence, Bittle would come stay over when neither of them had games or classes. He couldn't come out publicly yet, but even a lot of people who were lukewarm on gay rights in general accepted same-sex soulmates. Not that they could exactly display their marks, so people might be skeptical. But probably guys on the team would be okay. St. Martin's brother was gay, so Jack was pretty sure at least he'd be fine with it no matter what.
His mind was still swirling with the possibilities as he drifted off to sleep. His imaginings morphed into sweet dreams of baking together—which then morphed into less sweet ones, ones that involved Bittle spread out naked on the kitchen table, back arched in pleasure, his legs spread so Jack could see the soulmark.
Then he was half-awake, hard and wanting. He got himself off with just a few strokes, barely conscious, before falling back to sleep.
Unfortunately, the good dreams didn't come back. Instead, he had nightmares where Bittle laughed at him for thinking they could be soulmates, where he told everyone on the team about how Jack was obsessed with him to the point where he'd constructed this detailed fantasy about them meeting as children.
He lay in bed gasping for breath after waking up from that one, a half an hour before his alarm went off. He tried in vain to tell himself that it was only a dream; that Bittle would never be cruel to him even if they weren't soulmates. That Shitty was right, it was nearly impossible that they weren't.
Intellectually, he knew it was true, but his lizard brain wasn't at all convinced.
He finally got up and headed downstairs, only to be immediately confronted with Bittle in the tiny shorts he often slept in, blearily pouring a cup of coffee. Jack stopped in the kitchen door, too tired to even try not to stare as his better dreams from earlier in the night came back to him.
It wasn't like he'd never noticed Bittle like that before. He'd noticed plenty; he'd just assumed the attraction was only physical and shoved it to the back of his mind every time it tried to make itself known. He hadn't noticed it growing into something else entirely.
Now, his eyes slid over the ass barely covered by flimsy red material, down to well-toned thighs—fuck, Bittle's thighs had really gained muscle that season—and he could imagine exactly where the soulmark would be, just high enough to be covered by the one-inch inseam of the shorts.
"Morning," Bittle said with a yawn. Jack's eyes jerked up to his face guiltily, but Bittle's eyes were closed as he stretched his arms up into the yawn. Jack let his eyes flick back down to see the way the stretch pulled those shorts just a little bit higher. He let himself want, just for a second. Then, instead of forcing that want into a box in the back of his head, he let it settle into a background hum.
"Morning, Bittle," he muttered as he averted his eyes. He ambled over to the counter, where Bittle had already pulled out a second mug and was filling it for him. "Thanks."
The sleepy smile he got in return as Bittle pushed the mug into his hands was nearly enough to make Jack lean down and kiss him right then and there.
If Bittle somehow turned out to not be his soulmate, he was well and truly fucked.
—
Eric was editing a vlog instead of writing his American Literature essay when there was a knock at his door.
"Come in," he said, pulling the earbuds out of his ears. He turned in his office chair just in time to see Jack standing awkwardly in the doorway, half hiding behind the door. Eric couldn't see his hands, but could tell he was fiddling with the doorknob because it made the doorknob on this side wiggle.
"Uh, I was just wondering," Jack said, more to the floor than to Eric. "You, um, you said—about Atlanta? One time your family went there? When you were a kid?"
Seeing Jack this nervous threw Eric for a loop—usually, the only nerves he saw from Jack were before a big game, and then they made him kinda grumpy, not like this.
"I mean, we only lived an hour away," Eric said with a chuckle. "We went into the city pretty regularly."
Jack honest-to-god blushed. The hand that wasn't playing with the doorknob started messing with the latch, and Eric immediately felt bad for chirping when Jack was already nervous about something.
"Um, yeah, I mean, I know, but—the, uh, the time you were talking about—"
"The time I got my soulmark?"
"Yeah. Do you—do you mind if I ask you about it?" Jack edged a little farther into the room.
Eric smiled like the thought of talking about his MIA soulmate with the guy he was in love with didn't sound like torture. "Sure," he said with a shrug. "I was four, though, so don't expect a detailed report."
Jack came the rest of the way into the room and closed the door behind him. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans, then pulled one out to scratch the back of his head. He still wasn't really looking at Eric.
"You went to a Thrashers game, right?"
"Yup. One and only hockey game Coach has ever been to. I mean, once college scouts showed interest, he came to a couple of my games in high school, but those hardly count."
Jack seemed to forget his nervousness for a second in favor of scowling. "Of course they count. Hockey is hockey."
Eric grinned. God, he loved this boy, even if he could never have him. "Of course. Fine, the only professional hockey game he's been to."
"Do you, um—do you remember who they were playing?"
Eric tipped his head to one side. "I definitely don't remember, I doubt I had any idea then, but my Mama kept the souvenir program she bought. I haven't looked at it in years, but I'm pretty sure they were playin' the Penguins." Jack's expression cleared—his eyebrows jumped and he looked… hopeful. Suddenly it hit Eric. "Wait, was your dad still playing then?"
"Yeah." Jack nodded, starting to look excited. "The Thrashers' first season was his last one before he retired."
"Oh my goodness! We must have seen him playing, then!" Eric furrowed his brow. "That's weird, I can't believe Mama never mentioned to your dad that she's seen him play. I guess maybe she was trying not to look like a fangirl. Not that it helped, honestly."
Jack snorted, a twinge of a smile playing around his mouth. Then he bit his lip, the nervousness seeming to return as he looked Eric in the eye.
"Since it was his last season, he took me on as many of his roadies as he could."
Eric felt like there was a meaning behind Jack's words that he wasn't quite grasping. "That must have been pretty cool as a kid. Did you get to miss school?"
Jack shook his head, one corner of his mouth pulling up in a rueful smirk. "Not much of it. But the first time he played in Atlanta was over my Thanksgiving break. Not American Thanksgiving," he clarified. "Real Thanksgiving."
Eric rolled his eyes, though he couldn't keep himself from grinning at Jack's silly Canadian self. Then he realized what Jack was saying. "Wait… does that mean you might've been at that game?"
"Yeah." Jack's shoulders hunched, and he looked back down at the floor as he absentmindedly scuffed one foot against it. Then, just as Eric was about to say something, Jack looked back up at him. "You, um, you—did you… get… lost? At the game?"
Eric blinked, too stunned to answer for a second. "How did you know that?" he finally breathed.
Jack's shoulders fell incrementally at the confirmation. "What do you remember about it?"
Eric shook his head, still reeling. "Um. Not—not much, really. I was so little. My Mama's told the story so many times, sometimes I'm not sure what's a real memory and what I've just heard over and over again until my little-kid brain confused it with rememberin'. I ran off while we were waiting in line at the concession stand." For some reason, Jack's mouth twitched at that. "She always said one minute, I was swingin' on the velvet ropes and the next, she turned around and I was gone. An older boy found me and helped me get back to her. I do remember that, just barely."
He trailed off, looking at Jack in shock.
"Do you remember his name?" Jack asked. Eric shook his head.
"No. And Mama never said it, when she told the story. I feel like he told me, though."
Jack nodded. "I did. You told me you weren't supposed to talk to strangers, so…"
Eric could only stare for a few seconds. Finally he laughed, shaking off his initial shock. "Are you serious? That was—really?"
Jack smiled. He still looked a little nervous. Shy. "You were crying, and none of the adults around even seemed to notice. I guess they all assumed your parents must be nearby. You know, you couldn't pronounce the word concession. You told me your mother was at the nachos."
Eric cracked up at that, even though his heart was breaking a little. He was thrilled at this amazing coincidence, but it meant that that boy hadn't been his soulmate, either. Who knew, maybe that part of him that always wanted to find that boy had recognized Jack, and that's why Eric fell for him even though he had a soulmate out there to find. In a weird little-kid way, he guessed Jack had been his first crush.
"Jack, that's amazing! I can't believe that was you this whole time!" He stared in amazement as Jack sat down on his bed, looking more relaxed. "I'm assuming you didn't know 'til you heard me talkin' about it the other day?"
Jack shook his head. "I heard your mother call you Dicky when she came for family weekend, and it made me think of that since she called you that then, but I thought it was a coincidence."
Eric's brow furrowed as a thought came to him. "Jack, that was two nights ago I was talkin' about that. Why didn't you say something sooner?"
Jack leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. He pressed his lips together between his teeth as he stared at his hands, and he seemed to be taking a couple deep breaths. A trickle of dread crawled into Eric's stomach.
When Jack looked up again, he looked determined. "When I got back to my hotel room that night, when I was getting ready for bed, I found my soulmark. It appeared that day, too."
Eric froze. At first he felt like Jack was speaking a foreign language, because what he'd said just didn't make sense. It did not compute. Then he had the fleeting thought that Jack was making fun of him, but Jack wouldn't do that. Besides, when Jack was chirping, he was obvious about it. He didn't have his chirping face on, and he wasn't using that dry monotone he sometimes did. He looked… tense.
God, he was serious.
He was worried Eric might actually be his soulmate. That couldn't happen, could it? Here Eric had spent half his life worrying his soulmate might be a girl, and he'd never thought about the possibility of it being a straight boy.
"It did?" he finally asked quietly, since Jack seemed to need prompting.
"It's on my inner thigh," Jack said, his eyes never leaving Eric's. Eric's stomach dropped. "High enough up that nobody's ever noticed it, even in the locker room. Well, except Shitty, and even he didn't see it until a couple months ago." Eric couldn't find his voice to respond. "It's green," Jack finally continued. "It kind of looks like a small thumbprint—"
"But kinda smudged," Eric finished quietly. He thought he might cry. Of all the dirty tricks for the universe to play, on both of them, dear Lord. He opened his mouth to apologize, even though he knew it wasn't his fault—but then his brain caught up with what he was seeing. Jack's shoulders had relaxed. He was sitting up straighter. And his mouth was pulling into a smile that had already reached his eyes.
"Thank God," Jack said, and he sounded like a weight had been lifted from him.
"I—" Even as his brain scrambled to make sense of what was happening, Eric couldn't help mirroring Jack's lopsided smile. "You're—you're okay with this?"
"Yeah," Jack said. The way he looked at Eric—like Eric was everything he'd ever wanted, like he was in love, head over heels in love—the weight of that look hit Eric in the chest. It knocked the wind right out of him. He opened his mouth but didn't know what he could possibly say.
"Oh," he finally managed.
They sat there for a minute, just staring and grinning stupidly, while Eric's brain restarted.
"You—you seemed kinda." Eric was having trouble finding words. "Upset. Or worried? So I thought…"
"I was terrified," Jack admitted. "I was scared that even with all that, it wouldn't be you after all."
Eric let out a relieved laugh even as he could feel tears threatening. Jack had been scared that Eric wasn't his soulmate. He scrambled out of his chair and onto the bed next to Jack, pressed close. Closer than he'd ever thought he'd be allowed.
"Oh, sweetheart," he said, taking Jack's hand in both of his. "You gotta know, even if it wasn't, I'd rather have you."
Jack leaned in, pressing their foreheads together. "Me too, Bits," he said softly.
He nuzzled against Eric's cheek, barely letting their lips brush.
The cruel irony was, if they weren't soulmates he could be making out with Jack right now. A peck on the lips might be safe, but once you got tongue involved it wasn't hard to swap enough spit for the bond to take hold.
Back in Georgia, you'd still see some people, mostly teenagers, who'd bond immediately when they found their soulmate. People who would live their entire lives in one town, who'd always known that they'd marry someone from that town, soulmark or no. But most of the world didn't work that way anymore, or at least saw it as foolish to do so.
Most people waited until they knew whether or not a person was their soulmate to really kiss them, and if they were soulmates, waited until they'd dated for a while (though it was amazing what you could do without ingesting any bodily fluids). A hundred and fifty years ago, it would have been unthinkable—illegal in some places—to not bond with your soulmate, but now people understood that soulmarks weren't always a guarantee of happiness. Ninety-five percent of the time, yes, but nobody wanted to be in the five percent to bond before finding out that their soulmate was abusive, or a drunk, or whatever. Breaking a bond wasn't impossible, but it was very unpleasant.
So he and Jack pressed together, touching and kissing hands and cheeks, but never letting their mouths do more than skim past each other.
After a few minutes, Jack pulled back a little.
"God, Bits, I wish I could kiss you."
Eric swallowed. The reason people didn't bond right away was because usually your soulmate was a stranger. The mark appeared the first time you touched them, after all, and a lot of marks were easy to see; how many people were friends for a year and a half before knowing? How many people were in love before knowing?
"Kiss me," he whispered, one hand on Jack's face.
"What?" A smile flitted across Jack's lips, disbelief in his eyes. "We can't…"
"Why not?" Eric's own smile grew as Jack pulled him closer. "You want to. I want you to. Why can't we?"
"You're sure?" Now Jack's voice was a whisper.
"Jack," Eric said, his voice thick as he tried not to cry. "I've been waiting for fifteen years. I've spent months wishing it could be you and thinking it wasn't even possible. Yes, I am absolutely sure. Kiss me."
He'd barely even finished his last word before Jack's mouth was pressed against his, warm and soft in contrast to the slight scratch of stubble around it. They traded a few gentle, innocent kisses before Eric parted his lips as they came back together.
Jack didn't hesitate, his tongue immediately caressing Eric's. Eric didn't really know what he was doing, but Jack was an excellent teacher. It was a soft, gentle give and take. There were hums of pleasure and hands pulling each other closer, closer.
It wasn't long before Eric could feel the bond taking hold. He didn't have words for it, but he knew he didn't need them. Jack felt it too; he could tell by the way their kisses deepened, the sound Jack made in the back of his throat. It transformed every touch, sent sparks through him every time his skin so much as brushed against Jack's. Sparks that made him ache for more, a yearning beyond anything he'd experienced.
Neither of them would, neither of them could, be attracted to another person. Not as long as they were both alive.
And why would he want to be? Eric couldn't think of a single reason he might possibly want anyone else.
—
Outside of hockey, nothing in Jack's life had ever felt as right as kissing Eric Bittle. Even before their mouths opened and they started to bond, just the touch of his lips was everything Jack hadn't realized he wanted.
His parents would be shocked; everyone would be shocked. But Jack didn't feel a whiff of anxiety about this. As soon as he'd realized that Bittle could be his soulmate, he'd known. He wanted to bond, he wanted to spend as much time together as they could before he graduated, he didn't want Bittle to ever wonder for one second if Jack was serious about this.
They kissed for a long time, Bittle growing more confident as they did. Soon their mouths were exploring other places; the hidden shadows behind their ears, the soft skin of their throats. Their hands wandered under their shirts, reveling in the feeling of bare skin, in the new sensations the bond created. The touch of Bittle's skin sent flashes of desire raging through his body, desire that only more of his soulmate's touch could soothe. It spiraled upward, the constant push and pull of intense need followed by a satisfaction so deep it made him want more.
Jack had slept with enough people to know what he liked, to know good sex from bad, but he'd never in his life experienced anything like it. Even if the bond didn't kill his attraction to anyone else, now that he'd felt this he couldn't imagine settling for less. And they were still fully clothed.
"Jack." Bittle pulled away, looking up at Jack with bedroom eyes. "We haven't even seen each others' soulmarks." His voice was husky with want, and Jack was so wrapped up in him that it took a second to realize what he was saying.
He pressed Bittle down onto the bed, nipping at his neck. "You first."
It might have been ten minutes later or it might have been an hour, Jack had no idea, but soon enough he had Bittle lying naked in front of him, knees spread in a way that pulled that dream back into his mind. But this was real. Bittle's skin was real, his muscular thighs were real, his soulmark was real.
Jack reached out and traced a finger over it, smirking when Bittle squirmed at the ticklish touch. Then he just… stared. It was surreal, seeing his own soulmark on someone else's skin. On Bittle's skin. Knowing that they'd been connected like this nearly their entire lives, sharing a piece of their bodies that most people would never see.
Bittle nudged him with a foot. "I'm startin' to feel a little self-conscious here," he said, and when Jack looked up he was blushing.
Jack pushed up on his knees and braced himself over him, kissing Bittle again slowly, reveling in the sparks their bond sent across his skin and down his spine. "You look incredible," he said as he pulled back to kneel between Bittle's legs again. "And this…"
He touched the soulmark again, then crouched down to kiss it. Bittle gasped. Jack slid his slick tongue across it, over and over, and Bittle moaned. He nipped at it, and Bittle giggled, his leg twitching.
Finally, Jack decided he'd have plenty of opportunities to worship Bittle's soulmark, and kissed his way up to take Bittle in his mouth.
Soon their positions were reversed, Bittle between Jack's legs, looking sated and a little boneless as he stared at Jack's soulmark.
"I get it," Bittle murmured.
"What?"
Bittle glanced up at him. "Why you were sittin' there starin' at mine for so long." He reached out and his finger traced along Jack's skin, almost at the crease of his thigh. "It's a piece of me, on you. It's… it must be so different, y'know? When your soulmark is brand new and you see it on your soulmate, and you know what it means and all, but they're a stranger and this mark on your skin is a stranger, too. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure it's exciting, but… I don't remember not having my soulmark. It's mine, it's a part of me, it always has been. And I've thought about some boy out there, walking around with the same one, but knowing that it's you, and you've spent almost your whole life with it as yours, and seein' it there…" He laughed weakly, his eyes never leaving Jack's soulmark. "I wasn't prepared."
"Come here," Jack said softly, reaching out for him. He tugged on Bittle's arm, pulled him up his body until he could kiss him. He wasn't surprised that Bittle could so easily put into words the thoughts that had been swirling around his own mind, but it had hit him hard nonetheless. He didn't want Bittle kneeling there, so far away; didn't want to just feel his mouth on his dick or whatever he might have been about to do. Jack needed to touch his soulmate with every inch of skin possible, needed them to melt together into one body. When he came, an orgasm that radiated through every limb, there was barely enough space between them for Bittle's hand.
"Our friends are gonna be insufferable," Bittle murmured into Jack's shoulder later.
"Let them," Jack said quietly, and pressed a kiss to his hair.
—
Looking back, Suzanne didn't know why the phone call had taken her by surprise. She'd been waiting for it nearly Dicky's whole life, after all, and if she was honest with herself she knew that some part of her had been expecting it—expecting not just a general announcement that he'd found his soulmate, but this exact phone call—for a while now.
But it took her by surprise all the same. A part of her might have been waiting for it, but a much larger part had been working as hard as it could to ignore all the signs, to write every detail off as a big coincidence. That part was sure—sure—that any day now, Dicky would find the little girl from the restaurant, or maybe the girl sitting two rows down from them at the game, or even some little girl she didn't remember from the snack line or the gas station on their way into town.
That part of her was not prepared for the conversation she wound up having with her son, not at all.
"Mama, I've got some news," Dicky said slowly. Like he'd practiced it.
He didn't sound excited—certainly not the way she'd expect him to sound if he'd found his soulmate—so she braced herself for whatever was coming. Had he failed a class? Gotten injured? Heaven forbid, got kicked off the team?
"Oh?" she asked, proud of how neutral she managed to sound.
She listened as he took a couple of slow, deep breaths.
"Dicky, what is it?" she couldn't help finally asking. "You've got me all worried now!"
"Oh, no, it's—it's not—it's—"
His voice broke off in a quiet sob, and her heart just about stopped. She wanted to ask again, but she couldn't get the words out through her terror. Was he in jail? In a bad accident?
"Dicky, what's going on? Do you need me to come up there and get you? Are you all right?"
"I'm fine!" he said, a little too loudly. "It's—I'm happy for me, Mama, and I just—I'm scared you won't be."
Suzanne froze, confused. "What?" she asked quietly. What could that mean?
(You know full well what it means, a voice she wouldn't hear insisted.)
"Because you knew, didn't you?" Dicky didn't quite sound like he was crying, but he sounded distressed. Not angry, but accusatory all the same. "You knew, all this time, but you didn't want me to know. That's why you never told me his name, even though he told you."
"Dicky, sweetheart, I have no idea what you're talking about." She didn't mean for it to come out so defensive. "Whose name? Why wouldn't I want you to know whatever it is?"
"I'm sorry," Dicky said with a sigh. "I'm not making any sense. I just—I thought I was ready for this conversation, but apparently I wasn't."
(That makes two of us, the voice said. On both counts.)
"Okay, sweetheart, let's start over," Suzanne says, using the voice that's always soothed him. "You've got some news for me that you're happy about."
"I found him, Mama," he said quietly.
A new dread crept in, an entirely different one than before. Different because this time, she knew it was right. "Found who?"
"My soulmate," he said simply. "It's Jack, Mama. Just like I told you, years and years ago. You stopped telling that part of the story, but I remember. I couldn't remember his name, because you never said his name when you told the story, but I remember when I was little you used to laugh about how I said I was gonna marry that boy who found me."
"Jack," she repeated, like it was a foreign word. "Sweetie, what? Your soulmate?"
Dicky's voice picked up confidence as he went. "The day I got my soulmark, I got lost and a boy found me. It was Jack. Jack Zimmermann. His daddy was playing in that game. You knew that, but when you met him you never mentioned that you'd seen him play."
"I must have forgotten," she stammered, knowing it was a lie. "I don't remember exactly who all was playing that day."
"You didn't tell him you'd met a boy that day named Jack who was his son's age, who had dark hair and light blue eyes and a Quebecois accent," Dicky continued, like she hadn't spoken. "You knew, and you didn't say a word because you didn't want it to be true."
"Of course I didn't want it to be true!" The words burst out of her, desperate to push back against this tone of voice her son had never taken with her in his life. "Dicky, I love you no matter what, but you know having a boy for a soulmate isn't gonna make your life any easier! Of course I'd rather you have a soulmate that everyone will accept—"
"It was too late for that fifteen years ago!" Dicky exclaimed. "You were never gonna change who my soulmate was. Even if you'd kept me from ever findin' out, I'd still be… I'd still be gay. You weren't gonna change that, either. Not likin' how I am won't change me, Mama."
His voice was so small by the end that she wanted to fly right up there to Massachusetts and take it all back. She wanted to gather her baby up in her arms and promise him that she'd never love him any less. She wanted to rewind time a few years and make sure he knew that before he ever left home.
Instead, she swallowed down the lump in her throat.
"Dicky," she said. "I don't wanna change you. I love you. Just how you are. I'm sorry. I didn't know for sure it was Jack, but you're right, I had my suspicions. I coulda said something. I'm—I'm glad you found him anyway, sweetie. I am. You two have been close this year, haven't you?"
"We have," Dicky said. His voice was quiet, but not small, and that, at least, was a relief. "He's been a real good friend. I love him, Mama. I was in love with him before I even knew it was him."
"I'm so happy for you," she said. Her throat was tightening again, but it was the good kind this time. "You have no idea. I'm so glad you found your soulmate, and that it's someone who you know will make you happy. You're lucky, really—not many people get to be friends with their soulmate before they find out. That's something special."
"I know it is," he said, and she could hear the smile in his voice.
Suzanne cleared her throat. She straightened her shoulders a little and put on a happy face—she wasn't quite ready to have this talk with her baby boy, but he didn't need to hear that. He needed her to be excited for him.
"So," she said, "I know Jack is graduating this year. It'd be best to wait until you've graduated too, of course, but I know that's an awful long ways off, so I'm guessing you'll want to start planning a bonding ceremony for this summer? Even if it is short notice."
There was a pause.
"Um." Dicky paused again, and Suzanne started to wonder if there really was something to worry about, something with school or— "We haven't quite decided when to have the, um… the wedding."
"Wedding?" Suzanne repeated softly.
"We—we bonded already." He took a breath and then continued in a rush, "I'm sorry, I know you'd want to have a ceremony and all, but there wasn't really any reason to wait, was there? He's one of my best friends, we didn't need to go out on some getting-to-know-you dates or meet each other's parents, we've done all that. We already knew it was what we wanted, and we can still have a wedding and all, eventually, just… no bonding ceremony."
"You already bonded," Suzanne said. She knew what the words meant, but some piece of her brain just couldn't get them to make sense. "Oh my God, my baby went and found his soulmate and bonded and I didn't even know," she finally said, tears starting to spill over. "When was this?"
"Right before Valentine's Day?" He was so quiet, she could hardly hear him.
"That was two months ago," she said, her own voice nearly as quiet. "Dicky—sweetheart, why didn't you tell me?"
"Because you… you didn't want to know," he said. "You knew it was probably Jack, but you didn't want to know it, and how was I supposed to know how much you didn't want to know it? Maybe you didn't want to know at all. Ever."
It takes her a moment to understand the full weight of those words. All the things she was telling her son—unintentionally, but telling him all the same—by avoiding the topic of his soulmate. What that had cost both of them.
"I'm sorry," she says simply. "I'm so, so sorry. I never, never wanted you to think I'd be upset with you. Or that I'd ever turn my back on you. I understand, honey, why you were scared, and I never wanted that. I hope you believe me."
"I do, Mama. And I'm glad to hear it. Do… do you think… will Coach be okay with this?"
"Your father loves you, too," Suzanne told him. "No matter what." She knew that much was true. She also knew her husband might not be thrilled about it, so she didn't want to promise any more than that, but he wouldn't reject their son. Or Jack. That was what mattered.
"I hope so," Dicky said, unsure. "At least he's got a professional athlete for a son-in-law, he'll like that."
"Does Jack know yet, where he'll be next year?" Suzanne asked hesitantly. He surely hadn't back in February, and she wasn't sure what she thought of them bonding when for all they knew he could've wound up on the west coast, but what was done was done.
"You can't tell anyone, okay?"
Suzanne grinned. "Of course not, honey."
"I mean, you can't—you can't really tell anyone yet, about any of it. We can't—you know, go public yet. So we can't have a wedding this summer. It's just friends and family who can know for now, and that don't mean every last Phelps cousin—"
"Dicky, I understand," she said, cutting him off before he could ramble any more. "We won't tell a soul, not until you say we can. But where will Jack be living next year?"
"Oh! Right. Well, he's gonna be signing with the Providence Falconers next week." Dicky finally sounded excited, the way she'd always hoped he'd sound when he made this phone call. "That's less than an hour from Samwell. There's even a commuter rail train that goes there, although the hours aren't always convenient. But he's gettin' a car, and between the two we should be able to see each other pretty regularly, even during the hockey season. It's pretty much the best case, really, I don't think even the Bruins are all that much closer."
"That's wonderful, sweetheart," she said. "I'd be so worried if he wound up somewhere far away, you sittin' there in Massachusetts pining for your—your soulbond." Her voice goes a bit breathless at the word. "Dear Lord, Dicky, you're bonded. You have a soulbond."
"I know," he said, a little dreamy. "I'm still not used to it."
"Now, I'm glad Jack won't be too far away," she said, putting on a sterner voice, "but soulbond or no, I'd better not catch you putting visits to Providence ahead of your schoolwork. You've still got two years left, and I expect you to finish them."
"Believe me," he said, "you have nothing to worry about. There's no way Jack would let me slack off, Mother. That boy works harder than God, and he holds everyone around him to the same standards—and if you think he'd go easy on me just because we're bonded, well, you clearly haven't spent much time with him."
They talked about the summer a bit. Suzanne wasn't a fool, she knew she couldn't tell her son not to spend the summer with his soulbond, but she was a little sad she wouldn't get one more year with him like she'd expected. He did plan to come visit for two or three weeks, though; Jack couldn't come down for as long, but Dicky assured her that they'd find a time when he could come for a few days, at least. She'd met Jack, of course, several times now, but it was a bit different now that he was her son-in-law, and Rick hadn't met him at all.
Before they hung up, she had one last question. "Have y'all told his parents yet?"
"Yeah," Dicky said. "They were surprised, but they're real happy for us."
He didn't say anything about when they told the Zimmermanns, which probably meant they told them weeks ago. It stung, no doubt about that, but Suzanne reminded herself that it was her own fault, and she was probably lucky they only waited two months to tell her.
"I'm glad to hear that, sweetie."
Once they were off the phone, she went upstairs to her craft room and opened up the closet. She poked around until she found the right box—the one marked Photos, 1995-2000. She sat down on the bed and sifted through them, having to continually remind herself that she was there for a reason, and it wasn't to get misty-eyed at pictures of her baby when he was truly a baby, not a grown man with a soulbond. She finally found the roll she was looking for and pulled out the best two shots she could find.
She took them over to the computer and scanned them in, then got them rotated and cropped correctly. Dicky might tease her for being hopeless with Microsoft Word, but she certainly knew how to use her scrapbooking programs.
Then she opened up an email and typed "Alicia Zimmermann" in the To: field. She hadn't emailed Alicia in months, not since they traded a few recipes just after Family Weekend, so she was relieved that the email program still had the address stored.
She typed up a quick email, attached the photos, and sent it off, then went back downstairs to finish the pies she'd been making for the church bake sale that weekend when Dicky called. Rick wouldn't be home for hours yet; maybe whipping the meringue would help her figure out how to talk to him once he was home.
Just as she took the last of the pies out of the oven, her phone dinged with a text message from Rick, letting her know he'd be on his way home soon. She took a deep breath and sat down at the computer to put in an order from his favorite Italian place. If she had to tell him Dicky's news, it couldn't hurt to make sure he was in a good mood for it.
After she did that, she checked her email and found a reply waiting for her from Alicia Zimmermann.
Dear Suzanne,
I'm so glad Eric told you the boys' good news! Just like you, Bob and I were definitely surprised to hear they'd bonded so quickly, but we adore Eric and couldn't ask for a better son-in-law. We haven't seen Jack this happy in a long, long time.
It's amazing to think that you met Jack all those years ago. He didn't even tell us about it at the time, but apparently it stuck in his mind all those years. He says when he found his soulmark that night, he'd even thought of Eric, but of course Eric was only a preschooler then, so it seemed ridiculous to him (as a grown and mature nine-year-old, ha ha).
I honestly wasn't sure if we had any photos from that day until you asked. Being married to a hockey player for so long, it's not like I took photos at every one of his games (now, my son's games, those will be a different matter), but since we knew he'd be retiring at the end of that season I did take more than usual, especially when we took Jack on the road. So I dug around a bit—my old photos are an absolute disaster, I'm sure yours are far better-organized—and it turns out that between Bob playing against a new team and Jack being along, I took a whole roll that day!
I've attached the best couple with Jack in them. Do with them what you will!
You'll have to let me know if you're planning to be at Samwell's Family Weekend again next year. If you are, Bob and I will make plans to come down for it—after all, it may not happen for another couple of years, but we do have a wedding to plan! ;)
Sincerely,
Alicia
Suzanne opened up the photos of Jack and gasped. Of course, she knew he was the boy she'd met so long ago, but somehow it didn't hit home until she saw him staring right out of her screen. She hadn't paid him much mind then, so focused on getting Dicky back, but their conversation came back to her in sharp detail as she stared at the photos.
He was wearing his father's jersey in both. In one he was sitting in his seat, focused on the ice, looking too serious for a nine-year-old. In the other, he was standing next to a cutout of one of the Thrashers, smiling shyly. Even with the baby fat, she could see the beginnings of his mother's cheekbones and his father's jawline; it was already clear that even if he hadn't lost the weight, he was destined to grow up to be quite a handsome young man.
She opened up her program and put them in alongside the photos of Dicky. She sat there, biting her lip as she stared at what she was pretty sure were the beginnings of a wedding gift, until she heard her husband's key in the front door.