Page 17 of The Run Home
Mom pushed back from the table and walked out of the room. “You can clean up.” The statement hung there, her meaning clear.At least do something useful, Boon.
Well, fuck.
I grabbed all the dishes from the table and headed for the sink, rinsing them before placing them haphazardly in the dishwasher. I was a firm believer chaos placement of dishes led to the best cleaning process. I wiped down the stove and countertops, then dropped the damp towel on the counter. The house was quiet, both women disgusted with me. It was way too early to turn in for the night. My brothers were busy with their wives. I had no friends here in Blueball, and I was feeling restless.
So I decided to go three for three.
I walked outside and headed for the fence line between our property and the Fletchers’. If I was going to piss off the femalesof Blueball, I might as well add Shae to that list. The geese caught sight of me and started honking from across the field. I sprinted to the fence and climbed over, flipping them off with a smug smile before heading up the porch to Shae’s house. I knocked and then patiently waited for someone to answer. In truth, I’d come solely to thank her for adding Kinsley to the team. Anyone who could make my daughter smile like that deserved thanks.
It took awhile, but the door finally swung open. Shae stood there in the doorway with a wrench in one hand and wearing a soaked T-shirt with the wordCellfieemblazoned over a picture of a cell taking its picture. Her shorts showed off her curvy legs and the bare pink toenails were back to distracting me.
“What?” she barked by way of greeting.
“Uhh…hi.” It was probably my lamest greeting to date. I think it was the auburn hair piled on top of her head with strands that hung down and tangled with her glasses that had me distracted. Or it could have been the way the damp T-shirt clung to her spectacular breasts. I’d forgotten how to speak.
She huffed, wrench still in the air. “What do you want? I’m a little busy here.”
I shook my head, clearing it of whatever the hell had taken over my brain. “What’s happened?” I stepped inside, ignoring the way she reared her head back at my arrogance. The house looked very different from when we were kids. New paint, different furnishings, wallpaper. The house looked amazing, actually.
She shut the door and rounded on me. “My sink sprung a leak and I’m trying to fix it. So, if you could state your business and get out, that would be appreciated.”
I hurried into the kitchen. “Let me take a look.” Even as my steps confidently headed for the pool of water on the kitchen floor, my brain was screaming to abort the mission. Iknew nothing about plumbing and couldn’t offer a damn bit of assistance, other than calling for a professional plumber.
“Seriously, don’t…” Shae’s voice trailed off as I hit an unseen patch of water and nearly lost my footing. I grabbed the countertop and steadied myself.
“Whoa.”
I heard a garbled laugh behind me. I turned to see Shae’s hand over her mouth, clear glee in her eyes. Glad I could make at least one female laugh today, even if it was at my own expense. Reaching behind my head, I pulled my shirt over my head.
“What are you doing?” Shae screeched, laugh long gone.
I laid the T-shirt over the puddle of water and let it soak up the mess. Then I lay down on her floor, head nearly into the cabinet under her sink, and looked up at her. “Hand me the wrench.”
Shae’s mouth was hanging open, her gaze taking in the sight of me laid out on her floor, shirtless. I couldn’t help a bit of a smirk. She liked what she saw, I knew that much. A woman doesn’t bite her lip and press one foot on top of the other like she’s rubbing her thighs together if she doesn’t like what she’s seeing. I may not know plumbing, but I knew a turned-on woman when I saw one.
She handed me the wrench in slow motion. I took it from her and paused, staring up at pipes and a slow drip of water just above my head.Well, fuck, now what, genius?
“Looks like you got a leak here,” I said, buying myself some time to figure out how this damn wrench worked.
“And they say mansplaining isn’t a thing,” Shae drawled from above me. She nudged my leg and sat down on the floor by my thighs. “Scoot over and let a professional fix it.”
“You’re a professional plumber now, Coach Fletcher?” I got the two metal things to separate on the wrench and wrappedit around the pipe where it looked like it might be screwed together.
I felt her try to wiggle into the tiny space, her soft body pressed against me. “I’ve cleaned out a few P-traps in my time.”
I grimaced. I knew nothing about pee traps, but it sounded gross. I tightened the wrench and decided lefty Lucy was about all I knew, so I was going with that.
“No, wait, don’t?—”
Shae’s warning came too late. I cranked and the pipe pieces came apart, water spewing us both like a fuckin’ geyser. Shae shrieked, which startled me more than the damn jet of water in my eyes. I tried to sit up, blinded by the water, of course, and smacked my forehead on the underside of the sink. Pain bloomed, sharp and insistent. Shae sounded like she was either choking on the water or possibly dying. Her body rolled away from me and I wiggled out of the cabinet, head aching like a son of a bitch.
With one hand on my forehead and the immediate egg that had grown there, I used my other hand to try to wipe the water out of my eyes. I blinked them open and found Shae curled in a ball on the floor. At first, I thought maybe the water had hurt her, but when I shimmied across the floor to her side, I found her glasses shoved to the top of her soaked hair and her face contorted into the kind of laugh that leaves one silent and their face purple. Pretty sure she was choking, but not on water.
“I’m okay. Thanks for asking,” I drawled.
Shae howled, the sudden release of sound startling me again. Thankfully, I wasn’t under a sink and didn’t harm myself when I jumped. I rolled my eyes and looked back at the pipes that had finally stopped gushing water.
“The leak got bigger,” I offered helpfully.
