The car ride was something I'd rather put in the back of my mind and lock away forever. First, it took me awhile to actually feel comfortable enough to get into the thing. Ryder had kept telling me I should sit in the front, but I definitely did not want to do that. It would have basically forced me to look out of the window, and that was something I was determined not to do. These things moved faster than I could run. Eventually he let me go in the back, but then he wouldn't move the darn thing unless I put on something called a seat belt. That took a whole lot longer than actually getting inside the car since I fought him on it since I wasn't a fan of being restrained.

The snowstorm was now going full force as we got out of his car and trudged through the snow up to his small house. It looked like it could be nice during the warm season, but right now it was completely covered in thick white snow.

"Here we are," Ryder said as he fished a set of keys from his pocket and proceeded to unlock the door. The moment it swung open, I was hit with a strong dose of his scent.

The forest...

Taking in a deep breath, I quickly stalked inside, eager to look around my new temporary territory. He would probably kick me out after tonight because of my dominant side, but at least I wouldn't be sleeping in the snow during the storm. Not that I wasn't used to it, but it definitely saved energy when I could sleep in a warmer place so I was less tired in the morning.

"Are you hungry, Tanner?" he asked as he slipped past me, but I quickly moved so that I cut him off right before he stepped into the kitchen.

Darn it.

Taking a deep breath, I steadied myself and carefully stepped to the side so he could get through. He'd looked wary when I'd blocked him so suddenly, but at least his posture relaxed back to the way it had been when I stepped out of his way.

"Alright, let's see what I've got for us to eat."

I followed him over to his fridge, but when the door opened, my eyes immediately locked onto the best thing ever created.

"Peanut budder," I shouted right as I reached past him and snatched up the jar. After all the times I'd seen Cole get the stuff out, I knew I had to turn the lid. It took a few tries anyway, but I got it off and tossed it somewhere over my shoulder before digging my hand into the small container. The second I had some on my fingers, they were in my mouth, making me moan as my eyes rolled back.

I love you, peanut budder.

The sound of chuckling snapped me out of my overly excited state to look at Ryder. He was leaning against the counter, one elbow resting on the other arm so he could cover his mouth with a hand. The posture was something Cole often did when he was laughing at me for doing something weird. Usually I didn't find it funny, like when I bit into a bottle of ketchup instead of peanut budder and got it all over my chest and front legs, but he always did that darn pose, trying to hide his laugh, without succeeding. Without really thinking, I stepped forward, closing him in against the corner of the counter between the fridge and the sink, an arm on either side of him gripping the counter. The peanut budder jar was on the floor to be returned to as soon as I handled Ryder.

"Why are you laughing at me?" I asked as I leaned down and into his neck. I wanted to smell his scent again, and since the only rule we had agreed upon was that I would not come into his room at night, he shouldn't be surprised. The gasp I heard come from him when I nuzzled the skin there told me he was, though, which I suppose was okay as long as he didn't try to fight me off. We'd have a problem if he wanted to suddenly try to take control of the situation. I could feel him trying to get in enough air to reply to my question, but I wasn't really sure why he was having trouble to begin with... and I kind of liked the idea that I'd caused it.

"Y-You were acting...c-cute."

His reply was a bit surprising. I didn't think I acted cute; I thought he did. Cole had only called me cute when we first met each other and I was healing, then the word disappeared as we began to go at each other. Forcing myself to calm down, I slowly backed away from him and gave an awkward smile.

"I see."

When he seemed to relax again, I looked back down to the peanut budder jar but held back the extreme need to attack it and clean out its delicious insides. Instead, I picked it up and slowly, using only one finger, took out some and licked it off. This time when Ryder opened the fridge, I stayed back, watching as he pulled out a packet of chicken and a bag of green stuff.

Oh hell no!

"I don't want the sald stuff," I growled, not really knowing how to say that word but remembering Cole using it a few times. I didn't pay enough attention to hear it because I usually saw it early enough to run, so the word wasn't really needed. Ryder glanced over his shoulder with a faint grin, raising a brow.

"No sald? Okay. What about salad then?"

Oh! He did not just do that.

Biting my tongue, I kept myself where I stood. You didn't just make fun of an alpha but... remember, he is human. He doesn't understand.

That thought made me calm myself enough to grin back.

"I am not good with most words."

Ryder looked a little worried about that, but then he got busy getting out a pan to cook the chicken, only talking once the food was sizzling in the pan.

"If you'd like, I can help you learn. Right now my friends and I are trying to get our band recognized, but besides that I've got a good amount of free time on my hands."

My attention was split between what he was saying and the smell coming from the pan. I wanted to grab the food and just walk off, cooked or not, but really didn't want to end up getting kicked out before I even got to sleep there. Granted, I could just kill him and take the home or force him to let me stay, but that was not what an alpha did. We were dominant, but we didn't bully others who were being kind. Deciding to ignore the chicken as best I could for the moment, I focused my eyes on Ryder and smiled appreciatively.

"Thank you. I would like that. I have been try to learn by listen but it is hard."

He visibly held back a chuckle and motioned me toward the living room area. His house seemed to be set up similar to Cole's but with fewer rooms and only one story...though I never did go upstairs in Cole's house.

"Here, sit and we'll work a bit while the food is cooking."

I did as told, dropping down onto the comfortable dark green sofa. Ryder leaned over and grabbed a few pieces of paper from the small table in front of us, then handed them to me.

"These are some lyrics I've been working on, but they aren't really in any order, so we can use them to learn some things, okay?"

My eyes skimmed over the sheets, recognizing a few things but not much.

"I...do not know how to read."

Surprisingly, that made him smile.

"That's okay. I used help teach elementary school students how to read and write."

Oh wow.

"I am lucky then," I stated. I didn't know what elementary was, but I knew school, so I had indeed run into a great human today. He blushed at my words, making me want to lean over and lick his cheek. My instincts nearly took over to do just that when Ryder suddenly got up after sniffing the air.

"Oops, might have burned the chicken. I'll be right back with our food, then we can get busy, okay?"

I only nodded, not really hearing much of what he was saying as I wrestled with my inner wolf. Thankfully it was under control again by the time Ryder was back with two plates, one with just a big piece of chicken and Oh!

He'd put a huge spoonful of peanut budder on the side. I jumped up like a rabbit, grabbing the plate before dropping back down to the sofa. All in one perfect movement. Since I'd already had some peanut budder, I quickly grabbed the fork and awkwardly stabbed at the meat until it stayed on, then began taking the biggest bites I could. Each time I took a bite, I'd glance over at Ryder's plate, and noticed he was just nibbling at his salad. Then, when I got down to the last bite of my chicken, another piece was suddenly placed on my plate, drawing my attention to Ryder's, then up to his face.

"Is not that yours?" I asked, confused as to why he was giving me his food. Sure I usually tried to steal Cole's and I had thought about taking Ryder's, but I'd never had anyone actually give me their food willingly.

"Yeah, but you can have it. I'm not really feeling up for chicken anymore, and you look like you could eat a whole deer."

That made me smile before I finished off my last piece of chicken and got his on my fork.

"Yes. I like deer."

His fork paused near his lips, letting the green stuff on it float there.

"Ah...are you a hunter?" he asked before he finished taking his bite of food and began to chew.

"Yes," I replied with excitement, finally glad to be on a familiar topic. I waited for Ryder to swallow so he could reply, filling my own mouth with a bite of chicken in the meantime.

"That's really cool, what do you use?"

I was about to reply with 'my paws' but then remembered humans didn't have paws.

"Hands," I said, glad I'd caught myself so I didn't give anything away. Except, his face didn't look convinced at all. In fact, he almost looked scared.

"You uh, hunt with your...hands?"

My head bobbed once, nodding to his question. I was a bit confused now since he seemed uneasy, but thankfully he let it drop and set his empty plate aside on the small table.

"Cool, so, want to get started learning after you're done with your dinner?"

I gave another nod and quickly finished up, shoving the rest of the meat into my mouth before adding the peanut budder. It probably looked a bit odd and it definitely tasted funny, but Ryder waited patiently until I set my plate aside and turned on the sofa slightly to give him my attention. He grabbed the paper he'd set aside and returned them to my lap as he scooted closer. With our legs touching, I knew I was going to have trouble focusing, but I did my best as we got started.

By the time Ryder had decided we'd worked enough, it was completely dark outside and actually quite cold inside, too. He'd mentioned his heater wasn't working very well and had gotten us a huge blanket halfway through, which helped, but now it was causing the problem. The blanket he'd actually gotten was a spare he had folded up on his bed and it was driving me nuts with his scent. Not to mention he was basically in my lap now after a long time tugging at him to move. He'd fought me at first but realized that I wasn't going to listen, like I'd already warned, and just climbed into my lap.

"You're really interesting, Tanner."

He was snug against my chest with the blanket covering him up to his shoulders before it wrapped all the way around me, so I had to pay attention to hear him whisper against my skin.

"Inter...esting?"

I felt him shake a little with a quiet laugh and gave him a squeeze with my arms.

"It means I like you."

Oh. Why didn't he just say the simpler word?

"I interesting you, too," I replied with the big word and a smile as I nuzzled my nose into his hair to take in his scent again. I'd done it so many times since we'd been sitting there that I'd lost count... probably because I could only count to ten, but either way.

"Hey, Tanner?"

Ryder moved around a bit until his knees were pulled up into my lap as well, allowing him to look up at me.

"Yeah?" I answered, meeting his curious eyes with my own, which likely held the same emotion.

"Do you know how to like someone else?"

Before I could stop myself, I replied, accidentally letting Cole's name slip into my words. "Cole said that like was how I am with peanut budder."

Wait. That didn't answer his question, did it? He said a person...

"I do not know how to like a person. Is it the same for peanut budder?"

The thought of licking him a lot didn't sound bad to me at all, but I really didn't want to eat him. That wouldn't be very nice after everything he'd already done for me. Ryder seemed to think what I said was funny because he let out a quiet laugh before getting up on his knees, one balancing on each of my legs.

"I can teach you that, too," he said with a hint of something in his voice that I couldn't quite figure out. I was just about to tell him that I was interested in learning when the sound of a phone went off between us. The only reason I knew that sound was because Cole got a lot of calls when I'd lived with him, so he was always talking into one.

"Dammit," Ryder groaned as he fished his phone out from between us and held it to his ear.

"What?"

He definitely sounded annoyed, but as soon as I heard someone begin to talk on the other side of the phone, he began to calm himself down, eventually sighing and leaning forward against my chest.

"Hey, Warren. Yeah, I'm doing okay."

There was a short pause and the guy on the other end mumbled something I couldn't make out, then Ryder glanced up at me before grunting.

"No, I did not pick up a cheap whore to help me handle being dumped by Damian."

Whore? Is that like hole? I dug a lot of those in Cole's backyard...

There was some more talking from the phone before Ryder heaved a tired sigh and gave one final reply. "Yes, I have a guy over but not because of 'that'. You can even come over if you want, I don't care. I'm gonna go to bed soon, though, so if you do, be quiet about it."

Once he'd finished speaking, the person on the other side mumbled a couple words, then they both ended the call. I still wanted to learn how to like, but he no longer seemed interested as he climbed out of my lap with a tired smile.

"Maybe we can try learning like tomorrow, okay?"

I could tell that he was probably going to fall asleep soon so I nodded and got up, offering him his blanket back. Ryder shook his head slowly, then motioned me to follow him down the hall.

"You keep it for your bed. I have an extra."

We stopped in front of a closed door, which he opened, then stepped inside.

"You can use this room, okay? The bathroom is down the hall, and there are spare toothbrushes in the drawer if you wanna use one."

I wasn't really sure what a toothbrush was, but I thanked him anyways, then quietly closed the door once he walked off to his own room. The thought to follow him nudged at me, but I pushed it aside for now, needing sleep myself. The day had been so busy and full of new experiences that the second I fell into the bed I was out cold.