Chapter 6
For a moment, Jordan really thought he'd blown it. Staying up all night watching Kayla's movies was kind of weird. Saying he'd done that was probably super weird. And Kayla's expression had frozen when he admitted it, which couldn't be good.
Except then her expression softened into the sweetest smile Jordan had ever seen, and a faint blush climbed up her pale cheeks. "Thank you. I'm proud of that one. It was a little more heartbreaky than most."
"But it ended happily ever after." Jordan smiled back. "What's it like, playing so many characters whose big story is falling in love?"
Kayla laughed. "It sets me up badly for real life romance, let's put it that way.
Scripted guys always say the right thing, except for that one 'dark moment' scene where they have the big misunderstanding and it looks like the relationship is all over.
It's a pretty great way to make a living, though, especially when my costars are nice. What about you?"
"I say the wrong thing all the time," Jordan said mournfully.
The gorgeous woman across the table blinked her huge beautiful eyes once, then laughed again, a bright cheerful sound that showed off a mouthful of implausibly white teeth.
"I bet you don't. No, I meant, what are you doing with yourself now that we're all grown up?
Dog-sitting, I know, but unless you're the luckiest guy in the world, that's probably not your full-time gig. "
"I'm having coffee with Kayla Walsh," Jordan said. "I am the luckiest guy in the world."
"Oh, very nice." Kayla's eyes sparkled. "Do you have a script writer around here somewhere?"
"Sadly, no, so I'll probably mess up before we get to the 'black moment,'" Jordan said.
"And no, the dog-sitting isn't a full-time gig.
Turns out there aren't that many dogs that need sitting on in Virtue.
No, I, um, man, I gotta roll the clock back, don't I?
I got a baseball scholarship for college—"
"Oh right! I remember that, now that you mention it. How'd that go?" Kayla sat back as the waiter brought them hot chocolates piled with whipped cream, marshmallows, and sprinkles.
"They're made with real melted chocolate, not powder," the kid said proudly as he set the drinks down.
Kayla said, "Oh my god," and for a few seconds they both just gazed at the frothy concoctions in front of them. "I don't mean to be all movie actress worried about her diet about this, but I'm pretty sure that's my entire caloric intake for the day."
"I'll drink half of it for you?" Jordan offered nobly, and Kayla's shoulders shook with quiet laughter.
"You might have to, honestly. Or maybe Barney can have some?"
"Sadly for Barney, chocolate is bad for dogs. I'll just have to throw myself on my sword. Or on your hot chocolate, which seems a lot better than a sword, really."
"Let's see how I manage, first." Kayla lifted her mug in both hands, eyeing the whipped cream cautiously, and tried twice to figure out how she could take a sip without getting a face full of sprinkles.
Almost to Jordan's disappointment, she put the mug down again, picked up a spoon, and ate sprinkles, marshmallows, and cream delicately before glancing up with a sheepish expression.
"If I mess up my face before my next scene, Ruth in Makeup will murder me. "
"Oh, yeah. I wouldn't have thought of that.
Okay, I'll be messy for both of us." Jordan picked up his own mug, found himself eying it exactly the way Kayla had done hers, and then shrugged, sticking his face into the cream and marshmallows to slurp away a frothy bite.
Kayla laughed as he lowered his mug enough to see if he had whipped cream on his nose, then wiped it away because it was inevitable that he did.
It took them both several more tries to actually get to the hot chocolate beneath all the toppings, and Jordan's eyes widened above the remaining whipped cream. "Oh my God. That's really good."
"Yessss!" The whisper hissed its way across the ice cream parlor, and when they both glanced toward the soda jerk, he turtled into his shoulders with an embarrassed expression, whispering, "Sorry. Didn't mean to intrude. I just don't get to make hot chocolates very often and I'm glad they're good."
"They're amazing," Kayla promised, then curled hers more closely toward herself, possessively, as she eyed Jordan. "Mine."
"Hey, you're the one who said you didn't think you'd be able to finish it. If you've changed your mind, I'm not going to leap across the table and steal it from you!"
"Well, all right, fair." Kayla uncoiled a little and smiled at him. "Anyway, so there you were, a baseball scholarship to college, and that went…?"
Jordan took a deep breath, working through an upswell of feelings that weren't yet entirely resolved. "Pretty well. I played through college and got picked up by a minor league team, which is almost as good as it gets."
"As a B-grade movie star, I know exactly what you mean."
Jordan startled. "You're way better than a B-grade star!"
"I mean, thanks, but I'm not an A-lister, right? I make tv movies, not cinematic blockbusters. Or did you go on to be an A-lister yourself? Did you make the majors?"
"I got too old," Jordan admitted. "By the time you hit thirty, you're an old man by most professional sports standards.
And then last year…" He had to take another deep breath, and knew his smile faltered.
"Blew out my knee. They did an amazing job reconstructing it, but it slowed me down just that little bit more, and…
" He moved his mug to one hand so he could splay the other, indicating it was over.
"So, not to be dramatic about it or anything, I'm still kind of putting my life back together. It's one of those things where…"
He shook his head and frowned into his hot chocolate.
"You know your sports career only has a limited window, and I guess I should have spent years thinking about what comes next, but that always felt like denying myself the moment, you know?
" He glanced up, embarrassed, to find Kayla's gaze unexpectedly sympathetic.
"I didn't want to be spending all my time figuring out where to go from there.
I wanted to be doing what I was doing. Which probably sounds… stupid."
Her elegant, heavy eyebrows rose a little. "Yes, definitely, speaking as someone who absolutely does not have a career with an expiration date, it sounds totally dumb to want to really enjoy it while you're able to do it."
"Oh, but—" Jordan broke off, a crooked smile pulling at his mouth. "I was going to say, you're not going to get hurt doing movies, but…"
"Probably not badly," she agreed, though her own mouth quirked like she thought that was funny somehow.
"I have a stunt double for the dangerous stuff, which includes levels of danger like 'sledding down a big hill.
' But I'm thirty-six, and while forty isn't quite the hard end of an actress's shelf life that it used to be, it's really hard to not be aware that directors and producers are starting to think you're too old. So I think I get it?"
"Anybody who doesn't keep casting you into your eighties is an idiot," Jordan said with feeling. "You'll never stop being beautiful."
Kayla dimpled. "Thank you. There aren't a lot of romcoms with eighty year old stars, though.
It's part of why I started my own production company, and part of why even though I love my side of the camera, sometimes I do think about trying my hand at directing.
But anyway, can I—this is super rude, you can tell me to mind my business, but—I mean, uh… "
Jordan tilted his head, intrigued and amused. "Now you have to say it."
"I have no idea what minor league ball players earn," Kayla said, clearly trying to be delicate. "Have you been able to save up?"
"Ah." Jordan ducked his head, grinning at the hot chocolate before he met Kayla's eyes again. "That was very nicely put. I'm not swimming in riches, let's put it that way. I've got some savings, but I'm not going to live on it for the rest of my life, or anything."
"So it's time to figure out what to do for your second act." Kayla picked up her drink and regarded him over it, her fiery blue gaze intent. "All right, hit me with it. What's the craziest thing you'd like to do?"
"Spend—" Jordan swallowed down the rest of the words that came out of nowhere: spend the rest of my life with you.
That was actually insane, and worse, it was a kind of weird-stalker thing to say to a film star.
"Spend some time learning to paint," he said instead, startling himself with that almost as much with that as with his first impulse.
A delighted soft smile spread across Kayla's face. "Yeah? You took art classes in high school, didn't you?"
Jordan made a face. "Yeah, but that was a long time ago. And it's not like you can really make a living at painting these days, unless it's houses."
"But I didn't ask what you wanted to do for a living," Kayla pointed out. "I asked what crazy thing you'd like to do. Learning to paint isn't that hard, it's not like wanting to walk on the moon or something."
"Well, see, now, I didn't think of that. Can I change my answer?"
"You can do anything you want." Kayla managed to sound amused, encouraging, and sanctimoniously condescending all in one sentence, although her expression, which was obviously intended to be funny, sold the last part.
"Gee, thanks. I think you've got a second career as a motivational speaker ahead of you."
"Oh, God, no, I'm going to retire to my castle with my cats and never be seen in public again, like Enya."
Jordan laughed. "Like who?"
"Oh, man, you don't know Enya? She's this Irish singer with an incredible haunting voice and she doesn't tour, she doesn't do concerts, she just lives in her castle with her cats and releases an album every once in a while and charts with it.
One of my older costars introduced me to her music about fifteen years ago and now it's my go-to chillaxing music. "
"Chillax? I don't think anybody says that anymore!"
Kayla grinned at him. "I do."
Jordan made a show of taking notes. "Enya…chillax…anything else I should know?"
"How did this end up about me? We're talking about things you want to do!"
"We're having a conversation," Jordan said, trying for the same high-falutin' tone she'd managed a minute earlier. "That means talking about both of us."
"Oh, you really are scripted. Who's feeding you lines? Barney, is it you?" Kayla looked under the table and the Border Collie sat up fast enough to bump his head, clearly hoping for food. "I don't think it's him," Kayla said as she gave the dog's head a pet.
"If it's him my second career is all sorted out. I'll go on variety shows with my magnificent talking dog."
"I thought you were pet-sitting."
Jordan waved, dismissing the detail. "I won't tell if you don't."
Kayla laughed. "I will not be party to dog-stealing."
"…yeah, that's fair. I hadn't thought about it like stealing.
I was just gonna, like…borrow him for a while.
This is great," Jordan added more softly.
"I'm sorry for outing you as being from around here if you didn't want that to be known, but I'm really glad to see you again.
Don't take this wrong, but running into old high school acquaintance isn't usually this much fun.
And it happens kind of a lot around here. "
Kayla glanced out the window, her gaze lingering on the snow that had just started falling. "I'm kind of surprised there's anything left to Virtue, honestly. It was kind of dying when I left. It seemed like everybody was leaving. Even though…"
"Even though?" Jordan's eyebrows went up, but Kayla shook her head, so he let it go and nodded agreement.
"Yeah, you're right. It was like everybody was trying to get on the last bus out of town, when we were in high school.
But something's changed. Maybe it was Zane Bellamy making it famous. You remember Zane?"
"Yeah, of course. He's even dressed me a couple of times, but we pretend we don't know each other.
I mean, we don't, really. He's about five years older than me, so I didn't go to school with him or anything, but, y'know, small town and all that.
And yeah, he kind of put Virtue on the map, which…
" She trailed off again, frowning, and worry sprang up in Jordan's heart.
"Which what?"
"Oh, just…I think it's better for Virtue to be kind of unknown, that's all."
"You said that before. Why on earth would you think that? I think it's great Zane brought all that attention here. People are moving back to Virtue instead of away!"
Kayla studied him a moment, finally shaking her head with a funny little smile.
"You really don't know. That's…I didn't realize…
well, I'm going to have to explain it to you, but I can't right now.
I've got to get back to set, for one. But look, Jordan, all else aside you're right, this has actually been great and…
would you like to do it again sometime soon? "
Jordan frowned faintly at her. "What are you talking about? I mean, yes! Yeah, of course, I'd love to see you again. But…what is it I don't know?"
"Some of Virtue's history, that's all. Stuff I kind of thought everybody secretly knew.
" Kayla laughed. "Because I'm very self-centered and it's all about me, I guess.
It's nothing bad," she said as his eyes widened with thoughts of what kind of secret histories small towns in movies often had.
"Honestly, it's nothing bad, just less common knowledge than I thought. I'm sorry, J, I really do have to go."
Getting a nickname from Kayla Walsh, aka Kylie Quinn, washed away every other thought in Jordan's brain, and he felt himself light up. "'J?'"
She wrinkled her nose, the cutest thing he'd ever seen. "Is that okay?"
"I'll have to try it on for size," he said, not meaning that at all. "No, it's amazing. Nobody ever gave me a nickname before. 'Jor' is stupid, and 'Dan' isn't a nickname, it's just a name."
"I'll put you in my phone as 'J,'" Kayla said. "I don't think I can get away from set again today, but maybe dinner tomorrow? Especially if you don't mind eating really late?"
"I'll be at your beck and call," Jordan promised, then sat back in the booth to watch the most mysterious, beautiful woman he'd ever met hurry out the door.