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Eddie was born with a scar on his palm.
Two scars, really. Quick, swooping letters right in the center just above his lifeline, thin, dark initials.
His mama tells him what they mean when he’s five, that he’s very special. She tells him not everyone is lucky enough to have letters.
He has a själsfrände, she tells him, before kissing him on the forehead and turning back to her book.
-
One of the kids at school sees the letters and tells him that själsfrändes are stupid.
Eddie tells the kid that he’s stupid, and gets a timeout for his troubles.
-
When he’s eight, he realises he’s the only kid in his class with visible letters. His teacher wears brightly coloured scarves every day, knotted carefully around her throat. One day, the lilac material slips and he sees the edge of her initials in blocky, square capitals.
When he asks her about it, she tells him to finish his work, and tugs the scarf back up.
-
Eddie learns to wear gloves.
They’re thin and cotton and black and he cuts the fingers out of them so he can hide them under long sleeves. He keeps his hand half-curled anyway, a habit from school borne of nosy classmates.
As he gets older, he notices other people. Someone in his class always wears long sleeves. Someone else, a thick leather bracelet covering her wrist. Someone else a white guard on their calf. He feels less alone, but he keeps wearing his gloves anyway.
-
He learns to play hockey. A couple of guys on his team have letters, keep them wrapped up behind waterproof guards. One guy has a black rectangle tattooed on his bicep. Eddie sees it and wonders. Never asks, though, and the guy never offers.
-
He meets a girl called Rose when he moves to Manitoba. She has big curly handwriting that she writes on his Starbucks cup.
They date for a couple of weeks until they’re making out on his crappy couch in his tiny apartment and he finds two tiny black letters on her hipbone, ES. He runs the pad of his thumb over them softly and feels her shiver.
They break up pretty much there and then, when she asks if it’s him and he has to shake his head. Her lips curve down, and he wants to kiss her again, but she says, ‘I should go,’ and starts buttoning her shirt.
‘Rose,’ he says, but she just toes into her shoes. He says it again, and she looks over at him, sad.
‘You’re cute,’ she says. ‘But you’re not my soulmate. We would just be wasting time.’ She kisses his cheek, and leaves.
-
He meets Roberto Luongo on a Tuesday, just as he's getting off the ice. Luongo is wearing sweats and a hoodie with the sleeves pushed up, and he walks with a not-quite limp. Eddie can see the edges of two letters poking out from where his hoodie isn't quite zipped up high enough.
He grins at Eddie and tells him to call him Lu, and makes a comment about how good he looks on the ice.
Eddie flushes. He's only human, and Lu is... a lot to deal with.
They sit together in the locker room to dress for practice after that, with Cory, who doesn't talk much, but has a dry humour that makes Lu throw his head back to laugh, exposing the long line of his throat.
Eddie always looks away.
He doesn't look for Lu's initials again, either, keeps his eyes fixed on the floor or the face of whoever is talking to him. It's just the same kind of locker room etiquette he learnt in Sweden, in Manitoba, in Chicago.
-
Cory getting traded shocks everyone but Eddie.
He texts him a series of sad faces and chirps him about having to live in New Jersey. Cory texts back a picture of him flipping Eddie off, follows it up with you know you're getting the permanent call up to the big time now right kid.
Eddie... hadn't considered that.
Three days later, he gets the call, and another text from Cory. you earned it.
-
Eddie and Lu room together during training camp. It’ll be fun, Eddie guesses. Lu is goofy and has a great sense of humour.
He discovers very quickly that Lu treats clothes as optional at best in the hotel room, much like the locker room
He sees the letters on Lu’s chest by accident. He stares.
Lu clicks his fingers. ‘My eyes are up here, kid,’ he says, teasing. Eddie flushes.
‘Sorry,’ he says.
Lu glances down at his chest, the EL scrawled there in thin, spidery writing.
‘What, is it you or something?’ he asks, voice still light and easy. Eddie flushes deeper, curls his fingers into his palm reflexively.
Lu drops the smirk. ‘Oh,’ he says, sounding a little like he’s been punched in the gut. ‘Can I…?’ He makes an aborted movement towards Eddie, who was lounging on the bed, and has now drawn his knees up in front of him to cradle his arm.
‘It’s not me,’ Eddie lies, panicked. ‘It’s not… I don’t have your initials.’
Lu stops. ‘Oh,’ he says. His hands hang uselessly by his side. ‘I thought...’
‘It’s not,’ Eddie says. He sounds desperate, even to his ears. He tucks his hand in closer to him, like he can make the letters go away by willing them away.
‘Okay, kid,’ Lu says. He turns around to grab a shirt from his bag. He pulls it on still damp, so it sticks to the contours of his back.
Eddie takes a breath, and uncurls his palm.
Even if it was him, which, there must be a ton of EL’s out there with messy handwriting.
It sounds flimsy, even to him, but… what if Lu doesn’t want him?
Eddie looks over to where Lu’s sprawled on his bed, earbuds in, flipping through a magazine. He thinks about the letters on his palm.
Decides it’s better off it they just… don’t talk about it.
So they don’t.
-
He and Lu don’t talk. At all.
Oh, they’re chatty enough in the locker room, on the ice, but back in the hotel room, it’s almost silent.
Lu moves around the room like a ghost. He wears a shirt all the time now.
Eddie tries to strike up a conversation after a game one time. Lu will barely look at him.
There are a handful of Swedes on the team. Eddie is never short of someone to talk to in his first language.
He still kind of wishes he could talk to Lu though.
-
It goes on for a few weeks.
Eddie is on his way back to the room after victory drinks. He’s a little drunk, enough that it takes him a couple of attempts to slide the keycard into the slot.
Enough that it takes him a couple of seconds to realise what he’s seeing when he flips the lights on.
It’s not the first time he’s walked in on Lu with someone. It happens. Last season, Cory walked in on him twice with the same girl.
It’s the first time he’s walked in on Lu with a guy though.
Lu’s getting his dick sucked, and he’s arched back on the bed, hands in this guy’s hair, eyes almost shut. Eddie can’t look away.
Lu looks over, and his eyes fly open. ‘Eddie, he says, before it twists into a moan and he bucks up, comes in this guy’s mouth like it’s nothing.
Eddie says something, he doesn’t even really know what, and shuts the door. He stands in the hall for a few minutes, before he goes down to Tanev’s room and knocks.
‘Sexiled?’ he asks, when he answers the door. Eddie nods, trying not to look too shell-shocked, and Tanev grins and lets him in.
-
Eddie has to go back to his room in the morning, and he knocks loudly before letting himself in.
The shower’s running, but there’s only one set of clothes scattered in a trail on the floor. Eddie busies himself packing his stuff up until the water shuts off.
‘Oh,’ Lu says, when he comes out of the bathroom. Eddie straightens up and turns to look at him. He’s got a towel low on his hips, hasn’t dried off yet. There’s water beaded on his shoulders like freckles.
His skin is oddly unmarked, except for those two letters, directly over his heart.
‘Sorry,’ Eddie starts. ‘About last night. I should have realised.’ He stops, and thinks. ‘I’m not going to tell anyone. About… last night,’ he finishes, weakly. He can’t read Lu’s expression.
‘It’s not a secret,’ Lu says. ‘Not among the team, anyway. But thanks, kid. It’s my bad, anyway. I thought you’d be gone longer. Thought Mike would be gone before you got back.’
‘No big deal,’ Eddie says. ‘It happens. I’m gonna. Shower.’
He leaves Lu standing in the middle of the room, dripping gently onto the carpet. He’s gone by the time Eddie gets out of the bathroom.
-
After that, things get a little easier, oddly. Lu talks to him again, at least.
And the team is doing okay, too. They win their first seven games in December before dropping an ugly one to Minnesota, but the team is happy, the team is doing well.
Eddie’s happy.
Lu and Torts are arguing, more and more. They try to keep it out of earshot of the team, but, well, Torts is loud, and Lu has a temper.
Lu keeps it out of the locker room, but Eddie can tell that Torts is getting to him.
-
Lu kisses him in Chicago.
They’re both been drinking; he tastes like whiskey and, oddly, lemons.
‘No,’ Eddie says, after a second, pushing him away.
‘But,’ Lu says. his eyes are a little shiny. He’s smiling hopefully. ‘Why not? What’s the harm?’
‘It’s not fair,’ Eddie says. He closes his right hand into a fist, even though he’s still wearing the gloves. He’s always wearing the gloves in public.
(He jerks off in the shower later that night, decidedly not thinking about Lu.)
-
The Stadium Series is the last straw, Eddie thinks. Lu’s so angry in the locker room he’s trembling. Eddie’s palm stings. He digs his nails in and tries to ignore it as he dresses.
Lu catches him just before he leaves the room. ‘You know I’m not angry at you, right?’ His hand is circling Eddie’s wrist, tight enough to hurt a little.
‘Yeah, Lu,’ Eddie says. ‘I know.’
Lu blinks slowly, and lets go of Eddie. ‘Knock em dead,’ he says.
-
They’re in the hotel room together when Lu gets the call. He looks at his phone for a long time after hanging up.
‘Lu?’ Eddie asks, quiet.
‘I’m going to Florida,’ he says, still staring at his phone. He looks up, and he’s smiling, like he can’t believe it. ‘I’m going back to Florida.’
‘You got traded?’ Eddie feels like he’s barely clutching to the threads of this conversation already.
Lu nods. His smile is getting bigger.
‘And you’re happy about it,’ Eddie confirms. Another nod.
Eddie gets it, he thinks. Lu talks about Florida like Eddie talks about Sweden. It’s home.
Eddie knows what his next line is. It’s congratulations, or it’s good luck in Florida, or it’s we’ll miss you. It’s goodbye.
‘We’re soulmates,’ is not the next line, but it’s what he says anyway.
Lu looks at him. ‘You said...’ His words are accusing, but his tone is confused.
‘I lied.’ Eddie fumbles with the glove on his right hand, peels it away, thrusts his palm at Lu. RL, written in big, sweeping letters. ‘It’s you. And that’s me,’ he says, nodding his head at Lu’s chest. ‘I’m sorry,’ he finishes.
‘Why?’ Lu still doesn’t sound angry. Eddie doesn’t understand.
He shrugs. ‘I thought you might not want to be soulmates with me.’
The bed dips as Lu climbs on to it, sits cross legged in front of Eddie. ‘Why wouldn’t I want to?’
Eddie doesn’t look at him. ‘You call me kid. I figured you wouldn’t want a soulmate ten years younger than you.’
Lu looks at him, considering. ‘You know that the bond can be platonic.’
Eddie swallows. ‘It’s not.’ He risks looking up at Lu, who’s still watching him. His tongue darts out to lick his lower lip.
‘Okay,’ Lu says. He reaches out, slowly. Takes hold of Eddie’s wrist, tugs it gently. Eddie gives it to him.
It tickles when he traces the letters with the tip of his index finger. Then, slowly, he brings it to his mouth and presses a kiss to his initials. ‘Okay?’ Lu asks. Eddie nods.
Lu’s grip on his wrist tighten, ever so slightly. He pulls Eddie into him, and Eddie goes. He loses his balance, ends up with his hand pressed over Lu’s heart. Right over the initials. Lu is watching him carefully.
Eddie kisses him because he can’t not. Lu makes a soft, surprised sound into his mouth and kisses back. Eddie can feel him smiling.
‘I’m sorry I lied,’ Eddie says, when they part.
‘It’s okay,’ Lu says, pressing their foreheads together. He has his hand on Eddie’s jaw, thumb stroking up and down gently. ‘I think I knew anyway. I was waiting.’
-
Lu goes later that day.
He leaves behind an ache in Eddie’s palm and a sharp red bruise just above his collarbone.
Eddie kisses him at the door, fierce and messy. Lu’s hands dig into his hips.
‘I’ll see you in a few weeks,’ Lu promises.
‘I’ll miss you,’ Eddie says, and then, recklessly, ‘I love you.’
Lu’s smile is like the sun rising.