Island Boys

I still wasn’t used to the weight of my new body.

The broad shoulders, the thick, muscular legs, the voice that rumbled from my throat like distant thunder—I’d wake up every morning, stare into the mirror, and half expect to see my old self blinking back at me. But instead, I saw Gabe: six-foot-something, golden tan, and annoyingly handsome even with bedhead.

Two months ago, I was Jessica Moore, president of Kappa Delta, pre-law student, and queen of campus fashion. Now? I was trapped in the jock body of Gabe fucking Thompson, a junior in Sigma Tau with a finance major and a dumbass shark tattoo on my thigh. And worst of all? I had his damn friends too.

We hadn’t planned to stick together, but the Great Shift left us little choice. Somehow, every girl in my sorority house had ended up in a frat guy’s body—and every guy in Sigma Tau had ended up as a Kappa Delta girl. A cruel cosmic joke. And yet, here we were—still taking our summer trip to Hawaii like nothing had happened.

“Yo, Jess,” Dylan (well, Amanda, now in Dylan’s body) called to me from down the beach, grinning through Dylan’s chiseled face. “Get in the damn water!”

I gave a half-hearted wave. “In a sec!”

They were all adjusting better than I expected. Maria—now in Owen’s body—had already mastered doing flips off the rocks. Chloe, in Max’s lean frame, had started flirting with locals like she’d been born with that smile. And me? I was still trying to figure out how to walk without my thighs rubbing together. How the hell do guys deal with this bulk?

I glanced down at the beer in my hand, warm from the sun, then at the tangle of tanned, shirtless bodies around me. I wasn’t Jessica anymore, not on the outside. But I’d be damned if I let that stop me from enjoying this trip.

Even if I had to do it with a guy’s voice and balls.

I exhaled, popped the tab, and jogged down to the water.

“Alright,” I muttered, “island boy it is.”