The Soulmate Equation

“So I guess we can agree it’s new,” she said.

“Very new,” they replied in unison, and laughed stiffly.

River took her hand again, and squeezed it emphatically. Meanwhile, Blake the Photographer hovered in the background, arcing around them, planning his attack—or candid shots. Jess’s palms went clammy again.

“Sorry,” she mumbled.

River bent to pretend to cough into his free hand. “It’s fine.”

“So, seriously,” Michelle said, “I think most people will want to know if this feels different. The first time you saw each other, I mean really looked, was there some sort of internal reaction? A score of ninety-eight—you must’ve known on some cellular level.”

There. Right there. She’d found River’s vulnerability. The biology of it, the assumption that his body would somehow just know. Jess couldn’t get past the unlikelihood of the number. He couldn’t get past the way he knew he should feel it in every cell of his body.

“Attraction, yes,” he said without hesitation. “But we’re only programmed to think about first encounters on a very primitive level. Sex. Coupling. We are animals, ultimately.”

Heat crawled up her neck, and she was treated to a mental image of River behind her, his front curled over her back, teeth pressed into the bare skin of her shoulder.

“But we aren’t really programmed to wonder on first sight whether someone is our soulmate. At least, I’m not.” Beside her, he shrugged. “It may be ironic given that I want to find it for other people, but I somehow hadn’t self-inserted into any of DNADuo’s findings. Truly. Given that we’re a couple months away from my first IPO, and having set my own criteria so high, the last thing I was expecting was a notification on my own app. So, if you’re asking whether I was surprised by the result, the answer is yes … and no.”

Her brain felt like it was chewing, digesting each one of his words. He sounded so sincere, but what was real and what was just for show? Michelle’s voice jolted her out of her thoughts. “Jess?”

Jess cleared her throat. “Like I said, I took the test on a whim. I wasn’t looking for a relationship. Had just sworn off dating, actually.” Michelle laughed in easy comprehension. “So yes, I was surprised.” She looked up at River’s open face and, maybe because her defenses were down, a low hum began in her bones. The deep vibration coursed through her, synchronizing with the high-frequency-static feeling along the surface of her skin. He was so gorgeous it made her woozy. “And no,” she added quietly. “In another way, I wasn’t surprised at all.”

“River,” Michelle asked, “I have to ask: Is sharing this finding publicly a conflict of interest?”

“I expected you to be more suspicious that it was a media stunt.”

She grinned. “Is it?”

“No.”

She gestured around them. “But you’re leveraging it, surely.”

“It’s serendipitous. Doesn’t mean it’s false.”

“Jess,” Michelle said, leaning in, “does the pressure to fall in love with him feel … intense?”

“Yes,” she admitted. “I don’t know what it’s supposed to feel like to find your soulmate. I’ve never found mine before, obviously. And in this case, I second-guess every feeling, even when they seem genuine.”

“River, hearing that—does it make you uneasy?”

“Not at all.” His voice rang true. “We’re both scientists. It wouldn’t be our natures to dive headlong into anything.”

“Maybe that’s why you matched,” Michelle mused.

Jess looked up at him. He looked down at her. She couldn’t help mirroring his new, private smile. “Maybe,” he agreed, and dropped his voice, leaning in to whisper in her ear. “Project Be Genuine but Cautious.” Jess nearly shivered at the sensation.

Michelle cut a knife through the tension, clapping her hands. “Let’s grab some photos over by the benches there.” She stood, and if she was aware of the dense emotional fog that clouded Jess and River, she didn’t show it. She and Blake conferred, then waved them over. “We’d like to get the water as the backdrop, so if you could stand”—she put her hands on Jess’s shoulders, turning her to face the parking lot—“here. River just beside and a little behind her, yes, good, however is comfortable for you. I’m going to be over here, we aren’t listening. Just—talk to each other. As naturally as you can. Forget we’re here!”

Jess wanted to stare at her with deep, unmasked incredulity. She and River were on what was essentially their second date, and Michelle wanted them to stand together and be knowingly photographed just—conversing intimately? Naturally? For a newspaper with a circulation in the hundreds of thousands? They weren’t even good at being natural when they were alone.

“No pressure,” Jess mumbled.

“Just,” he said, searching, “tell me something about your—car.”

“My … car?”

He laughed, and stepped closer beside her. “It’s the first thing that came to mind. Don’t assume I’m any better than you are at this.”

“I absolutely assume that,” she said, cheesing a grin as Blake lifted his camera to his face. “Look at you.”