by Erin M. Leaf
****
Two hours and one cold shower later, Theo lounged on his sofa, staring at his phone. He had Guy’s contact information on the display. Did he dare text? Would it seem presumptuous? He grimaced. Am I back in middle school? Before he could talk himself out of it, he typed out Hope you had a good day, and hit “send”.
Almost immediately, he wanted to smack himself in the head. “Hope you had a good day?” I sound like an idiot. He waited, staring at his phone as embarrassment coiled in his gut. The worst part about being an Empath was that you got used to relying on your talent, and then when you had to communicate via email or phone, you felt like you were missing some vital part of the conversation.
Guy: Hey.
Theo waited, but Guy didn’t say anything else. He thought about Rose’s teasing, and almost gave up, but then he remembered the shocked look on Guy’s face after their last kiss. He remembered the tree, and though he’d never seen anything like it before, he knew the pattern Guy had unconsciously formed into the bark was important. Guy was his soulmate. Nothing could change that.
Theo: Friday feels like a long time, even though it’s only a few days away.
Guy: Yeah, about that… The cursor blinked.
Oh no, he’s not going to cancel, is he? Theo waited, watching his phone. If Guy backed out, he’d hunt the man down. He wasn’t giving up without at least trying to woo the man, even if it meant he’d have to beg. Not everyone meets their soulmate, he reminded himself. I’m lucky. This is important. Special.
Guy: I’ve never been on a date with a man before.
Relief spread through Theo. Uncertainty he could handle. Nerves he could work with.
Theo: We can call it a friendly lunch if that would make you feel better. He was willing to call it whatever the hell Guy wanted, as long as they could see each other.
Guy: Maybe we should postpone it.
Theo frowned. Postpone? What the hell does that mean? He rubbed his chin. Maybe Guy really didn’t know they were soulmates? Yeah, no. The tree thing was weird, and wonderful, and the look on Guy’s face had told him that the older man knew. But maybe he doesn’t want to admit it to himself. Theo finally decided to just be honest. He typed slowly, choosing his words with care.
Theo: I won’t do anything you don’t want to do, but I was looking forward to lunch.
Guy: I’m sorry.
Theo: What? What for? He chewed the inside of his cheek. Now he was nervous.
Guy: I’m sorry.
Fuck. He’s repeating himself. Theo shook his head. Sometimes, he absolutely hated texting. He couldn’t sense anything, and it often felt like walking into a room full of important people completely blind. You had no idea where the steps were, or how to get your damned coat off without looking like a fool. Before he could second guess himself, he tapped Guy’s number on his phone. Two seconds later the line was ringing. “Pick up, Guy. Answer the phone,” he muttered, waiting.
“Theo,” Guy said, after the fourth ring.
“You weren’t going to answer, were you?” Theo leaned back on his bed, wishing he hadn’t had to catch a train back to DC. He had a morning meeting at the Capitol building, but he’d much rather be back home in New York where he wasn’t hours and hours of driving away from Guy.
“It’s complicated,” Guy said.
Theo rolled his eyes. “No, actually, it’s not.” He waited.
Guy sighed loud enough that Theo could hear him through the phone. “I wasn’t prepared for this.”
“This call?” Theo closed his eyes. Just the sound of Guy’s voice made him hard. He touched himself lightly, not so he could get off, but because it made him feel less alone. He grimaced. There was nothing so pathetic as an Empath feeling lonely, because it wasn’t like he couldn’t open up his Craft talent and feel all the emotions ricocheting around him if he wanted to. From what he’d learned, most Empaths spent a lot of time and effort trying to get away from people. Theo spent his time trying to be a good Delegate, and that meant he had to keep his talent under strict control or he’d go crazy. And none of the people around me are my soulmate. That makes all the difference.
“Guy?” Theo prompted, when the older man let the silence run on a bit too long. Ok, no more teasing. Obviously, he’s not in the mood. “What weren’t you prepared for?” he asked, seriously.
Guy laughed, but he sounded like he was half-strangled. “I wasn’t prepared to meet my soulmate.”
Theo went still. Well. That answers that question. He definitely knows. He took a deep breath and let it out again before he trusted himself to answer calmly. His cock wasn’t half hard anymore. It was throbbing and aching. He cupped himself, shuddering at the pleasure of it. “So, you know.”
“Yeah, I know.” Guy made a rough sound that went straight to Theo’s dick. “I wasn’t prepared for it. I loved my wife.”
“Loving your wife doesn’t preclude meeting your soulmate,” Theo pointed out.
“I know,” Guy said quietly. “But I was married for most of my life.”
“I actually like that you were married for a long time.” Theo held his breath, wondering if Guy was going to be angry at him for that. He meant it, though. Guy’s capacity for love was obvious, at least to him. And there’s no question that the man knows how to commit. From what he’d read, the biggest problems with soulmates happened when one of them had no idea what it meant to bond for life with another person. Non-gifted humans could divorce. Soulmates couldn’t.
“I have no idea why you’d like that. It just means I have decades of baggage to drag along behind me,” Guy said, sounding sad. “I’m not the most cheerful person, these days.”
Theo sighed. “Your marriage is part of who you are, and I like it because it means you’re a good person. You love with your whole heart, not just a piece of yourself. I sensed it when I was with you.” He adjusted the pillows under his head. “It’s okay if you’re sad, Guy. If you weren’t, I’d be worried.”
Guy didn’t answer for a long moment. “I told my son about you.”
“You have a son?” Theo sat up, his erection fading a bit. How would Guy’s kid handle his father suddenly showing up with a soulmate? Probably not well. Shit.
“He’s twenty-three. He’s a veterinarian, with Healing Craft,” Guy said.
“Oh.” Theo breathed a sigh of relief. “Wow. Okay. That’s cool.”
“Yeah. He was happy for me.” Guy made a funny sound that Theo interpreted as disbelief. “I told him about meeting you, and he told me he’d known I was bi for years now. And then he told me I was a coward if I denied our connection.”
Oh, that’s harsh. Theo looked across the room. Tonight’s full moon was obscured by fast moving clouds. “Um, but you said—”
Guy cut him off. “Yeah, I know I said I wasn’t gay. But apparently, I talk in my sleep, and my wife knew I was bi all along, even though I didn’t really know. And she told Jonathan years ago, as if it was no big deal.” He sighed. “It was an awkward conversation, to say the least.”
I bet. Theo absorbed this information. “I don’t know what to say.” He thought about Guy’s revelation. The poor man was clearly struggling to reconcile his past with his newfound knowledge. “I take it you had some interesting dreams from time to time,” he said, tentatively.
“Yeah, I did. But I didn’t really think about my sexuality. I’m not being deceitful here. I loved my wife. I was happy.” Guy let out a noisy breath. “There’s more, though.”
Theo ran a hand over his face. He didn’t care about more. He cared that Guy wasn’t having a total breakdown. And hell, he wasn’t sure he could handle more. “Are you okay?” he asked, stalling so he could get a handle on the emotions zooming around his gut. He looked down at his wilted cock in disappointment. No action for you right now.
“Not really,” Guy said in a clipped voice.
“I’m sorry,” Theo said, grimacing. He couldn’t sense Guy’s pain over the phone, but he could sure as hell hear it. “This is a
lot to take in, I know.”
“It’s not your fault,” Guy told him.
“We can cool it, if you want,” Theo offered, even though it was the last thing he wanted to do. “I’m okay with postponing our lunch.” He waited, holding his breath. He wasn’t really okay with it, but he was an adult, and he could deal. As long as he still talks to me. I’m not about to let him ghost me. Not when we’ve just met. He ran a hand over his face.
“No, you’re not okay with it,” Guy said.
Theo wrinkled his nose. “Look, I’m not trying to push you into anything. I don’t want that. It’s not a good way to start off, you know?”
“No, it’s not, but fate is trying to push us together. I feel like the world is laughing at me,” Guy told him.
Theo couldn’t think of a damned thing to say to that. Soulmates were fated, to some extent. Genetics, power, luck—who really knew why some gifted people met their perfect match and some didn’t?
Guy didn’t seem to notice Theo’s silence. “I came home after I talked to my son, and then for some reason I pulled out the chunk of maple burl my wife had picked out for our soulmate rings when we were first married. I haven’t touched it in over fifteen years.”
Theo didn’t understand what that had to do with anything. “But she wasn’t your soulmate.” He winced as soon as the words left his mouth. You could have said that better. What the hell kind of Empath are you? he berated himself.
“No, Pamela wasn’t my soulmate, but we wanted it so bad, we thought we could make it happen, even though she wasn’t gifted. We thought we could will it into existence. Like an idiot, I’d read all the stories about latent talent suddenly coming out. We were stupid, and young,” Guy said softly, and the pain in his voice came through loud and clear, even through the phone’s mechanical connection. “This was years ago, you understand. When we first got married. Before Jonathan was born.”
Theo swallowed against the lump in his throat. He didn’t know who he felt worse for, Guy, or the dead wife he’d loved so deeply. “That must have been very difficult,” he managed to say, clamping down on his self-control. The conversation was starting to erode his mental barriers. He did not need to sense the couple in the condo next door having sex tonight. Or, you know, ever. He’d suffered through that the first time he’d slept here, before he’d realized he’d need to keep his mental walls up all the time.
“Pamela handled the futility of it better than me, God knows why,” Guy said, sounding tired.
“Probably because she knew you loved her, and that was enough,” Theo said, knowing it was true. “Sometimes people just know. They don’t need fancy rings or a special bond or anything like that. They just know.”
“That sounds like you’re speaking from experience.”
Ha. I wish. Theo shook his head, even though Guy couldn’t see him. “I’ve never been in love,” he said, keeping the until now to himself. “But I’m almost thirty-one years old, and I’m an Empath. I know people. I’ve sensed their emotions since I was born. And some couples love so deeply they may as well be soulmates even without the mystical energy that can bind two people with Craft power together. It sounds to me like that’s what you had.” What he didn’t say was that some people hated as deeply as others loved, and if he hadn’t met Rose in school, he’d have grown up thinking the entire world was a terrible place. Her friendship and her family saved him from his childhood with his parents who’d hated each other deep inside, but acted like they loved each other on the surface. The only one who knew it was all a charade was him, Theo. They’d even managed to hide their misery from each other. Because that’s what rich, entitled people do.
Guy was silent for so long Theo pulled the phone away from his head to look at the display. No, the connection is still active.
“My wife was an insightful woman,” Guy finally said.
“Tell me about her. Tell me about Pamela.” Guy was his soulmate. Theo wanted to know everything about him, including the woman he’d spent half his life with. He felt like he should be jealous, but he wasn’t. Pamela’s life and death were part of what had made Guy the man he was, and Theo felt nothing but gratitude for her influence on him. “I know people say you should move on, but I’ve found that the best way to honor someone’s memory is by keeping it alive. And…” He paused, not sure how Guy would take this, but then decided to plunge ahead. “I’d like to know her.”
“You’re sure?”
Theo nodded. “I’m positive.”
Guy drew in a shaky breath. “She was intelligent, and kind. She worked as an engineer, and she was a good one.” He laughed. “We used to joke that I was her house-husband, because I stayed home with my woodworking and raised Jonathan, but it was never like that.”
“What did she look like?”
“She had dark red hair and blue eyes. She was delicate, and had a strength that most people didn’t know about.” Guy’s voice had gone low, and Theo’s flagging erection perked up again. “She loved cinnamon buns, and autumn.”
“She sounds beautiful,” Theo said softly. He lived firmly on the gay side of the fence, but he was an Empath, and he’d dated women. He’d even made love to a few, and it had been nice, because he was an Empath, and there was no way for him to have sex without the other person enjoying it. He could picture the woman Guy described, and he smiled even as he cupped his cock. “Tell me more. What did she taste like?” His own voice was low. Aroused. He wondered if Guy would be able to tell. He wondered if there was something wrong with him because he was getting off to the description of his soulmate’s dead wife.
“She tasted like cinnamon, most days,” Guy said roughly. “She liked cinnamon toothpaste. She had beautiful, pale skin, which she hated. She always wanted to get tan, but it wasn’t in the cards.” He chuckled softly. “She was gorgeous, even when she thought she looked a mess. I can’t even begin to describe what she looked like when she was pregnant. She glowed.”
Theo groaned softly. The sound of Guy’s voice was pure sex, and he wished he were there. He wanted to touch Guy and help him remember what it was like to make love with someone who loved him. He gripped his cock, hard.
“Yeah. She was something.” Guy sighed, and Theo heard a note of longing in his voice.
“I would’ve liked to have met her,” he said, giving in and slipping his hand into his pants. He couldn’t stop himself, no matter how perverted it was. He closed his eyes and imagined Guy making love to his wife. The image made him tremble. Guy would be big and strong and dark against his wife’s pale, delicate skin.
“She would’ve liked you,” Guy said, sounding sure of it.
Theo swallowed as he wrapped his fingers around his cock. “I hope so.” He exhaled shakily. He was close to the edge, and he hadn’t even really done anything. He squeezed his fingers around the head of his erection, wondering where all of his self-control had gone. Not to mention, my self-respect. He grimaced, but he didn’t remove his hand.
“Are you touching yourself?” Guy asked, and Theo froze, hearing the uncertainty in the older man’s voice. Even that aroused him.
Fuck. “Guy—” Theo began, but his soulmate cut him off.
“You are. God, that’s—”
Theo waited, holding his breath, but Guy didn’t continue. “That’s what?” he finally asked, hand still curled around his erection. He had to clear his throat twice before he could get the words out, because it felt so good. It felt even better with Guy’s voice in his ear.
“Crazy. Hot.” Guy sounded breathless. “God help me.”
Holy shit. Theo licked his lips. Those words weren’t those of a man who was angry. They were the words of a man who sounded aroused. He took a chance and went with his instincts. “Are you hard, Guy?”
“Fuck,” Guy groaned. “Yes, I’m aroused. I keep picturing the way you looked up against that tree. I keep remembering how you felt. Jesus, I can’t stop remembering it.”
“Is that a bad thing?” Theo asked. It was a good t
hing he was wearing soft sleep pants, because there was no way he had the coordination to deal with a zipper or buttons right now.
“I don’t know,” Guy said.
“Touch yourself,” Theo told him.
“Theo—”
“No one is around, right? You’re a grown man.” Theo took a deep breath and let it out shakily. “You wouldn’t be hurting anyone.”
“We were just talking about my wife,” Guy said, his voice breaking.
“And what better way to keep her memory alive?” Theo shoved his pants down and palmed his cock without any fabric in the way. God, it felt good. He could almost feel Guy through the phone. They weren’t bonded yet, but it didn’t seem to matter. The arousal simmered even with Guy hundreds of miles away.
“You want me to jerk off with you while thinking about Pamela?” Guy asked, sounding incredulous.
Put like that, Theo could see Guy’s hesitation. “Then don’t think about her. Think about me. Imagine I’m right there with you. Imagine I’m kissing you again, and instead of letting me go, you keep me shoved up against that tree. Imagine if we hadn’t stopped.” He inhaled deeply, trying to fend off his orgasm. “Hell, I am right here with you, Guy. I’m right here, right now, and I’m going to come with the sound of your voice in my ear.” He licked his lips. “I’m going to make a fucking mess of myself, and it’s all because of you.”
“Frigging hell,” Guy muttered. “What are you doing to me?”
“Does it feel good?” Theo asked, thumb over the slit of his cock. Wet heat seeped out beneath his fingers, slippery and good.
“Yeah.” Guy cleared his throat. “Yeah. It does.”
“Enjoy it, then.” Theo imagined Guy’s hand wrapped around his shaft. “When was the last time you did this?”
“Too long ago. Years. Before Pamela—” He broke off.
That’s not right. Even while his heart hurt for Guy, Theo understood all the things his soulmate didn’t want to say out loud. He exhaled slowly, willing himself to hang on. “She wouldn’t want you to suffer, Guy.” He spread his legs and let his fingers slip down to his hole. He imagined Guy teasing him, and moaned softly. He wanted Guy so bad he almost didn’t care if anyone heard him right now. Let the couple next door hear him for a change. “She’d want you to be happy. Let it happen. Let yourself be happy.”
