Collide Into You: A Romantic Gender Swap Love Story (5 page)

Until then, I could only guess at what I’d be researching while avoiding all thoughts of Dillan and his abs and that carefully arranged sheet this morning.

Before I know it, my six miles are up, and I walk my way back to Dillan’s apartment. When I walk through the door, his bedroom door is still open, and without appearing too obvious as I thread through the living room furniture, I notice that his bed is empty and I hear the shower running.
 

Not wanting to question my disappointment, I slip into my own room, close the door, and stretch out.

Dillan

T
HE
SMACK
OF
THE
FRONT
door wakes me. Groggily, I peer at the red numbers on the clock beside my bed. It’s just after five in the morning.

Either someone else is moving in, or Keira left the apartment to go for a run.

I toss off the sheet, step into the living room, and find it empty. Something that suspiciously feels like disappointment washes through me.
What the hell?
I think, running my hand through my hair. Did I hope to find Keira out here? What was it about a woman who
didn’t
want me that made me want her more?

Even though I’m naked, I knock softly at Keira’s door. I already know she won’t be inside, but just in case, I want to make sure she didn’t fall out of bed or something.
 

Here, let a naked man help you up, you poor thing.
Beds are such dangerous things. I’ll climb in with you to make sure the coast is clear.

The door isn’t closed all the way, and it squeaks a little when I push it open further.
 

The room is plain with white walls, a double-size bed, a nightstand, and a flat screen TV mounted on the wall. After Jon moved out last year and moved in with Tanner, I converted his room into a guest bedroom. The only other people to sleep in this room were my mom, my sister and her useless boyfriend, and now, Keira.
 

Devoid of personality, it still looked like a guest bedroom. Keira hadn’t done anything to personalize the room, which gave me the impression she only planned to stay long enough to get her feet on the ground and find her own apartment.

Which was the original arrangement, wasn’t it?
 

I never imagined she would stay longer than a few weeks. Oh, I knew I’d flirt with her mercilessly, maybe even show her the ropes of DC, but it wasn’t anything more than that. I knew it. She knew it.

Besides, Keira had only been in town for what, three days? It wasn’t like she’d have a boyfriend in less than a week. She didn’t seem the type. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more I realized I had no idea of what type of woman she really was.

As Jon’s sister, I knew enough about her to know she was funny and sarcastic, and cute as hell. I also knew she was an avid runner and had won a few marathons. She had spent some time overseas. Jon mentioned once that Keira was a little quieter after the last deployment, a little more reserved than usual. But Jon chalked it up to the harsh realities of serving in a war zone and said she’d get back to being herself in no time.

As I survey the room, I notice that half a dozen uniforms hang in the closet. I shouldn’t go inside, but I do. For the most part, the uniforms are the same type that she wore yesterday. That shapeless, computerized-camouflaged uniform. Beside those, I see a black, formal-looking jacket with gold buttons down the front. It’s the type of jacket she’d wear to a ceremony or a military ball.

On the left side, in capital letters, her last name, HOLTSLANDER, sits below two colorful ribbons. On the right, I take note of several rows of ribbons, each different from the other, but no less impressive. Lower on the jacket, I spot other items that either represent her branch of service, combat service, or are awards she has received.
 

Instantly, I know that Keira is a good soldier. Her uniform proves it. It’s spotless and those ribbons—which I suspect are awards and accomplishments—mean she’s done a lot of good things in her career. She is respected and admired. Jon has always spoken highly of his sister and her success in the Army.

Taking a deep breath, I leave her room and return the door the exact same way I found it. I’ve been in here too long already. God knows what Keira would think if she came back and discovered me, naked of all things, staring into her closet. I’d be a first-class creep, for sure.

She’d kick my ass first and ask questions later.

But the thing that hits me the hardest is the fact that Jon’s little sister—no matter how cute—is really off-limits. She seems to like rules and manuals and standard operating procedures. I like to break the rules and I’m still not sure what a
standard operating procedure
is supposed to be, but I’m sure I’d do the exact opposite of whatever it instructed me to do.

We are incompatible and, now that I’ve had a peek behind the curtain, so to speak, I find that I could easily turn off my
flirt
switch. Keira won’t be here long anyway, so it doesn’t matter.
 

I can deal with her for a few more weeks.
 

Let me amend that.
 

I can
ignore
her for a few more weeks.

Smiling, I head back into my bedroom and put on boxers and a pair of shorts. I sit down in front of my laptop and see that Tanner’s replied to my e-mail.

Tanner’s a short, but-sweet-type of communicator, and he’s funny as hell. It’s easy to understand why Jon fell hard for the ball player. After reading a few lines, I realize that Keira lied to me about Tanner’s invitation for this weekend.

Tanner writes, “Did Keira tell you that I got tix for the both of you this weekend? Bring a date. See you at the Nationals Park, Friday, 7:05 pm. If you’re late, I’ll tell all of your lady friends that you’ve suddenly developed a craving for packaged meat. I don’t have time to send out five hundred e-mails, but I will if I have to. I’d ask you to give Keira a hug for me, but I’m fairly certain she’d punch you in the face, so I’ll have to wait to do it myself. Don’t say anything, but I have a big surprise waiting for Keira. If it goes well, it will benefit you, too. Xoxo Tanner.”

I reply back to Tanner and then send an e-mail to Stacey, asking if she wants to go to the game with me. Whistling, I jump in the shower to get ready for work. Keira will be back any minute now.
 

Tanner might have a surprise for
Sergeant Prim and Proper
, but after that little lie of hers, I’ll have to come up with my own surprise as well.

Keira

D
ILLAN
’
S
OUT
THE
DOOR
BEFORE
I exit the shower, so I don’t have to feign ignoring him, but the fact that I didn’t get the opportunity to give him the cold shoulder certainly was a little annoying. Damn him for being efficient and quick this morning.

It doesn’t take me long to dress and leave the apartment as well, and I already know that I’ll be making Ellen’s Corner Bakery a normal part of my mornings from here on out. When I step inside her door, the delicious smell of pastries does dangerous things to me. I want to consume every single thing in her bakery. I chuckle. The Army would have a thing or two to say about that when I no longer fit in my uniform.

I know that the extraordinarily long line will also become a normal part of my mornings. Yesterday, when I popped in the place, it didn’t take me long to spot Dillan near the front of the line, and I quickly took notice that, when he ordered his coffee, he didn’t leave right away. He stayed and talked with the owner. He showered her with compliments and he spoke with her as if he actually cared for her.

This went against everything I had ever thought about Dillan.
Nice?
No way. Not in a million years. And yet, there he was, yesterday morning, ruining my day even more.

I tried to ignore him as I moved up in the line, but when I heard, “If you’re asking me if she’s cute, the answer is yes, but I can tell she’s as boring as a snail.
Sergeant Prim and Proper.
She probably does twenty push-ups at every Metro stop.”

It wasn’t even that serious of an insult. It was more juvenile in nature. Something an eighth grader might say to one of his buddies.

No, Dillan
, I thought.
I do not do twenty push-ups at every Metro stop.
There isn’t enough room.

The line moves fast as I think about yesterday and it isn’t long before Ellen’s cheerful face smiles brightly at me.

“Good morning, Sergeant Holtslander,” she says. “Same order as yesterday?”

I smile back at her while asking her to call me Keira, not Sergeant Holtslander. It shouldn’t surprise me that she would remember my order. It was in her best interest to keep me as a customer. But there was something about her keen eye and the way she studied me that gave me the impression she was doing more than sizing me up for my coffee order.

“Surprise me instead,” I say, wondering how she might react.

Ellen grins as she goes to work on brewing me a perfect cup of…something.

She hands it over and I take a little sip.
Heaven in a cup
, I think.

“It’s amazing,” I say without preamble. I can’t place what it is. It’s not chocolatey or any other normal coffee additive. “This is delicious, Ellen.”

“Thank you, Keira. Here.” She hands me something else. It was a flyer for the bakery’s thirtieth anniversary. “I hope you can make it.”

Her celebration is next week. I don’t see a reason as to why I can’t make it. It isn’t like I have a social life. Other than Tanner and Dillan, I have no other friends, and I don’t exactly consider Dillan a friend.

I fold up the flyer and place it inside my Army notebook.
 

“I’d love to come. Thank you.”

“How are you holding up, living with Dillan?” Ellen asks. She asks it in a way to suggest that she’s sort of apologize-asking the question, like maybe she’s commiserating along with me. But the old woman didn’t fool me. She loved every second Dillan flirted with her.

I snort. “I wouldn’t classify my arrangement as
living with Dillan
. I’m renting his guest bedroom. There’s no reason for me to be
holding up
, Ellen, unless you mean to ask, is he insufferable, egotistical, and does he like to push everyone’s buttons? Then, yeah, I seem to be holding up okay, since none of it bothers me because the man doesn’t mean anything to me.”

Ellen smiles at me as she works another customer’s order.

“You could do with a bit of disorder, Keira,” Ellen says.

“Disorder is the exact opposite of what I could do with,” I say, laughing. The old woman certainly has charm. She easily disarmed me with one quick smile and a generous spirit. But I don’t exactly enjoy the fact that she seems to know what might, or what might not, do me good.

Dillan is in the
what might not do me good
category. Is Ellen trying to do a bit of matchmaking? I narrow my eyes and glance down at my coffee. What is in the coffee?

I shake my head. That is a stupid thought. The coffee is delicious because one, it’s coffee, and two, it’s coffee. I return my attention to Ellen.
 

“If you say so, Keira,” she says. “Don’t be late for work now.”

Ellen walks away to attend her ever-growing line, and I head to the Metro, sipping a delicious cup of coffee.

I could do with a bit of disorder, huh?
I think. I wear crazy-color running clothes and I just asked her to surprise me with coffee. That’s about as much disorder as I would ever want.

Dillan

A
FTER
RUSHING
OUT
THE
DOOR
and grabbing coffee from Ellen’s, I spend the rest of the day researching Brookshire Mierkle’s federal client, Joy Fromm Acquisitions.
 

Joy
and
Fromm
were two different people—half-siblings, apparently—who did not get along after their father died, and one or both of the brother-sister team staged a coup with little success. Most of their smaller contractors left them as a result.

Brookshire Mierkle would go in, seal the cracks, fill their ranks with highly qualified employees, endorse the team behind Joy Fromm Acquisitions, pat them on the back, and send them on their way.
 

According to one of LouAnn’s notes, that wasn’t likely to happen.
 

“They’ll just go back to bickering. It isn’t about the company, it’s about them. They hate each other. Amanda Joy hates Ken Fromm because her father left her mother for Ken’s mom.”

A little sibling rivalry never killed anyone, but LouAnn didn’t put it past Joy and Fromm.

“You can’t fix a typical
Cain and Abel
. They’ll kill each other,” she quipped on one of the pages. “No pressure, kiddo.”

I sit back at my desk, wondering why Johnson Brookshire would be taking a chance on a company that probably wouldn’t make it in the end. LouAnn didn’t have a problem sending me to the wolves. She seemed to get a kick out of me struggling like a drowning puppy for the first few days of an assignment. Johnson Brookshire would probably enjoy it if I did drown.
 

Dating his daughter, Abigail, a college intern last summer, really wasn’t the smartest thing I could have done. At first, I didn’t even know who she was. Kissing her in the janitor’s closet seemed like a good idea in the moment, and her skirt provided easy access. In my defense, she seemed just as caught up in the workplace romance as I was, and innocent kissing and petting turned into something else.

A full-fledged relationship.

Once I learned Abigail’s last name—courtesy of the head janitor who caught us multiple times in her closet—I couldn’t back out after that. Even Abigail, who confided in me that she was dared to flirt with me, didn’t want a relationship, but she was scared enough of her father to act the wounded bird and for several weeks, we were a pair of humping bunnies.