Collide Into You: A Romantic Gender Swap Love Story (28 page)

I can’t hide my smug expression as I walk down the hallway, toward the big windows, which are floor to ceiling in size.

“Ah, there you are, Dillan.” A man comes out of a conference room and beckons for me to enter. He holds a presentation clicker in one hand, as if he just finished setting up a projection screen. “I was coming to find you. Mr. Brookshire just arrived, so while technically you’re right on time, you’re still late.” He emphasizes the
late
part.

Then the man shoves the presentation clicker in my free hand. I stare at him as he leaves. Who is that guy?

When I walk through the door, the conference room is full.

Dillan

I
HAVE
TO
LEARN
TO
stop smiling because Keira would not approve of all the appreciative glances she’s been receiving since I entered the Metro this morning.
 

I’ve been offered everything from a cup of coffee to a date, as well as free tickets to some dude’s kid’s summer production of William Shakespeare’s
Romeo and Juliet
. I said
no
to that one because the dude was wearing a wedding ring, and the first date offer came from a ballsy teenage boy with acne. But I said
hell yeah
to the coffee.

So here’s my utterly scientific and foolproof theory on getting free stuff: One, be a woman. Two, smile. Three, wear a military uniform. And holy shit, people can’t give me stuff fast enough. If—no—
when
I sell my beer, my number one marketing solution is to use a smiling woman wearing a military uniform. A sexy military uniform. I’m sure those exist somewhere. Not in Keira’s closet, that’s for sure, but somewhere.

Keira is sexy regardless of the uniform.

I get off the Metro and follow the military crowd upstairs.

At the top, I pull out Keira’s white security badge, show it to the armed guard, and walk into the Pentagon for the first time in my life. A dozen or more subway-style turnstiles have red or green arrows and I’m intelligent enough—I hope—to know to enter through one of the green-arrowed turnstiles.

After I swipe my badge and go through the turnstile—no intruder alarms go off—I head up another set of escalators and find myself in a large hallway packed with people moving in every direction. Most keep their heads down and move with a purpose. Others, like me, stop, and I find that I happen to be standing in line for a Dunkin’ Donuts.

Sweet.

Whoever allowed this to happen is a genius. Keira mentioned last night that something like 28,000 people work at the Pentagon. They’ve got to eat, too. They need their coffee-IV injection. I’m only halfway through that free cup of coffee, but I order another one when I reach the front of the line, just in case I’m hauled off before I finish the first one.

“Sorry, Sergeant Holtslander, but we’ve received a disturbing report of body impersonation. While we understand that there are no statutes for this type of crime, and we’re not even sure if a crime has been committed, we plan use your situation as a test case. Be a good American and come with us.”

Now holding two cups of coffee and Keira’s personal notebook—her uniform has, like, twenty pockets—I walk up a moderately steep incline, passing portraits of historic military scenes. It doesn’t take me long to get semi-lost, semi-fascinated with everything.
 

Once I reach what I suppose is the A-Ring, which is the innermost ring, I take the stairs outside and enter the center courtyard. It reminds me of one of those hotel gardens with trees mixed with chairs, smoking pits, and a small café in the middle.

I have no idea where I’m going, but I walk through the center courtyard, finishing that first cup of coffee, and re-enter the building through another stairwell. I try to stay focused, but there’s too much to look at and my eyes are in a constant state of visual orgasm, and when I spot someone riding an adult-size tricycle with big baskets, I swear to God I want one
so
bad.

Consulting my watch, I realize I really don’t have much more time to waste—I left early for a reason—I head down about three corridors, and hallways, and whatever else they’re called, and find what I hope is 2E801. Because if it’s not, I’m staying here anyway. I don’t care if they call the Pentagon police.

The office is nicely appointed with dark furniture, several L-shaped desks, closed-off inner office doors, tiled carpets, and a small grouping of chairs that gives me the impression of a mini waiting room.

“Hey Keira,” someone says. I look at the far wall. Sitting at the last desk is Sergeant Justin Hauten. I almost don’t recognize him in his uniform. He stops short when he sees me, like he can tell something’s off. “Not feeling well?” he asks, standing up.
 

“No, I mean, yes, I mean, something like that,” I answer rather quickly, as if I can’t get the words out fast enough, confusing both of us in the process. I cough a little even though I don’t need to.
 

Does the military send people home if they are sick, or is there a big room for sick people until they are well again? All I can imagine is a really long line of sick people waiting to see a doctor. Strange, I know, and highly unlikely.
 

I clear my throat. “I’m just excited to be here and get started on those letters. How are you doing, Justin?”

I’ve overdone the enthusiasm. Keira would never say something like that. She’d be like,
“I’m cool, yo, Sarge, how about that new Presidential policy that bans eating ice cream cones while in uniform?”

Justin’s eyes narrow even further, but he answers, “I’m well, thanks. You do realize you’re an hour and a half early for duty, right?”

Oh…
Think of an answer. “I’m still trying to get used to East Coast time.”

Justin nods slowly, his lips flattening. “You transferred from Fort Bragg.”

“Yup.” I have no idea.

“Fort Bragg,
North Carolina
.”

I nod. “Exactly.”

“Keira, North Carolina
is
on the East Coast,” he deadpans, tilting his head. He looks concerned, like maybe I’m truly sick.

How the hell am I supposed to know where Fort Bragg is? It might as well be on Mars for as many times as I’ve been there. Which is exactly zero times.
 

“Oh, right,” I say, trying to play it off as nothing. “I just didn’t sleep well last night. You know,
girl
stuff. Also, I think this might be my fourth cup of coffee.”

He observes the thirty-two ounce Styrofoam cup in my hand. “I’m sending you home, Keira. Obviously, you’re not—”

“No!” I interject. Keira will not like it if I get sent home. I have a feeling that that would equal failure in her eyes. “I was just joking with you. I’m fine. I need to wake up, that’s all. I’m ready to start the day.”

I can tell he doesn’t believe a single thing I’ve said, but he doesn’t disagree with me.
 

“Okay,” he says after a few seconds. “I’ll open General MacWilliams’ secure office for you.”

Keira

I
RECOGNIZE
M
R
. B
ROOKSHIRE
FROM
the portrait in the lobby. However, whoever painted the portrait did him a favor because he isn’t all that handsome. Stately, yes. Distinguished, absolutely. Handsome, no. Maybe it’s just his expression as he looks at me. At Dillan. With hooded, dark, angry eyes. He doesn’t appear all that happy or amused or kind. It’s almost as if he wants me to fall and break my neck.

To be on the safe side, I scan the floor for trip hazards.

The conference room is dimly lit, even with the large windows. All eyes are on me. I clutch the stack of folders in my hands tighter against my chest.

“I’m so glad you could join us, Mr. Pope,” Mr. Brookshire says with very little enthusiasm.
 

To his left, I see Ken Fromm, a slim, handsome man with Asian features. He plays with a pencil and taps it against a blank notepad. When he looks at me, it’s piercing, demanding, and charged with something I cannot quite define.
Defiance
, maybe? Ken Fromm does not want to be here, but from what I’ve read, he has to be or else he forfeits everything to his half-sister.

On Mr. Brookshire’s right is Amanda Joy. She is older than Ken by at least twenty years. Men, as they get older, get to be called “distinguished” whereas women, when they age, are often called “tired.” Amanda, regardless of her age, is anything but tired. She sits up straighter than anyone else in the room. She has taken plenty of notes—she’s doing so now as she observes me—and then she does something that changes my perspective: she smiles.

Then I remember that she is a Veteran of the Armed Forces and, in the nineties, she was a truck driver during the first Iraq war, getting supplies in and out of the country for our troops. When she returned stateside, she clawed and fought her way through her father’s company, and she is the one responsible for its former success.
 

The keyword being
former
.

Now she’s here at Brookshire Mierkle to fix it, to restore it, to make it whole again. Instantly, I trust her more than I do anyone else in this room, LouAnn Britton included. Earlier, Dillan described what LouAnn looked like, and she’s the only one in the conference room to really fit the description of a white woman, short gray hair, smart-ass grin, flawless skin, gray or white suit.
 

For some reason, LouAnn sits next to Ken Fromm, and gives the appearance she’s on
his
side. Within a group, where people sit can be a telling sign. It can suggest power, allegiance, distrust, boredom. In some cases, it means nothing and people just sit down randomly.

But not here. Not at Brookshire Mierkle. Even a child could sense the smothering unease in this room.

I don’t know the dynamics here or why she would clearly send the message that she’s against Amanda Joy. Perhaps she wants to give the impression—to Johnson Brookshire?—that she’s on the side she thinks
he’s
on.

I can tell you whose side Mr. Brookshire
isn’t
on. Dillan’s.

Dillan

O
NCE
UPON
A
TIME
,
THERE
was this dude who wrote to this girl for like, three years, and it was the most boring shit in the world. The end.

By lunchtime, I’ve read a hundred letters, the original and its reply, and I have absolutely no idea of what’s going on. When I get home tonight, Keira won’t have a thing to worry about because there’s not one single interesting thing I can tell her about the letters. Well, I can tell her what the weather was like in Washington, DC, and in Frankfurt, Germany, for all of 1956. I’ll be the fucking trivia master if anyone in the world has a weather question for 1956.

What I want to do is find out if either of these two are still alive and just ask them why they wrote such boring letters to each other. That should solve everything. However, now that I understand that these letters were hidden away in a wall in the Pentagon for decades does raise a few questions in my mind. Like, why go through all that trouble to hide something that seems so, I don’t know, uninteresting?

People hide stuff for a reason. Affairs. Fraud. Crime. The fact that these letters were hidden suggests something improper. Keira was brought in to see if she could find classified information contained in them. I, on the other hand, am not trained for that, so I can only observe as an outside source, looking in and analyzing for common sense stuff. You know, like a smart person. I’m good at pretending to be that.

To me, the most logical reason for the letters is an affair. I’m a human affection expert. Doesn’t mean they had to
consummate
that affair. If they loved each other, then these letters might have been some sort of lifeline in an otherwise dreary existence. But is that a reason to hide the letters? And collect both sets? That would be a lot of work, getting both sets.

It just doesn’t make sense to me. I can understand why they would call in someone like Keira for the job. She can comprehend the subtle nuances in the message, in the structure of each sentence, and determine if it is classified or not.

Me? I can only tell you that I’m glad I wasn’t in my prime in 1956. Due to my virile, male sexiness, I might have been burned at the stake. If they still did those sorts of things then.

After a couple of hours, it comes as a welcome relief when Justin comes into the general’s office and invites me to lunch.

“What about Aaron and Nebraska?” I ask, folding up a letter and shoving it back into its envelope.

“They’ll meet us at the Metro entrance. Bring your beret. We’re going to the Crystal City Underground for lunch.”

Keira

A
LTHOUGH
LESS
THAN
A
MINUTE
has gone by since I came in, Johnson Brookshire is clearly agitated. He looks ill at ease in the wide, leather chair at the head of the table. His head is tilted slightly and he wears a scowl like it might be a permanent fixture on his face.

I see my name printed on a tent card on the chair nearest me. I sit down, flip open the topmost folder, and wait for the company president to start the meeting.

“Dillan Pope here—” he points at me with an accusing finger “—is your case manager. He is dedicated to your case and he is also your point of contact if you need anything from Brookshire Mierkle.”

“We’re not paying you three million dollars to give us an immature babysitter, Brookshire,” Ken Fromm says. “For that amount of money, I expect a vice president to handle our case.”

“Excuse me,” I say, “but I am a—”

“Speak for yourself, Ken,” Amanda Joy says, cutting me off, which is a good thing since I was about to say,
I’m a staff sergeant in the United States Army.
“We’re happy to have Mr. Pope representing us. Ms. Britton sent over his biography a few days ago. You have an impressive resume, young man.”

Ken laughs sardonically. “Us? There is no
us
here. Because last time I checked, everyone quit. I refuse to let you speak for me.”