After the jokes were cracked and the flagrant self-groping had been done, a sort of tension had fallen over the room. Tony and I just kind of stared at one another, saying little. And fuck, it was really awkward, okay? Like, here was this girl, who was actually my best friend and really a guy deep down, but who looked like a really hot girl. And listen, I’m not here to talk about this shit being “gay” or whatever; regardless of what gender the person I was looking at actually was, that was an absolutely gorgeous body, which was the problem. You don’t just go from seeing your best friend as some dumbass dudebro, to seeing your best friend as some dumbass dudebro with an incredibly adorable and attractive girl-looking body without shit being awkward. What made it more awkward was that, in the same way I couldn’t seem to stop staring at him, he couldn’t seem to stop staring at me. His eyes kept roaming my body, lingering from time to time on my thighs, or my breasts, or my lips, which wasn’t to say I didn’t happen to be doing the same thing to him. That was part of why this was all so awkward, neither of us could take our eyes off the other. 

 

Add on to all of that the fact that both of us were still bursting with excitement and glee at the mere reality of getting to have things like boobs and thick thighs and kissable lips, it was pretty difficult to not feel a weird cocktail of mixed, but overwhelmingly good feelings. But it’s not like I could just, y’know, kiss my best friend. That would be weird. And also, even if I was physically attracted to his body, he was still a guy on the inside, just like me. I could be attracted to him, but acting on that attraction was clearly too far. I spent the next couple of minutes silently praying for something, anything to break this spell of awkwardness which had been cast upon us. Anyway, I guess the universe decided to take that personally, because just as I was beginning to believe I’d need to actually work up the courage to shatter the awkwardness myself, the silence was broken by the sound of a key entering the front door lock.

 

Simultaneously, Tony and I both whipped our heads around to stare down the hallway. We had what, thirty seconds to a minute and a half for them to step inside, take off their shoes, walk down the hall and see us? If Rach was wearing her boots we’d maybe have a little more time on account of her taking forever to get them off; either way, time was short, and we didn’t have a plan. “What do we do?” I hissed, suddenly feeling distinctly like I was a deer in pants caught with my headlights down the cookie jar. 

 

“Uh, shit, I dunno, bro… it? Like we do it, right?” He looked just as surprised as I did, and was clearly trying not to panic. 

 

“We should have practiced before it came to this.” I shot back, trying and failing over and over to come up with some kind of distraction. We were well and truly boned, though. I really wanted to be anywhere else all of a sudden; what if they totally rejected us and thought we were freaks? Which, well, actually considering this was a prank we could just take it back, but still, for some reason the idea of two of my most important friends rejecting me for being ‘trans’ sounded just awful. And, yes, realistically I had no real reason to think that would happen; it didn’t actually help though. 

 

“Look, it’s too late now, but we gotta press on, for the prank, man. For the prank.” Reassuringly, he lay a hand on my shoulder; all of a sudden I felt super blushy and goddammit brain, this was not the time for that, go be horny somewhere else.

 

Lightly shaking my head, and trying to ignore how cool it was to feel my hair fly around like that, I did my best to regain my cool, “You think they’ll buy it?” I asked.

 

“Not sure, convincing them of something as outlandish as the notion that we’ve actually wanted to be girls this whole time and prefer these bodies to our old ones will definitely be tough. But we’ve pulled off pranks of this magnitude before; I’m confident we can do it again.” We shared a nod, this wouldn’t be the first time, or the last time we’d had to convince Rachel and Will of something that was really clearly obviously a lie actually for the sake of a prank. We could do this—just please, please let them be accepting of us wanting to be girls, or pretending to want to be girls that is. 

 

They were inside, I could hear them talking to one another, distinctly make out their voices, but I couldn’t tell what they were saying over the thundering of my heart and heaviness of my breath. The moments dragged on agonizingly slowly as I heard them each deposit their shoes heavily and drunkenly against the floor, laughing and ribbing on one another as they went. Then there were footsteps, footsteps growing louder. 

 

“Brody, Tony, guys you gotta see—”

 

“Shh, they might not even be awake,” Despite speaking way quieter, Rachel’s voice somehow sliced right through Will’s. 

 

“Oh come on, it’s a Friday night, they’re definitely up. Besides I can hear the TV on.” Despite his protests, Will had actually gotten quieter, at least for a moment, that certainly didn’t last, however. “Guys!” he boomed, voice and footsteps growing ever closer, “you’ll never fuckin’ believe this girl. I take her out to be my wingwoman and what does she do? She gets like five different girls’ phone numbers and doesn’t even help me,” he called boisterously, slurring excessively while Rachel giggled manically. There was a thud, which was probably Rachel hitting the wall; she had a tendency to lose her balance while drunk and laughing too hard. Then there was a second, softer thud as her giggles only intensified, that one was probably her sliding to the floor.

 

“Well, maybe if you had tried actually talking to them instead of just gaping at how much more successful I was than you, you’d have actually scored,” she teased between wheezing breaths.

 

“Fuck, dude, you’re so drunk.” Will muttered, no doubt pausing to help her up, and then, judging by the crash and chorus of laughter, losing his own balance and falling as well. More jostling sounds echoed down the hallway as the two of them struggled back to their feet, then continued. They were almost upon us now; Tony and I exchanged one last look, bracing for the moment of truth. 

 

“You two gotta see this shit; she’s even already heard back from like, three of them. Didn’t do the two-day waiting thing or nothing and—oh, shit. Uh, hi?” He stopped short, looking from the two of us back to Rachel, who was lagging behind. “Hey, Rach, uh, you didn’t happen to hear Tony or Brody talking about having dates tonight, did you?” 

 

A moment later, Rachel crashed into Will’s back, nearly falling again, but catching herself on him. “Hmm? Wha—? No, nothing about a date, why do you ask—oh.” Her eyes fell on the two of us, and suddenly, at the sight of pretty girls, some ancient useful lesbian technique activated within her and she regained like all of her composure. The four of us sat—and also stood—in silence for several moments, both of us trying to piece together how to move this interaction forward. Will spoke first. 

 

His gaze swept the two of us, then fell on Tony. “Hi there.” Will said, breaking into a surprisingly charming smile. To my surprise, Tony flushed a bright red, I followed Tony’s gaze back to Will, then turned to Rachel, who happened to have fixed me with her own intense gaze and cocky, lopsided smile. 

 

“Uh, hi?” he squeaked.

 

“Hey,” she breathed in the husky, breathy voice I’d seen her use to melt so many girls in the past. Well, luckily for me, and unfortunately for her, I was a guy, so there was no way it was working on me—oh god body, why are you betraying me? Suddenly the room was really really hot, and my clothes felt all itchy and my skin all sensitive and my belly felt all warm and heavy and melty and god damn, was this what arousal felt like? 

 

“H-hey?” I stammered. More silence followed as I stared very intently at the wall next to Rachel instead of meeting her gaze.

 

“Sorry, um, are we interrupting?” He looked around, gaze falling on the bathroom, the door to which was open with the lights off. “Hey, uh, this is awkward, but where are our roommates?” A degree of caution had crept into his voice. Aw, fuck, welp, time to do the thing after doing the thing with the other thing going in the thing.

 

Tony and I shared one last look, exchanged a pair of silent, blushy nods, and turned back to confront the situation. “Okay, listen, Will,” I began, then immediately ran out of words. This sure was going well.

 

“We need to tell you something,” Tony trailed off. 

 

“You see, we both realized something about ourselves.” 

 

“Yeah, and…” 

 

“Are you two gonna keep doing the whole alternating speech thing? It’s kinda off-putting,” Rachel offered. I glanced back at Tony; he seemed absolutely paralized. I rolled my eyes. Fine, guess I had to take this one.

 

“Will, Rachel. We are your roommates. I’m, well, I was Brody.” Just saying that kind of felt shitty. “And that’s, well, the person formerly known as Tony.” It was really hard referring to him as Tony in my head and avoiding doing it in my actual speech. “You see, we’re, um. We’re trans.” This was it, the big moment. The weight of it all hung thick in the air as my breath caught in my throat. Will and Rachel shared a look, then a smile. 

 

“Ah, well, alright.” Will said casually, then suddenly, his drunk thoughts seemed to catch up with reality and he nearly did a double take. “Wait hold the fuck.”

 

“W-what?”

 

“Uh, I got stuck between hold the phone and what the fuck. Anyway, you two realized you were trans and the way you decided to come out was like this?” He asked incredulously.

 

“Well, we were excited and kind of got carried away.” That part, at least, was true. And all the best lies had just a little truth in them, as a treat.

 

“Yeah but how did y—”

 

“Regardless of how it happened,” Rachel flashed Will a stern ‘not now’ type look, “I think I speak for both of us when I say we’re really happy for you!” Rachel chimed in, giving the two of us supportive smiles. Suddenly I was letting all the air I’d ever breathed in out of my lungs in the biggest sigh of relief that had ever sighed. Part of me was worried I was going to completely deflate. 

 

“Do you have new names?” Will asked. And suddenly this got pretty exciting.

 

“Yeah!” All the nerves seemed to have evaporated, only for them to come crashing back into me when my eyes met Rachel’s. “Err, I mean, well yeah. I’m, um, I’m Heather.” 

 

“Cute,” she said. Or, really, more accurately she purred it, or maybe cooed it; was I just imagining things or was she still trying to flirt with me? Intentional or not, it was working. I felt all three sets of eyes boring into me for several seconds until Tony rescued me.

 

“And I’m Penny!” he chirped. Oh thank god, the pressure let up, and I was able to just get flustered in peace. 

 

“Well, Penny, Heather, it’s nice to meet your real selves,” Will said and god fucking dammit it was back again. How could they just do that willy nilly? 

 

“Thanks,” Tony squeaked. Finding myself unable to properly reply, I just nodded. Everyone seemed to want to say something, but nobody really knew what, after another agonizing silence, Rachel broke in.

 

“Well, listen, this is really wonderful news, honestly. But I think Will and I are a little too drunk to take all this in properly. But let’s all have a proper talk about it tomorrow, okay?” she said. We all murmured agreement, and, just like that, it was over. Will and Rachel shuffled out, leaving Tony and I alone.

 

“Holy fucking shit dude,” he hissed.

 

“I know, right? They fucking bought it!” I silently pumped my fist, grinning triumphantly. 

 

“I can hardly believe it, I mean, who would look at us and think ‘yeah, these two wanting to be girls makes perfect sense?’” 

 

“I dunno, bro. You know what though? I bet it’s ‘cause they were drunk, that really worked to our advantage. They didn’t have the brainpower to really think about this issue, so instead they just took what they saw on the surface and gave it no extra thought whatsoever. We’re pretty lucky they were too out of it to think critically about all this. But I think we’re in the clear now,” I replied. 

 

“Definitely, the prank is on, bro. I can’t wait to see the looks on their faces when they find out the truth about who we actually are.”