The smell in the kitchen hit his nose halfway up the stairs, and he paused in the doorway to watch Piper. She was bustling around the kitchen, baking something, and he just stood there, watching her. Her black hair was wavy, hanging halfway down her back, the purple streaks gleaming in the light. His eyes dropped to her ass, mesmerized with watching it as she moved around the kitchen.
Eyes narrowing, he saw more of the tattoo that wrapped around her thigh. It was a bird of some sort, because he could see the feathers stretching down. Pushing the irrational jealousy he felt over her having a bird inked onto her body that wasn’t him, he cleared his throat.
Jumping, she whirled around, slapping a flour covered hand to her chest. “Dammit, Jax. Don’t go sneaking up on me.”
Lips curling at hearing his name on her lips for the first time in years, he arched an eyebrow. “So I’m Jax again?”
Her eyes went wide for a split second before she narrowed them. “Don’t push your luck. Are you all finished?”
“Yep, I was just going to take the trash out. I bought one of the fast heating ones, so you should be able to tell soon if it’s working or not. I’m going to go run this trash outside.”
She nodded, and he pulled the boxes and plastic out of the door, dragging them to the curb, since he knew tomorrow was trash day. Taking a deep breath, he gazed around the quiet street before heading back inside. The smell of her baking was stronger now, and he stopped inside the doorway, unable to stop a grin from curving his lips.
“You made lemon drops.”
Stiffening, she turned to glare at him. “Don’t make more of this than it is.”
“You remembered lemon drops are my favorite,” he said with a smile. He was absolutely going to make more of it.
“I didn’t hit my head and lose my memory. It would be hard to forget they’re your favorite. You used to shamelessly beg me and Grandma to make them every few days.”
“I didn’t beg,” he protested, leaning his shoulder against the wall.
“You did, constantly. Every time you came here, or went to the bakery, you were begging for them. Don’t add lying about cookies to your list of sins.”
Ignoring that last bit, he said, “But here you are, making lemon drops, and I didn’t even beg.”
With an exasperated sigh, she turned to face him, wiping her hands on a towel. “I told you not to make anything out of it. You won’t let me pay you with cash, so I’m paying you in cookies. This isn’t me doing something nice, St. James. This is me not wanting to owe you anything.”
“Fair enough,” he said, nodding. Say what she would, he was still going to read something more into it. “Have you checked the water yet? It might not get hot right now, but it should still be warm enough to tell.”
She turned the hot water on, waiting with her fingers under the stream of water. After a few moments, she turned to look at him with a big smile. “It’s working! Thank you so much, Jax!”
Eyebrows raising, he smiled at her. “I’m Jax again? Two times in a matter of minutes. That’s encouraging.”
Freezing, she turned around and shrugged, but he could see the tension in her shoulders. “Just another slip of the tongue. I was just excited about the water heater. Don’t read anything into that one, either. Those cookies on the counter over there are almost finished cooling, and then they can be put in some Tupperware.”
In other words, she was kicking him out as soon as humanly possible. That was okay. At least she’d called him over to begin with.
“Oh, I forgot your receipt. I’ll go grab it from the truck,” he said, turning away.
Mind racing, he walked slowly to the truck, trying to figure out how to either prolong their time, or get in her head, make his presence known. He needed to figure out a way to make more progress, to get her to lower her guards and let him back in, even if it was only a small bit. He could work with a small bit. But he couldn’t make any progress at all if she kept him so tightly locked out.
He was on his way back in when he saw it. He wasn’t looking for it, and if it weren’t for his shifter sight, he would have stepped on it and crushed it. A smile stretching his lips, he bent over and gently plucked the four-leaf clover from the ground. This was perfect. She might be able to ignore him, but she couldn’t pretend their past hadn’t happened.
Walking back inside, he found her scooping lemon drops from the cookie sheet into a bowl. Putting the receipt on the counter, he walked up just as she snapped the lid on the container and turned to hand it to him. Accepting it, he held the four-leaf clover out to her, watching as her eyes widened and then darted to his face.
“Don’t forget our history, Piper. Don’t pretend it never happened. There was bad shit, yeah, but there was good shit, too. We had twelve years of good shit before our worlds turned upside down. That’s what I want. I want that again with you, and I know we can get there. We have shit to work through, a lot of shit, but we can do it, Piper. The reward at the end of all that work is priceless.”
She drew in a stuttering breath, and he pressed the four-leaf clover into her hand, darting in to kiss her cheek as she stood there unmoving. Turning, he walked to the door and paused when she spoke, angling his body to see her.
“You’re right, we did have all that,” she said, her voice starting out shaky and then gaining strength. “But our worlds didn’t turn upside down. Mine did. You’re the one who broke us, Jax, and you very nearly broke me in the process. But I will never give a man that kind of power over me again, and if I did, it sure as shit wouldn’t be you. So yes, I will remember our history, as a glaring neon guide on what not to do. Remembering the good times isn’t a good thing, like you think it is. All it does is serve to remind me of how you threw everything we shared away like it was nothing, as easily as you take out a bag of trash. And before you try, know there is ab-so-fucking-lutely nothing you can tell me that would make what you did okay. Thank you again for replacing the water heater. You can go now.”
Jax watched as Piper tossed the clover in the trash can and turned back toward the counter, back stiff. Exhaling, he let himself out and walked to his truck. Despite her words, he felt encouraged. Her voice told him everything he needed to know. She was trying to pretend like she was unaffected and didn’t care, but he heard the buried longing, mixed in with the pain.
He couldn’t just blurt out why he broke things off with her. He longed to, so they could try to work past it. But she didn’t know what he was. Didn’t know he was a shifter, not a normal human. He’d planned on telling her after she graduated; about what he was, and what she meant to him. That she was his mate. But he never got the chance. His grandfather started threatening Piper, wanting Jax to break it off with her. He wanted Jax to mate an eagle shifter, not a human. Keep the bloodline pure.
So instead of telling Piper he was a shifter and beginning their future together, he broke up with her instead. And she obviously still felt the pain of their breakup—just like he did.