Perhaps it sounded romantic: walking the world alone, forever twenty-five, and waiting, waiting, waiting for your soulmate. The legend went that the gods of old took pity upon the agony and suffering of mankind and promised them a soulmate, the perfect person with whom your life could be lived out and shared. So, while the humans slept, the gods descended upon them and like a warm whisper, simultaneously cursed and blessed them and every generation that followed.
You would simply turn twenty-five and stop aging until you met your soulmate. And then, as the stories told, you would feel the crackle and tingle of electricity as your lips touched theirs and your cells would come bursting to life with activity once more. Your skin cells would shed, your hair grow, cells would die and regenerate and you would age and live out the rest of your lives together: aging and in tandem.
Most found their soulmates within a few years. Soulmates, after all, were those you cried out for, the ones you grew up with, the ones you longed for. The longest someone had ever waited was fifty-three years. When Alice Harvey finally-finally-met Matthew Lawson, she just knew. As she later confessed to the reporters who hounded them, desperate for a story to lift the spirits of lonely souls everywhere: He was waiting for me and I was waiting for him. Someone had to stop waiting and go looking.
She had traveled from New York to London to Sydney to Melbourne to Ballarat, simply following her heart straight to him. Alice, on the arm of a beaming and shellshocked Matthew, had joked, "I had all the time in the world. I could afford a little walking, a little adventure." She held the record for "Longest Soulmate Wait" but she preferred the accolade of Matthew Lawson's soulmate best.
And then, stealing her record and baffling the world, Lucien Blake turned twenty-five and the world stopped turning for him for eighty-seven years.
At first, Lucien was confident, cocky. He was a good looking bloke, twenty-five, indestructible, cocky, and from a privileged home. Surely, surely his soulmate was simply around the corner, waiting for him, waiting for the best parts of their lives to being.
On the day of his twenty-fifth birthday, he kissed Monica Parker through a sure grin, confident he would feel the tingle of bursting cells, his mother's engagement ring sat heavy in his pocket, waiting to be lifted and placed on her finger.
But the kiss, while as warm and wet and pleasurable as he could ask for, was just that: a kiss.
No tingle. No crackle. No electricity.
He pulled away, frowning. "I'm so sorry, Monica. But I-you're-we're not-"
But she had put a finger to his lips, a sad smile on her face and shook her head at him. "No, we're not." It was the first of many disappointments in Lucien's life, a soulmate just out of reach.
When he returned home, his father-looking older than he had in some time-simply put a heavy, comforting hand on his shoulder, eyes sad and distant. "Perhaps it's better this way, son. Perhaps it's better to not find her."
Lucien stared at his father. Thomas, who had lost his soulmate so soon after finding her, who had waited and waited for years only to spend a fraction of his life with her. Perhaps his father was right-a soulmate was something that stopped you from living. You could live forever, travel everywhere, do everything. He didn't need love, didn't need a soulmate.
He nodded at his father, thinking. "Perhaps."
Upstairs in the quiet comfort of his bedroom, he slipped his mother's engagement ring into his bedside drawer where it would remain for the next eighty-seven years. The soft click of the drawer, encasing the ring in darkness, echoed the closing of his heart. A soulmate was not for him, but life-life-was.
The next day, he traveled to Edinburgh and began his formal medical training. Life was waiting.
For eighty-six years and six months, Lucien Blake walked the world alone. Medical school in Edinburgh, residency in London, fellowship in France. Then, onto the military, enlisting in the Army and fighting beside his fellow countrymen. At each stop along the way, he saw man after man, woman after woman, find their soulmate.
He watched as sleek brown and blonde hair turned frizzy and gray, smooth skin turn wrinkly, and unadorned left ring fingers become encircled with bands of gold and silver and diamond and emeralds and sapphires.
But he, Lucien, remained free and young and youthful. There had been moments in which he was sure-so sure-that he had found her. Mei Lin had filled his heart with wonder and adventure and excitement. Her kisses were hot and searching and left him gasping for air, wanting nothing more than to lean back in and drink her up.
But his face remained smooth and ageless and Mei Lin kissed him soundly, murmuring against his lips that just because they weren't soulmates didn't mean they couldn't have a good time.
When he made love to her, it took on a desperation that had never been there before-as if he could fuck his way into making her his soulmate. For the first time in his long, long life Lucien felt desperate and lonely. He wanted to move on to the next chapter of his life.
But that aching, hollow, empty feeling that loneliness sometimes leaves sat in his chest and his father's words from long ago echoed in his mind: Perhaps it's better this way. Perhaps it's better to not find her.
And when he received the note the next morning that his father had passed away, he took it as a sign that he needed to come home, that his father had reached out and reminded him with his last breath that soulmates were for suckers.
He kissed Mei Lin goodbye and wished her good luck as he gathered his pants and shirt and shoes and headed for the airport-only his wallet and clothes in hand. The flight home had never felt so long.
Jean Beazley, his father's housekeeper, was shockingly beautiful. A young, smooth face, curled hair, and stunning eyes that seemed to pierce through you, see into your heart and size you up before you had time to utter your name.
Her eyes were narrowed as she took in his disheveled appearance and she ignored his outstretched hand of introduction and simply stepped aside to let him in. "I know who you are," she said, simply. And for the first time in a long time, it felt like she did know who he was-perhaps better than he knew himself.
They stood in the hallway of his childhood home, the ghost of his father hovering in the walls, and Lucien felt his heart pick up speed. Was this her? He couldn't remember the last time he felt this pull towards someone before-as if an invisible golden thread connected them.
As they walked to the kitchen, exchanging introductions and pleasantries, Lucien couldn't help but notice the way they orbited one another, balanced each other. For each flick of his eyes towards her, she would turn away. For each furtive glance she snuck, he would avert his gaze. Yin and yang.
Lucien was getting ready to take a chance-one last chance-to ask if she had been waiting, too. Had she felt the pull between them? Had she been waiting as long as he had?
The words were rising up in his throat, sticking against his tongue, about to drop from his lips, his heart beating wildly, when he saw it: a wedding ring, glinting off her finger in the dim yellow light of the Blake kitchen.
The words dried up immediately, the hope dying in his chest.
Married.
Was he so lonely, so desperate, he was sensing connection where there wasn't one?
He accepted the slightly shaking teacup and saucer she offered him with a smile and winked at her as he pulled out a flask from his coat pocket and added a splash of whiskey. He laughed at her shocked look and tucked the flash back in.
"You get to be my age and you learn to enjoy the consolations of life-however few they may be."
Jean snorted into her cup before reaching over and plucking the flask from his coat, shaking it slightly and hearing the liquid slosh about. She quirked an eyebrow at him. "There seems to be rather a lot of consolation here." Then, to his surprise, she unscrewed the cap and added a generous splash to her own cup before handing it back to him.
They clinked their teacups together and drank deeply, Jean grimacing at the burn of whiskey. Lucien hid a smile behind his cup.
Jean Beazley may just made it worth his while to stay in Ballarat. At least, he told himself, until he could understand this thread, this connection between them-wedding ring or no.
In the ensuing months, Lucien had never felt so frustrated, so challenged, so enamored by another human being before as he did with Jean Beazley.
Jean-who offered nothing of her personal life-but was was there pick and hover and thread herself into his own life. Jean-who wore a wedding ring-but never spoke of her husband. Jean-who learned how he liked his tea and who woke him with a gentle touch on the back of his neck when he fell asleep over a case file. Jean-who he was starting to lean on more and more, who he was falling in love with more and more each day. Jean-who agreed to be not his housekeeper, but his partner.
It was driving him crazy. She was driving him crazy. For almost eighty-seven years, he had accepted his fate of loneliness. That perhaps there was simply no one for him. And now, with the woman he felt he could hand his heart over to, the woman who he wanted to see sprout age lines around her eyes and see her curling brown hair streaked with grey-this woman was married.
He had dared to hope and that hope had been wadded up and thrown back in his face.
So he did what he had done for his entire life: he drank it all away.
Whiskey after whiskey at the club, he downed each one of them as if the burn from the alcohol could burn away his feelings. If he could forget her, he could move on. He could continue roaming the Earth alone, forget what it felt like to want a soulmate, to want her.
But then he remembered Jean's soft confession from a few weeks ago, that she and her husband had wanted to travel before he fell ill; that she wanted to see the world. He would travel alone and see the wonders of the world, yes, but he would forever think of her, of Jean, and wish she was at his side, hand in his, seeing the wonder right alongside him.
The whiskey, he decided, wasn't working. The tab paid, his vision blurring, his head fuzzy, and his heart aching in the way only alcohol could make it do, he stumbled home. Lucien wanted to fall into bed and wake up and have the strength to leave Ballarat, leave Jean.
Except, upon his rather loud and clumsy entrance into his home, he found himself face to face with an irate Jean Beazley.
He squinted at her, as if unable to believe she was there, standing in his hallway. But there she was, hands on her hips, and a glower firmly in place.
He groaned and slumped against the wall, sliding down it and looking up at her through blurry eyes. "Jean, please, just go. Can we talk about this tomorrow?"
She squatted down in front of him, hand on his arm. There it was again-that hot, electric jolt all across his skin, as if he was coming back to life after a long, long sleep. Her hand crept over his arm and up to his face, tilting his head back so she could look at him. Her fingers pushed the stray curl of hair off his forehead and she shook her head at him.
"Oh, Lucien," she sighed. There was something there-a sadness-to her voice that made Lucien keen, made him want to roll over and beg and plead and promise that he would do anything to make her happy again.
"What happened that you needed this?" She stood and tried to lift him, slinging his arm over her shoulders and behind her neck, and he went willingly, allowing her to lead him to the bedroom.
His brain whirled as he processed her question and he thought how he could tell her everything, even as he tumbled into bed and she pulled his shoes off and tucked him in. It came to him then and he grabbed her arm, stopping her from leaving.
The light from the hallway cut across her face, leaving her in half shadow and Lucien wished he could see her.
"I have waited," he started, the words thick in his throat. "Such a long time for you. Almost eighty-seven years. And then I find you and you're-" He broke off, chuckling in that dry, flat way when all you can do is laugh in the face of misery. "And you're married. I have waited for you and you aren't for me at all. I just wanted you."
The alcohol caught up to him, then, and his eyes flickered closed and he turned over, mumbling into the pillow, "I just wanted you."
With his back to her and his eyes closed, Lucien missed the way Jean's face contorted, the way her fingers twisted at the thick gold band on her finger. All he knew was the heavy weight of a confession, of a burden, leaving his shoulders as he fell into a deep, alcohol-induced sleep.
The next morning, Lucien stumbled down the hallway, the events of the previous night flooding into his mind. He half-expected to see a note of resignation from Jean on the kitchen table. Perhaps this was the sign he needed: it was time to move on. There was nothing here for him. He had ruined the one good thing he did have.
However, instead of a note, he found Jean herself at his table, the tea kettle still gently steaming on the stove and two fresh cups of tea spread out on the surface of the table. Next to his cup stood a tall glass of water and a handful of white Bex tablets.
He took his seat beside Jean, sneaking glances at her over the rim of his teacup. With a contented sigh at the feel of the smooth tea soothing his throat and the Bex already working their magic, he slumped back in his chair, nervously tracing the rim of his cup with the tip of his finger.
Before his apology could bubble up from his lips and escape, Jean slid her wedding ring off her finger and placed it on the table between them. Lucien stared at the ring and then at Jean, mouth parted slightly.
Jean swallowed and began her tale. "I have hidden behind this ring for far too long, Lucien. I was married, yes, long ago. When Christopher and I met, he was my first love. I had never kissed another boy, had barely even touched one. My mother was old-fashioned-believed in saving myself, every part of myself-for my soulmate. When Christopher kissed me at twenty-five and slid his ring on my finger, it felt like he was my soulmate. Kissing was so nice and kissing Christopher felt right."
Jean looked up at him then, tears stinging her eyes. "But I was so wrong, Lucien. We married and the years passed, but we never got older."
Understanding dawned on Lucien's face, the hope in his chest blooming once more and he leaned forward, covering Jean's hand with his own. The crackle, the heat, of their combined touch slid up their arms and this time, like a veil had been lifted from his eyes, Lucien saw that Jean felt it, too. Jean shuddered and he tightened his grip on her.
Jean licked her lips and continued, eyes fixed on their joined hands. "We realized we had made a mistake-that we weren't each other's soulmates at all. We agreed to part ways and start over. But Lucien, I felt so, so ashamed. I had been so wrong. I thought about what my soulmate-my real soulmate-would say when he learned I hadn't waited; when he learned that I couldn't tell the difference between a nice kiss and a soulmate's kiss."
She shook her head at herself, wiping a tear from beneath her eye. She gave him a watery smile. "So I moved here and pretended that my soulmate had died. It was easier this way-to just pretend. It stopped the whispers and stares and speculations. But then," she laughed. "Then I met you."
She peered at him from beneath damp eyelashes. "I thought maybe it was just me. But then last night..."
Jean trailed off and Lucien scooted forward, his chair scraping against the linoleum floor and his large, calloused hand cupped her cheek, thumb wiping away a stray tear. "It wasn't just you. Oh, Jean. It wasn't just you at all."
He wanted to tell her about how long he had walked the world, the things he had seen, the number of times he had given up hope of ever finding her. He wanted to tell her sometimes he felt like a scared little boy, afraid to be alone in the dark and desperately wishing for a hand to hold.
But his chest was tight and eighty-seven years of loneliness and longing seemed to be charged and electric within him and he lifted their joined hands to his lips, pressing a single solitary kiss to the place where their fingers entwined.
At the touch of his lips to her skin, both jolted as warmth and heat flooded through them. If this was what a simple kiss on the hand felt like...
Lucien traced her lips with his finger and Jean shuddered at his touch. "Please," he croaked out. "Please let me kiss you. Please. I have waited-we-have waited so long, love."
The endearment, the desperation, years of waiting all culminated into a single gesture: a nod.
Lucien seemed to sink against her-into her-their joined lips a point of contact as their bodies and souls cried out together. His lips covered hers and they drowned in the feel of light and life and a new beginning crashing over them.
She gasped at the sheer electricity his touch elicited and he took the opportunity to lick into her mouth, tasting tea and honey and lemon and Jean.
Jean's hands anchored themselves on either side of his face, holding him to her and drinking from his lips, each kiss a fresh sip, each lave of her tongue quenching her thirst for him.
For the first time, they felt complete. For the first time, they were home.
Pulling away, breathless and happier than he had ever been in his entire life, laughter and happiness and love bubbling up from his chest, expressing itself as peppered kisses across Jean's lips and cheeks and forehead and nose, Lucien felt everything click into place.
He pulled away, forehead resting on hers, and teased, "Do you think that was a soulmate's kiss?"
She swatted his shoulder before grinning and pulling him closer to her by his robe's lapel, lips slanting over his and laughing into his mouth. "Prat," she murmured.
Their kisses were tinged with the taste of tea, the sunlight filtered in through the kitchen window and bathed them in a warmth of light that equaled the warmth of their union.
His father, Lucien decided was wrong. It wasn't better to never have this, to never find this. Jean was his.
And she was worth every second, every year, of waiting.