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 thedog, 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. EvenIwant 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. "Wearecareful 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."
