“Uh, y-yes,” I stammer, feeling the heat rise to my cheeks.
“I still can’t believe you’re old enough to have graduated from high school twenty years ago.” His brown eyes meet mine and it’s impossible to look away.
“Guilty. I’m thirty-eight. Practically old enough to be your mother.” Did I just say that out loud?
He flashes me another smile, revealing a perfect set of teeth. “I’m quite certain my mom doesn’t look like you.”
I probably look a lot more like her than you realize. “So, I need to ask you a question about last night.”
“Lay it on me,” he says as he rolls up the sleeves of his shirt, revealing tan forearms.
“It’s kind of strange.”
“Try me.”
“Did you put something in our shots?” I blurt out, and a woman arranging a centerpiece on a nearby table looks over.
“Like what?” Brian answers, reaching past me to grab a case of wine, the muscles in his forearms straining.
“Something magical?” I whisper, looking over again to see if the woman is listening. On my way over, I’d received a text from Casey warning me that I’d have to be discreet. That I’d have to be careful of people overhearing my conversations or, worse, taking cell phone pictures or video and sending them to the gossip sites.
“Well, if you consider purple hooters magical, then I’m guilty as charged.” He breaks open the box and starts removing the bottles, lining them up neatly behind the bar.
My heart sinks. Maybe he’s not involved in this at all, but I press on anyway, still praying that he is. “Something in addition to the alcohol . . . like a potion or something?”
He laughs. “What do you think I am, some kind of witch? Mixing up potions in the cauldron? Give a guy a little more credit than that.”
“What do you mean?” I start to panic. The look of satisfaction on his face sends a chill up the back of my neck.
“I mean I’m a pro. I don’t make a witch’s brew.” He walks closer to me and tickles my ear with his breath. “I cast a spell.”
I grab his arm and whisper back. “So you did this to us?”
“Define ‘did this to us.’ What exactly did I do?” he asks.
“You hijacked our bodies,” I say aggressively.
“Did I?”
“Last time I checked, I wasn’t a five-foot, ten-inch woman with perky breasts and a tight ass!”
The woman arranging the centerpiece meets my eyes and I think I see a flicker of recognition. She quickly scurries out of the room and I pray it’s not to call TMZ. How does Casey live like this?
“So you didn’t want Casey Lee’s life?”
“No!”
“You could’ve fooled me. You certainly didn’t seem too happy with your own last night, accusing everyone of thinking you were the least successful when I think it was really only you who believed that about yourself.” He leans back against the counter. “And Casey, she was no better, questioning her decisions while she drowned her insecurities with booze.”
Casey questions her decisions too?
“Look, Brian, we both had a lot to drink and said things we shouldn’t have, especially me. But it doesn’t mean you had the right to fuck with Mother Nature.”
“So you’re saying you want your life back?”
“Of course I want it back. I have a family.” My voice breaks slightly. “They need me. Don’t you understand that? And right now Casey is over there trying to be me . . . doing God only knows what.”
Brian narrows his eyes and frowns. “If you want your life back, you’re going to have to figure out how to do it on your own. But it is possible. In fact, you already have what you need to make it happen.”
“Really? That’s all you’ve got for me? Can’t we just drink two more shots and tomorrow I can wake up in my own flannel sheets with cellulite on my thighs and Casey can wake up with some hot twenty-two-year-old?”
Brian’s mouth contorts into a cocky smirk as if to say, Like me?
“Rachel, you’re missing the point. It’s not about the shots. It’s about why I brought you and Casey the shots,” Brian says, suddenly seeming much older than he did only moments ago.
“Then why did you?”
“That’s something you and Casey will have to figure out on your own.” I start to protest, but he interrupts me.
“But listen, if you guys do figure out how to switch back, tell the real Casey to call me,” he says as he flashes me a crooked smile. And even though I’m panicked, I can’t help it, my knees buckle beneath me just a little.
I look down at the brightly patterned carpeting, trying to figure out how I’m going to explain to Casey that I failed. When I look back up again, Brian is gone.
CHAPTER 7
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casey