|Genderbend| Chloe Styles

The bass in the club was doing a terrible job of masking Chloe’s internal crisis. He sat wedged in a circular booth, flanked by three of his closest girlfriends from college, looking like a bodyguard who had gotten lost on his way to a security detail. He was holding a lychee martini—his favorite—but in his new, massive hand, the delicate stemware looked like a toy. He was terrified he was going to snap the crystal just by twitching a finger.

"God, my feet are killing me," Jessica moaned, leaning her head on Chloe’s broad shoulder without a second thought. "Chloe, you’re so lucky you don’t have to wear heels."

"Yeah," Chloe grumbled, his voice rumbling in his chest—a vibration he still wasn't used to. He carefully set the martini down before he crushed it. "Lucky. That’s the word for it. I miss being able to reach the top shelf without feeling like a giraffe, though."

"Oh, shut up, you're gorge," Becca chirped, reapplying her gloss. Then, her expression soured. She jerked her chin toward the bar. "Ugh. Don't look now, but I think that person over there is staring at us. Like, aggro staring."

Chloe’s spine straightened instantly. The "girl code" protective instinct fired off in his brain, hardwired from years of dodging creeps himself. Not on my watch.

"Where?" Chloe asked, his tone dropping into that unintentional, gravelly register that made strangers flinch. "Point them out. I’ll handle it."

"By the taps. Dark shirt. Relentless," Becca whispered.

Chloe stood up. He felt the sheer height of his new frame unfolding, towering over the booth. It was still disorienting, the way the room seemed to shrink around him, but he used it. He puffed out his chest—which was stupidly muscular for someone whose only workout was panic-pacing around his apartment—and turned toward the bar with a scowl practiced in the mirror.

"Hey!" Chloe barked, turning fully to face the offender. "Take a picture, it lasts long—"

The sentence died a violent death in his throat.

The stranger at the bar wasn't a creep. They were arguably the most stunning human being Chloe had ever laid eyes on. They were leaning casually against the wood, drink in hand, and their gaze wasn't predatory; it was just... intense. Heavy.

And Chloe’s body betrayed him instantly.

It wasn't a mental appreciation of aesthetic beauty. It was a physical slam to the gut. His heart hammered against his ribs like a trapped bird, and heat flushed up his neck, burning the tips of his ears. His breath hitched. His eyes traced the line of the stranger's jaw, the way their shirt fit across their chest, and a sudden, mortifying jolt of arousal shot straight to his groin.

Oh my god, his inner monologue shrieked. No. Absolutely not. Down, boy. Do not get a boner in the middle of a crowded bar. Think about taxes! Think about grandma!

But the stranger was still looking, and Chloe was just standing there, mouth slightly open, looking less like an intimidating protector and more like a deer in headlights.

"Uh," Chloe managed, his impressive, threatening baritone cracking slightly. He cleared his throat, trying to salvage the wreck. "I mean... the, uh... the flash? It lasts... longer?"

He winced. That didn't even make sense.

Behind him, Becca tugged on the hem of his oversized t-shirt. “Chloe? Did you tell them off?"

"I'm working on it," Chloe hissed over his shoulder, though he hadn't broken eye contact with the stranger. He felt dizzy. Why did they have to look like that? And why did he suddenly have the overwhelming urge to walk over there and see if they smelled as good as they looked?

He took a hesitant, stumbling step toward the bar, his hands coming up in a vague, awkward gesture. "I, uh... my friend thought you were... looking. At us." He swallowed hard, his eyes darting down to the stranger's hands, then snapping back up in panic. "Are you?"

The library's fluorescent lights were giving Chloe a headache, but he powered through, chin propped in one hand as he squinted at his laptop screen. His psychology textbook lay open beside him, pages dog-eared and highlighted within an inch of their life. He'd been searching for a specific citation his professor mentioned in class—something about attachment theory—but the syllabus seemed to have vanished into the digital void.

Where the hell did I put that PDF? Chloe's manicured nails—painted a deep plum this week—clicked against the edge of his laptop as he scrolled through his downloads folder for the third time. He caught himself sitting cross-legged in the chair and immediately uncrossed them, shifting into a wider, more "acceptable" stance. Ow. Okay, never doing that again.

He glanced up, frustration etched across his stupidly symmetrical face, and his gaze landed on the person sitting across from him at the shared study table. They'd been there for the past hour, quietly working through their own stack of books, and Chloe had been doing his best not to stare. They had a focused, intense energy that he found oddly... distracting.

"Hey, sorry to bother you," Chloe said, his deep voice betraying none of the nervous energy humming beneath his skin. "You're in Anderson's Psych 301, right? Have you seen the syllabus? I swear I saved it, but it's like it evaporated."

When the stranger leaned over the table to look at his screen, pointing helpfully at a minimized tab he'd completely overlooked, their forearm brushed against his. It was nothing—bare skin against the back of his hand, a fleeting half-second of contact that should have registered as polite, impersonal, utterly mundane.

Instead, it felt like he'd been struck by lightning.

Chloe's breath hitched—audible, mortifying—and his entire body went rigid. Heat exploded up his neck and into his face, his pulse spiking so fast he could feel it hammering in his throat. Oh my god. What is happening? It's just an arm. A normal, perfectly nice arm attached to a normal person. Why does it feel like I just got tased? He jerked his gaze down to his keyboard, staring at the keys like they held the secrets of the universe, desperately trying to will his heart rate back to normal.

Stop it. You are not going to pop a boner in the middle of the library over someone's FOREARM. Get it together, Styles.

But his body had other ideas. He could feel the telltale stirring of arousal, insistent and entirely unwelcome, and he shifted in his seat, crossing one leg over the other in a desperate bid for damage control. His hands trembled slightly as he clicked on the tab they'd pointed out, the syllabus loading on screen in all its mundane, 12-point-font glory.

"Oh," Chloe managed, his voice coming out rougher than intended, almost breathless. He looked back up at them, and immediately regretted it. They were close—close enough that he could see the flecks of color in their eyes, close enough to catch a faint trace of their shampoo. Stop smelling them, you absolute creep. His expression was a war between genuine gratitude and sheer, unadulterated panic, his blue eyes wide and slightly glassy. "Thanks. I—yeah. Thank you. I'm apparently blind."

The bass was rattling Chloe's ribcage, or maybe that was just his anxiety. He'd lost track after the third cup of mystery punch—something neon pink that tasted like regret and fermented Skittles—and now he was wedged onto a sagging couch in the middle of a frat house living room that reeked of stale beer and Axe body spray. His purple baby tee had ridden up slightly, exposing a sliver of his stupidly defined abs, and he tugged it down self-consciously before catching himself. Stop it. You spent forty-five minutes on this outfit. Own it.

And he had agonized. The vintage jeans had taken three separate try-ons to get the "effortlessly cool but not trying too hard" vibe just right, sitting dangerously low on his hips in a way that made him feel both powerful and slightly exposed. The black belt was a last-minute addition—purely aesthetic, since the jeans fit fine—and he'd layered on rings until his fingers looked like a jewelry store exploded. He looked good. He knew he looked good. But sitting here, surrounded by drunk college kids shrieking over a game of spin the bottle, he felt like a fraud in a very pretty costume.

"I swear to god, if I get herpes from someone—" a girl with a crimson solo cup slurred, and the room erupted into laughter.

Chloe watched as two random people—a guy in a backwards snapback and a girl in a sequined top—leaned in for a sloppy, performative kiss that earned a chorus of whoops and hollers. Classy, Chloe thought, sipping his punch and trying not to cringe. The bottle spun again, slowing, and he assumed it would pass to the guy on his right.

Instead, someone shoved the bottle into his hand.

"Your turn, pretty boy!" the snapback guy shouted, grinning like a maniac.

Oh, fuck. Chloe's heart lurched. He set down his cup with shaking hands, his brain suddenly very loud and very panicked. I can just say no. I can fake a stomachache. I can literally stand up and walk out right now and never come back. But everyone was staring, and his people-pleasing instincts were hardwired deeper than his common sense. He gave the bottle a spin, watching it whirl across the scratched hardwood floor, and prayed to a god he didn't believe in that it wouldn't land on someone with visible cold sores.

The bottle slowed. Wobbled. And stopped, pointing directly at someone sitting across the circle.

Chloe's breath caught. They were... attractive didn't even begin to cover it. The low lighting of the frat house caught the angles of their face just right, and Chloe felt his stomach drop into his overpriced vintage jeans. Oh, come on. Of course. Of fucking course it's them. He'd noticed them earlier in the night—hard not to—but he'd been doing his best to not stare like some kind of creep. Now, he had no choice.

"Ooooh, spicy," someone sing-songed, and the room erupted into chaotic encouragement.

Chloe stood up on shaky legs, his height suddenly feeling like a spotlight. I could trip. I could fake a seizure. I could spontaneously combust. But his body was already moving, crossing the circle with the unsteady confidence of someone who'd had just enough alcohol to override their survival instincts. He stopped in front of them, towering over where they sat, and his hands flexed nervously at his sides. Up close, they were even more devastating, and Chloe's brain went into full meltdown mode. This is fine. It's just a kiss. People kiss at parties all the time. Except I've never kissed anyone as a guy before and what if I'm terrible at it? What if I accidentally headbutt them? What if—

"Hi," Chloe said, his voice coming out lower and raspier than intended, betraying absolutely none of the chaos happening inside his skull. He crouched down slightly, bringing himself closer to their eye level, and his pulse was doing something truly unhinged. Just get it over with. Lean in. Don't think. Don't—

He leaned in.

The F train was particularly humid for a Tuesday, smelling faintly of ozone and stale pretzels. Chloe didn't mind; he was currently disassociated from his physical surroundings, deeply engrossed in a Pinterest board titled “Menswear: Not Boring/Not Homeless Chic.” His thumb scrolled past endless photos of beige linen trousers, his brow furrowed in concentration.

Why does every guy just wear navy blue? Is color illegal for men? he wondered, aggressively saving a picture of a guy in a sheer mesh top. I could pull that off. Maybe. If I didn't have anxiety.

The train screeched to a halt at West 4th, the doors rattling open to admit a fresh wave of commuters. Chloe didn't look up. He was busy zooming in on a pair of loafers. Beside him, there was a rustle of movement, a heavy sigh, and the shifting of weight.

Peripherally, he saw the person next to him stand up. Chloe glanced up just in time to see an elderly woman with a terrifyingly large tote bag claim the now-vacant seat. Guilt pricked at him—he hadn't even noticed her—but his attention snagged immediately on the person who had played the hero.

They were standing right in front of him now, one hand gripping the overhead rail, shuffling back as the crowd pressed in. Okay, wow, Chloe thought, his gaze involuntarily dropping to the line of their hips, currently hovering inches from his face. Points for chivalry. Double points for the fit.

The train lurched forward with the violent, unannounced aggression typical of the MTA.

It happened in slow motion. The stranger lost their grip. Their center of gravity shifted. Chloe’s hands instinctively shot out to catch them, but physics was faster. They stumbled backward, landing hard right between Chloe’s spread knees.

"Oof—" Chloe grunted as the weight hit him.

For a split second, they were tangled together—the stranger’s back pressed flush against Chloe’s chest, their hips grinding squarely into his lap. It wasn't romantic. It was a clumsy, subway collision. But Chloe’s body didn't get the memo.

The friction was instantaneous. A jolt of electricity shot straight from his groin to his brain, bypassing all logic and reason. The warmth, the pressure, the sudden intimacy of it—his body reacted with terrifying, traitorous speed. He felt himself hardening against the denim of his jeans, a rapid, throbbing response that made his eyes widen in horror.

No. No, no, no. Not now. Not here!

The stranger scrambled to right themselves, pushing off Chloe’s thighs to gain leverage. In the process, their face passed inches from his, close enough that he could count their eyelashes. They pulled away, murmuring an apology, but the damage was done. Chloe was sitting there with a very obvious, very uncomfortable problem, and his face was flaming hot.

He couldn't stay seated. If he sat there, he was going to die of embarrassment.

"I—uh," Chloe stammered, his voice dropping into a panicked, gravelly rumble. He stood up so abruptly he nearly headbutted the person behind him. "I'm getting off. Soon. Next stop. You sit."

He didn't even wait for a response, practically diving into the standing crowd to put distance between his crotch and any seated observers. He grabbed a pole, his knuckles white, trying to think unsexy thoughts. Tax returns. The DMV. Wet socks.

But the train was packed. There was nowhere to go.

The crowd shifted again as the train rattled around a curve, and suddenly, the stranger was pressed against him again. There was no escaping it. Chloe, dressed in a low-cut gym tank top because he was supposed to be on his way to CrossFit (he wasn't going to go, he was just going to walk on the treadmill and listen to a podcast), felt the stranger’s arm brush against his bare bicep.

Then, a sudden stop sent the stranger bumping into his side. They steadied themselves, their breath ghosting hot and damp against the sensitive skin of Chloe’s exposed shoulder.

Chloe’s grip on the metal pole tightened until he thought he might bend the steel. His breath hitched, a strangled sound caught in his throat, and he stared fixedly at a subway ad for dermatologists, praying the floor would open up and swallow him whole.

"Sorry," he choked out, his voice tight, refusing to look down at them because he knew, he knew, if he made eye contact right now, he was going to combust. "It's... really crowded today."