I freeze harder.
I did not think this through.
“Jason? Where are you, boy? Are you tired today?” she asks.
Shit!
I need to shift. And now.
Before she can turn, I move away from her as fast and as stealthily as I can so she doesn’t feel the heat explode from my body during the shift. I drop into a crouch and shift in a blur, landing as a wolf with all the grace of a sack of wet laundry. My tail thumps loud against a cabinet.
She tilts her head. “Jason?”
I let out the world’s weakest, most pathetic whine—and I will never emotionally recover from it.
She smiles. “Aww. He must be sleepy.”
I nod as a wolf. She can’t see me.Idiot.
She turns back to the counter.
I shift again, scrambling upright so fast my shoulder bangs against the fridge. Her head snaps around, and my brain just about detonates.
I grab the nearest distraction, a wooden spoon, and slap it on the counter. “Hot pan!”
She jumps. “Where?”
“Uh… nowhere. I’m just making sure you’re alert in the kitchen. You got distracted right now, and that was okay because there’s nothing on the stove, but there might be a time when you’re alone and dealing with hot oil and get distracted.”
Yeah, I don’t think I’m ever going to win a Golden Globe.
She steadies herself and resumes chopping. I exhale in relief. I’m so distracted by being an idiot that I knock the metal mixing bowl off the counter. It hits the leg of a chair, the chair tips and clatters to the floor.
“What was that?” she calls out, alarmed. “Did Jason knock something off the counter?”
Shift. Shift. Shift.
I don’t think.
I shift mid-movement, hurling myself at the bowl like I can tackle sound itself. I land as a wolf, right on top of the bowl. It dents loudly beneath me.
She gasps. “Jason? What’s going on? Is Jason okay? Dog-Jason.”
Wolf-me whines in the exact tone that says I’m regretting everything. She bends to see if Dog-Jason is okay.
“Jason? Human-Jason. I need to know if Dog-Jason is okay. Areyouokay?”
I hear the panic in her voice. I shift back, breathing like I sprinted a marathon. “Yeah, he’s fine. We’re both fine.”
She pauses, tilting her head as she listens. Suspicious.
Fuck.
I change back. The heat from shifting back and forth is scorching my balls.
I pad over to her and lick her hand.
“Okay, he’s good.” She scratches the top of my head as she blows out a long breath. “You scared me there for a moment.” She heads to the sink again and I shift back, wiping the sweat from my brow. “Do you have any pets?”
