Collide Into You: A Romantic Gender Swap Love Story (20 page)

“You’re not just now coming into this realization, are you? If so, you’re not a very bright intelligence analyst.”

He says it with good humor, but I still steal another fry from his plate and throw it at him. He tries to catch it in his mouth, but misses. Alec wouldn’t miss.

Alec.

Sighing, I say, “We should get back. Alec’s going to pick you up in forty-five minutes.”

“You know, I can cancel the date.”

“No, no. I don’t want you to miss out on your big-time date with Alec Huffman. When you get back, we’ll stay up all night, gabbing like girls, and discuss every second of the date in ad nauseam details. Plus, his car is awesome.”

“I wonder if he’s a good kisser,” Dillan murmurs in a fake-serious tone.
 

“He probably is, Dillan, but you—we—are not going to be finding out tonight.”

I pay for the food on the way out since Dillan took care of the Metro fare, and we walk back to the Metro station.

“Do you remember the first time we met?” Dillan asks.

I wonder where he’s going with this. I do, in fact, remember. It was my high school graduation party. I was eighteen and I thought I knew everything there was to know about life and boys. At the time, Jon, who I already idolized, said he was bringing his college friend, Dillan Pope. But not to meet me. To meet our parents. We knew already that Jon was gay and, at first, we thought Dillan was his boyfriend. Jon quickly disabused us of that thought, and informed us that Dillan was not only straight, but a straight-up player, and, coincidently, his best friend.

“Dillan’s the love ’em and leave ’em type,”
Jon told me the day before my party over the phone. Jon, to my knowledge, never sugarcoated his words. He was real. Honest. And, sometimes, brutally so.
“He sounds horrible,”
Miss Expert me had replied, and Jon said,
“Naw, Keira, he isn’t that bad. How bad can he be if he’s my best friend?”

From outward appearances, they had absolutely nothing in common, but I’ve had that one statement in my head for nine years: How bad can Dillan be if he’s my brother’s best friend?
 

Dillan came to the party dressed to impress. Dark slacks and an open-collared, white polo shirt, a clean shave, and swoon-worthy looks. Intense, light green eyes below thick, brown eyebrows, a straight nose, chiseled cheekbones, and kissable-looking lips. He was tan from being a part-time lifeguard. It didn’t hurt that he wore a smile. What sealed the bad vibe deal, for me, was the fact that everyone within a one-mile radius reacted to him like catnip.

Well, if everyone else wanted him, I sure as hell didn’t. That didn’t stop me from stealing sly glances at him from the corner of my eye when he wasn’t looking at me. And he always seemed to be looking at me. It was, after all, my graduation party. It took effort on my part, but I completely avoided Dillan Pope the entire day, and when he disappeared, Jon made up some story about how Dillan had made other plans.

Of course, a week later, Jon told me the real story, and a part of me has felt guilty about it ever since. Well, slightly guilty. I can’t be held accountable for Dillan’s method of dealing with rejection.

“Do you mean my graduation party? You were there, right?” I ask this nonchalantly, as if I can’t be bothered to remember if he was there or not.

Dillan glances at me in surprise, but there’s something else there in the expression. Doubt? Like maybe he knows I’m lying.

Dillan

D
URING
MY
FRESHMEN
YEAR
AT
college, a girl named Maritsa told me she could tell when I was lying. That my face did this
thing
, this shifty-eyed, looking at something else—like her nose—
thing
. I spent a month studying my face in the mirror. I checked for obvious expressions. Shock. Anger. Everything. But how could I tell I was lying to someone? It wasn’t something I could practice alone. I had no intention of asking anyone to help me master the problem, and whipping out a handheld mirror before every conversation was a nonstarter.

Not to mention vain. My attempt to combat an expression that I couldn’t control came in the form of always trying to be honest. I wasn’t always successful, but I can say that I tried.

So when Keira finally answers my question about the first time we met, I find out, firsthand, exactly what this
thing
is. I watch as my face does a shifty-eyed, looking at something else—my ear—
thing
and I nearly want to thank Maritsa verbally, and loudly, for clueing me in. Granted, it’s several years late, but I have almost no doubt in my mind that Keira just lied to me.

Lied right to my face about the first time we met. Now, why would she lie about it? It wasn’t like she fawned all over me at her graduation and was now trying to make it seem like no big deal. I don’t think she looked at me once. However, if she’s lying about it…if she wants me to think she doesn’t really remember, then she’s hiding something.

What that something is now captures my attention. Big time. Like, I want to claw and dig and explore until I receive a favorable answer. Forcing Keira to do my bidding is never going to happen, and for obvious reasons: I have no sway over her. And…I find that I don’t want to force her into anything she wouldn’t naturally want to do in the first place.

Honestly, I like her the way she already is. Ornery. Sarcastic. Stand-offish. Okay, maybe that last bullet doesn’t encourage me, or anyone, to get close. Perhaps that’s how she likes it. But…maybe all I ever needed to do was chisel away at her outer layer, like water over a stone, and, over time, to discover the inner workings of what made Keira
Keira
.

“Why do you ask?” she says. We step into the waiting Metro car and sit on an empty two-seater bench. Keira is careful to keep her thighs—my thighs—from touching me. She looks like she wants to cross her legs, but she doesn’t. Probably worried about pinching a certain part of her anatomy.

“No reason,” I say. “I was thinking, though, it’s almost nine years to the day since then. If I recall, your graduation party was in early June.”

“June fourteenth,” she clarifies for me. Oh, okay. What is today? June eleventh.

“That’s next Tuesday. The day we have to figure
this
out or, you know, forever doom and gloom in these bodies.”

“Do you think it’s a coincidence? That on the anniversary of our meeting, we have to solve a riddle that transforms us back into our own bodies?” Keira shakes her head like it’s too much to believe, like something so trivial could dictate something so momentous. “It’s not like our riddles are the same. It’s a different task for each of us.”

“Mine is
I could use a challenge
. Yours is
you could do with a little disorder.
”

“Similar, but not the same. I’m of the opinion that just by changing us into the other, she’s fulfilled both tasks herself. How much more of a
challenge
or
disorder
can two people take when you switch their bodies? It is inherently challenging
and
full of disorder.” She whispers the
switch their bodies
part of her sentence. While we aren’t loud, there are other people in the Metro car.

“Not to quibble,” I say. “Ellen did say that because we didn’t figure out the tasks early enough, she caused this to happen. I think we need to figure out what her original riddle meant for each of us. Once we do that, we might have a solution.”

Keira turns to face me now, and our knees touch. It doesn’t appear to bother her. Or maybe she’s angry enough to not care.

“I knew Ellen for less than forty-eight hours when she said that to me. How the hell am I, a reasonable woman with a modicum amount of intelligence swimming her brain, supposed to know what a baker, who also happens to be a witch, meant when she mentioned that I could do with a bit of disorder? Honestly, I thought she meant I should choose a soy latte versus a non-fat, no-whip mocha next time.” My own light green eyes search my face intently. “You know her better. What did you think she meant when she said it to you?”

I thought Ellen meant that Keira was my challenge, but I would never admit to it out loud. Keira would only laugh at me. Ellen said it right after meeting my roommate for the first time, after saying how much she liked Keira.
Should
I admit this to Keira? What if I’m
her
disorder, and she’s
my
challenge?

My God, if that’s the case, we’re doomed. How can I get the one girl I’ve always liked, who’s never liked me, to like me in three days?

“Here’s what I think, Keira,” I say confidently, which belies how I really feel, which is gloomy. “I think Ellen’s trying to be a matchmaker.”

Keira

M
ATCHMAKING
? Y
ES
, I
SORT
OF
had that same hunch, but I didn’t want to admit it to myself. I can’t undo nine years’ worth of half-negative, half-positive thoughts about Dillan. He’s always been that unattainable yet unfixable guy in the back of my mind. You want him, but you know he’s not good for you, so you keep him at a distance.

You keep your dreams about him at bay. You date safe guys who are more boring than you are and somehow, Keira, you consider that to be an accomplishment: that you haven’t risked anything. Your heart. Your dreams. Your aspirations. Your
life
.

What if I had let Dillan sweep me off my feet back then? I probably would have just been a
tumble and run
to him. Another notch in his belt. But people change. I’ve changed over the last nine years from an insecure know-it-all into an even more insecure know-it-all. I’ve just kept those insecurities to myself, in imaginary—and orderly—plastic bins with labels on them.

On the other hand, I’m not some silly girl who requires a man to make her feel complete or worthwhile or confident or secure in her own abilities. In fact, I behave the exact opposite.

And I can’t undo all of that in three days. Three days to the year, nine years ago, that I first met Dillan Pope. Ellen has a wicked sense of humor, that’s for sure.

I gaze out the window as we pass through Tysons Corner. Clouds form overhead, and it isn’t much longer before the large plexiglass window has streaks of rain marring the scenery. I wonder what Alec has planned for the date. He didn’t seem like the dinner-and-a-movie type.
 

I don’t think it’s necessary to drill the rules into Dillan’s head again, so I refrain from lecturing him how there’s no kissing or fondling or
any
sexual interaction allowed. I doubt Dillan wants to kiss another man. The most they’ll do is high-five each other.

Dillan

O
BSERVING
K
EIRA
ON
THE
M
ETRO
ride back, I notice a pattern: she retreats when presented with a personal problem. Now, I have every confidence that if she encountered a professional or military problem, she’d fix it in less than fifteen seconds…or at least she’d have some sort of solution.

But when it’s personal, she keeps her thoughts and feelings to herself. Jon used to be that way when we first met. He was reserved, quiet, and shy. Once he got to know me, and once he realized I wasn’t a threat, he loosened up. Jon wasn’t exactly obnoxious, but he had zero qualms about letting someone know when they were being an ass. Hell, he gave me an earful from time to time—and more recently when he told me that Keira was off-limits.

Jon didn’t have anything to worry about on that front. I was already in her off-limits list. Did I have hope? Yes. The way she lied about the graduation party…something inside of me lit up when I suspected that maybe, just maybe, she felt some sort of spark for me. I’ve been around enough women to know that if they didn’t care about you, they wouldn’t spar with you over anything. Keira spars with me. She allows herself to get agitated by me.

And if she didn’t care about me—in some fashion—she wouldn’t argue with me. At least, not in the same manner she does. She didn’t automatically discount the matchmaking idea I mentioned a few moments ago. But then again, she didn’t say anything at all.

Wordlessly, we transfer onto the Orange line and exit at Federal Triangle. As we walk to the apartment, Keira’s phone beeps and she pulls it out.

“It’s a text from Alec,” she says. It seems to take her forever to read it out loud.

“Did he cancel?” I ask when she doesn’t say anything after a few minutes. Doubtful, I think. She wouldn’t have that scowl on her face if so.

“Not exactly,” Keira answers.

I open the front door to the apartment and say, “Well, that’s certainly helpful, thanks. I’ll just go into your room and get ready.” I look down at what I’m wearing. Uh. Grandma clothes. I wasn’t thrilled at her other options, which weren’t much. Not unless I wanted to wear her Army uniform. On second thought…if I wore her uniform, I might get free drinks all night. God, to be a woman in uniform must be like winning the lottery. The alcoholic-drink lottery.

“He wants me to wear workout clothes for the—” Keira stops. I look at her and see where her eyes are focused. My bedroom.

Stacey.

Oh no. How could I forget about the Amazonian beauty waiting in my bedroom?

Stacey is standing outside my bedroom. But wait, there’s more. She’s wearing a see-through bra and panties. Her blonde hair is pulled up and she leans ever so slightly against the doorframe. And she looks pissed. We’ve been gone for an hour and a half.

“Inside,” Stacey bites off. “Now.”

I take a step forward, but luckily I remember it isn’t me she’s glaring at. It’s at my body. Keira.

“See ya,” I call over my shoulder. I am more than happy to let Keira handle this without me. I make my escape into Keira’s bedroom before either woman can stop me. One wouldn’t give me a second glance. The other, well, she was probably shooting daggers at her bedroom door.

Keira

N
OW
, I
NORMALLY
WOULD
NEVER
check out a woman. But damn, Stacey is incredibly beautiful. Thick, glorious blonde hair, ice-blue eyes, perfect bone structure, and flawless skin to compliment those high cheekbones, a bountiful chest, a tiny waist, and just-wide-enough, flared-out hips.