Chapter Eleven Mason （In Daphne’s Body）
F uck .
I can tell the moment I wake up that I’m still in Daphne’s body, asleep on the couch, and I can’t ignore that my initial reaction feels a lot like happiness.
Obviously, I want to switch back, and, yes, there’s fear beneath the slight joy that now we have no idea how to change. Butttt I get more time with her, and that’s hard to be upset about.
I wonder if she’s up yet, although I’m sure if she was, she would’ve already stormed down here.
Tomorrow, I have that scrimmage, so while I’m glad I get another day with her, we need to find a solution sometime soon because there’s no way she can go on the ice, pretending to be me.
“Masonnnn,” Daphne sings solemnly as she descends the stairs and rounds the corner to the living room. “It didn’t work.”
“I know,” I say matter-of-factly, glancing down at Daphne’s body, flipping my hands over and over in front of me.
She drags her feet through the living room and sits down in the recliner, pulling her long legs up into her chest. “How in the hell are we going to fix this?”
She seems so unshielded right now, vulnerable. It takes everything in me not to be closer to her, to wrap her up in my arms and comfort her.
“I don’t know. But we’ll figure it out somehow,” I try to assure her.
“How long can we keep this charade up? I mean, eventually, Maeve is going to figure out that something’s up. I’m just glad she has Jackson to keep her distracted right now. Otherwise, she’d definitely already know.”
“True. She’s always been such a nosy little sister.” I laugh. “And we’ll keep it up as long as we need to. I mean, we changed in the first place seemingly randomly, so maybe it’s, like, a time thing. After a certain amount, we’ll switch back.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
Daphne pouts, sinking deeper into the chair, and even though she is wearing my face, I hate to see her frown.
“Well, instead of sitting here, moping, let’s do something to cheer you up.”
Her eyes flick up at me.
“Name it,” I offer genuinely.
She stares at me, unreadable and stoic, and then the snarkiest, sassiest smirk tips up her lips and hoods her eyes. “I do have an idea. I think you might hate it, but I’ll love it. Best of both worlds for me really.”
If it makes her happy, I’m in. I don’t care what it could be.
“Daphne, you have got to be kidding me.” I run my hand down my face as we walk into a boutique. “What are we doing here?”
She throws her arm around my shoulders and pulls me into her side, my head barely reaching her collarbone. “You said we’d do something to cheer me up. Well, this is it.” She pulls away and starts wandering toward a rack of shirts. “Oh my God, this color is so pretty.”
She grabs a flowy blue mineral-washed T-shirt and spins around, holding it up to my chest. “It’s not every day you can step out of your body to try on clothes.
I mean, I can see it from someone else’s eyes.
Literally. Every angle. Every possibility.
It’s honestly a blessing in disguise.” She holds another color up to me—a lilac purple.
“Ooh, I don’t know which one I like more. ”
She tosses them into the air toward me. As I reach up and catch them, she vanishes. I spot her a moment later, three displays down at the jeans. She tosses a couple of pairs over her shoulder before beelining it for the next rack that catches her eye.
Taking full advantage of my body’s long strides, she dumps her armful into my hands. “Okay, you get started in the fitting room. Try one of the jeans with the purple shirt first.”
She stares at me nervously, gauging what my reaction will be, as if I might just drop everything and storm off.
I take a deep breath and accept the truth that this is the least of things I’d be willing to do for her. If she wants to dress me up right now, then so be it.
“Where are the dressing rooms?” I ask as my lips tip up in a smile.
Her face lights up, radiating sunshine and happiness.
She points to the corner farthest from the front doors. “Thank you! Thank you!”
I can’t hide my smile as I make my way to them, finding the first one open and slipping inside. Quickly, I hang everything up before turning to look in the mirror, seeing Daphne’s body looking back at me.
God, she is so beautiful. Her soft yet somehow striking features. Sharp blue eyes, plump and round lips, a skinny button nose.
I have to force myself from letting my eyes wander lower than her face, however tempting it might be. I respect Daphne too much to look at her body without her explicit consent.
Turning my back to the mirror, I change into the outfit she chose, staring straight at the door to avoid looking anywhere I shouldn’t.
“Daphne?” Daphne calls out to me, and I push open the door to find her with yet another armful of clothes. “Look, you can’t be mad. If you want, we can try on clothes for you next.”
“I’m good. There isn’t anything I don’t look good in.” I smirk, and she flips me off beneath the pile of clothes.
“Are you saying that I don’t look good in everything, which is why I have to try them on?” she retorts without skipping a beat.
I force a breath through my teeth. “Fuck no. There’s nothing in this world you wouldn’t look absolutely perfect in.”
Her gaze softens, and a light smile tips up her lips before she shakes the vulnerability away. “All right, now give me a little spin.”
Holding my arms out at my sides, I slowly twirl around, giving her the full view.
She gasps when my back turns to her, and I whip around to see what’s wrong, but her eyes are widened with excitement, planted low on my body.
“God, my ass looks amazing in those.”
I roll my eyes. “So, what’s the verdict?”
“Oh, we’re definitely getting both.” She juts the other stack of clothes at me, and I take the heaping pile as she orders me, “Next.”
She plops down onto one of the small chairs in the waiting area, pulling her legs up in a crisscross-applesauce position, which looks hilarious since she’s twice the size of the chair right now. I head back into the room to put on the next outfit.
Two hours later, I’m mentally exhausted from being Daphne’s dress-up doll, trying and retrying things on until she made up her mind. I’m not sure whether she dragged it out just to spite me or if she actually needed the time to think.
God, I felt like I was in a fashion montage, but instead of running the good and bad outfits over a thirty-second segment, I was stuck in a never-ending loop for hours .
I’m pretty sure that we went through the entire local boutique before I was allowed to leave the fitting room.
But I couldn’t say no to her every time she came back with more to try on. She was having a blast, and I surely wasn’t going to be the one to kill the mood.
Our arms are loaded up as we walk outside of the boutique, bags locked and loaded.
I unlock my pickup with my keys and reach over, unlocking her door. She squeezes into the seat, setting all of the bags at her feet, on her lap, and between us, including the ones I add to the pile.
As I slide into the driver’s seat and start the engine, Daphne asks, “Why do you still drive this old thing? I know you could have something nicer if you wanted.”
I swallow hard at the unexpected question, coughing on my spit like an idiot. I try my best to nonchalantly clear my throat, failing miserably.
How can I tell her that I’ve held on to this truck for all these years because of the memories it has, specifically the ones with her? And that I had this pretty, old truck colored the same shade of blue to match her eyes.
This truck isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
“Mason?” she murmurs.
Shit, I got lost in thought .
Hurriedly, I pull an answer out of my ass. “I just like it. No point in getting rid of something that works great.”
“Yeah, I guess,” she mumbles, looking around the cab. “I can’t believe we all used to squeeze in here for school.”
Neither can I. I laugh at the thought of Daphne squished between Maeve and me on the small bench seat. Especially on the days they were running late and trying to do their makeup together in my rearview mirror.
But I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.
“Those morning rides are some of my favorite memories from high school.”
She’s surprised by my honesty and sarcastically responds, “Oh, yeah, I bet. Listening to Maeve and me belt out music at seven thirty in the morning must have brought you nothing but happiness.”
“You’d be amazed how much happiness the things you do brings me.” I avoid her gaze as I pull out of the parking lot, feeling her stare on me the entire time.
“I think we should stop by your house so I can get more of your clothes. Since we’re not changing back right this second, it seems.” She exhales heavily.
“Yeah. Also …” I pause, wondering exactly how to word this next sentence. “We should probably talk about how to handle the whole shower situation.”
“Oh God.” Her head whips my way, and I fight back a laugh. “Can we just not?”
My laugh deepens as I head to my house. “I don’t know about your body, but mine doesn’t like going more than a day without at least a body shower. So, we might want to do that soon.”
“We?” She inhales. “And how do you propose that?”
I bite down on my bottom lip to try to control the giggles wanting to break free. “Well … I do have an idea, but I don’t know how you’re going to feel about it.”
“Continue.”
I turn onto my street. “We wash each other while we close our eyes.”
The wheels are spinning in her mind as she studies me. “I-I don’t hate that idea. It might work. But we’d definitely need to wait for Maeve to be out of the house because her catching us showering together wouldn’t be good.”
Hearing the words showering together come from her makes my nonexistent dick twitch. I wish it were a bit more romantic of an experience than it’s going to be. Maybe one day.
“Does she have plans with Jackson soon? I could text her,” I offer.