Chapter 14
Kayla, with flattering reluctance, went back to her hotel at a sensible hour.
Jordan wished she could have stayed, but the reality was she had to be up and on-set pretty early in the morning.
She would have a day off soon and they could stay up too late and sleep in too long, but until then, Jordan didn't want to get in the way of her being bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.
A huge grin crawled over his face, and he murmured, "Or feather-tailed," to Barney.
The fact that Kayla was a shifter, something he hadn't even known existed, and that she'd trusted him with that information…
Jordan's heart glowed with it. And now the fact she was cautious about telling people where she was from made so much sense.
He'd never made it big enough as a ball player for it to matter, and all of a sudden, knowing what he did now, Jordan was almost relieved about that.
Virtue clearly needed to exist in a fine balance between popularity and obscurity, but he never would have understood that if Kayla hadn't trusted him.
"I know she's heading back to Los Angeles in a couple of weeks," he told Barney.
His heart panged at the thought, but he pushed it down.
They were getting along like a house on fire, but he had to face the truth: she was a movie star and he was an unemployed, washed-up athlete.
No matter how many sparks seemed to fly between them, that just wasn't going to be a lasting relationship.
He said, "So I might as well enjoy the moment," to the dog, or maybe to himself.
And he was going to enjoy it by leaning in to the promise he'd made.
He was up at six to bake, and before eight he was in the town square with Barney on the leash and a huge basket of banana bread muffins.
He handed them to every crew member he saw on the way to Kayla's side, which took longer than expected because so many of them wanted to say hi to the dog.
By the time he got to Kayla, the sun had risen, though not far, and the set was beautifully bright, lighting operators and cameramen bringing a daylight-like brilliance to the snowy town.
The background actors were ready to go, though for the moment they, like Kayla, were standing around shivering as Jordan made his way to the owl shifter's side.
"I didn't know how many people were on the crew," he whispered. "So I made muffins. A lot of muffins…"
"Thirty-four," Kayla said almost absently as she pulled the lid off the muffin basket, then gaped at his efforts. "Holy cow, how many did you make, a hundred? How many bananas did you have lying around?!"
"I have a secret stash of frozen bananas so I can make bread any time I want. It's sadly depleted now, but…this should be enough for even the extras, right? There aren't that many background actors, are there?"
"There are ten or eleven for this scene, and Andy and I can't eat these right now," Kayla said, sadly covering the muffins again. "We can't risk walnuts in our teeth. There are walnuts in them, right?"
"In this half," Jordan said, touching one half of the basket. "I wanted to make some without in case of allergies. Although I guess really bad allergies probably can't have them at all anyway, but still."
Kayla gave him a funny little smile. "You're a thoughtful guy, aren't you?" She bent to pat the dog, then straightened again as Jordan shrugged with pleased embarrassment.
"Well, I try. So is Cyril here, or are you the boss now?"
"Cyril came back." Kayla sounded faintly surprised as she nodded toward a slender man in black jeans and a jacket that was totally inadequate for the weather. He was good-looking in a sort of narrow, French, I-sucked-a-lemon way, and was visibly trying not to shiver.
Jordan considered him for a moment. "If he was smart enough to dress for the weather I'd say I could see what you saw in him, but as things stand…"
Kayla snorted. "Fair. Hey, Andy," she said as the staggeringly attractive hero of her movie came over, a smile already in place as his gaze landed on Jordan. "You remember my friend Jordan?"
"How could I possibly forget? I can't believe you've stolen Kayla away repeatedly and yet left me alone and bereft, Jordan.
I'm sure you promised me a date." The smile broadened, and Jordan, mindful of having made a fool of himself when he'd met this man a couple days ago, promised himself he'd do better.
Instead, for some reason, he said, "Heh heh heh" like a nervous twelve year old.
He couldn't help it, somehow. Anderson was ridiculously handsome.
Jordan had no desire at all to do anything about it, but the man's personal presence and beauty made him seem like he was from an entirely different dimension, one where people were just much, much prettier than the one Jordan lived in.
Kayla herself belonged to that dimension, honestly, but she wasn't throwing her own beauty around like it was a weapon of mass destruction, and that made all the difference.
She was acting as if she was a perfectly normal girl next door.
Maybe that was even how she saw herself.
But compared to Anderson's deliberate knock-you-over movie star presence, Kayla being chill was so much more attractive.
Of course, she giggled right out loud, which didn't help Jordan's overwhelmedness at all.
Then she kicked snow over Anderson's boots, causing Barney to bounce after the snow as she said, "Stop it, you big lump," to Anderson.
"Go spend your charisma on somebody who'll actually go out on a date with you. "
Andy turned a ludicrously appealing pout on Kayla, who was apparently completely unaffected by the man's beauty. "I'm sure he'd go out with me if you would stop interfering, darling."
"He probably would, because you're a bulldozer, darling, but go bulldoze somebody else."
Andy's eyes narrowed with theatrical suspicion and he examined first Kayla, then Jordan, and finally Kayla again. "So it's like that, is it?"
"It is," Kayla said cheerfully. "This one's mine."
A combination of relief and joy swelled in Jordan's chest and he found himself smiling foolishly at Kayla.
She couldn't possibly mean it as any kind of permanent thing, but he really liked being claimed by her, even if only for a little while.
Anderson, clearly not bothered, said, "Hmph," and sauntered off, leaving Jordan to shake his head.
"Are you really immune to him?"
"Off script I am," she said, still cheerfully.
"And if I'd met him ten years ago I'd probably have fallen for his flirtations, at least for a little while, but you kind of get used to the charisma.
I will admit that he's extremely easy to fall in love with on set, but the man has the emotional depth of a teaspoon and the attention span of a disintegrating noodle.
He leaves stunned or broken hearts behind all the time and comes out of it all emotionally unscathed.
If I'm stopping you from having a brief, baffling passionate affair with him, by all means, let me know and I'll step back—"
"Please don't," Jordan said, wide-eyed again.
Kayla grinned up at him. "I thought you might say that. Honestly, he's a good guy, but he loves pretty people and you're a very handsome man."
"I'm on set with two actual film stars," Jordan said dryly. "I'm not that pretty."
"You underestimate yourself," Kayla assured him.
"Even if you don't trust me on that, trust Anderson's taste.
I've never seen him flirt with less than an eight.
I dream he'll someday actually fall in love with a man who looks like Ernest Borgnine.
" Her grin lit up even more. "Better yet, a woman who looks like Ernest Borgnine. "
"An eight, huh? I'm flattered. Is this the wrong time to admit I don't really know what Ernest Borgnine looked like?"
Kayla gave a theatrical sigh. "Normies. Yes, it's the wrong time.
But you'd recognize him if you saw him." She started to take her phone out, presumably to bring up a picture of Borgnine, but places were called, and she winced apologetically.
"They're calling my name. You can hang out if you want, as long as you stand where the crew tell you to and turn your phone ringer off. "
"Yeah? I'd like to watch you work." Jordan turned his phone off and went where he was directed, then crouched in the snow to put booties on Barney's feet, and pull the dog's winter vest on him.
"See, I learned from yesterday," he murmured to the dog.
"We can stay out longer if your poor feet are warmer. "
Barney, doing his best tragic puppy dog eyes, thrust his nose at the muffin basket, and got a sharp scold in return. Jordan swore the dog sat down and sulked while the set grew quiet for filming.
The scene, from what he could tell, was that Kayla and Anderson were starting to get along well, with their heads ducked together over cups of coffee as they walked down the street.
He couldn't hear the lines, but he didn't need to: he'd watched enough romcoms to guess at the gist of what they were saying.
Kayla raised her gaze to Anderson, her gorgeous blue eyes shining, and for a moment, it was clear all was right in their little cinematic world.