“Thank you,” she said grudgingly, walking past him.
“Need any help?”
“I’ve been successfully washing my hands since I was, like, two years old. I think I can handle it.”
He watched her disappear down the hallway to the half bath tucked under the stairs, and eased the door mostly closed, leaving it cracked open.
“Get rid of that,” he told Ian, nodding at the bag of shit on the lawn as he passed.
“What? Why me? And since when do you give the orders?”
“Since we’re at Piper’s house, and this ain’t your playground, son.”
Jax reached into the trunk and grabbed several bags in each hand. When he emerged again, Ian was unmoving, looking at him in surprise.
“This is a side of you I haven’t seen in a very long time,” Ian murmured in approval. Then his eyes darted to the bag on the ground, and he frowned. “Just wish you showed it some other time than right now.”
Smirking, Jax let himself in and deposited the bags on the kitchen counter. He turned around and saw Snickers waiting at the backdoor patiently, and Jax swore the silly looking dog was staring at him expectantly. “All right, all right,” he grumbled, opening the door to let him out.
He walked back out the front and saw Ian at the water hose, scrubbing his hands. “I grabbed some of the soap from the back of the truck.”
“Hurry it up. No slacking on my watch.”
“Dick.”
Smiling, he got another load of groceries, Ian joining him and getting the last of them. They were just setting them on the counter when Piper came out of the bathroom and headed straight to the hand sanitizer on the window above the sink, squirting a healthy amount in her palm.
“My hands will never be clean again,” she muttered. Raising her voice, she said, “And not a word from either one of you. Don’t you two have work to do anyway?”
“That we do,” he said in acknowledgement. “I let Snickers out earlier. Might want to leave him out until we get the water heaters switched out, since we’ll have the door open.”
She nodded, and he and Ian went back outside. The water heater was on a dolly, but this was still going to take some maneuvering. Forty minutes, a string of curses, and Ian’s smashed thumb later, they finally had the new water heater in place, and the old one loaded in the back of Jax’s truck.
“You need any help installing it?” Ian asked.
“Nah, I got it. You can head on home.”
Hesitating, Ian looked at him closely. “You look like you’re in a better mood than usual. Things must be going well.”
Jax let out a bark of laughter. “She’s a heartbeat away from telling me to fuck off. Come to think of it, she already has, in so many words. We’re only here right now because she didn’t know who else to call.”
“She could have found someone if she tried. Asked the neighbors, asked at the store. She had options, but she still called you.”
Jax nodded, glancing down and trying to hide the smile forming. “Yeah, she did.”
“I’ll leave you to it, then. Make the most of it.”
Jax watched his friend walk down the street, headed back to where his truck was parked at the hardware store. With a breath, he went back inside and headed down the stairs. Piper was busy in the kitchen, and he wanted to think things over before he tried to talk to her.
He had no experience with wooing women. He’d known Piper since he was eight years old, and it was all so natural with them. Their friendship, then their growing feelings, and the friendship turning into a relationship. Of course he’d put effort into finding sweet ways to show her how he felt, but he never had to win her. From the time they were kids, they belonged to each other.
And after Piper… well, after her, he had no desire or interest in starting anything with another woman. He’d never been able to see a woman in that kind of light. And his eagle would have shredded him to bits if he tried to move on with someone who wasn’t his mate.
Working on getting the water heater set up, he tried to come up with some kind of plan, but he kept drawing a blank. This was something he had no experience with, and Piper wasn’t the typical woman, anyway. She’d fed that fire he’d seen in her, even as young as six years old, and become the badass she always was inside.
Looked like he was g
oing to have to wing it. Something else he didn’t have much experience with, but he had to do what he could. Finally finishing up the installation, he double checked that it was all hooked up and ready to go. Satisfied with it, he began gathering trash to take outside.