Chapter 13
If it bites me, can I eat it? Kayla's owl asked hopefully as she went into the living room.
She muffled a laugh. No. I don't think Barney will bite you, though. I think he might run away.
The owl considered that, then fluffed its feathers with satisfaction. I'm much scarier than a dog.
Kayla wanted to argue, but in fact, the owl was scarier than any dog she'd ever met, if for no other reason than it could be much, much larger than even the biggest dog breeds.
She still wouldn't want to tangle with a mastiff or any other big war dogs, because her bird bones were a lot more delicate than their big mouths, but she was fairly confident Barney was smart enough to not pick a fight with a four foot tall owl.
The living room wasn't really well set up for a bird to roam freely in. She called, "Is it okay if I move the coffee table aside for the moment?" and Jordan's chuckle reached her.
"Yeah, that's fine. Let me know when you're ready for me to loose the hound."
"Just a second!" Kayla pushed the coffee table toward the television stand, skidding her toe over the dent the table left in the carpet, like she could rub it out.
Another quick study of the living room left her more confident everybody would fit, now.
"'Cry 'Havoc!' and let slip the dogs of war!
'" She shifted as soon as she'd spoken, then squatted down to await Barney.
He emerged straining at his leash and dragging Jordan behind. "I thought it'd be better if he wasn't running free," Jordan said, leaning back against the dog's eager weight. Barney's nose was sniffing like crazy, but he stopped dead the second he actually laid eyes on Kayla.
She could basically see the Border Collie running through every possible encounter he'd ever had with anything, trying to match it up with the gigantic snowy owl he was now facing.
She could also essentially see the dog land on 'what the hell?
' before he gave an extremely cautious growl without taking even one single step farther forward.
"It's okay, boy," Jordan said encouragingly. "It's just Kayla."
Barney gave Jordan a sharp look that strongly suggested the dog thought the human needed to get his head checked. Kayla chortled, which, in owl form, came out as a series of softly huffing hoo-hoos, which made Barney look back at her and growl cautiously again.
Kayla's owl narrowed its eyes, both inside her mind and in their physical body. I'll teach it to growl at me. MURDER!
We are not murdering the dog, Kayla replied, amused, and shifted back to human so the owl didn't get carried away.
She had never before seen a dog do a double-take, but Barney did: he startled backward, looking quickly around the room and back at Kayla before lying on his belly and staring at her in obvious bewilderment.
"See?" Jordan said. "I told you it was just Kayla."
Kayla put her hand out. Barney eyed it suspiciously and stayed right where he was. She stood up slowly, and so did the dog, his expression wary. Kayla made a face. "I don't think he likes me anymore."
"I think he'll adapt. And we can always get a pu—" Jordan cut himself off, looking stricken, and Kayla's eyes widened as her heart thumped happily.
"Were you about to suggest we get a puppy?"
"So it would be used to you as it grew up," Jordan whispered. "I may be getting ahead of myself."
He was, of course, but at the same time, it filled Kayla with sparkling joy to know that his thoughts were leaping ahead to possible forevers, too.
It still didn't feel like the right moment to drop the whole 'fated mate' thing on him, even if he'd taken the shifter aspect of it well.
Instead, smiling, she said, "Maybe, but then again, maybe not.
Who knows where this reacquaintance will take us?
C'mere, Barney, do you forgive me for being weird? "
"You're not weird," Jordan said stoutly as the dog cautiously crept forward to sniff Kayla's fingers. Then, reassured that she was back to an understandable human person, he bounced up to her and leaned heavily, eyes closed happily as she scratched the top of his head.
"I'm a little weird. Most people don't turn into birds, after all."
"How does that even work with your career?" Jordan settled into the couch, mystified, and Kayla took a seat in the armchair again.
"I'm only an owl when I want to be, so it's not like I'm trying to work out my schedule around the phases of the moon, or anything.
I do try to get out of town so I can stretch my wings some, because after a while being human all the time kind of…
itches," Kayla said, after trying to settle on a word.
"But a lot of these romcoms I film are done on location, so I can usually get away for a while and fly. "
"But when do you sleep, then?"
"Oh! Snowy owls are diurnal. Which, really, our animals adapt to a human lifestyle because they have to, but in my case it's easier than it would be if I was a great horned, or something.
So my sleep patterns are more or less normal.
" Kayla wrinkled her nose. "At least, normal if you overlook the four a.m. calls and fifteen hour days. "
"You really have to be on set that early?" Jordan cast a dismayed glance toward the oven. "Dinner won't even be ready for another hour! Are you going to need to go to bed at eight?"
"Oh my God, that sounds so good. But no, I'm fine.
And really, four a.m. calls aren't the norm for me.
A lot of the time that kind of call is for heavy makeup, prosthetics or really intricate costuming, and almost all my movies are modern day romances without any complicated stuff like that.
Sometimes the set dressers and lighting crew are there before I am, but I'm usually expected on set around seven, to start filming at eight. "
"That sounds almost like a regular job. Except for the twelve or fifteen hour days six days a week, I guess."
"Which are off-set by sometimes having months of down time between films. Although I'm doing about eight movies this year."
Jordan's eyes popped. "You're kidding. I mean, I saw your lineup on the streaming service, but—really? I'm back to thinking you don't sleep."
"They're not all big parts, so sometimes I'm only on set for a couple of days.
But—" Kayla took a breath and smiled. "I hit the right level about three years ago, I guess.
I'm getting a lot of lead roles right now, and hardly any of these movies take more than a couple of months to film.
I'd love to be the Samuel L. Jackson of romcoms. He's been in a hundred and fifty movies, or something like that," Kayla explained.
"That sounds about right to me. But I've got quite a ways to go. "
"He's also twice as old as you are," Jordan pointed out.
Kayla snickered and made a little face. "True. I've got time. Yeah, so that's me. And now I feel really self-centered all of a sudden."
"What? No! Why? Because you've got ambitions, or because you're telling me about them?"
"I guess because I've been going on all about me, yeah."
"First, you really haven't been, and second, even if you had been, I can't think of anybody else I'd like to know everything about.
And that was true before you turned into an owl!
Are you allowed—" Jordan's eyebrows drew down and he shook his head before he even finished the question.
"I was going to ask if you were allowed to tell me who else in town is a shifter, but I can see why you couldn't. It's outing people, and they should get to do that in their own time. "
"No one would be mad at me for outing them now that I've told you," Kayla said slowly. She still didn't want to explain the entire concept of fate to him, not yet.
He's our mate, her owl said. He'll be happy!
I know, Kayla murmured, but still… She sighed internally.
Humans usually think love at first sight is something that only happens in stories.
And that's the kind of story I tell every day.
Even I want to…take a minute with this, she said almost wistfully.
I want to enjoy getting to know him without it just being FAAAATE (fate fate fate).
She made the word echo in her head like a movie would do, and her owl gave her a flat-eyed look before stuffing its head under its wing.
That'll teach me, Kayla thought, amused, and smiled at Jordan. "We are careful about telling people, although now that I've told you, other shifters are going to assume you're trustworthy. But I probably won't go around pointing everybody out, either."
"That's okay, I'll be going around seeing if I can guess it, now. I'm pretty sure I can't."
Kayla laughed. "Probably not. But okay, look, there's definitely at least one person you can probably figure out, because I've mentioned them."
Jordan rolled his eyes up, thinking, before his eyebrows crinkled in perplexity.
He shook his head and took a breath like he was going to admit he was giving up, but instead he suddenly focused on Kayla again and blurted, "Oh my God, it's Zane Bellamy, isn't it?
Because you thought he shouldn't have drawn attention to Virtue!
Is it? It is! What kind of shifter is he, can you tell me? Is he another owl?"
His enthusiasm was infectious and Kayla couldn't help beaming at him. "Yes, it's Zane, but no, he's a wolf shifter."
"Wow, that's, wow. Wow!" Jordan collapsed backward in the couch and Barney leaped up beside him, licking him with concerned excitement.
"I feel like I've been living with wool over my eyes and you've just pulled it all off.
I know it's not that simple," he said with a smile from behind the wriggling dog, "and that really it's not my business who around here is or isn't a shifter, but man, I just had no idea!
I wonder if my parents know. But oh," he said, sitting up again and putting Barney to the side.
"Yeah, that's not the kind of question you can just ask, is it. "
"And now you see why nobody mentions it unless they're sure you do know," Kayla agreed. "We have to be careful for safety's sake, but also you sound like a complete lunatic if you start talking about being able to turn into an owl."
"I want to say that isn't true, except I just personally experienced how true it is. So now what," Jordan added more quietly, leaning toward her with a smile. "Now that I know, now what? Is there a secret sign I can give people to know I'm safe?"
"…not that I'm aware of, although now that you're saying it I'm wondering why we don't have one of those.
Maybe because…what would it be? Flapping your arms like a bird?
Suddenly howling at the moon? Chugging a honey bear?
The problem is that true humans do every single one of those things for no particular reason, at times. "
"I'll just have to let you, or them, decide to tell me, then. Thank you, Kayla," Jordan said, much more seriously. "This is a huge secret, and I can't believe you trusted me with it so easily, but I appreciate that level of trust. I'll do my best to be worthy of it."
"I'm sure you will be. But honestly, enough about me, what—oh!" The doorbell rang and they both stared at each other while Barney leaped off the couch and ran toward the door, barking wildly. "Oh," Kayla said again. "That'll be Elaine for my clothes."
"I'll get the dog," Jordan said wryly. "Barney, whisper!" His voice dropped to a whisper as he spoke, and the Border Collie looked back at him, but dropped his barks into a huffing low rumble, not exactly a growl. "Good whispering," Jordan whispered as he went to open the door and invite Elaine in.
Kayla ran to the kitchen for her costume and came back with it in her arms to find Barney leaning lovingly against Elaine's legs. The costumer's assistant looked Kayla's current outfit up and down, and grinned. "Think we could work that look into the movie?"
"Probably. We'd need a scene that was just me in this, staring into the mirror and eating ice cream, right after the hair cut scene. Like ten seconds tops, just miserable me coming to terms with her hair."
"That would actually be really funny." Elaine lifted her chin in acknowledgment to Jordan, took Kayla's wet clothes, and went back out into the night, leaving Jordan blinking after her as he closed the door.
"She's all business, isn't she?"
"I would be too, if I got dragged away from dinner to go pick up the star's mess. No," Kayla said hastily as Jordan looked dismayed, "I'm sure she got to finish dinner. This wasn't an emergency. Speaking of dinner, that's smelling great."
"Sadly if I fed it to you now it would risk salmonella, which would delay your filming even more than a mantruming director. Think he'll come around?"
Kayla groaned. "I guess we'll see. You want to come to set in the morning and find out?"
Jordan's grin lit up. "As long as I wouldn't be in the way, that'd be great!"
"Then I'll see you at eight a.m. in the town square." Kayla paused. "That sounds like I'm leaving right now, and I'm not. Just for the record. Dinner first."
"And a good night's sleep," Jordan said with a smile. "And banana bread in the morning."