His Greatest Treasure (Greatest Love #4)

Chapter 6

6

OLIVER

I dunk my head into the sink full of cold water and open my eyes, hoping that the water will wash the image of Ary out of them.

My exhale makes the water bubble before I pull my head back and inhale. A neon yellow bikini still stains my vision, even as I stare at myself in the mirror of the medicine cabinet. Fuck my life, she shouldn’t look as good as she does.

It’s a cruel joke.

I’ve managed to avoid her well over the past week, but this? This is my winning streak coming to a whopping end. If she’s going to lounge around every day in a bikini with pink skin glistening with water and suntan lotion, I’m going to go out of my goddamn mind. I can’t spend every day for the rest of the summer with a hard dick and anger-flushed skin. I’ll have to avoid my backyard like the plague or maybe build a new fence. One high enough to block her out . . .

The worst part about what just happened isn’t even that we were bickering like two immature teenagers but that I liked it. The back and forth filled me with excitement. I wanted to keep going, so I’m glad she put a stop to it when she did.

The muscles along the underside of my arm ache when I reach up and run wet fingers through my hair. Lifting weights wasn’t my plan at all for today. I had only just got home from a two-hour run when I stepped into the backyard, not expecting to find my neighbour tanning almost naked in a kiddy pool.

The choice to add weights to my workout surged into my subconscious when I noticed the way she was watching me. Like she was impressed . It was a brute decision that I’m paying for with my sore and overworked muscles.

Leaving the bathroom, I rub my shoulder to try and soothe some of the pain there. The house is quiet like usual, maybe too quiet, if I’m being honest. I forced myself to be okay with the quiet once I moved out of my parents’ house and got my own place, but I grew up around noise. A lot of it.

My family is massive, made up of both blood relatives and friends that I’m just as close with. There was never a single weekend spent in silence or a holiday that wasn’t cluttered and so loud my ears would feel bloody by the end of the night.

I used to tell myself that once I got older, I’d spend my weekends in silence as much as possible, but those were wants of a kid who took what he had for granted because he was a stubborn shit. I don’t want that anymore. Maybe that’s why I’m always at my parents’ house or bothering my cousins whenever possible.

A heavy feeling grows in my chest as the silence really sinks in. It’s an overload of emotions that I try to push down but can’t seem to. I’m lonely, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s half the reason why I enjoy bickering with Ary so much.

The kitchen is bright without the lights on as I step inside and head right for the fridge. The clink of beer bottles fills the kitchen when I pull one out and twist off the cap. It’s cool on my throat, the first swallow soothing some of my tension.

I could call one of twenty numbers of people who would come keep me company if I asked, but it feels desperate. My family has grown in size over the past few years with babies and marriages. I’m the third oldest of all the kids, only behind my non-blood-related cousin, Cooper, and my blood cousin from my mom’s side Maddox. Both of whom have families of their own. I should be next in line, but everyone knows that in reality, I won’t be.

“Fuck, you’re one depressing bastard,” I grunt.

The BC Pythons game is still playing on the TV in the living room from when I turned it on right after getting back from my run, so I flop down on the couch in front of it to watch. My brother’s team is playing today, and now I’m wishing I had taken the tickets he offered me.

Last weekend’s game was good. His team won, and he was phenomenal, the way he always is. The experience should have convinced me to go again today, but I couldn’t bring myself to join my parents.

The silence is hard, but sometimes, the noise is harder.

Crowds and tens of thousands of watching people keep me from going as often as I should. It’s selfish, but it’s the way I’ve always been. With my family and my team of firefighters, it’s different. Strangers make my skin crawl.

With a slow exhale, I set my beer down on the floor and maneuver myself into a lying position. It’s half-uncomfortable with my ankles hanging off the armrest, but when my eyes start to droop, I don’t give them or my feelings another thought.

I just sleep.

It’s dark when I wake up. Through blurry eyes, I see that the game is over and a poker match has replaced it. Fumbling for the remote, I find it on my chest. I turn the TV off, not wanting to die of boredom from having to watch poker, and stand.

I wobble for a beat before gaining control of my legs and forcing myself up the stairs. My sleep schedule has grown so messed up over the past couple years, but I’m hoping with my new two on two off shift, I can fix it up a bit .

My bedroom is brighter than the living room, and I grow confused as to what time it actually is when I step inside and stare out the window beside my bed. The sun is still setting and peeking up from the horizon, making it . . . nine, maybe.

I go to pull the blinds down when I freeze, muscles locking up. The pain in my muscles is worse now than hours ago, and as I tense up, it only grows more intense. I stop caring about that in an instant.

Ary always has her blinds closed over the window straight across from mine, probably because she thinks I’m a fucking creep who will stare into it all the time, but tonight, they’re still up. And thank God for that because the tendrils of smoke curling in the air from whatever lies beneath the window have me taking off out of my room.

I storm down the stairs, my focus zeroed in on that smoke as alarms ring in my head. Somehow, I manage to grab my fire extinguisher before leaving. My front door is left open as I hurry across the yard and jump onto her front porch.

“Ary, open the door!” I shout, banging my fist on the wood over and over again. “Ary!”

Footsteps sound on the other side of the door, but I continue hitting it until it swings open. Wide blue eyes meet mine as I shoulder past her and walk inside, not waiting for an invitation.

“Oliver? What are you doing?” she asks, her voice higher-pitched than normal. “It’s not socially acceptable to just storm into other people’s houses!”

“Stay here,” I demand before leaving her behind, taking the stairs two at a time.

My chest pounds, adrenaline already creating a fog over my mind. Years of training keep me focused on the task at hand and nothing else. Get the fire out before it grows, and make sure everyone is safe.

“You can’t go in my room! Oliver!”

“Is Nova here?”

“No, she’s?— ”

Her answer good enough for me, I stop listening and inhale, smelling the telltale scent of something burning. It’s not a fire yet, but it will be soon if I don’t get it under control.

“You’re an absolute lunatic!” she shouts behind me, following at a quick pace to keep up with my long strides.

“Did you leave something on in your bedroom? A curling iron or something?” I ask, my voice dangerously low in an attempt to keep from shouting at her.

“What are you talking about?”

I stop, and she nearly runs into my chest when I spin to face her. The fire extinguisher in my hands rests between us, and when she stares at it, I take a second to look at her.

She’s done her makeup and hair tonight, and her tiny body is wrapped in a shimmery fabric that stops above her knees?—

I swallow a growl and leave her there before searching for the room across from mine. Getting distracted is not a part of the plan.

Wanting to avoid speaking to her again, I take a guess that her place has the same layout as mine when I see the same number of doors and head for where my bedroom would be. When I step into the room and see the smoke coming from the towel below a curling iron that’s still plugged into the wall, I drop the extinguisher on the ground.

“Christ, woman,” I snap while tugging the cord from the wall and pulling the curling iron off the towel.

The towel is what’s smoking, so I take it off the vanity and leave the room in search of the bathroom. When I find it, I drop it in the sink and turn the tap to cold, letting it soak the cotton.

Ary is behind me in the doorway when I look over my shoulder. Her face is pale, fingers dancing anxiously at her sides.

“How long have you had this plugged in for and sitting on that towel?” I ask, gripping the handle of the curling iron too hard as I hold it up.

“I don’t know. Not long. I always keep it on that towel, and it’s never smoked like that before,” she rambles .

I blow out a tense breath and tip my head back before looking back at her. “You can’t leave a hot tool on a towel unattended. You shouldn’t even do it attended, but at least you’d know to take it off if you were watching it. If the towel had started on fire?—”

“Yeah, I got it.”

“Do you? Because if I hadn’t seen the smoke?—”

Her eyes tighten at the corners as she takes a step forward, crossing her arms and cutting me off for the second time. “What were you doing looking in my window anyway?”

“Are you being serious right now?”

“What were you doing?” she presses, full-blown glaring at me now.

I want to drop the curling iron I’m still holding, but it’s so hot that I don’t know where to put it yet. Choosing to shut the tap off instead, I meet her glare with one of equal power.

“I wasn’t looking in your window. I was going to shut my blinds and then saw the smoke.”

She twists her lips. “If you say so.”

“Why were your blinds open in the first place? Were you looking in my window?”

“As if. There isn’t anything I want to see in there.”

“Likewise.”

“Great.”

“Fan-fucking-tastic.” I jab the curling iron in her direction and wait for her to take it from me before squeezing through the non-existent space in the doorway. “I’ll be going, then.”

Her huff is loud enough that the neighbours on her other side probably heard it. “Thank you.”

I stop in my tracks and twist to look back, only having made it a couple of steps from her. She rolls her eyes at my surprise and jabs a finger in my direction.

“Don’t be a jackass about it. Just say ‘you’re welcome’ and leave.”

“You’re welcome, Ary. Just be more aware of your surroundings. Especially considering you were leaving? ”

“I was only going for dinner. And I don’t need you to lecture me.”

I laugh tightly. “That wasn’t a lecture. I don’t want your house to burn down. Do you have a fire extinguisher?”

From the quick perusal of her bedroom I managed while sorting out the almost fire, there wasn’t one there, and something tells me that if I searched this place from top to bottom, I still wouldn’t find one.

“No,” she admits, her cheeks filling with colour.

“Does your boyfriend? Husband? Nova’s father?”

Surprise makes her eyes flare, but I don’t know if it’s because of the bluntness of my question or if it has something to do with her daughter.

I won’t deny that I’ve been curious about her daughter’s father. He hasn’t been around while I’ve been home—not that I’ve been looking—and there was no secondary phone number or name on the registration forms she filled out at the studio.

She avoids my eyes. “While it’s none of your business, Nova’s father isn’t my boyfriend. And even if he were, he’s less likely to have a fire extinguisher than I am. He’s less likely to do a damn thing anytime. The latmask . And just because I can tell you’re wondering, sometimes women enjoy going out for dinner on their own , thank you very much.”

The bit of information gets stored deep in my mind along with the second name I’ve heard her speak in that other language. She’s dressed up for herself tonight, not anyone else. I shouldn’t care about that.

“Keep the one I brought, then. And enjoy your dinner.”

“I’ll buy my own extinguisher.”

“Well, I’m not taking mine back with me, so you’ll only have two in that case. The more, the better.” I shrug a shoulder and head back down the stairs before she has the chance to argue further.

A soft set of footsteps follows after me. “You’re an impossible man. ”

“Yeah, heard that before. Now, no more towel fires, please.”

I didn’t even take my shoes off when I got here, but I don’t have it in me to feel guilty about the mess they might have left in my hurry. She can ream my ass out about it another day.

“If I do have another one, I’ll make sure to keep my blinds closed,” she mutters when I reach for the door.

Something hot prods in my chest as I huff a breath and cross the distance between us. “Is your phone on you?”

“Yes,” she says suspiciously.

“Give it here.”

“A please would be appreciated.”

I grind my teeth. “Please.”

She leaves the entry for a moment before reappearing with a small purse in her hands. With a dip of her hand inside of her, she pulls out her phone and then quickly unlocks it.

I take it from her and open her contacts before adding mine and sending myself a text so I have her number.

Handing it back, I say, “Keep the blinds closed if you want to, but you call me if you so much as smell something funny in here. I don’t play around with this shit, Ary. Got it?”

She sobers slightly, losing some of her stubbornness. “Yeah, I got it.”

After a final glance at her darkly lined eyes, red lips, and slim-figured body in that tight-as-fuck red dress, I leave.

This time when I get back inside my place, I don’t just dunk my face in cold water. I bathe in it.