"What are you doing?" she snapped.
Would he answer? His jaw tightened as if he were clenching his teeth. "Counting," he gritted out. "It's supposed to calm people down."
"Good luck with that." She started to shut the door, but his hand slammed against it, preventing it from closing.
"We need to talk," he said.
The first thing Cody heard when he approached Misty's front door was laughter. The kind of laughter that came straight from the gut, borne of pure joy. A sound he'd come to associate with Misty. He smiled as he opened the door and strode into her living room.
The text he'd received earlier had said to come right in, but his confident steps faltered as he saw the cause of her giggles. Misty in human form, sat on the floor with a beaver puppet, playing with a fox. The kit's eyes were open, but he still possessed his black baby fluff. It couldn't be older than a couple weeks.
"What is that?"
Apparently unaware of his presence until he spoke, she jumped at the sound of his voice.
"Oh, hi Cody." She looked at her wrist as if expecting a watch to be there. Why she did that when he could count the times she'd worn a watch in the past two years on one hand, he'd never understand. "Is it time for training already? I'm not dressed, yet."
Cody looked down at her clothes. Skin tight jeans that looked way too appealing and a black t-shirt with the words Foxy Lady spelled in big pink letters across her breasts. Perky breasts that would fill his hands perfectly.
Way too tempting. Those clothes had to go. Wait. He mentally back-pedaled, rephrasing his last thought. She had to change into different clothes, more clothes. Some nice baggy sweats would be perfect. Something to hide her figure. And tennis shoes, he thought as he watched her bare toes curl into the carpet, the bubble gum pink polish peeking out from under her jeans.
Cody shook his head and refocused on the problem at hand. "You can change in a minute. What is that?" he asked again, pointing to the animal at her feet.
"What's what?"
She looked down, as if unaware anything abnormal was going on. Apparently in Misty's world, playing with a fox on the living room floor was business as usual.
"That's a fox. You know, one would think the Premier of fox shifters would know that."
The teasing tone almost brought a smile to his face, but his curiosity wouldn't let the subject go. "I know it's a fox. What is it doing in your living room?"
"I adopted it," she said.
"Adopted it?" Cody looked down at the animal again. There was no humanity in its scent, but the boy was still a baby. He hadn't been around enough newborns to know the difference between a shifter baby and a fox baby. "It's a shifter, then?" He hadn't realized Misty was considering adoption. But the more he thought about it, the more he realized Misty would be a great mom.
"No, it's a fox." She spoke slowly as if to a simpleton. "I feel like we've been here already."
