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"You're one of the few people who've figured that out about him," he said with an appreciative smile. "Not everyone takes the time to wheedle things out of him, but he's not as stuffy as he pretends to be." Not by a long shot, although that stubborn head of his made it hard to change him sometimes. Still, that stubbornness had undoubtedly helped Rylan through a lot of his life, and would continue to do so, especially in his line of work.

"Ah, you just set me up for it," he said of the compliment with a humble, but maybe not totally, shake of his head. "I just took the shot. Doesn't always work out that way. It must be my lucky night."

Brow quirked.

"You fix engines?" he added, cutting off his drink mid-sip to set the beer down. "May I?" He took her hand and traced over the hardened, calloused fingers with similar ones of his own, shaped by an entire lifetime of tough physical work. Ranching, rowing, the Marines. None of that made for particularly soft hands either.

"Looks good on you," he said finally, looking up and meeting her green eyes with his own sharp gray ones. "I always wanted, you know, a bike from Zero Engineering. Which may be unAmerican of me, to want a Japanese bike, but damn those things are beautiful. Course, you probably know more about bikes than I do. Everything I know about engines comes primarily from fixing up a beat-up old pickup on the ranch."

And then he laughed, genuinely amused, by Jo's suggestion. "Model?" he echoed. "Well, I'm flattered if I'm pretty enough for something like that, but... I couldn't work a job that requires no marketable skills. Unless, of course, staring broodingly into the distance counts but... I do that all the time anyway and I never get paid for it."

A shame.

"Marines, actually," he said finally. "Until about a week ago."

"What, that kid?" he said, nodding to Rylan, who had finally left the box of cookies and was emphatically making dart-throwing gestures with a group of other firefighters, no doubt debating who would win in a throw-down of darts. "Yea, he's... about the closest thing to family I've got." So it was good to know Rylan had been speaking as highly of him as Cas usually did in return.

At Jo's next words, he shifted his gaze back to her and let his smirk widen into a real grin, part surprised, part delighted, part devilish in its cheek. His eyes had come alive as they didn't during most routine conversations, dancing with an icy twinkle that made them look as bright as the stars overhead. "I'd hope for it to keep looking up, but I don't think we're in danger of it going south anytime soon."

Unless he screwed up real bad, but Cas usually didn't screw up when he'd found something, or someone, he wanted.

His fingers flexed open at her touch, not entirely bidden, feeling her strong fingers against his knuckles and the back of his hand. Capable fingers. There was something so incredibly alluring about them and about the knowledge that Jo could probably outwork half the men in this town when it came to engines, cars.

"You show me a hundred prim and pretty princesses who've never done a day's work, and I'll show you a hardy woman who's worth more than all of those combined," he said. "The ones who sit in the bar and wait for men to buy them their drinks? They're better off with a desk jockey banker than they are with me."

Which, admittedly, wasn't always enough to stop him in desperate times, but those were the kinds of girls who left him feeling empty the next day. That was where the regret kicked in.

"That's a cool truck," he added. "Much cooler than the one I fixed. It was just a piece of crap Ford from the 70s with too many miles and s**t parts. I patched her up alright, but I liked the horses more." Another smile. Out in that country, horses were the more efficient way to travel anyway.

"But thanks," he said. "I followed Ry into the Marines. Just didn't know much else to do with my life when we graduated, but then it's six years and now I don't really know what else to do with it." But that was another story.

"Ah," he said with a chuckle at the mention of distractions. "But that's the point, isn't it? You can try to distract me, too. I'm good for it."

As if he would decline any such thing, especially not coming from someone like Jo, who was doing a fine job surprising him in her own right.

"You right, they're not always synonymous. Just often," he nodded, and then with a small, smiling pause in which he tilted his eyes toward the sky in thought, added, "I just mean those are the forgettable ones. The babes and the sweethearts, as it were. Incidentally, those are also the ones who tend to think it's a sign of affection, so they still win."

And he shook his head again, peering at her, watching the way her hair curved and spilled down her shoulder, and wondering where she'd come from. "I grew up on a ranch - sort of. It was a shitty ranch. The horses were the only good thing about it, so I have a soft spot for them."

Animals were some of the most purest creatures on the earth, so far as Cas could tell, and he loved them for that.

"You seem to be doing alright at baking, if those treats are any indication," he said, quirking his brow. "And as far as staying around... I haven't decided yet. Don't really have anywhere to call home, so... if something good pops up, I might well stick around."

"Oh, I'm focused. I was thinking more like a threepeat at 4 am," he teased. "But I can work with the morning too."

And he was watching her with care, almost hawklike in the way he took in her quiet movements. The smile didn't escape him. It wasn't the first time she'd lifted her beer to her lips immediately after saying something like that.

"You should finish your beer," he added. "So you can't keep hiding your smiles behind it. We'd appreciate if you'd share it with us. And by we, I mean, me."

He drained his bottle and shook it to show that his was empty with another smirk, and set it on the table.

"I don't know much about chickens," he admitted. "But the horses. They're something else. So quiet, peaceful even. You need that when everything else in your life is just... all-out war sometimes." But he said it in a way that suggested he was more happy than sad about that.

"I'll owe you a dozen favors before I'd offend you," he promised, then allowed himself an exasperated grin and hung his head. "That seems a bit low, doesn't it? Let's say more like... a hundred."

"I like to think I'm more entertaining than beer," he said with a thoughtful nod. "Although I'm sure it's a tough contest." He accepted her bottle and downed it without much pause, setting the empty beer down beside his own and leaning back.

"Horses in my future? I'd like to think so," he replied. "There isn't as much wide open space here as out west but I'm sure we could work something out. I've never done the whole... schooling a horse in an arena, though. They seem made more to just run. There's nothing freeing about trotting around in a ring."

But as far as peace went... as much as it'd be good for him, Cas wasn't sure he was ready to step entirely away from his old life yet. Putting down roots on his own little piece of the world seemed so farfetched and foreign.

But he smiled again at her next words and shrugged helplessly. "I can't fight that," he said. "Wouldn't want to chance insulting you again."

Cas took the good-natured jab with a grin. "Short of free-falling, galloping a horse across landscape that goes on forever, with the sky all wide open space on all sides is probably the best feeling in the world," he said earnestly. It was one of the few good things he'd taken away from his childhood, one of the few things he'd carry with him from that time until the day he died.

"How about all three?" he said, watching keenly the way her hand caressed her cheek. He sat up, leaning forward to match her, drawing near. The fact that he was only about a foot away from her was not lost on him, but he sat himself still anyway and just smiled. "If we want to make good on the threepeat, I'd say... in an hour."

Or less, depending on how long it took them to blow through the billiards.

"I can appreciate that," he said. The fluid way in which her lips curled into a smile reminded him what a good call it had been to finish her beer.

He almost closed the inches between them to kiss her, but then she was up, and he tilted his head to follow her with a twinkle in his eye and a look of mock disbelief on his face. That was alright. Cas could wait, and two could play at that game.

He stood to follow her to the pool table, wondering what, if anything, was fit to bet on this game of theirs. "Earth-shatting org- Ah, we're in decent company," he said, cutting himself off with a pointed look in Jo's direction. "How about just a slap?" he amended, allowing himself a soft chuckle. "Anywhere the winner desires."

But mostly, the butt.

He let her come, and when she put her arms around him, he quirked his brow and brought a hand up to brush back a piece of her hair, twining it around two fingers before sliding them through to rest on her shoulder. “I hope it’s a given,” he answered with a crooked grin.

“Figured you might,” Cas answered with a laugh, corralling the balls on the table into the triangle. He grabbed the beer as he passed, taking a pull from the bottle before setting it down. “Ladies first? Don’t expect me to go easy on you.” Even though he fully intended to do so. Not because he thought she needed it, but because he wouldn’t mind her hands on his – whatever. And because it’d get them out of here that much sooner.