Chapter 4: The Unwelcome Call
The phone’s insistent ringing was a spike driven through the fragile calm. They looked at each other, a silent, panicked conversation passing between them on the bathroom floor.
“That’s your phone,” Katy said, her voice low.
“I know it’s my phone,” Garrett shot back, running a hand through her long, wet hair. “You have to get it.”
“Me? Why me?”
“Because it’s my phone, with my friends, and my voice! I can’t sound like you!” he hissed, his pitch rising into a frustrated squeak.
Swearing under his breath, Katy pushed herself up, her legs—his legs—feeling unsteady. She padded into the bedroom, the cool wooden floorboards a shock against her bare feet. The phone on the nightstand vibrated with a photo of a smiling, dark-haired woman she recognized as Dominique. Garrett’s on-again, off-again… something.
She took a deep breath, grabbed the phone, and swiped to answer. “Hey, Dom.” She pitched her voice down, trying to mimic Garrett’s easy baritone. It felt like a vocal cord strain. She quickly realized that there was no need to imitate his voice as she already had his voice. The stress of the situation was getting to her.
“Garrett! Finally. I’ve been texting you all morning.” Dominique’s voice was a smooth, confident purr. “Did you fall off the planet at that little cabin?”
“Sorry. Just… dealing with some family stuff with Katy.” The lie came out easier than she expected. She caught Garrett’s eye from the bathroom doorway where he stood, wrapped in a towel, watching her like a hawk.
“Right, how is she? Anyway, listen. I’m done playing games. You’re taking me to dinner tomorrow night. That new place, Le Soleil. Eight o’clock. I made the reservation.”
Katy’s mind went blank. Le Soleil was the most expensive restaurant in a fifty-mile radius. A place for proposals and anniversary splurges. “Tomorrow? I, uh… I’m not sure I can—”
“Garrett, don’t. This is happening. You’ve been distant, and I’m not having it. We’re either doing this or we’re not. So, are we?”
The ultimatum hung in the air, sharp and final. Katy felt a cold sweat break out on Garrett’s brow. She looked at him, her eyes wide with panic. He gave a frantic, minimal nod.
“Yeah. Yeah, okay. Eight o’clock. Le Soleil.”
“Good. Wear the blue shirt I like.” The line went dead.
Katy lowered the phone, her hand trembling. “She hung up.”
“I heard,” Garrett muttered, walking fully into the room. “Le Soleil? She’s pulling out the big guns.”
“She thinks you’re proposing!” Katy’s voice cracked. “We have to fix this by tomorrow. We have to.”
“And how exactly do we do that? We don’t even know how it happened!” He grabbed a pair of jeans from his duffel bag and started pulling them on, the movement awkward on Katy’s smaller frame. The towel dropped.
Katy averted her eyes, a hot flush creeping up her neck. The memory of the bathroom, of the taste and the sounds, was suddenly vivid and unavoidable. “We’ll… figure something out. We have to.”
An hour later, dressed and trying to pretend the world made sense, they stood in the small kitchenette. Garrett, in Katy's body, poured a cup of the thick, black sludge he brewed every morning. He took a tentative sip and nearly gagged. It was bitter and aggressive, like drinking liquid tar. "What the hell, it tastes like tar!?” he sputtered, pushing the mug away.
Katy shrugged, reaching for the white pastry box they’d brought. "That's what I'm always saying, it must be because our taste buds are different." She pulled out a raspberry danish, her favorite, and shoved it into Garrett's mouth. Powdered sugar dusted his—her—chin. A low, involuntary sound of pleasure escaped him. “Oh, wow. Okay. I get it now.”
“Get what?”
“This.” He took another, bigger bite, devouring it with a focus she’d never seen on her own face before. “The butter. The sugar. It’s… it’s like a party in my mouth. Why did you never tell me food could be this good?”
“It’s a danish, Garrett. It’s just a danish.”
“No,” he said, his voice full of wonder, licking the sticky jam from her fingers. “It’s not. It’s a revelation.” He looked at the box with new, hungry eyes. “Are there more?”
Katy watched him, a strange dislocation settling over her. This was her body, but the hunger in it was entirely his. The way he recoiled from the coffee, the way he devoured the sweetness she craved—it was like watching a foreign spirit slowly learn to pilot a familiar machine. The fundamental settings were all wrong.
Garrett finished the danish and looked at her, his expression turning serious. “So. Tomorrow night. You have to be me, on a date with Dom, at a fancy restaurant, while she potentially expects a diamond ring.”
“And you,” Katy said, the reality of it crashing down, “have to be me, here, probably fielding calls from my parents about the company takeover. We’re screwed.”
“We need a plan. A script.” Garrett started pacing, a habit of his that now looked comically deliberate on Katy’s petite form. “We need to know everything about each other. All the details we never thought we’d need.”
“Okay,” Katy said, leaning against the counter, crossing Garrett’s arms over his chest. “Ask me something. Something only you would know.”
Garrett stopped pacing. He looked at her, a faint, mischievous smile playing on her lips. “What’s the name of the stuffed frog I won for you at the county fair when we were thirteen? The one you slept with until you were sixteen.”
Katy blinked. A memory, dusty and fond, surfaced. “His name was Hoppy. You spent twenty dollars trying to knock over those milk bottles because I said he was the ugliest, most wonderful thing I’d ever seen.”
The smile on Garrett’s face—her face—softened, becoming genuine. “Yeah. Hoppy.” He looked down at his hands, at her delicate fingers with their manicured nails. The moment stretched, filled with the unspoken weight of everything that had happened in the steam-filled bathroom.
He looked back up at her, and the air in the room shifted. The practical panic was still there, but underneath it, something else was stirring, something charged and dangerous.
“We should probably practice,” he said, his voice quiet. “The… physical stuff. For the date. So it doesn’t look weird.”
Katy’s breath hitched. She knew he was right. It was logical. But the thought of his hands on her body, of guiding him through the motions of intimacy with another woman, sent a jolt through her that was entirely different from the panic of moments before. It was a dark, curious thrill.
“Okay,” she whispered, her voice rough in his throat. “Show me how you kiss her.”