Ooc: This first post takes place entirely outside the shop, at some point in the wee hours of the morning. The rest of the thread is set in daylight.

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“Ye good fer nuting-”

“-hex yer mouth shut.”

“Last call!”

Ryder Renwick’s blonde hair cascaded around his head, draping his forehead and eyes as his right hand clumsily stumbled to get a purchase on the scared bar top, the disjointed sound of voices and words that took a second to connect with any logical order coming close to deafening him. One foot dangled loose from his stool like a limp appendage, while the other was bent at the knee and pressed into the bar before him. For the first time in a very long time, Ryder was as free as a summer storm, his composure eased from its perfect stance and flying free. Eyes bleary and slit, the eighteen year old swallowed the urge to be sick; his chest heaved and his lungs contracted, but apparently even when drunk he could keep control of some aspects of his behavior. As his knuckles rapped against glass, the sound of alcohol splashing against wood was the latest indicator that it was time for him to go –but he’d been as aware of it as he was of his own living being for the past hour, and he still sat there. Tequila was burning a scar into the pit of his stomach, but he embraced it in the same fashion he embraced a lover, arms carefully folding around slim shoulders and lips crashing against motley lips. 

As the children began to play, however, and he heard tables, chairs and work-shaped bodies stumbling and crashing to the ground, Ryder’s dizzy mind decided it was time to go. Climbing off the stool was a difficult task, as it seemed to have grown from the height of his hips to the enormous proportions of a mountain. When he finally managed to get both feet on the firm ground, amidst the sound of curses and struggling as some sober patron broke up the fight, Ryder was quite proud of his achievement –only to be faced with a new challenge: walking. The boy’s legs felt like an octopus’ tentacles, and his entire body seemed unwilling to cooperate with its self: as one leg moved right, the other twisted towards the left; as his torso leant forwards, his lower body seemed inclined to stay put.

All in all, getting out of the Sword and Chant proved a difficult task –although as the cold night air smacked against him with the full force of a fire breathing dragon, he couldn’t quite be sure how long it had taken. Standing still was impossible, his body swaying in such ways he hadn’t been aware it could. As he turned to take a step, only his outstretched arms kept him from falling to the ground. If Balthazar were here, everything would be easier. But Ryder had fled the flat precisely because his best mate had been dressed so seductively and acting in such an attractive way that he hadn’t trusted himself not to attack snog Balthy if he had stayed. And drinking apparently hadn’t been the best decision either: as he managed to press himself against a grimy wall, shoulder dragging against it as he staggered forwards, all he could see in his mind were those luscious, red lips, and all he could feel was the increasing speed of his heart beats.

It was with this in his drunken mind that Ryder turned and pressed his back against the wall, sliding down until he was sitting with his knees awkwardly drawn into his shoulders. Head falling forwards and pressing into his legs, he decided to take a nap. Just a short one, until he was in control. Just a little sleep to gather his bearings. Just until he stopped wanting to snog Balthy. Just…

7:30 the following morning

Jacoba was only marginally trying to keep her morning routine sounds to a minimum out of respect for the near comatose form draped, unceremoniously, across the shabby, second-hand sofa.  Given the state she'd found Ryder the night before, there was no way he could wake before sunset and not feel like his head and stomach were caught in a blender.

Like most evenings, Jacoba had been checking the small record shop and the alley outside for suspicious activity the night before.  There were plenty around the alley who viewed the progressive little record shop with unfriendly eyes - not only for it's questionable hiring practices but its diverse magical and mundane musical selection.  Threatening flyers and a brick through the window had, thus far, been the extent of the action against the shop but Jacoba always slept better if she knew everything was as it should be.  Thankfully, the vast majority of the time there was nothing of note.  But, last night, Jacoba had spotted the slumped form against one of the shop windows just as she was about the head back upstairs.

She'd approached cautiously, intending only to check to see if she should be contacting the Aurors or St. Mungo's.  Only when she realized she'd recognized the fellow did she open the shop and help the young man up off the street and onto the shabby coach in the attic. 

He wasn't a complete stranger.  He'd been a frequent visitor to the nightclub in Berlin Jacoba had worked at back in the summer.  She was familiar with him, but not enough to leave him, unattended, in the flat.  Had she even known he was a wizard? 

Jacoba glanced over at the fellow and shook her head, turning back to stoke the fire back to life in the little iron stove.  The little tin coffee percolator had just started simmering and the dark, earthy aroma was filling the space.  She was trying to be quiet, but at the same time was trying to rouse the man.  A strange dichotomy that resulted in very little guilt when Jaocba tried, and failed, to set the tin coffee pot back on the metal stove quietly.  He'd probably need a shower and something in his stomach before he'd be able to figure out where he was.  Let alone successfully walk out of the shop. 

"Good morning."  Having finished her own shower, Jacoba poured two cups of coffee and sat on the foot of her bed, facing the couch.  "Good morning," she repeated a little louder.  "Here.  This probably won't help as much as you're hoping but it's better than nothing."

Ooc: post should be considered [m] for a bit of strong language.

---

A hand hooked under his armpit, pulling him to his feet. Half asleep, dizzy and with a headache threatening to make its grand entrance if Ryder complied to open his eyes, the eighteen year old simply spread them into narrow slits. But all he saw were smudges of red and gold, green and purple, colors mixing into a palate of complete incompressibility. He wasn’t quite certain where he was, nor who was picking him up, but like a street urchin cursed to a life of misfortune, he felt too lazy to actually care. “Wha?” He managed to complain, drowsiness in his voice making the anger dissipate just a tad. “Lemme sleep,” Somewhere in the back of his mind he was vastly aware Father would murder him if he heard him slurring his words as he was –but, at the same time, another voice whispered that Aidan Renwick was no longer in the picture. How odd, really. The boy’s lips were dry, his knees slightly bent, the toes of his shoes barely scratching against the cobbled ground beneath them. A door whined on its hinges as it was opened, he heard the faint sound of heavy breathing as he was dragged through the threshold. It was then he realized he might cooperate, just in case he was being kidnapped: if he helped, they might cut off less fingers. And so, a still drunk and highly confused, slightly unconscious, Ryder Renwick helped himself be pulled up a flight of stairs.

His lips were dry, he absentmindedly noticed, as he heard another door, and entered a vastly warmer environment –suddenly noticing he’d been freezing. Through his nearly shut eyes, Ryder saw smudges of slightly more rustic colors. But then, he was dropped –rather unceremoniously, as a matter of fact, which meant his kidnapped was probably an ignorant brut- onto a soft (if slightly awkwardly shaped) sofa. He thought of complaining, but instead found himself wanting nothing but to fall back into the world of dreams and forget the fact that his stomach was a mess, his throat was burning up and he thought the headache starting to grow might just kill him. And, so, Ryder Renwick rolled his knees into his chest, arms curling around them and putting his body into a fetal position.

And he slept.

---

Fact: when one got pissed, there was a high chance of suffering a hangover the following day. Fact: hangovers symptoms could include, but were not limited to, headaches, uneasy stomachs, dizziness and an overall sense of being nothing but a house-elf on a busy day. Fact: Ryder Renwick had a feeling he’d gotten drunk the night before.

As the eighteen year old came to, he wasn’t exactly certain what had woken him. He vaguely heard the sound of metal against metal, but it made little to no sense that Balthazar would be banging away like a fucking blacksmith at this ungodly hour on a Monday. There was then the sound of running water, of feet and movement and somebody simply disregarding any type of respect to the fact that somebody was trying to bloody sleep. Ryder’s lips pursed in annoyance, the same gesture one made when a fly hovered over one’s nose, but he managed to keep his eyes tightly shut, hoping the noise would cease and he’d be able to get back asleep before the headache that was beginning to torment him took complete control. But a slight tightening in his lower abdomen said differently.

Fact: Ryder Renwick had to pee.

With a groan inaudibly pressing past his tightly pressed lips, the eighteen year old prepared to open his eyes –as much as he rather not- at the same moment as a certain amount of weight settled down besides him. His brow wrinkled, and then simply went into disarray as words were spoken: either Balthazar’s voice had become quite feminine, or it wasn’t Balthy who was offering him a mug of coffee. Ryder was tempted to just ignore it, but he finally forced himself to drag his eyes open, at the same instant as he came to yet another odd realization: the lumpy mattress below him either was not his bed, or he’d done some rather destructive partying the night before.

Green eyes fell on a familiar face, as the aroma of coffee meshed against his flaring nostrils, and for an instant he was relieved –until he came to the outstanding insight: this woman had no business being in Balthy’s flat. It was yet another instant, until he recognized –with a slight sense of terror-, that he was not at Balthazar’s place: the room he found himself in was large, but Spartan and rather less accommodating than the flat he was currently living in; and the mattress he was laying on was actually a couch, which made no sense. Frowning, his lips were crooked as he gingerly sat up –inspired, as he was, to throw himself into a standing position and run, his body felt like it’d been ran over by a rampaging herd of runespoors.

Ryder stared at the woman with curiosity –and a little bit of fear- as he took the offered mug from her hands without even realizing what he was doing. “So, I guess I actually told you about my father while on some drunken binder in Berlin?” He sneered: she might have been the kidnapper here, but his personality and the over all crummy way he felt would simply not allow him to act the victim. “And you thought kidnapping me might make you a bit of money?” He snorted and rolled his eyes, as he carefully tossed his legs over the side of the couch –thank Merlin he was dressed, even if his hair and clothes felt like an utter mess, this meant he’d not been used in any odd way. “Well, joke’s on you, bitch,” The mug of coffee had settled against his chest, and he found that sitting up this quick had most definitely not been a good idea. “Father’s gone and fucking disinherited me, so you won’t be getting any type of financial remuneration for my return.”

Fact: Jacoba had been in this very position far too many times to be critical of Ryder.  She couldn't count the number of couches she'd woken up on without any idea how she'd gotten there.  Or, where she was or what she'd done since her last intact memory.  There hadn't been any accusations of kidnapping, though.  Not that she could remember.   Most of the time, her first thought upon waking was how to manipulate the situation and get a few extra nights on the couch.  And meals, if she was particularly on her game.

Even if she'd never tried the kidnap card, specifically, she'd encountered enough variations of Muddled Brain Paranoia to have some idea of how to navigate around it.  Compared to some of the rougher trips she'd witnessed, accusations of kidnapping was easy. 

"I don't know."  Jacoba spoke lightly, keeping her tone of voice on the lower end of her register.  She stuck to the truth, while trying to stay light-hearted enough to, hopefully, calm his nerves.  "If you did, I don't remember.  The music in that place made overhearing conversations difficult.  I had a hard enough time hearing drink orders and I try to tune out father stories.  Habit."  Jacoba arched an eyebrow as she watched Ryder settle into the couch.  Clearly, his current disinherited state was a recent development; it usually didn't take long for one to learn the first step to getting hand outs and not beaten up (or worse) was to attempt to endear oneself on people.  Which included not insulting them.  It was a learning process, sacrificing pride for strategy, but not one that everyone followed.  Jacoba simply rolled her eyes and sipped her coffee. 

Jokes were, usually, not advised with people in Ryder's state but Jacoba could resist the temptation, especially since the joke was apparently on her.  "Though.  If what you say is true, maybe I'd get a pretty penny if I offered to keep you."  She offered a lopsided grin that turned apologetic after a moment's thought. 

"So, what minor yet entirely unforgivable crime did you commit?" Jacoba asked, a sympathetic bitterness to her tone.  "We could compare notes.  Write a thesis.  Sometimes, in the end, it's for the best.  Once I figured out the system, I was happier on the streets than I ever was at home.  As long as you've got someplace to stay." 

He was aware that, physically speaking, the explanation for the sudden intense rush of dizziness was nothing but blood grappling towards his addled brain at the new shift in his posture –but he rather didn’t care about anything other than the fact that his sight was troubled and everything was spinning just slightly. Breathing in, Ryder fought against a panic attack: if this woman believed she could bloody kidnap him and get away with it, she had another thing coming, and he couldn’t allow a lack of self-control to ruin his survival.  Fingers curling around the mug of steaming coffee, he pressed it into his chest in hopes that the warmth would help to clear his senses –although, what exactly could help with the hangover he was currently suffering was another matter all together. If it came to fighting, Ryder was aware of two small yet important facts: the first, was that his mind was currently trying to sludge through mud in a search for useful spell, and the second was that –even if he managed to think of any incantation that could be of use- he wasn’t even certain where his wand was. “Shit,” He whispered.

“Father wouldn’t pay you a cent either way,” He muttered, realizing the woman he’d met in Berlin hadn’t even properly thought this out: she’d clearly intended to request a bounty for his safe return, but now was struggling to find a new course of action that included actually keeping him. Like a common hostage. There was a chance Aidan Renwick would pay a hefty price for Ryder’s death, but he wasn’t about to report this off-hand opportunity to his kidnapped, as it honestly didn’t seem like a beneficial course of action. The woman was still speaking though, and Ryder was broke from his course of thought by the startling realization that the way she was speaking didn’t quite add up to the kidnapping theory. Which could only mean one thing.

Oh.

It would have been far more convenient if memories of the previous night had arrived earlier, but as Ryder recalled having settled down for a goddamned nap in the middle of bloody Diagon Alley, he determined that he wasn’t about to be shamed at his accusations –it wasn’t as if it’d been entirely bonkers for his mind to tread in that direction, anyways. Still, her smile and light way of speaking were deeply unappreciated, and if Jacoba had somehow brought him from the cobbled streets of the alley to her flat somewhere in London, Ryder would rather appreciate it if she also shut the hell up. Sneering just a bit, he realized it was quite unlikely that she would allow him to go back to sleep and dream away his hangover, so, deciding the threat was apparently long gone, the eighteen year old brought the mug to his lips and took a sip –before spitting it out again and watching the liquid all over the lumpy couch. Spluttering slightly, he glanced at the stain and shrugged, not at all preoccupied –if anything, it gave the piece of crap a rather distinguished and artistic sensation.

“You’re coffee is rubbish,” His voice was quite matter of fact and his eyebrows slightly arched as he placed the mug down on the ground. It was a cheap brew, and his palate was quite accustomed to something rather richer. Dragging a hand through his hair, he sighed, holding a hand out towards her to keep her silent. “You have no idea who I am, and I’m not about to sit around and share war stories,” Again, that matter of fact quality to his tone: at the moment, all he gave a damn about was taking a shower and getting out of the clothes that stank of alcohol. “If you can just point me to your shower, I’ll clean up and get out of your hair,” His requirement of a shower would probably cement in her mind the idea that he was indeed homeless, but in all truth he simply wasn’t willing to show up at Balthy’s looking like dragon dung. Pressing up into a standing position, Ryder let his blonde fringe fall over his eyes as he sighed and felt his head pound, a sense of needing to vomit crawling at the pit of his stomach. “Quickly,” An order –he wasn’t about to beg, and the queasy look on his face would hopefully be enough to let her know that if she didn’t hurry her couch would quite probably be stained with something other than coffee.

"Bugger.  I'll have to cancel the down payment on that Beamer."  It was impossible to predict whether the young man would recognize and process the complete apathy in Jacoba's voice.  She couldn't remember, off hand, if he'd been a paranoid drunk back in Germany but, of course, she hadn't exactly bothered to watch that closely.  Any connection they might have had then was purely muggle and purely professional.  She supplied drinks.  He drank them.  Along with everyone else in the bar.  She knew she shouldn't be playing into his paranoia but it seemed the only reasonable alternative to completely ignoring the lad's remarks.  By all accounts it seemed unlikely that ignoring him would actually help. 

Jacoba sighed, shaking her head as the spewed coffee seeped quickly into the faded, warn couch.  The couch was far from fancy but it was one of the few pieces of comfortable furniture in the loft.  And, it had been a bloody pain to get up the stairs.  The longer it lasted, the longer it'd be before she'd have to lug it back down and fight a new one to the top.  Luckily, she'd probably be able to talk Jesse into charming the spot away.  Or, one day she could consider learning how to do it herself.  One day.  Maybe.

"I'm afraid without modern appliances, good old boiled coffee's the easiest route."  She nodded over towards the old iron stove before getting and crossing over to the kitchenette.  Without giving the young man's hoisted hand much more than a passive glance, Jacoba tossed a cloth towel over the damp spot and dabbed at the brown spot. 

"Bath and shower are behind that curtain," Jacoba gestured, vaguely.  Given the only partitions in the attic were the door and the half-heartedly enclosed bath, even in his condition he could probably figure it out.  "There's also some old-fashioned ibuprofen in the basket in there if you want.  Help yourself.  Where exactly are you going to go?" 

She half-expected him to shrug off the question and wasn't rightly sure why she'd asked it in the first place.  However, it didn't take a genius to guess he was neither prepared for nor coping well with his sudden lack of family connections.  Despite the apparent dissent that existed before the kicking-out.  Kids who were dumped on the street rarely had a good relationship with their parents in the months leading up to disownment.  It was usually a long, uncomfortable buildup.  That didn't make the transition easier, though.  And, given the swift and abrupt disapproval of the coffee, Ryder was accustomed to expecting a certain degree of quality. 

The further they fell...

"In your current state, you're asking to get mugged of whatever you happen to have on you.  You got some place safe to sleep that off?"

Ryder Renwick had often heard how being in love was supposed to make one feel as if they had butterflies in their stomach. At the moment, there were wings fluttering away at his intestines, but he was fairly certain –even through the haze of his hangover- that they had nothing to do with romance. The eighteen year old pressed one hand into the pit of his stomach in hopes that it would keep vomit from surging up his throat and past his lips before he found solitude, while his other palm ruffled his blonde fringe to the side and pressed against his forehead. This was utter, bloody torture –and to make it worse, Jacoba didn’t seem about to shut up. Even through his uneasiness he managed to cork an eyebrow in her direction; he was positively certain that she was the most annoying person on planet earth. “Keep out of my business,” He said –although his lips and teeth were clenched so tightly together he couldn’t be certain she’d be able to understand his words.

Turning on his heels, Ryder did his best to ignore the fact that the bathroom was barely private and that there was little doubt it wouldn’t be sound proof. He was suddenly quite aware that not only did he have to vomit, he also had to pee. He walked –or, in all honestly, it was rather more towards the line of stumbling, considering his legs didn’t seem to want to agree with each other- towards the partition, stepped behind it and fell to his knees, hovering over the toilet. He was sure he heard the entire horrible mess as he coughed and heaved and tears stained his cheeks from the force it took to empty his stomach into the bowl. Still trembling, he stood as well as he could and emptied his bladder as well.

His hangover was still present, but he felt rather more relieved as he pulled his shirt off over his head, dropped it to the ground and then stepped out of his pants. He did his best not to think of the fact that he was about to shower in a stranger’s bathroom –and that said bathroom was barely a room of its own, and rather more akin to a part of the living room. The blonde did his best to bathe quickly, but the warm water –which went cold at certain intervals, as yet more proof of the imperfection of this flat- was so soothing that he found himself pondering and thinking, and by the time he turned the water off he’d come to a decision.

It was only a second before he realized that he didn’t have a towel –and that he’d soaked the bathroom floor. Where his clothes had been laying. “Shit,” He muttered, dragging a hand through his damp blond hair. His boxers, at least, had remained mostly dry, so he pulled them up his legs. Not for the first time in his life, he was rather grateful he’d never felt awkward about his body, as he stepped back into the main room. Dripping water behind him, Ryder walked with his head held high –and damn it, that shower really had helped with his hangover- towards the couch and sat down. “The bathroom is slightly flooded, and my clothes are on the ground,” He stated matter of fact, before looking up at the woman who’d dragged him in from the street. She was, in a way, his kidnapper –but in the most bizarre twist ever, she actually wasn’t holding him without his entire consent. “And considering I’m in love with my best mate, and living with him, and I sometimes want to snog him so badly that I end up sleeping on the street drunk as a skunk just in order to keep away from him, I guess I need some advice.” He spoke quickly, before his own nature took over and forced him to shut his mouth.

Trying to ignore the ever distinctive hacks and splashes, Jacoba resumed her attempt at making this a normal morning.  As normal a morning as one could achieve in the attic of a vinyl shop in a wizarding alley.  This had to be karma, yes?  For all those many lovely mornings she'd been a complete and utter doll after a late night of drinking and any number of recreational chemicals.  She'd said and done far worse in the name of protecting her pride so it was hard to point fingers.  Without the personal experience, she might have been offended.  With it, she was amused.  It was probably for the best he didn't know that; amused as she was, it was probably best to give him his space until he'd decided what he wanted to do. 

Trying her best to politely ignore the splashes and profanities from the corner, Jacoba busied herself with slicing rolls, meats and cheese.  With a fresh cup of coffee and breakfast, the young woman settled on a corner of the couch, barely noticing when a half-clothed Ryder came back out into the room. 

"The bathroom is slightly flooded, and my clothes are on the ground."

Jacoba looked up at the young man and opened her mouth but quickly closed it again.  Now was probably not the best time to ask if he was a squib, even if it was the best explanation for his current state of helplessness.  Things like dirty, wet clothes and puddles on the floor seemed like they'd be child's play compared to the magic she'd seen in action.  Or, perhaps, younger folks in the wizarding world were inundated with propaganda about not practicing magic under the influence, just as muggles had 'don't drink and drive' drilled into their subconscious.  Of the two, the later seemed the least likely.  Ryder didn't come across as the type to follow the directions of a subway public service announcement poster.

The young woman looked up from her plate at Ryder, her eyebrows arched in surprise at the sudden rushed confession.  "Oh."  If she'd had more forewarning, she'd have been more prepared to give the question the full focus it deserved.  Without it Jacoba had to play the request over in her head several times before the major points sunk in. 

"And, you're best mate..."  Jacoba's voice trailed off as she replayed the request once more just to make sure she hadn't missed this one crucial detail.  The affection was, presumably, one-sided.  Was it one-sided because the mate didn't know?  The mate loved someone else?  Or- "...your best mate has a girlfriend?"  It was one possible option that accounted for the most possibilities.  "Does he know?"

With his eyes slightly narrowed, his green irises remained cold on Jacoba’s face, as he carefully folded one leg beneath his body and let one of his hands grip his knee. The shower might have helped with his hangover, but it hadn’t obliterated it entirely, and Ryder could still feel his head ache in a slightly duller fashion and the pit of his stomach burning slightly. The single sound the woman emitted at the blonde’s statement might have made him roll his age and snap out some sarcastic comment, were it not for the fact that he was still in the midst of debating whether to stand up and just run out of the flat –lack of clothing be damned. He was actually rather certain that the only reason he didn’t was simply because his muscles had apparently decided to clench of their own accord and keep him rooted to his spot. That didn’t mean, however, that he was at all comfortable with what he’d just admitted, or that he actually understood why he had opened up to Jacoba; as a matter of fact, the only plausible explanation he could think of was a strange case of stockholm’s syndrome. Rolling his tongue over his bottom lip with such a force he was sure it might bruise, Ryder’s head remained level as he considered the complicated possibility and tried to understand the intricacies of his current situation.

Jacoba, meanwhile, seemed to be simply proving that the eighteen year old had decided to ask the worst possible person for advice, as she settled for apparently struggling to comprehend what he’d just said. His eyes narrowing further, Ryder wondered if he’d spoke the words in a language foreign to the girl, but found himself rather certain he’d used english. His head corked slightly sideways as he considered her, lips pursed  and face rather annoyed. “If he knew,” He had meant to snap, but instead he noticed that his voice was rather chilly as he stared at her as if she were the strangest creature he’d ever met, his eyes full of an emotion that seemed to yell out I’m better than you!. “You’d think I’d either have went through with snogging his bloody brains out or he would have already dumped my ass out on the streets, wouldn’t you?” Shit, why had he even bothered to try talking with her?

With an annoyed sigh, Ryder leant forwards, his elbows resting on his knees and his hands coming up to give purchase to his chin, eyes fluttering shut as he decided to simply go on with this –it wasn’t as if he’d ever open up with anybody else, and this woman already knew too much as it was. And there was nothing better to do until his clothes dried, anyways. “He doesn’t know, and he can’t know, but if I stay there I’ll end up straddling him and trying to snog him into cooperation,” He didn’t open his eyes, didn’t look at her, because this was all rather too embarassing as it was. “Shit, I just need to get out of the bloody flat so I can stop needing to shag him.”

Despite her attempts to empathize and a keen sense of familiarity with the lad's situation, Jacoba's patience was starting to run a bit thin.  Had she been this obnoxious when she'd first found herself on the streets?  Perhaps it took a certain degree of experience for one to understand the concept of beggars couldn't be choosers.  Or, this was simply what the sudden transition from silver spoon to muddy gutter looked like.  Arrogant yet desperate. 

"Then, get a flat with a new roommate?  Or, better yet, a flat without a roommate?"  There was bound to be some painfully obvious though thus far obscured reason why this wasn't an option.  Unpleasant as the fellow might be, he wasn't so much an idiot that the simplest answer would have eluded him. 

Either way, they needed to come to a conclusion in a prompt manner.  Jacoba needed to be heading down the fireplace in the shop in the next few minutes to avoid being late - and she definitely wasn't going to be late on her first day for this bloke.  Without the pressure of a deadline, Jacoba might have given the next recommendation more thought before offering it.  But, it was the easiest, most readily viable option and what was the worst that could happen?  Even if the kid destroyed the place and burnt it to the ground, Sasha would just get enough from the insurance company to rebuild.  Neither of them liked the place anymore, anyway.

Not to mention, she could only plant the idea in Ryder's head.  If it appealed to him, it would then be Sasha who'd have to deal with him.  Not her.  And Sasha could likely give the guy a run for his money in the arrogance department. 

"Look," Jacoba got to her feet.  "I can't make any promises since it's not really mine to offer.  But, my brother has a place that goes unused when he's in school.  I bet if you're willing to pitch in with keeping it up and keep an eye out for issues, he'd let you stay there.  You may not even see him during the holidays.  If you're interested, I can set you up to meet him.  You might find you have some things in common."  Unfortunately.