The Reception

The reception hall buzzed with celebration. Paul navigated the space with practiced ease, accepting congratulations, deflecting questions, playing the perfect bride. The dress no longer felt alien—it moved with him now, an extension of his intent.

Jackie shadowed him from a distance, trapped in Paul's body, forced to watch her life unfold without her. Every time their eyes met, Paul saw fresh anguish there. He tried to feel guilty. Mostly he felt alive.

"You're enjoying this."

Paul turned. Gerry stood beside him, champagne glass in hand, expression unreadable.

"I'm surviving it," Paul corrected. He sipped his own champagne—Jackie's favorite vintage—and let the bubbles dance across his tongue. "We're all surviving it."

"Are we?" Gerry's gaze drifted to Jackie across the room, laughing too loud at someone's joke, overcompensating with Paul's natural charm. "Because it looks like you're thriving."

Paul set down his glass. Stepped closer. Close enough that Gerry's cologne—the one Paul had helped him pick out—filled his senses. "What do you want me to say, Gerry? That I'm falling apart? Would that make you feel better?"

"I want you to stop looking so damn comfortable in her body."

"Maybe I am comfortable." Paul tilted his head, letting a strand of Jackie's blonde hair fall across his shoulder. "Maybe she was holding it back. Maybe it needed someone who knows how to work a room."

Gerry's jaw tightened. "That's her you're talking about."

"No. It's me." Paul touched Gerry's chest, fingertips light against his tie. "I'm the one standing here. I'm the one you married. And I'm the one you're going to have to deal with tonight."

The implication landed like a stone. Gerry's eyes darkened. "Paul—"

"Mrs. Carver now, remember?" Paul's smile was sharp. "You said the vows. You put the ring on my finger." He held up his left hand, letting the diamonds catch the light. "This is real, Gerry. However it happened, whatever it means—right now, in this moment, I'm your wife."

"You're not." But Gerry's voice lacked conviction.

"Then who is?" Paul gestured toward Jackie, who was watching them with barely concealed desperation. "Her? In that body? You want to consummate your marriage with your best friend's face?"

Gerry flinched. "This isn't a joke."

"I'm not joking." Paul's voice dropped, intimate. "I'm just stating facts. You have a wedding night ahead of you. A honeymoon. A life. And unless we figure out how to reverse this—which we haven't, because there's no orb, no magic words, no plan—you're stuck with me."

"I'm stuck with Jackie. In whatever body she's in."

"Are you?" Paul stepped back, smoothing his dress. "Because from where I'm standing, you kissed me pretty thoroughly up there. And you didn't look like you were thinking about body-swap metaphysics when you did it."

Gerry's expression shuttered. "I kissed my fiancée."

"Keep telling yourself that." Paul turned away, hips swaying in the dress. Over his shoulder, he added, "The photographer wants couple shots in ten minutes. Try to look happy."

He left Gerry standing there, champagne forgotten, and wove through the crowd toward the bridal party. Amanda caught his arm, giggling about something Paul only half-heard. He laughed on cue, touched her shoulder, played his part.

But his mind was elsewhere. On Gerry's face when they kissed. On the way his body had responded—feminine, foreign, intoxicating. On the wedding night looming ahead like a cliff edge.

Across the room, Jackie watched him with haunted eyes. Paul met her gaze and smiled—Jackie's sweet, reassuring smile—and watched her crumble just a little more.

He should feel guilty. He knew that intellectually.

But standing here in silk and diamonds, wearing the body of a woman everyone adored, having just married the man Jackie loved—Paul felt something else entirely.

Power.

And underneath that, threading through everything like poison honey—desire. Not for anyone in particular. Just desire itself, thrumming through veins that processed it differently, lighting up nerves that responded in unfamiliar ways.

Paul had always been the pursuer. The charmer. The one in control.

Now, for the first time in his life, he understood what it felt like to be pursued. To be desired. To be the prize rather than the player.

And God help him, he liked it.