Collide Into You: A Romantic Gender Swap Love Story (19 page)

Furthermore, knowing Stacey the way I know Stacey, Keira’s eyes would be opened way more than she would have ever wanted when it came to what the tall, blonde Amazon liked to do in the bedroom. I prefer to keep that information to myself, thank you very much.

I watch as Keira stands outside of her bedroom. Her eyes are guarded and I can tell she has no interest in sticking around to find out what Stacey plans. I don’t blame her. I’m only glad that I came up with enough of an explanation of LouAnn suggesting Keira help out with my case. Stacey’s smart. Very smart. If I hadn’t brought LouAnn into the equation, I doubt she would have believed me. Believed Keira, I should say.

My stomach grumbles and I realize it’s dinnertime. I have two hours before Alec Huffman is picking me up for our date. Strangely, my stomach somersaults. I still can’t believe I agreed to the date on Keira’s behalf. I suppose it’s because I don’t want to seem like I’m ruining her life. Her chances at happiness. Even if it isn’t with me.

I shake my head. Keira watches me and sometimes I have a feeling that she knows what I’m thinking about. If she only knew. But then again, that would scare her off even more. And that’s the last thing I want to do. Scare Keira Holtslander away. She was already a skittish doe to begin with. Never mind her knowing that all I wanted to do was lick her entire body, head to toe, and recite poetry in her ears, and bring her to the brink of ecstasy over and over before allowing a climax to crash over her.

But, then again, I happen to be looking at
myself
as I think these thoughts, and it makes me somewhat queasy. Oh, who am I kidding? I can’t help but think about Keira in that way. Well, I probably could if I tried hard enough, but that’d be too much work.

Keira whispers something that I cannot hear, but I can certainly understand her movements. She’s headed toward the front door. Keira is leaving. I don’t want to be here—in Keira’s form—while Stacey waits for Dillan to show up.

Quickly, and quietly, I pack up the Joy Fromm files and rush over to her. In fact, it feels like I do a little skip, which is something I never want to do again. Especially once I’m back in my own body.

“I’m going with you,” I say to her. She only nods. I doubt she cares what I do as long as I don’t impede her progress. She’d probably trip me if she had to. However, that isn’t necessary. Together, we slip out the front door and silently lock it behind us.

Keira

S
OMETHING
ABOUT
SNEAKING
OUT
OF
Dillan’s apartment, and away from Stacey, feels clandestine. As if we are spies slinking away from a dangerous plot before something goes
boom
. We run down the stairs and out onto the pavement. The sky is clear, the air warm, and, strangely enough, I’m sort of getting used to Dillan’s body.

Not the chunkiness of it all, but it feels like I’m experiencing life anew and through fresh eyes. Sounds are different, like lower pitched. I seem to be more in tune with sounds I never used to pay attention to: cars going by, kids talking, the way my feet hit the sidewalk, which is harder…heavier.

Colors are muted. Blue is blue, and red is red, but there’s a tint of gray to it all, as if, to Dillan’s vision, vibrancy isn’t as important as it is in my own eyes. So the blue sky, while clear and bright, just isn’t something to behold. It’s just the sky. And I love that. I love that my senses are on overdrive.

I’m starving and I want to eat stuff that I generally don’t care for. Fatty, greasy food.

“Do you know what I want more than anything else right now?” I ask Dillan.

“What’s that?” He laughs as I look down on him. Even my own laugh seems pleasant to me. To Dillan’s ears. My hair, naturally brown and wavy in parts and ruler-straight in others, glimmers in the sunshine. Dillan has no idea of how to put my hair up in a ponytail, so my strands are scattered all over the place.

I spin my body around, not caring who sees since it seems like I’m manhandling my roommate, and fix the ponytail. Dillan appears to be happy to comply, though he does say something to the effect of not damaging the china.
You break it, you buy it.

“I’m dying for a hot dog with sauerkraut and thick-cut french fries doused in ketchup,” I announce as if it is the most scandalous thing I’ve ever said.

Dillan looks down over my own body—he’s still wearing the
grandma
clothes I made him wear—and says, “Will you let
me
have some, or are you training for some marathon you haven’t told me about?”

It occurs to me that maybe the only thing Dillan truly knows about me is that I’m Jon’s sister, that I’m in the military, and that I’m an avid runner. Then I wonder if that’s all that I really am. Those three things can, and often do, define me.
Sergeant Holtslander is the fastest runner in the unit
. Or,
Keira’s an intelligence analyst in the military
, and,
have you met Jon’s little sister, Keira?
 

There’s nothing in there about boyfriends or kids or amazing facts, such as Keira
always gets the answers right when she watches
Jeopardy. I don’t, of course, but something like that might be pretty cool. Maybe dating a MLB pitcher will shake things up. Well, let me amend that. Dillan dating a MLB pitcher
for me
might shake things up.

It dawns on me somewhere between the transformation and the fact that I want a hot dog that I was—
I am
—a boring, uninteresting person. You could do with a bit of disorder, Keira Holtslander.

“Are you crying?” Dillan asks me. He puts his hands out, palms up, as if to catch imaginary rain. As if he is trying to find a logical reason for the wetness on my cheeks.

I swipe a hand over my face. The stubble on my jaw jolts me and I try to dismiss the sinking feeling of being stuck like this forever.
 

“No, of course not,” I say. “But, on the off chance that I am, it’s really you that’s crying. You should stop being so emotional.”

Dillan looks at me seriously. “Trust me. I’m trying.” Then he smiles. Wait, no, I’m smiling at me.
Oh, stop trying to figure it out, Keira.
Dillan says, “We’ve got two hours until the big date. I know a great place for dogs if you’re willing to travel for it.”

Dillan

G
ROWN
MEN
SHOULD
NOT
CRY
. Women transformed into grown men might want to cry when they realize how hairy, gross, and smelly we are. When I notice Keira crying—it was a little cry and nothing to be ashamed of—I immediately felt for her. It’s been a crazy day for both of us, but more so for her.

She moved up here last Saturday, was thrown—apparently—into the deep end when she arrived at her job in the Pentagon, and, within seven days, she’s been transported into the one man’s body she can’t stand. Waves hand…that’s me.

It’s no big secret that Keira doesn’t like me.
 

Jon has casually mentioned it here and there over the years. Something about how she thinks I’ll never grow up. But over the last few years I’ve made great strides at maturing. I’m serious at my job, I pay all of my bills on time—there was a period in my life when I didn’t do that at all, and I had the bad credit to show for it—and, even if I have to turn in my man-card, I’ve hardly looked at another woman since Keira, with a duffle bag and two suitcases, walked, no,
barged
, into my life a week ago.

But have I really ever looked at another woman, seriously, after seeing her nine years ago?
 

I could answer
yes
. I could answer
no
. Depends on what your definition of
looking at
means. I suppose what it really means is that yes, I’ve looked at other women, but I don’t keep thinking about them after they are out of my life. Not like how I’ve often thought about Keira over the years.

Does that make me a sap?

If it does, I don’t care. I look at Keira—at myself—and hear that if she wants a hot dog and ketchup-drenched french fries, I will go out of my way to make that happen.

She grins at me, letting me know she’s up for the challenge of getting the perfect dog, and we half-run, half-walk to the Metro station. After a transfer onto the Silver Line, we exit at the Reston West station, and we walk the rest of the way to the Reston Town Center in Virginia.

“This is kind of a cute place,” she tells me once we enter the town center.
 

The place is comprised of stores, boutiques, restaurants, hotels, and a movie theater.
 

In the fall, the town center celebrates Oktoberfest, complete with polka bands and multiple beer venues. I might see about renting a booth this year, but I guess we’ll see what happens.
 

The same arena, in the wintertime, transforms into an outdoor ice skating rink that’s brimming with kids and adults of all shapes and sizes. During the rest of the year, I hear it’s a great place for after-work happy hours, but I live a bit too far from here to make it a regular event.

We slip into a booth in the back of Hoolin’s Dog Shack.

“Well,
cute
is subjective. I’d say it’s a useful place for just about anything,” I say as I chew a small bite of my hot dog. With Keira’s baby-doll-sized mouth, I can barely fit anything more than a tiny portion of food at one time. When I eat a dog, I want to take man-size bites. Not these little, puny, infant-sized nibbles. “It must take you a full hour to eat
anything
,” I say, rolling my eyes at her.

Okay, maybe her mouth isn’t
that
small, but it’s smaller than what I’m used to, and if I don’t watch it, I’m going to end up choking.

Keira, on the other hand, has eaten her sauerkraut-laden hot dog in two bites.
Two freaking bites.
I shouldn’t be jealous, but I am. When she orders a second hot dog with double the sauerkraut while I’m only halfway done my dog, I feel insignificant as a human being. I mean, I haven’t even touched the french fries yet.

“God,” she says with delight. Granted, I’m hearing her talk in my voice, so “delight” may or may not be her intended emotion. “God,” she repeats, taking another bite as if she hasn’t eaten anything this good in years. “I love your mouth.”

Did she just say that? I love your mouth.

Keira appears to realize her mistake and I stay silent. How will she talk her way out of that one?
 

“Uh, that came out wrong,” she explains, wiping her mouth.
 

A spot of ketchup dots her upper lip.
 

In a movie, the guy—that’s me, sort of—would lean over and kiss it off. Movie-guy would be smooth, suave, and, if it wasn’t a kiss, he’d make it seem like a kiss was about to happen, but would instead use a napkin to wipe the condiment from her lips.

Movie-guy is a complete tease.
 

But, alas, this isn’t a movie.

“So, it came out wrong?” I prompt her to keep talking as I pop a fry in my mouth. Perhaps it’s mean of me not to mention the food on her upper lip, but I feel confident that with her next gargantuan bite, the ketchup will get caught up in it and take care of itself. “Are you saying you
don’t
love my mouth?”

“You know what I meant, Dillan,” she whisper-yells at me. My thick eyebrows are furrowed at me.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” I say. “I don’t read minds. Care to explain?”
 

My smile must be a little too bright because she growls at me and throws a french fry at my face.
 

Then, all of a sudden, she bursts out laughing.

Keira

F
OR
A
FEW
MINUTES
THERE
, I let it slip my mind that I wasn’t in my own body and all I can do is laugh. Yeah, looking at my own face is still a bit disconcerting, but Dillan has his own mannerisms so that it kind of, sort of, seems like I’m talking to someone who happens to look
like
me, but
isn’t
me.

I suppose the logical part of my brain hasn’t accepted the transformation. Who would? But, deep inside, the part of me that realizes life isn’t fair and that the world can be strange and full of mysteries has come to grips with the information. I don’t accept it. I don’t understand it. But I realize I can’t change anything unless I work with Dillan.

Ellen’s clue was to look at the person we swapped into and go from there.

So, I’m trying. I’m trying to get to know Dillan. The real Dillan and not just the five-minute abridged version that I currently know about. If this was a regular meeting-slash-date-slash-
let’s-run-away-from-our-problems
dinner, I’d concentrate on his face or his eyes or how amazing his arms are. But I can’t do any of that, or I’d be admiring my own physical traits on him and that would be a tad weird. More than weird. It would be demented.

And I can’t get out of this situation without discovering more about Dillan. Not exactly altruistic of me, but it’s not selfish, either, since he would benefit from it, too. If it works.

So, while I’m genuinely enjoying myself in this moment, I’m not good at recognizing a double entendre before it comes out of my mouth, and Dillan, the ever astute sexual being that he is, is having too much fun at my expense because of it.

I ignore him in favor of eating a third hot dog, and he says something to the effect that I’ll have gas later on. I know one thing for certain: I won’t be running back to the Metro after this meal. I might even top everything off with a root beer float. Haven’t had one of those since I was in high school.

“So, you were saying?” Dillan prompts me again. He’s obviously done eating after just one hot dog and four french fries and a couple of sips of lemonade. Can’t help it if my body has a small stomach and is used to petite portions.

“It’s nice to eat a big meal for once,” I say.
 

“Can I translate that into meaning you like big things in your mouth from time to time?”

“You—you,” I stammer. He baited me and I fell for it. Hook, line, and sinker. “You, Dillan Pope, are
bad
.”