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Nick had never been drawn to someone like he was to Charlie.
It was an addiction. The way he smiled, the way he laughed, the way he seemed to love the world around him. It was terrifying.
After every rugby practice when their skin touched, Nick would check for a mark. A flower, a music note, a dog print. It could have been anything. He just needed the proof that Charlie was his.
But it never showed. It only drove him further into his “gay crisis.”
He was sure that he liked girls. He had a crush on Tara Jones for nearly a year. There were plenty of female celebrities he had crushes on, but nothing hurt his heart like Charlie did.
There was something about him that Nick couldn’t get out of his head and the more he thought about it, the more his thoughts whipped into whirlpools.
He wasn’t gay, but maybe he was. Maybe he liked Charlie like a best friend. But best friends don’t want to kiss. Did he want to kiss Charlie? Yes. The answer came too soon. But what if Nick’s not actually gay? What if he kisses Charlie to figure it out and it hurts him? That would be worse than Nick just suffering in silence.
So, that’s what he did.
He kept smiling at Charlie’s jokes. He kept checking his arms and hands after every rugby practice. And he kept suffering.
“Is something wrong, Nicky?” his mum asked one rainy afternoon.
He was inspecting his arms for the millionth time out of habit. Even though his soul was screaming that it knew Charlie, his body didn’t listen.
His mum sat behind him on their couch, so he turned to face her. She had a soul mark, and she knew what it felt like. So maybe she would know why this was happening to him.
“I- I think-” His tongue stopped moving. It didn’t want to. He couldn’t say it. He wasn’t sure. So, he thought for a moment before asking, “When did you get your soulmate mark, Mum?”
“Well, I went on vacation to France with my family and one night we decided to go to a concert.” She smiled at the memory. “My cousins dragged me by my hair cause I didn’t want to go. I had a huge sunburn all over my arms and I was already miserable.”
She looked down at her hand and ran over her mark with her thumb.
“We ended up standing behind this cute guy and his friends. I don’t know who started talking to who, but they ended up hanging out with us all night. They were like our bodyguards.”
Nick listened intently. He’d never heard this story before. His dad normally just brushed off anything in his past with “It’s old history by now.” But, his mum looked younger just thinking about the night she came across her soulmate.
“I was drawn to your dad instantly. There was something about him that… I felt safe with him. I remember he grabbed my arm and I thought ‘this is it. My mark will be under his hand,’ but it wasn’t there.”
“What?” Nick interrupted. “How could it not be there?”
“Soulmarks are private things. They won’t show themselves unless the two people are safe and alone. I heard there are some people who get their marks in front of friends or family, but it’s very rare and it’s only people you trust.”
Nick nodded. “And you were at a concert.”
“Exactly.” She smiled. “After the show, I was desperate to keep seeing him, so I asked him for his phone number. We met up the next day for lunch and walked around Senlis. He grabbed my hand and that was it.”
She held her hand out to him and sitting across her palm was a Lily with beautiful white petals. Nick had studied the flower endlessly when he was younger, but it seemed so much more important now.
“Why do you ask, baby?”
“Just curious,” he shrugged.
She hummed in response and leaned back on the couch.
After a few minutes, Nick excused himself to his room and collapsed on his bed. He couldn’t stop himself from thinking about Charlie. Every laugh, every touch. He hugged Charlie at his house, but their skin didn’t touch. He almost grabbed Charlie’s hand, but he stopped himself. Why did he stop himself?
He groaned into his pillow and felt his phone vibrate in his pocket.
He glanced at it and cursed his pounding heart when he saw Charlie’s name.
I’m so bored. Tori has been harping on me for practicing too loudly, so I can’t play and I don’t know what to do.
Why don’t you work on homework or something?
It’s all done.
Nick smiled.
Nerd.
I want to play with Nellie. I wish I could have a dog.
His smile dropped. His hand hovered over his keyboard for a moment before he locked his phone.
“I need to get it together. Jesus,” he whispered to himself.
He opened up his phone again and typed.
You’re welcome anytime, but it’s pretty late.
I know. Maybe I should just go to bed early.
Nick typed Or we could talk for a while. before erasing it.
It’s up to you. Sleeping Beauty needs his rest.
Oh shut up.
He laughed and looked up to his ceiling.
Maybe Charlie was his soulmate. Would that be so bad?
*****
“Do you want to come to Harry’s party?” Nick asked. Charlie looked stunned silent, so he kept going. “with me.”
“That’s not really my thing.”
“I know, but… I want you to be there.”
His heart was hammering in his throat. There was no reason for Nick to need Charlie to go with him, except there was. He wanted to spend time with him. If he could just figure the whole soulmate thing out, then maybe his mind would stop racing. Maybe his heart would stop jumping out of his chest every time he saw Charlie.
“Okay,” he agreed, showing off the same wild smile that kept infecting Nick’s mind.
For the next day, that was all he could think about. It was all he could think about before, but he seemed to be dazing off into space more often. He would catch himself smiling at his phone or daydreaming.
He had never been so excited for a party.
*****
“It’s because you’re old!” Charlie called back to Nick.
They were running through the hotel with wide smiles on their faces. Nick followed close behind Charlie as he opened a side door and ducked into what looked like a ballroom. A crystal chandelier made lights dance across the floor in hues of purple, gold, and blue.
“Woah.” Charlie gasped looking around the room.
“Yeah.”
“How did Harry hire this entire place?”
“Oh, he’s like, extremely rich.”
Charlie laughed. “He should have gone on My Super Sweet 16.”
“So he could cry when his parents got him the wrong color Lamborghini.”
“Exactly.”
Nick laughed, collapsing against the back wall of the room. The floor was cold as he laid his hands against the ground. It only took a moment for Charlie to join him, laughing and just as out of breath as Nick.
“So,” Charlie said, turning to Nick. “Was Harry being serious? Do you like Tara?”
“What? No! No, definitely not.”
Nick kept his eyes trained on Charlie, but he looked away nervously.
Nick’s heart was still pounding from the running. He looked down at his hands and expected there to be something, anything on his palms from Charlie. But his skin was blank.
“So, have you found your soulmate?” Charlie asked. His voice was haggard from running, and it echoed across the room as he spoke. “I feel like every time someone gets a mark it’s all anyone can talk about.”
“No, I don’t have mine yet. You?”
He shook his head and that didn’t help the pounding of Nick’s heart.
“We’re still young,” Charlie said, turning to smile at him. “I’m sure the right… girl will come along.”
Nick sighed.
Why was everyone convinced he would find a nice girl? Why did everyone expect him to live like that? What if he didn’t want that? Did he not want that? He knew he wanted love. He wanted a life with someone he loved, but… did they have to be a girl?
“What if they’re not a girl?” He wondered aloud.
The silence was deafening.
Nick kept his eyes on a small patch of the floor where a piece of confetti had found its way in. He heard Charlie shuffle closer to him.
“Do you… think they won’t be a girl?”
“I don’t know,” Nick answered honestly. “Maybe.”
“Nick?”
He finally turned to Charlie, and his breath caught in his throat. In the light of the room, Charlie’s face turned to a soft pink. He could barely see the colors of his eyes. Instead, all he could see were golden lights staring back at him.
Charlie cleared his throat. “Would you kiss someone who wasn’t a girl?”
Nick looked down at where Charlie’s hand sat. He looked back up before their hands touched, worried if there was something left, but more worried if there wasn’t.
“I don’t know,” he said, barely above a whisper.
“Would you… kiss me?”
Nick couldn’t stop himself. He stared at Charlie’s lips and said “yeah.”
It wasn’t like in the movies where the two love interests finally find one another and mangle each others mouths. Charlie moved slowly, worried that Nick would run if he made the wrong move. They were only a breath apart and, finally, Nick closed his eyes and kissed him.
The moment their lips touched it felt like he was complete. His face was burning and his heart hurt from beating so fast, but when they pulled away, Nick laced Charlie’s fingers through his and, without another word, he kissed him again.
It was awkward and rushed, but it was perfect at the same time. Charlie’s hand was on his neck, pulling him closer, and their noses were brushing against each other. When they pulled apart again, Nick stared at the golden flecks of light in Charlie’s eyes and knew they were the only two people in the world.
“You okay?” Charlie whispered.
“I-”
“Nick you up here?” Harry’s voice echoed through the room, making the hairs on the back of Nick’s neck stand on end. “I just want to talk mate.”
Nick fumbled his way to standing, leaving all of his warmth with Charlie. He was looking up at him from the floor with an expression Nick couldn’t read. He tried to say something, anything to get the look off of Charlie’s face, but nothing would come to mind.
“Why are you hiding?” Harry’s voice was getting louder.
I’ll be right back. Nick thought and hoped Charlie would understand. Then, he turned and left the room.
He found Harry with his army of boys wandering the halls. Nick tried to listen to Harry’s half-hearted nothing apology, but he couldn’t stop thinking about Charlie. He left him. Alone. He left him alone after kissing him and he didn’t check to see if he was okay. He didn’t ask if that would change anything.
He didn’t see if their soul marks were there.
As that thought hit him, he looked down at his hand.
Around his pinky, on his left hand, was a smattering of colors. Yellow, red, and orange leaves seemed to dance around his finger where Charlie had touched him. Between his fingers, there was the proof.
“And like, it’s all just banter, isn’t it. I mean, the lads can see it’s banter. You can see it’s banter. There’s no need to start anything just ‘cause you’re in a bad mood at my party.” Harry was still talking, so Nick cut him off.
“Yeah. Guess I was just in a mood.” He needed to get back to Charlie.
“Exactly,” Harry chuckled. “So, we’re good?”
“Yeah. Just going to go find the loo.”
They laughed behind him, but his eyes stayed trained to his hand. He needed to find Charlie. As soon as he was out of sight, he ran down the hall. All of the doors looked similar, but only one was open slightly.
“Charlie?”
He threw open the door and sitting, frozen against the wall, was his soulmate.
He was staring at the mark on his hand and lifted his head as Nick got closer. Fat tears were falling down his face, so Nick knelt next to him and cupped Charlie’s face in his hands.
“Oh, Charlie.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to- I mean. The mark it just appeared and I can’t- I can’t get it off.”
Nick looked at Charlie’s hand and sitting between his pinky and his ring finger were matching leaves. They swirled across his fingers and Nick traced them lightly with the tip of his thumb.
Around the colors, was skin rubbed raw. It was flaming red as if he had tried to pull the mark off of his body.
“I’m so sorry Nick,” he sobbed.
“Why are you sorry?” Nick sat on the floor, pulling Charlie closer, and cradled his head with his neck.
“You’re so nice and kind and now… you’re stuck with me. I never wanted this to happen to you. I just- I didn’t want you to feel pressured to kiss me and you probably did because you thought you had to.”
“Charlie.”
Nick wiped his own tears on the back of his hand before pulling Charlie away. He tried to clean off the tears, but they wouldn’t stop.
“I did want to… kiss you,” he said. “I- I am just so… confused right now. I’m having a full-on gay crisis and… well I guess that answers that. I just- I don’t know who I am anymore.”
Charlie looked up at him and he tried to wipe at Nick’s tears with his jumper sleeves. They both smiled at that and slumped back against the wall. Charlie’s legs found their way on top of Nick’s and they held each other in silence for a long time before Nick leaned his head against Charlie’s shoulder.
“I’m sorry for running off,” he said.
“Aren’t you the one who tells me that I say that too much?”
“But I actually did something bad.”
He held up his pinky to show Charlie who gasped. He held his own hand up and he put them together. What looked like two storms whipping around each other, mixed into a dance of color.
“I’m so glad you’re my soulmate,” Nick whispered.
“And I’m glad you’re mind,” Charlie said, smiling.