Swapped

CALLUM

My day was scheduled in precise fifteen-minute increments, which meant I had exactly eight minutes to retrieve Leo’s antique brass clock, four minutes to walk back to my car, and two minutes of buffer time to ensure I arrived at my two o’clock risk-assessment presentation with a crisp collar and an unhurried pulse.

I did not have time for rain. I certainly did not have time for Marcus Whitfield.

The brass bell above the door of Oakhaven Antiques & Curios chimed with an annoying, delicate tinkle as I stepped inside, shaking the dampness from my umbrella. The shop smelled overwhelmingly of dust, dried lavender, and decaying paper—the kind of cluttered, chaotic space that made my spine stiffen on instinct. Shelves groaned under the weight of unsorted trinkets, tarnished silver spoons, and stacked leather-bound books that looked one gentle breeze away from collapsing.

“Hello?” I called out, adjusting the cuff of my charcoal wool coat. “I’m here for the pickup for Leo Vance.”

“Over here, neat freak,” a voice drawled from the dark back aisle.

My heart did a sudden, traitorous drop against my ribs.

I turned slowly. Emerging from behind a towering mahogany wardrobe was Marcus.

It had been eight months, three weeks, and two days since I last stood in the same room as Marcus Whitfield, but my brain cataloged him instantly, operating with infuriating efficiency. He looked entirely, exasperatingly himself. His dark, wild curls were hopelessly tousled by the rain; his oversized denim jacket was dusted with faint splatters of yellow acrylic paint; and his boots were unlaced at the ankles. He smelled like cedar, turpentine, and the cold autumn air.

“Marcus,” I said, keeping my voice clipped, professional, and entirely void of the hollow ache currently opening up in my chest. “What are you doing here?”

Marcus rested a hand on his hip, tilting his head as his warm, amber eyes locked onto mine. A familiar, infuriatingly lazy smirk tugged at the corner of his lips. “Leo texted me an hour ago. Said he broke his ankle and needed someone to pick up a Victorian trinket he bought for his sister’s birthday.”

I pulled out my phone, tapping the screen. “Leo texted me forty-five minutes ago saying he had a sudden tire blowout on the I-95 and needed me to grab it.”

We stared at each other for three long seconds before the realization hit us simultaneously.

“That manipulative little bastard,” Marcus muttered, though there was a twitch of amusement in his tone. “He set us up.”

“He didn’t break his ankle or blow a tire,” I said, my voice rising half an octave before I controlled it. “He orchestrated an ambush. He knows I have a major client pitch at two.”

“Oh, poor Callum,” Marcus sighed, stepping closer as he crossed his arms. The casual proximity sent a sharp, unwelcome heat straight down my neck. “Your pristine calendar has been compromised by five whole minutes. Should I call an ambulance, or do you have a spreadsheet to treat severe anxiety?”

“Some of us respect other people’s time, Marcus,” I shot back, taking a subtle step back to maintain my perimeter. “Some of us don’t treat life like a series of optional suggestions.”

“And some of us actually enjoy living instead of color-coding our breathing schedule,” Marcus snapped, his easygoing demeanor instantly evaporating. The playfulness was gone, replaced by the jagged, raw edge of the unresolved nightmare we’d left behind a year ago. “You haven’t changed at all, have you? Still three seconds away from filing a formal complaint against the universe for being messy.”

“I don’t mind messy,” I said through my teeth, stepping into his space despite my internal alarm bells screaming at me to retreat. “I mind unreliable. I mind coming home to unpaid bills sitting under three-week-old pizza boxes while you’re off painting murals for people who pay you in ‘good vibes.’”

“It was one water bill, Callum!” Marcus slammed his hand down on the glass display case beside him, making a collection of glass marbles rattle inside a jar. “One! And I paid it the next day! But you turned it into a three-hour PowerPoint presentation on my moral failings as a human being!”

“It wasn’t about the bill!” My voice cracked the dusty silence of the antique shop. The raw, heavy truth of our breakup surged back into my throat, suffocating and hot. “It was about the fact that I was carrying the weight of both of our lives while you floated around pretending responsibilities didn’t exist!”

“I was trying to keep you from suffocating yourself!” Marcus shouted, his chest heaving, his amber eyes blazing with an anger that looked suspiciously like hurt. “You were drowning in your own rigidity, and every time I tried to pull you out, you treated me like I was the anchor dragging you down!”

“Because you were!” I yelled.

The silence that followed was suffocating. The words hung in the air between us like heavy smoke. Marcus flinched—just a tiny, micro-fraction of a movement in his shoulders—before his expression locked down into a cold, guarded mask I had rarely seen during the two years we’d spent in the same bed.

“Right,” Marcus whispered softly, his voice dangerously level. “Message received. Again.”

He turned away from me, sweeping his eyes over the cluttered counter behind the register. “Let’s just find whatever stupid thing Leo bought so I can get the hell away from you.”

“Fine,” I gritted out, my hands trembling as I thrust them into my coat pockets. “The owner said it was on the front glass counter.”

On the velvet display pad resting atop the register lay an object. It wasn’t Leo’s clock. It was a heavy, Victorian brass pocket compass, roughly the size of a palm. It had two glass faces—one on the front, one on the back—and intricate, interlocking gears visible beneath the brass casing. A handwritten tag beside it read: The Janus Compass – Pair.

“Is this it?” Marcus grunted, leaning over the counter.

“I don’t know,” I said, stepping up beside him, our shoulders brushing for a brief, agonizing second. “Leo said it was brass and old. Check the inscription.”

“You check it. You’re the one who needs to inspect everything under a microscope,” Marcus grumbled, reaching out a hand.

“I don’t need a microscope to read plain English—” I reached out at the exact same moment, intent on picking up the compass to read the tag before he could drop it or smudge it with paint.

Our hands met over the cold metal.

Marcus grabbed the left side of the brass casing; I grabbed the right. My thumb pressed flat against the polished front glass face; his thumb pressed against the rear glass face.

“Let go, I’ve got it,” I snapped.

“You let go, you control freak—” Marcus started.

Click.

The internal gears of the compass spun with a violent, sharp metallic snap.

A sudden, blinding shockwave of warmth burst outward from the brass center, detonating right where our skin met the glass. It wasn’t electricity—it felt like a sudden, violent surge of pressurized air, pulling the oxygen directly out of my lungs. My vision flickered white at the edges. My heart gave one terrifying, erratic thud that echoed not in my chest, but somewhere in the back of my skull.

The room tilted sixty degrees to the left. The smell of lavender and turpentine exploded into a sickeningly sweet copper scent, and for a terrifying split second, I felt as if my soul was being pulled through a needle’s eye.

I gasped, tearing my hand back from the compass. Marcus stumbled backward at the exact same moment, his boots sliding against the floorboards as he collided hard with a display case of vintage teacups.

The compass clattered onto the velvet pad, perfectly still.

I stood there, gasping for air, my heart hammering like a trapped bird against my ribs. My head felt light, dizzy, disoriented—like I had stepped off a spinning carnival ride into pitch blackness.

“What...” My voice sounded strange to my own ears. Thin. Rattled. “What the hell was that?”

Marcus was staring at his hands, breathing heavily. He looked up at me, his eyes wide with absolute, unadulterated terror.

“Callum...” he whispered.

“I’m fine,” I lied automatically, checking my watch to anchor myself. “It was just a static shock. We need to leave. Now.”

I turned and walked out of the shop into the rain, completely unaware that the ground beneath my feet was about to disappear entirely.