Chapter 22

They ended up painting the hall and the living room the sort of white color. Jo kept calling it eggshell, but to Ryker, it was just a couple shades away from white so why not call it that? He had a streak of not-white across his shoulder and face as a part of her retaliation for not "understanding the subtle nuances of difference." For her part, Jo was currently trying to scrub a patch of not-green off her cheek; Ryker had been painting what Jo called an "accent wall" with that color.

"I think you got some in my hair," Jo complained, running the washcloth roughly over a lock of her thick black hair.

Ryker was leaning against the counter next to her, attempting to scrub the not-white off his jaw with a paper towel. "You got some in my mouth. We're even."

"Did I?" Jo asked innocently, pulling the cloth over her hair, turning back to the sink.

Ryker turned so that he was angled toward her. That tone of hers, that playfulness, made him want to catch her by the hips, press her back against the wall, and kiss her. But somehow he managed not to. Instead, he reached out and caught her hand, the one with the washcloth.

"You laughed when you did it," he said.

"Hmm, I don't remember that."

Ryker did. If he kissed her, she might still be able to taste it. He plucked the cloth from her hand and smirked before rubbing at the spot on his jaw. "Short term memory loss at your age is a real problem."

Jo glanced up at him, her gaze unamused. "Do you think it's going to need another coat?"

"What, your hair or the wall?"

She reached out and gave him an ineffective shove against his shoulder. "You're hilarious."

"If you're talking about the walls, yes. Another coat. Or two."

Her dark eyes met his, looking both coy and almost hesitant. "Are you going to volunteer to help out with that too...?"

"That was a given," he said. Setting the cloth down, he reached out and gently touched her wrist. "But maybe we could do something else next time."

"Ah, so all your dating plans don't involve chores?" she teased, but she didn't pull her arm away.

Actually, he didn't have any plans. He needed to figure out some other ideas about what human girls liked to do. He'd seen movies and stuff, but the romance ones weren't really his kind of things. And werewolves sort of went on dates, but the dates weren't a part of the process of becoming mates or anything. This was all new territory. "Some do. The next one won't."

"The next one?" Jo's smile was mischievous. "So not only will there be more, but I'm guessing I'm saying yes to them?"

Ryker snorted. She obviously knew he was interested enough for there to be more. Guys didn't offer to do chores with girls unless they were seriously interested. Or, he supposed, unless their moms made them.

And she was obviously interested enough to tease him about there being more dates, rather than avoid the subject all together. At least, that's what he usually did when he was trying to avoid hanging out with a girl he had no interest in.

Which was normally how he operated. That was the nice thing about being a werewolf--if you knew you had a soulmate waiting for you out there, it was hard to become interested in someone else, someone you knew would only be temporary.

Not to mention, he had his dad's situation with Brett's mom as a prime example as to why you wouldn't want to do that.

There had been high school...flirtations, he supposed. But only with both parties understanding it meant nothing.

"I suppose that's up to you," Ryker said, knowing better than to dictate to this feisty girl what she should do. He leaned forward and grabbed a lock of her hair that still had paint on it, and gently pulled the washcloth down it, trying to get more of the paint out. It was half-dried, so probably not going to come out very easily, but it gave him an excuse to touch the silky, dark locks like he'd wanted to all night. "But I'd highly disappointed if you said no."

She tilted her face up to him, in that way that stole his breath away and forced him to use every ounce of his self-control not to lean in and close the short distance between the two of them. It was a good thing that those with Alpha blood tended to be better at self-control.

"I suppose I can't say no then," she said, echoing his earlier choice of words. It was like they were already starting to sync, even with the mate bond only about a week old. "After all, you did carry me up a mountain."

Ryker laughed, unable to help himself. If that got her to say yes more often, he was going to forever be happy that he'd insisted on carrying her that day, no matter how she'd grumbled about it. In fact, Jo was quickly ensuring that was one of his favorite memories--ever.

"Perfect, then I'll pick you up tomorrow for lunch?" He had no idea what they would do for lunch, or why he'd picked lunch, but lunch seemed better than dinner--he didn't want to have to wait until dinner to see her again.

Jo chuckled. "Aren't you supposed to do brunch on weekends?"

That's right. Brunch was even better, brunch was earlier. "Oh right. Brunch then. So...10:30?" He had no idea what time people did brunch at, but when Lexi met up with her friends, it seemed like they often did brunch around 11. He was going to have to grill Lexi on what girls liked for brunch around here when he got home.

Or...wait, was he being too eager to spend time with her? Was that normal in the human world? He didn't want to scare her off either, but he doubted she had plans for tomorrow, seeing as she'd only been in town for a few weeks.

"I mean, if that's cool with you," Ryker said, trying for nonchalance as he stuffed a hand in his pocket and leaned back against the counter.

An effect that was totally ruined by the puddle of water on the counter. Ryker's elbow slipped and as he was thrown off balance, he had to twist and grab at the beige formica surface to keep from crashing to the floor.

"Damn water! Stupid countertop. Needs to fu---" he broke off as Jo's peal of laughter hit him. He loved her chuckles and her smirks, but seeing the way her laugh completely took over her whole body, lighting up her face, ringing out...and better yet, knowing he was the cause of that joy...

Well, it did strange things to his heart. Nevermind that the laughter was at his expense. As long as none of his pack was there to see it, it was hard to care about that right now.

Ryker's grin probably looked idiotic as he straighted up and rubbed at his reddened neck sheepishly. "Glad to see you're concerned for my safety," Ryker muttered, as Jo wiped at her eyes, pressing her lips together in an attempt to control her laughter.

"I'm sorry, it's not that I don't care, it's just--your face, I can't--" She put her hand over her mouth and shook her head, getting herself under control.

"Uh-huh," he said, wiping his hand over his wet elbow. He didn't like to look foolish, but her laugh, well, he didn't mind looking a bit stupid for that.

Jo smiled at him, pushing her hair back from her face. Reaching over, she grabbed a paper towel and handed it to him before getting another and wiping the water off the counter. "There, it's safe now."

Ryker huffed and swiped the paper towel over his elbow. "Thanks."

There was a lull, and he wasn't sure what to do. The painting was done, everything was cleaned up, but he didn't really want to leave yet. Still, there was no clear reason why he should stay. "I should probably head out. So you can get ready for brunch."

"You think it's going to take me all night and the morning?" she asked, eyebrows raising.

Smirking, he reached out and touched the lock of green-streaked hair again. "Might take you that long to clean this."

Jo leaned her head back and the lock of hair slipped out of his fingers. "Or maybe I'll leave it."

He took one of the boxes with some leftover pizza slices in it while the other was left with Jo. No one in his family would touch the pineapple kind. They walked toward the front door and then out onto the porch.

"I'll lock the door."

"Huh?" Ryker looked down at Jo, who offered him a half-smile.

"The door. I'm just saying I'll definitely lock it. I know you want me to, you weirdo."

"Thanks," he said, feeling more relieved than he wanted her to know. At least it seemed like she would follow through on it. He hovered at the top of the steps, wanting to kiss her but knowing it would probably be too much, too soon for her. Instead, he reached out and took her hand for a moment. "See you tomorrow, Jo Scott."

"Yeah," she said, looking a little dazed, in a good way, "See you in the morning, Ryker."

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A/N: Thanks so much for all the votes and reads and comments! If you'd like to get notifications of updates, please add the story to your library! ^_^ Next update will be next Sunday, 2/14!