***

His host had a pleased look on his face, now that he’d eaten, and Ryder was pleased with himself for insisting that Danny eat something too. Did humans go hungry for no reason? Danny had mentioned something about his silhouette. Ryder had assumed his slender puny figure was the result of Danny being an unskilled hunter in the human world. But a pack took care of the weakest of its members always. Not the same thing could be said of the human pack. The weakest were pushed away, used and discarded. That was what he knew.

“What is your place of employment?” he inquired politely. That was how humans got everything they needed, by trading the hours of their lives for currency.

“It’s a clothing store,” Danny replied. “Retail, you know,” he added with a shrug. “Not that it’s something I see myself doing all my life.”

“Is it your store?”

Danny surprised him by bursting into laughter. “No, I – it’s not my store, I’m only an employee.”

Ryder gestured at their now empty plates. “Is it difficult to secure food? I might be of help.” He had no idea how far the closest hunting grounds were, but he could secure meat if need be. It would fall on Danny to cook it, but if he wanted a share of it, he had to make his contribution.

Or maybe Ryder could secure lodging for a few more days in this nice place, since it was going to take longer than expected to reach his mate and fulfill his destiny.

Danny guffawed again at his question. “No, it’s not difficult. There are plenty of places where you can buy food. I assume you come from a place where people mostly eat what they produce.”

Ryder nodded in confirmation. “I know I must be overstepping, but what sort of payment would you accept to allow me to spend two more nights under your roof?”

Danny stopped just as he was getting up from the table and plopped down in his chair again. “Would you like to sleep here tonight? And tomorrow night?”

“Yes.” Although their conversation appeared difficult in places, Ryder understood the need for clarity. “Since you don’t want to accept the currency I have, I should provide something else in return.”

Danny licked his lips and threw Ryder a hooded look, filled with meaning. But earlier, his host had indicated he was opposed to any sort of physical intimacy. Why was he looking at him like this now? Humans were too difficult to understand.

“I do not mean to impose. I understand if the answer is ‘no’.”

“What? No, no,” Danny said quickly, “if it’s only for two more nights, it’s not a problem. If you’re planning to stay longer though, like for more than two weeks, I will have to notify the landlord of your presence. Although I must ask if you think you’ll be a noisy neighbor. Some people might complain, that’s why I’m asking,” he continued to babble.

“I am not noisy. But I can’t be indebted to you. Name your price.”

***

All sorts of naughty answers fought to get out of his mouth, but Danny needed to keep the horny in check if he didn’t want to make a fool of himself big time. He would be lucky, so very lucky, to have Ryder around for two more days. And nights. Especially nights. Most likely during the day his surprise guest had places to go and people to see.

However, Ryder was honest to a fault, and that meant that Danny needed to come up with an idea – a decent one – of what could serve as proper payment in exchange for housing and feeding this handsome man.

“What do you know how to do?” he asked politely, hoping he wasn’t committing some weird faux pas. Although they spoke the same language, there appeared to be cultural differences that Danny didn’t know how to navigate without learning more.

“I’m the best hunter in my—in my town,” Ryder said, hesitating for a short moment.

“That’s interesting,” Danny said, with a moment of hesitation of his own. “But there’s hardly need for a hunter around here.”

“I also work with wood.”

Wood. Danny bit his bottom lip hard. His body never got laid, so his mind got horny and stayed that way all the freaking time. He could easily picture Ryder working his wood, but obviously the guy in front of him wasn’t talking about that sort of wood.

“I’m afraid that’s not much in demand around here either. I know,” Danny said brightly. “How about taking me to work and then taking me home when I finish?”

“Is it dangerous to get to and from your work?”

“I stay clear of the subway at rush hour, so no, you can’t say that it’s dangerous. It will mean a lot to me, though. To be seen with someone like you.” There, he had said the weirdest thing possible. Although he had tried to get along with the people at work, his coworkers liked talking about his lack of success in love and love-adjacent stuff behind his back. Sure, they were prettier than him, but that was no reason—

Damn. Now he was being petty. He needed to take it back.

“I will accompany you, although there are no dangers. What else?”

Danny looked around to stop his beating heart from going wilder than it already had gotten. “If you stay here during the day, would it be too much to ask you to keep things tidy? You know, if you use something, to put it back, that sort of thing. But if you prefer not to stay indoors, since I bet you have other things to do, that’s fine.”

Luckily, he had another spare key from the time when Vince had lost his only to find it later. To avoid looking at the guy he would surreptitiously use to shut his colleagues up by (not) presenting him as his boyfriend, he hurried to search for it.

His life had just gotten very interesting all of a sudden.

***