The Soulmate Equation
: Chapter 12

BURNED PANCAKES, ONE missing orange sneaker, cat vomit on the backpack, coffee brewing without water in the tank, and one mother yelling at her daughter that if she didn’t want to cut her hair then she needed to let Mom braid it before bed. In other words, a classic meltdown before eight a.m. Jess didn’t have a chance to look in the mirror, let alone check her email, until she’d safely dropped Juno off at school, and she was glad for it, because the notification that she and River had been asked for an interview by the San Diego Union-Tribune would have had her barfing right beside the cat.

“I got your email,” she said as soon as Brandon answered.

“Oh, great!” Teeth, teeth, teeth. It was all Jess could imagine. “Sounds like the date went well?”

She chewed on her lip. It had gone well. Better than expected. River wasn’t supposed to be funny, and he definitely wasn’t supposed to charm her kid. And yet. “Yeah, it was fine.”

“Does the timing for the interview work? I know tomorrow’s short notice.”

“It’s less a timing issue,” Jess admitted, “than a bravery one.”

“You?” He laughed generously. “You’re adorable. Stop it.”

“I am very much not used to press.” Quickly Jess added, “I know it’s what I signed up for, but I was sort of hoping to start small with dinners, then maybe a couple tweets no one notices, a small blog interview about online dating, and eventually working our way up to the Trib.”

“Michelle is doing the piece and she’s a love,” Brandon assured her. “She’s going to adore you. She and River go way back.”

Jess wanted to ask whether that was code for banging, but would not ask that.

Brandon read through her silence: “She did a piece on him several years ago. That’s all.”

“Mm-hmm. So, tomorrow,” she said, biting her lip. “Tomorrow at noon, Shelter Island.” Jess paused and a clammy chill worked its way up her neck. “Why Shelter Island?”

“Perfect for photos.” He confirmed her fears, and she nearly swallowed her tongue. She’d already turned her closet upside down for the dinner date, and a chambray shirt and jeans was the best she could come up with. This was exactly the sort of thing she’d been dreading.

“I have to go shopping.”

“Jessica, honestly, whatever you’re wearing is fine.”

“Brandon. You wouldn’t say that if you could see me right now.”

He laughed. “I just mean you’ll be fine regardless.”

Would she? She looked down at her threadbare light gray T-shirt and charcoal-gray sweats. She, honestly, could not stand next to River “GQ” Peña in front of the San Diego Bay in anything that was currently in her closet.

On the other hand, at the end of the day, a soulmate loved you for what was on the inside, right?

OF ALL THE beautiful places in San Diego—and there were indeed many—few were as spectacular as Shelter Island. If she took Harbor to Scott, hung a left at Shelter Island Drive and then another left at the circle, a long parking lot overlooked one of the best views in the city: a full vista of the San Diego Bay with the downtown skyline in perfect, crystalline glory. Coronado was visible in the distance. At night, the view was so breathtaking it felt like stepping inside a postcard.

Even during the day—especially after a morning shower that had left the sky bright and clear—it was so beautiful that Jess paused for a second once she climbed out of her car, staring at a side of downtown San Diego she should appreciate more. The buildings looked like sleek, glossy swords in the distance. Big, puffy cotton-ball clouds dotted the sky, and sailboats bobbed on the surface of the bay. Add to that the sight of River, in dark trousers, a long camel coat over a navy sweater, hair blowing in the wind like something out of an Austen movie. Would it be weird if she stood here and just… stared at him? Took a photo or two? Nobody would blame her.

For a second—truly, only a second—Jess regretted not being more insecure about her clothing before leaving the house. She had finally settled on black jeans, a white T-shirt, and black flats. Simple but appropriate.

Though maybe too simple. Beside River was a woman—Michelle, Jess guessed. She was pretty in a journalist sort of way, which was to say she had the luxury of never being the subject of her own story; how she dressed didn’t really matter. Jess was both amused and aggrieved that she and Michelle were essentially wearing the same outfit, with the sole exception that Michelle had been smart enough to wear a cardigan over her white T-shirt. It was noon on a gorgeous early-February day, but Jess had forgotten how exposed Shelter Island was. With the wind whipping past them in chilly gusts, she was going to freeze her ass off.

Noticing her arrival, they brought their conversation to an end. The two made their way over, and behind where they’d been standing, Jess noticed a man diligently setting up what looked like a whole lot of camera equipment. This was a much bigger production than she’d anticipated.

Her stomach wilted.

Michelle was even prettier up close, comfortable in her skin, with a friendly smile. And of course, there was River, ripped from the thick pages of a magazine, looking so far out of Jess’s league that she could only laugh at his approach.

He noticed and gave an unsure smile. “What’s funny?”

“Nothing.” She lifted a hand and let it fall in defeat. “Of course, you just—look so nice.”

He stopped in front of her and dropped his gaze from her head to her feet and back again. His voice was a sandpaper scrape. “So do you.”

“Liar.”

He quirked a smile. “Nope.”

It’s all an act, she thought. Even Dracula was notoriously charming.

Then, so quickly she wondered how long he’d been working himself up to it, he bent down and kissed her cheek. Jess was so shocked by this turn of events, he may as well have reached a single finger out and touched her forehead, ET-style. Michelle was probably watching this and writing the headline in her head: Wow, They Are Totally Fake Dating.

Subhead: And They Are Terrible at It.

“Hi,” Jess said, because her brain didn’t remember other words.

River smiled this unfamiliar, private smile and parroted cutely back at her, “Hi.”

Subtitle revision: And She Is Terrible at It.

Michelle reminded them that she was standing there, too. “You two are cute.”

Jess had to literally bite her tongue to not reply, No we aren’t.

River seemed to have also expected her to come back with something contrary and offered a proud flicker of his eyebrow before turning back to Michelle. “Michelle, this is Jess. Jess, Michelle.”

The two women shook hands, and Michelle gestured to an outcropping of rocks near the water. “Should we get started?” As they walked, she pointed to the man with all the cameras. “Jess, this is Blake. He’ll be getting some photos. For now, we’ll just chat while he sets up.” She tilted her head to Blake but kept her eyes on Jess. “If you see him snapping some pictures, he’s just getting candids. I promise we’ll make you look great. Just try to relax as much as possible, be natural.”

Jess took a deep breath and exhaled as completely as she could, clocking that in the process her shoulders dropped from up near her ears back to normal shoulder position.

Comfortably, as though he spent most of his day in front of a film crew rather than at investor meetings, River sat on a rock just below waist height and opened his arm, gesturing for Jess to sit down beside him.

Jess took three steps closer and sat down in a stumble, legs awkwardly pinched together to avoid leaning into his long, solid body. With ease, he shifted her closer to a flatter surface, and now she was in a more comfortable position but they were sitting pressed together like people who were effortlessly intimate.

Which they were not.

“Jess,” Michelle said, and then added, “I hope it’s okay to call you Jess. It’s how River referred to you…?”

“Jess is great.”

“Great,” she repeated. “I’ve interviewed River before for a piece on the company, so I have some good background there, but this is my first time talking to him as a client. Before we get to him, I’m interested in hearing about how you came into all this. What made you take the test in the first place?”

“Honestly,” Jess said, “I was dragged into it by a friend. She and I—and River—are regulars at this coffee shop, and one of the baristas mentioned River was starting some kind of dating site. Which”—she pointed to him—“I mean, be honest, he looks more like a hot medieval history professor, right?”

Michelle laughed, nodding. “He totally does.” She wrote something down.

“But he invited us to come out to the offices,” Jess said, and looked up at River to replace him smiling at her fondly. It was rattling and threw her off her easy, unselfconscious rhythm. “So, we did.”

“And what was it like for you, meeting Jess?” she asked River.

“We hadn’t officially met until that day,” he said, and reached up to run his hand through his hair like a gorgeous stereotype. “I’d noticed her,” he said, looking at her again and letting his gaze move thoroughly over her features. “I’ve seen her there for a couple years now, but had no idea what her name was.”

“Did you want to know?”

He looked at Michelle with a small smirk. “Of course I did. Look at her.” He gestured to Jess.

“Above average?” Jess snarked, unable to help herself.

He gave her a playful but cautious smile. “Far above average. Only an idiot would suggest otherwise.”

Michelle watched this exchange with interest. “I’m sensing there’s a backstory there, but I’ll move on. Jess, can you tell me a little about yourself?”

While Jess gave a skeletal rundown of her life—her undergraduate work at UCLA, her first job at Google, and her later work as a freelancer—River’s attention on the side of her face was like the press of a hot iron. She could feel him smiling, nodding at these various bites of information. She could even hear the tiny hums of affirmation he offered every now and then. Like a proud boyfriend. He was good at this.

“And what did you think when you got the DNADuo score of ninety-eight?” Michelle asked.

At least she could answer plainly here. “I didn’t believe it.”

River laughed. “I didn’t, either.”

“I can imagine,” Michelle said.

“Think about it,” he said. Jess swallowed about a cubic liter of air when River threaded the fingers of his left hand with her right. He was very good at this. “I’ve seen hundreds of thousands of these scores over the past decade. I’d never seen a ninety-eight. What are the odds it would be me?”

“I’d say they were very slim.”

“Slim to none. In fact,” River told her, “Jess could probably calculate those odds.”

“I could, for sure,” she said, grinning. “That score is, as we mathematicians like to say, ‘deeply fucking unexpected.’ ”

They both laughed, and River squeezed her hand in a tiny Good job gesture. At least, she assumed that’s what he meant. It could easily have been more like Don’t say the F-word in front of the reporter.

“So you get the score, you both take a beat to digest it. Then what?”

“Then,” River said with honeyed calm, “we went out for dinner.”

“How did it go?”

He looked down at Jess, eyes smiling. “I’d say it went well.”

“So,” Michelle singsonged gently, “you’d say you’re officially together?”

Instantly, Jess’s hand went slick and sweaty in River’s grasp. As covertly as she could without Michelle noticing, she unthreaded it, wiping it on her thigh. “Uh,” she said, squinting at the horizon like the question required deep calculation. “River?”

Just as she said his name, River gave a definitive “We are.”

Michelle laughed.

“Yeah, we are, I’m just kidding,” Jess said, as he added, “At least, we’re open to what the future holds.”

Smiling, Michelle bent to write something down again. Jess threw River a murder look. He threw one right back. They probably should have anticipated this sort of question. They turned away and fastened smiles on their faces just before Michelle looked back up.

“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 replace it for other people, but I somehow hadn’t self-inserted into any of DNADuo’s replaceings. 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 replaceing 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 replace 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.”

“What does that mean?” River asked.

“What does what mean?”

“ ‘Look at you,’ ” he repeated.

Jess laughed.

Blake clicked the shutter.

“It means,” Jess said, “that this is what you do. Of course I expect you to be smoother at all things dating and public-appearance related. I mean, I’m—”

“If you say ‘average,’ I’m going to toss you into the bay.”

“I wasn’t going to,” she said, laughing. Click.

River exhaled a long, slow breath behind her, warm on her neck. A shiver ran through her, rattling her spine.

He noticed: “Are you cold?”

“Freezing,” she admitted.

Jess felt him shift so he stood fully behind her. Just as she was going to ask him what he was doing, he stretched his arms out and she found herself being wrapped up in soft warmth, pressed against a wall of hard heat. River had tucked her into his coat, enclosing her inside it with him.

Click.

He wasn’t shaking or unsteady. He held her firmly, his front pressed all along her back like it was no big deal. Jess’s senses went haywire.

Michelle laughed. “Jess, you’re blushing.”

She couldn’t even pretend this was normal. “I’m sure I am.”

“So, I take it the physical side of—”

“No comment,” River cut in, voice sharp.

But now the image was well and truly sparking inside her mind: Sex with River. Him over her. Sweaty beneath her. Growling and commanding behind her. Jess’s body betrayed her, arching back a bit, and his tiny muffled groan told her the movement had registered.

Michelle turned and conferred with Blake over something on his camera screen, and Jess leaned minutely forward for some physical cooldown, but River pulled her back against him again, wrapping his arms around her waist. Pressed to her.

“You’re cold,” he reminded her, murmuring into her hair.

“Less so now,” she said under her breath, and he laughed warmly.

Click.

Jess bit her bottom lip, restraining a hysterical laugh that bubbled up her throat. “Are you turned on?”

His voice was a blend of embarrassed and matter-of-fact close to her ear. “I might be.”

“Oh my God.”

“You just—pressed yourself against me.”

Jess bent, stifling a laugh—

Click. Click.

—but this just pushed her ass back into him further and he let out a quiet hiss, pulling her closer. “Jessica.”

She unleashed the laugh. For just a tiny beat, she wielded the power of the entire universe. Jess had turned on the formidable River Peña.

Click.

“You’re enjoying this,” he growled.

“Of course I am. So are you, apparently.”

“I’d enjoy it more if we didn’t have an audience.”

Click.

“Are you hitting on me?”

“It sounds like I am.” He seemed as surprised as she was.

“Do we even like each other?”

He adjusted his arms around her, heavy and secure. “Still under review.”

Click.

He sighed. “I think… well, I don’t know about you, but I’m starting to like you.”

Easier to be brave facing the parking lot instead of his handsome face, his arms grounding her from floating away. “I don’t know about soulmate, but I’d admit to lust.” She turned her face to the side. His mouth was so close to hers.

River stilled, glanced down at her lips. “Is that right?”

His tone snagged Jess, who finally felt brave enough to meet his eyes. Heat melted through her.

Click.