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“Uh… yeah, I’m fine. Just worried about what kind of torture you’ll put me through now.”

She leans back, her posture now as rigid as a door and her brows furrowed. I’ve reset her to the Leigh I’m used to. “I haven’t tortured you at all.”

“Oh really? I’ve been tackled twice by you, whipped with a hoodie, shoved around…”

She closes her eyes for a second, and when she opens them again, I read remorse in her gaze. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done any of those things. We aren’t kids anymore.”

I jerk back. I was teasing and not really expecting an apology. We used to horse around when we were kids, and because Leigh was so much smaller than me, she’d resort to throwing pillows at me when I pestered her enough to make her angry, or she and Mia would join forces and tackle me.

“It’s okay. Old habits and all. Besides, I was just yanking your chain.”

“I know you were, but still…” She shakes her head. “All right, let’s get you looking fabulous for the interview. I want Nick to eat his heart out.”

An overwhelming sense of protectiveness takes hold of me, and also the need to make Leigh’s ex suffer. “Don’t worry, darling. He will.”

Her cheeks turn pink. God, I didn’t know I could blush that hard.

She switches her focus to my hair as she begins to untangle it with a brush. There’s almost no resistance thanks to the amount of conditioner I used—about half the bottle. This feels nice, and soon I relax against the chair. Leigh then parts the hair in sections and switches to a different type of brush. This one is rounder and fuller.

“I’m going to blow-dry your hair now,” she tells me.

“All right.”

I think nothing of it. I’ve had my hair blow-dried before. But soon I realize there’s a huge difference between using a hair dryer on short hair as opposed to Leigh’s waist-length hair. Suddenly, I’m in the middle of a torture session I didn’t sign up for.

“Ouch! You’re pulling too hard.” I shout to be heard over the blow dryer.

“What? I am not.”

“Yes, you are.”

“Stop being such a baby. I thought you had a higher threshold for pain.”

I clutch the armchair in a vise grip, grimacing. I can tolerate a lot, but this is a new kind of pain, and I wasn’t prepared for it. Plus, the heat of the blow dryer burns in places.

“I thought you were done making me suffer.”

She shakes her head. “Okay, okay. I’ll be gentler.”

She stops pulling so hard, but the damage is done. I have a headache now. Not sure why she thinks she needs to blow-dry her hair. It’s already straight as an arrow. But thirty minutes later, it’s shiny and silky smooth. I can’t help but run my fingers through the strands. It feels so soft.

I close my eyes for a bit and picture wrapping my hand around a lock while kissing Leigh. We’d be back in our own bodies, of course.

“See? Wasn’t it worth it?” she asks smugly, snapping me back to the here and now.

“Hmm… not sure about that,” I lie.

She pulls the front strands back and secures them with a hair clip before she swivels my chair around and stands in front of me. “Now comes the best part. Makeup time!”

“Great,” I mutter.

She removes the glasses, and everything becomes blurry. “Close your eyes.”

“Why? I can’t see anything now.”

“I don’t want to accidentally get moisturizer in your eyes.”

“Fine,” I grumble.