Finding The Write Words

Chapter Nine

Logan Croft had a long drive ahead of him. Ohio was a thirty hour drive away, and he really wasn't looking forward to it. It was going to be incredibly boring, and he wouldn't be able to talk to Ro and Pat for the three days he was driving, but he wasn't about to book a plane ticket.

He hated planes.

Something about the uncontrollable nature of being lauched 35,000 feet into the air with a set of engines that could fail at any moment keeping him afloat made Logan want to stay as far from planes as he could.

Before he got in the car, his bags already packed into the vehicle, he rolled up his sleeve and glanced down at his arm to see if there were any new messages from his soulmates.

After their fourth had shown up last weekend, about five days ago, he had been patiently awaiting some sort of word from them. Any word from them.

Pat had other ideas, though. They had insisted on writing as much as they could to the mystery soulmate. They actually washed off their arms for the first time in the time they had known each other. Logan did the same, at Pat's insistence, as did Ro, and within no time at all, their arms were all blank canvases.

Blank canvases that Pat and Ro were all too quick to fill in. Pat wrote little messages throughout the day, narrating his day, saying good night and good morning every day. Ro wrote about how excited he was for the start of school, and about how he was considering trying out for a part in a community theater play. Logan tried not to write too much - no more than normal, anyways - knowing that if their fourth had purposely ignored them for so long, they must have some reason. He didn't want to overwhelm them and scare them off.

"I'm heading out on the road. Talk to you two tonight." He wrote in black ink.

"Drive safe!" Pat's scribbling script came first.

Logan felt bad sometimes, knowing that Pat was writing with their non-dominant hand more often than not in order to talk to them. But he supposed it was even between them all because Ro and Logan wrote with their non-dominant hand when their left arms were covered.

"See you soon! Drive safe!" Ro's large looping writing came after a second.

Logan drove for as long as he could before getting a motel room for the night. Two days in a row he did this, and at the end of the third day, he was nearly there.

He pulled into a gas station an hour from his dorm and as he was waiting for the tank to fill up, he grabbed out his pen from the pocket of his shirt. He rolled his sleeves up and scritched in, splitting his attention between the gas pump and his writing, "I'll be at my dorm in an hour. If you guys want to maybe meet me there, that would be great." He gave them the address just in case, and after only a second, he got two check marks in response.

He could feel his stomach fluttering just at seeing the small marks, and his heart quickened for a fraction of a second.

The hour of driving passed so much slower than the last three days in total had passed. Logan had to be extra cautious in his driving, with his excitement distracting him. He didn't want to get in a crash or anything.

He pulled into the driveway of the dorm building, and as he was getting out of the car, he felt the skin on his cheek start to tingle. Either Pat or Ro was drawing something so they'd know it was him.

He crouched down and looked in the side mirror, adjusting his glasses. Right underneath the lower rim of his glasses on his left cheek was a glittery blue heart. He smiled at the sight, touching it with a gentle brush of his fingers.

Pat.

He headed towards his dorm room, leaving his bags in the car. He could grab them late.

As he approached the building, he spotted two men in front of it, talking with each other. A blue glittery heart on both of them

They were both attractive in their own ways. The one he assumed was Ro - from his general demeanor - with his tanned skin and wavy brown hair, swept back from his face in a swooping curl that Logan thought was absolutely adorable. And then Pat with his fluffy mop of curly blond hair and cherubic face, his expression one of childlike excitement as soon as he saw Logan.

He could hardly believe his luck.

He had gotten not one but two unbelievably attractive soulmates. And most likely a third.

He had a third.

He had three soulmates.

The chances of that were one in a million. It wasn't exactly common to have two soulmates, but it was practically unheard of to have three.

The air was knocked out of Logan as the man he assumed was Pat ran up to him, his arms wrapping around him in a rib crushing hug. He paused in surprise before he returned the hug, holding the much shorter male. The other man approached slower, but still in an excited hurry.

"Oh, yeah, Pat's a hugger," he said, a smile on his face. As soon as Pat released him, Ro swept him up in a hug. "I am, too."

He was shorter than Logan as well, though not quite as much as Pat was.

Logan wondered how tall their fourth was.

When Ro grinned up at him, Logan couldn't help but smile back, glancing from him to Pat.

They exchanged names after a moment.

Roman and Patton.

He felt right at home with them. He felt as though a missing piece of him had been returned that he hadn't even known was gone.

It was strange, though, knowing that he was so happy in that moment and there was still someone missing.

It was like the space between Roman and Patton was too wide.

There was room for one more.

"Logan, is everything okay?" Patton asked, his brows pulling together. "I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable with the hug..."

"No, no." He waved away his worries and gave him a smile that quickly disappeared when he glanced yet again at the space between them. "It doesn't feel right..."

"Oh." Roman deflated, his shoulders slumping and his face falling. The disappointment in his expression was soul crushing.

"No, I didn't mean... I meant that it doesn't feel right without them. Without our fourth. I've been thinking about them a lot, you know. Wondering why they haven't said anything or purposely made themselves known. Wondering why they don't like us..."

He hated that insecurity of his.

The small, nagging feeling that wriggled in the back of his mind that everything was going to go south.

That nobody liked him.

He knew from a logical standpoint that it made no sense. Patton and Roman cared about him. His parents cared about him. His annoyance of a brother cared about him.

But he couldn't help but wonder what made their fourth want nothing to do with them.

"Well..." Patton perked up. "We'll just have to find him, then!"