Jen was working the register and I was filling her orders. I constantly had to move behind her to the window and back to the prep area. Several times ...e bumped butts. But one time I had to nudge her bottom out of the way. I gently put my open hands on the top of her shapely hips and she moved right out of the way giving me a smile. It seemed innocent enough at the time. But later I would find out it meant much more to her. After our shift she came up to me. We were about to be tested in a few. The word does get around and my best friend, Janisha, is a bit of a Nancy Drew when it comes to checking out boyfriends, hers, mine, anyone's really. She likes that sort of thing, and so I'd gotten the full report. How Rodney had some eight or nine different girlfriends in college, all of them pretty, all of them black, but they just hadn't worked out for some reason. Of course Janisha, being Janisha, wasn't go to stop without a reason but try as she might, all she could get out of Rodney's old. Slowly she opened her eyes, rubbed them with the back ofher hands, and then carefully looked around. She realizedthat she was in a hospital room. Another bed in the roomcontained a child, probably about twice her age. The othergirl's leg had obviously been broken and she lay in herbed, crying.Although still groggy, Derek was awake enough to realizethat there had been some changes made in his life. Like, atotal gender switch, to start off with. At first hethought he was dreaming, since his. Too much coincidence."Doubt nodded, amused like she had me all figured out. "I see free will at every turn. You could have not taken the job. A neighbor might have found me." She paused and let herself smile. "And he might have been more ruggedly handsome than your cheery old self."I grinned and stroked the three-day growth across my chin. Sank a finger of bourbon. "Fate. Free will. Roll of the dice. Same animal, different clothes." No no. Not at all. Lift one of your legs. Either one."I raised.