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? Suddenlyhowling 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 lookeddismayed, "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."
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 ashifter, 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. Alotof 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. Therearewalnuts 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 Iguess 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.
