Collide Into You: A Romantic Gender Swap Love Story (3 page)

I clear my throat and cross my legs. “You want me to go in and convince him you’re the right person for the job?”

“That’s the end state, yes, but first I need you to convince him that you’re not such a douche bag for dating and then dumping his daughter. No offense, but you are sort of a liability right now, and I’d like you clean up your own mess.”

“That’s harsh, LouAnn.”

“You’ll get nothing but the truth from me, Dillan. Johnson doesn’t know I know. He thinks you’re coming in to help with a new client in our federal business sector. Apparently there’s hostility with, or maybe
from
, this client, I’m not sure, but Johnson was pleased with your performance in Senator Murphy’s office. Johnson thinks he’s ‘reassigned’ you, but in reality, I put a tickle in the right ear and ‘offered’ you. Naturally, Johnson assumes he came up with the idea. I have no intention of disagreeing with this assessment.”

“When do I infiltrate his office?”

“I like how you think.” She hands over an accordion-style packet. “One week. Take that time to do research on the client and the Brookshire Mierkle team handling the account. If anyone can tame the beast, it will be my
son
, Dillan Pope.” LouAnn did finger quotes around the word
son
.

I couldn’t hold in a bark of laughter.

Keira

T
HANK
GOODNESS
S
TAFF
S
ERGEANT
J
USTIN
Hauten is a patient man, because it takes me twenty-five minutes to find the office. I think about the things I can normally complete in that time. I could run three miles. I could cook a fairly decent dinner. I could take a nice bubble bath. I could have sex, twice.

I’m a little flush, and embarrassed, when Justin introduces me to the rest of Colonel Benson’s team. Benson is
one
of the Chief of the Army’s military assistants. General MacWilliams has five military assistants. One is a one-star general, two are colonels, one is a command sergeant major, and the last one is Justin. I’ve never heard of a
junior enlisted advisor
before, and Justin didn’t really explain it to me when I asked, only to say that it was a new billet and that even he was mystified about the position.

I can tell that there’s more to the story and maybe in time he’ll spill the beans, but for now, I let it go. There’s no reason to make my first day complicated, especially with a staff sergeant who is clearly unavailable.

At one o’clock, Justin shows me into Colonel Benson’s office and then leaves.

The colonel shakes my hand. “Welcome to the Pentagon, Sergeant Holtslander. The Puzzle Palace can be a little daunting at first, so the first week, we give you a bit of latitude in finding your way around. After that, however, I’ll expect you to be where you need to be ten minutes before the appointed time. First and foremost, you represent the U.S. Army, and secondly, you represent General MacWilliams at all times while you are in uniform.”

“Yes, sir,” I say automatically. I fully expected this and am rather used to such speeches and welcomes. I’ve done a few of them myself when Army privates arrived at my unit while I was stationed at Fort Bragg.

“How long have you been in the Army, Sergeant?”

“Nine years, sir.”

“When are you up for reenlistment?”

“In three years.”

The colonel doesn’t answer right away. He appears to be thinking something over, and I wonder if it has anything to do with the billet I’ve been assigned to. I start to bite on a fingernail. After another moment, he pulls out a folder and lays it on his desk.

“I know your background, Sergeant,” he begins. He’s looking at my enlisted record brief, which is the report that details my entire Army career up to this point. “And I know that you are a 96B, an Intelligence Analyst, but that’s not why I asked for you to fill this billet. It isn’t an intel position. Well, I should clarify and say that the position isn’t inherently intelligence related. You’ll be reviewing documents for an internal review General MacWilliams is leading.
 

“Only four people know about the investigation, and you’re that fourth person. I spoke with several Army commanders, looking for recommendations, and you quickly surfaced to the top of the list. You have a reputation for steady, professional work. You are not prone to jumping to conclusions and, if I’ve heard correctly, you somehow find reading Army manuals enjoyable. I’m happy to report that you’ll be reading several more.

“I personally called every supervisor you have reported to and each has consistently praised you, your body of work, and the high nature of their trust in you. General MacWilliams reviewed the findings with me and wanted you right away.

“The next few weeks will be busy ones for you as you apprise yourself of the situation. You’ll have quite a bit of reading to do that can only be done inside the general’s secure office. In the initial stages of the investigation, all you’ll do is read the documents. In the subsequent weeks, you’ll have time to write up a formal report and brief it to General MacWilliams. At this point, the position isn’t permanent. Once the report is done, it is highly probable the Army will send you back to Fort Bragg. However, if you impress the general, well…” He smiles, suggesting it is possible I’ll stay on board. It isn’t something he can actually say out loud. He isn’t allowed to promise me anything. “Do you have any questions at this point?” Colonel Benson asks.

It’s like he’s dropped a bomb on me. Internal Review. So someone’s done something wrong, and I have to read the raw material, analyze it, and present it in a coherent, unbiased manner. I do that every day. The material and subject matter might be different, but the methodology could cross over easily.
Maybe Dillan’s title of Sergeant Prim and Proper wasn’t all that far off.
Uh, I really don’t want to think about Dillan at the moment.

Granted, if my job took me only a few weeks, then I’d be in and out of Washington, DC, sooner than I thought, and I wouldn’t have to see Dillan’s sarcastic face every day.

That was a plus.

I return my thoughts to the investigation.

“Is anyone else working this with me? Who can I bounce ideas off of?”

“Obviously, General MacWilliams is not the optimal choice. You’ll have your office call with him next week since he’s on official travel overseas. You can come to me or Staff Sergeant Hauten. We are both cleared at the proper clearance level and understand the situation. Under no other circumstances are you to talk of this to anyone else, even if they claim to have a top secret clearance or the
need to know
.”

“Roger, sir. I completely understand and know the rules of
need to know
.”

“Let’s get started. I’ll show you to your office.”

Dillan

W
HEN
I
GET
HOME
, K
EIRA
isn’t there yet and my weekend date has already left, but she wrote a naughty message with red lipstick on the bathroom mirror.

I think about removing it, but then like the idea of Keira discovering it. I want to find out what she’d do. Jon, who had become a bit more domesticated once he became serious with Tanner, would have laughed but said, “Dunno man, don’t you think it’s time you knocked it off and found a nice girl?”

Thinking about Jon makes me miss him more. He’s been my best friend since college. I went the business route while Jon joined the Navy to fly fighter jets. The fighter jets never worked out due to his poor vision, but he was an outstanding staff officer who was recently promoted away from Washington, DC, to work for the Navy in Bahrain. Tanner, a professional baseball player with the Washington Nationals, had been showing a brave face for the last month.

While I certainly love Jon like a brother, it in no way compares to how Tanner feels about him. So if I’m missing Jon this much, I wonder how Tanner is taking it? I pick up the phone, ready to call him, when I remember that Jon put the entire Nationals’ schedule on the fridge. I groan. Tanner is up in Pittsburgh, playing the Pirates for the next three days.

So there goes that thought.

The front door opens and slams shut as I mentally calculate when I can invite Tanner over.

Keira walks in. I didn’t think it was possible, but her uniform is more shapeless than it was this morning. Shapeless, but with wrinkles.

When she spots me, she scowls. You’d think she’d been battling an entire band of guerilla fighters all day long by the way she looks at me. It also occurs to me that I’m in the same position I was this morning when I spied on her as she stretched from her run. I wonder if she has figured that out yet.

“Rough day?” I ask. I look at the clock on the microwave. Seven p.m. Her features soften slightly. Maybe this is a good sign.
 

“You can say that,” she says, looking at the fridge.
 

She moves toward me. Each step is some sort of wordless declaration of… something. Should I comfort her? Did she need a hug? I inhale when she’s a foot a way. When Jon came home after a long day, I always got him a beer. God, I was totally the bitch of that relationship, wasn’t I?
 

I swing the fridge open, lean in, and hit Keira with the door.

“What the hell?” she yells, backing up and grabbing at her shin. “You certainly know how to welcome a girl, jeez. I came over here to see if that was Tanner’s schedule.”

“Uh, sorry about that.” I offer her the beer, but she gives me the evil eye, so I pop the top and take a large sip. “Tanner’s up in Pittsburgh. I was thinking of inviting him over this weekend.”

She sizes me up briefly, like maybe she thinks that’s what I think
she
wants to hear after hitting her with the fridge door. I smile at her. There’s no change, and normally there’s a change in a girl’s expression after I give The Grin.

Keira must be a robot.

“I doubt Tanner’s going to be available since he’s taking me to all the Nationals’ games this weekend,” she says, grabbing an apple from the counter. “I get to sit in the wives’ box.”

I must look crushed because her dry lips crack into a smile. I take another long gulp of the beer as I think of a good comeback. Damn, I’ve got nothing. Jon’s shapeless little sister twists the knife just a little bit deeper in my back. Tanner and I were friends, right? He didn’t just put up with me because I used to be Jon’s roommate?

“That should be fun,” I say. I look again to the fridge. I desperately want to change the subject. “Are you hungry?”

“What about sleeping beauty?” she asks, moving away from me.

I draw a blank. “What are you—
oh
, you must mean Stacey. No, she already left.”

“Stacey, huh? I’m terribly impressed that you can remember their names. Thanks for the offer, but I have a lot of reading to do. I’ll just have a protein bar and a glass of milk.”

Right.
Sergeant Prim and Proper
probably doesn’t eat anything with more than one gram of fat in it.

“Suit yourself.” I finish the beer and place it in the recycle bin.

“I’m going to jump in the shower. Do you need anything in there first?”

I give her The Grin again. “Are you offering?”

Keira glares at me. “Are you always this much of a pig? Jon was so right.”

“You and Jon talk about me? What about?” While I say it flippantly, something about the fact that she said,
Jon was so right
pierces doubt right through me. Like maybe Jon had serious concerns about me. I know he’d been joking for me to find the right girl, but when there are so many
right girls
out there, it certainly makes it difficult to choose just one.

Besides, what business does she have prying into my life? Just because she’s Jon’s little sister doesn’t mean she has the right to judge me.

“You’ll have to ask Jon,” Keira says over her shoulder. She walks into the bathroom and locks the door. Seconds later, I hear her cuss rather loudly. She opens the door harshly. “I am not amused by sleeping beauty’s message, Casanova.”

I laugh as she slams the bathroom door shut again.

Keira

P
EELING
OFF
MY
UNIFORM
, I give the mirror—and its lipstick-written message—the darkest look I can muster. Who writes that kind of stuff? I mean, how cliche.
“Dillan - I can’t wait to taste you again. I loved it when you put it there. xoxo Stacey.”
The word
there
is underlined. The rest of the mirror is filled with red hearts, X’s and O’s. The
entire
mirror.

I can’t even see my own reflection as I start the shower, just an entire tube of lipstick smeared across the glass. Which is fine. I don’t need to see myself to disrobe. I also don’t need to see how flush my face is. I can feel the heat emanating as I remember what happened two nights ago, when I walked in the front door and accidentally found Dillan standing there. In the nude.
 

I had had a suitcase in each hand and a green Army duffle bag strapped on my back, and I shuffled into the apartment with about as much noise as an ogre would make stomping through the woods. It was no wonder he flung his bedroom door open, turned on the lights, and spied me without shame. “Oh, it’s you,” he had said without a sense of urgency or embarrassment. It was almost as if he was glad he was showing me his goods. Like he got that part out of the way right away.
 

I didn’t know he had a woman with him until the next day, not until I heard the
sounds
. Sounds that made me wonder just what exactly he could be doing to garner those particular moans. Admittedly, he had an amazing body and, uh, perfectly proportioned
equipment
, but I would never, ever say so out loud. Even if I had a gun to my head. Even if I had
two
guns to my head.

God, what a way to move into your brother’s best friend’s apartment. It wasn’t as if I had never met Dillan before. I had, multiple times, in fact, but he was always wearing clothes and he wasn’t having day-long sex one wall away from me.