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puzzled look from Abby, and for a brief second, I almost thought she might have guessed my secret. Well, not my exact secret. But she seemed to almost touch on something close to the truth about me. She suspects that I understood what her niece said and didn’t approve. I saw understanding flicker in her eyes before logic squashed it. Granted, a part of me would love her to figure out my secret, just not in front of her family. To cover my actions, I quickly made out as if I saw a bug crawling across the kitchen floor and bounded in that direction. Another embarrassing move. Sometimes, I feel as if my feline side has a bigger hold on me than I know.
    Her nephews, Maddox and James, on the other hand, want her to name me Ironman. Neither name seems to fit to her liking, thankfully.
    The vet didn’t seem to think it was odd that she hadn’t named me, considering that she can’t officially adopt me for another five months. Dr. Smith said it was normal for her to be reluctant. I can tell it bothers her. She hated listing me under her last name at the vet. She said it made me seem like a non-person or to be more accurate, non-cat. I don’t mind it at all, especially not while in this cat form. If I had been in my dog or wolf form, I think I might have minded. Occasionally, I get a little distant and unemotional in this form, and her naming me seems unimportant.
    I’m basically human, but when I’m in animal form for too long some of the mannerisms of the animal I’m pretending to be seep through. They have to in order for me to pull off a convincing change. This form seems to be doing this more than any of the others.
    “I should name you, but I can’t think of anything that fits,” she says to me now, petting my head. I’m perched on the arm of the sofa near her desk. I don’t purr at her touch. I do flinch slightly to keep my body from nuzzling her hand. “Aw,” she coos at me and bends forward. Not paying attention to what she is about to do, I lean into her touch. I chide myself for doing this. I can’t believe I’m acting like an animal.
    Her hands are soft, and I really want to purr. Wait, what is she doing? Is she kissing me for rubbing my head into her hand. Great. At least I hadn’t purred. There was no telling what she would have done if I had purred. Her lips are soft. Damn it. I have to stop thinking about such things. I’m a cat, and she isn’t my type. Okay, well, maybe she is. I never thought I had a type. I have dated too many different types of women to think I have a type, but maybe I have a preference, and her soft round body is exactly the type of body I want to caress and bury myself in on a daily basis. What? Wait. Why am I thinking about that now?
    “Who could that be?” she says.
    What now? What did I miss? Something must have happened while I was deep in thought. I stop moving, waiting, listening, then I hear it. Someone is knocking on the door. In all of the time I have been here, no one has knocked on her door in the middle of the day. Her sister has been the only one to ever come over, and she only comes in the afternoons when she has her kids.
    Abby has friends. I’ve heard her talking to them on the phone or on Skype, and I think she has gone to meet up with them a time or two, but none of them have ever come here. No one ever comes here. The only delivery she has ever had was the pizza guy, and that had been on my first day here. She picks up most of her mail from the post office twice a week unless she gets a notice in her mailbox or on her front door of a large package that needs picking up, so not even the UPS people have been here. The only other thing delivered to the house mailbox is junk mail.
    Curious, I leap off the arm of the sofa and follow her to the door.
    “So you finally show some emotion,” she says, laughing and bending down to scoop me into her arms.
    I think about pulling a typical cat move and leaping from her arms, but I want to know who is at the door. My