His Greatest Treasure (Greatest Love #4)

Chapter 19

19

OLIVER

I peel my eyes open and blink over and over again until I can make out the shapes on the TV. It’s silent, the screen too bright in the darkness of the . . . living room. I’m in the living room. And it’s hot despite the fact I know I had the AC on earlier.

With my left arm, I swipe a hand over the couch cushion beside me and find the TV remote. I turn off the screen and stop squinting when the blinding light disappears, and my eyes stop burning.

I swallow to wet my throat and try to spread my legs before freezing, feeling a weight on them that wasn’t there earlier. Or I don’t think it was. Fuck, I don’t remember anything after the fifth episode of Survivor .

My heart stalls in my chest when I look down at my lap. Avery’s head rests over my thighs, her blonde hair splayed over my jeans, the colour light enough to be obvious in the dark.

My hand rests on her hip. Her bare hip. The thin pajama top has ridden up high, leaving her stomach exposed. It’s too dark to see too much, but she’s hot to the touch, the heat from her body making my neck slick with sweat.

“Avery?” I whisper, needing to know if she’s asleep or awake and too scared to move. She doesn’t answer, so I try again. “Princess?”

Silence.

I drop my head back and flex my fingers, straining to keep myself from touching any more of her. She’s asleep, and I shouldn’t even be touching her hip without her permission. But Christ, I don’t want to pull my hand away.

We can’t stay here like this, but the thought of waking her unsettles me. She needs to sleep. I don’t know if she has problems doing so at home, and I don’t care to know for sure. All I do know is that she has bags under her eyes that tell me she needs the rest, and I’m going to make sure she gets it, even if she wakes in the morning and kicks my ass for what I’m about to do.

With my breath stuck in my throat, I slip out from beneath her and wait for her head to touch the cushions before dropping to a crouch along the edge of the couch.

Peaceful is the term that comes to mind when I look at her, seeing her face for the first time since we fell asleep. Her lips are parted slightly as her eyes remain closed, features completely relaxed. For now, she’s free of the heavy load of responsibilities that will weigh her down come morning.

It’s easy to scoop her up and carry her up the stairs. She’s light in my arms, her head resting against my chest and legs swinging in the air with every step I take. Climbing every stair carefully, I manage not to trip in the dark. I carry her into my bedroom and gently set her on the mattress, making sure there’s a pillow beneath her head.

The comforter is tucked beneath the pillows, so I leave it and grab a spare blanket from the linen closet in the hallway instead. She doesn’t move a muscle as I drape it over her and tuck it beneath her feet before hovering at the edge of the bed, unable to walk away.

I know she’d call me out on being a creep for the way I’m watching her, like she’s something I want to protect from the world. I wouldn’t disagree with her either. It is creepy, but I don’t care.

Leaning down, I tuck a strand of hair behind her ear before brushing a few others from her forehead. The worry lines that tend to crinkle between her brows are gone, and I brush my thumb over the smooth skin there before dropping my hand.

She moans a beat later, burrowing her cheek into the pillow before cracking an eyelid open. When she sees me, she doesn’t freak out like I expected. A second eye opens as her hand reaches out, and she grips my wrist, tugging at it.

“Did you carry me to your bed?” she whispers.

With a jerk of my head, I say, “I was leaving. You’re safe here.”

“I know.” Her eyes close, but her fingers remain locked around my wrist. “Sleep beside me.”

“I’ll sleep on the pullout in the spare room.”

She cracks an eye open again just long enough to get another group of words out. “Sleep in the bed with me. It’s been a long time since I’ve slept beside someone.”

“Me too.”

“Don’t think about it so much. Just get in.”

Don’t think about it so much? Fuck, this woman is going to drive me to an early grave.

“Are you sure? I didn’t take you up here for this. I’m fine on the?—”

“Don’t make me get up and shove you into bed. L?gg dig ner med mig, butternalle .”

“What does that mean?”

She pushes her hand beneath the pillow. “Please, Oliver.”

“One day, you’ll tell me what you’ve been calling me.”

I leave her there and move to the opposite side of the bed before pulling my shirt off and stepping out of my jeans. She stays on her side, facing away from me as I lie on the bed, tucking my arm beneath my head and staring at the ceiling.

“Have you slept in bed with a woman before, or are you always just this awkward?” she asks when I remain rigidly on my back.

“I have. Sorry.”

She blows out a breath. “I shouldn’t have pushed you into sleeping in bed with me. I’m sorry. Go if you want to.”

I should face palm myself. “I could have asked whether you wanted me to just carry you home instead of putting you in my bed in the first place.”

“I like it here,” she admits, turning onto her back. The corner of the blanket lifts at the same time she looks at me. “Like you said, I’m safe.”

“You are.”

“So get under the blanket with me.”

I don’t make her ask twice. Moving closer, I rest my head on the edge of my pillow and cover myself with the spare blanket. She sighs and tucks it beneath her chin, shutting her eyes again.

“Good night, Oliver.”

Leaving the blanket beneath my pecs, I close my eyes. The heat from her skin warms me better than the blanket does as she reaches out and touches my hip.

I grab her fingers and hold them tight. “Good night, Avery.”

The next morning, I push down the top of my coffee machine and hit the Start button while Avery uses a spatula to flip a pancake on the stove.

“You were always a little pyromaniac when you were a kid. I’m not surprised you chose to become a firefighter.”

“I didn’t like starting fires,” I grunt, watching the coffee start to fill the mug beneath the nozzle.

“No? So that time Maddox’s dad let you light the burn pile on fire, you didn’t dump an entire jerry can of gasoline on it just to see how high the flames could go? ”

“He told me to add gas to it.”

She snorts a laugh and flips another pancake. “Not the entire thing!”

“He should have made that clearer. I was ten. Of course I was going to dump the whole thing on it.”

“Alright. You win.”

Changing the topic from myself, I pull the full mug of coffee to the side and say, “I don’t remember you loving flowers enough to open up your own store to sell them when you were younger.”

Dressed in proper clothes now after running home to change before we started breakfast, Avery turns from the stove to face me. The yellow shirt she’s wearing is baggy over the high-waisted leggings and hides the bare strip of skin along her stomach that I’ve grown used to seeing since last night.

She tucks her hair behind her ears and leans a hip to the counter. “I’ve always loved flowers. They’re prettier in Sweden, though, and I never spoke about them much around you and all the guys. Maybe that’s why you never knew.”

“I should have asked.”

“Why? Did you care about flowers in your younger years? I doubt you and Maddox discussed them much in your free time between hockey practices.”

I dig out the used coffee pod and replace it with a new one before sliding another mug in place beneath the spout. “You remember those?”

She turns back to the stove. “I never got to see many of your games, but I remember hearing about them all the time. Hockey was Maddox’s entire personality, and football was Jamie’s. You never really cared much for either, did you?”

“No. I just played to kill time.”

“I get it. My parents tried to get me to play hockey, but much to my dad’s disappointment, I can barely skate without gripping the boards.”

“No shit?”

She slides two pancakes onto the plate beside her and sprays the pan with oil before pouring two more thick circles of batter onto it. “No shit. My dad got over it fast. Being an only child has its perks.”

“Did you ever want another sibling?”

“No. I had all of you when I was younger, and then my friends back home kept me busy. Now I have Nova, and she’s enough for me.”

“Jamie was a lot growing up.”

She nods, looking at me over her shoulder. “He kept you on your toes. The two of you would argue constantly.”

“We still do. Drives Mom nuts.”

“It’s just sibling banter, though, right? You two get along well?”

“Yeah. We’re close. He’s just a lot. Loud and hyper half the time.”

“And you’re the opposite. Quiet and broody and grumpy,” she teases with a wink before focusing on the pancakes again.

“The best three qualities in a man.”

“Agree to disagree on that one.”

I pull the second mug of coffee to the side before moving to the fridge. Grabbing the creamer from inside of it, I ask, “Why’s that?”

“Well, for starters, men like that love to fill your pool with Jell-O, make you eat food you hate, and don’t follow you back on Instagram.”

“Fuck, I thought I was being unique. You’re saying those are common actions from a guy like me?” I close the fridge and move back to the coffees. “And how do I follow someone back that doesn’t follow me in the first place?”

“I’ve followed you since I was here last,” she says, ignoring everything else I said.

“No you haven’t.”

“Watch the pancakes for a minute,” she orders before taking off out of the kitchen.

I shake my head and pour the creamer into my coffee, stopping when it goes from black to a dark brown before mixing it with a spoon.

There’s no way she’s followed me all this time. Why would she have wanted to keep up with my life after going back home? It’s not like I post online often. My entire feed is just photos of my family and the occasional one of my backyard or the sky with some lame quote Jamie encouraged me to caption it with.

I made an effort not to look her up online, but if she’s been doing the opposite this entire time, I’m going to feel like a colossal douchebag even more so than I already do.

Taking over the pancake flipping, I finish the last ones on the pan and turn off the stove. Breakfast was my idea after we woke up and she didn’t run like hell out of my house. It was a shameless seizing of an opportunity to spend more time with her that I don’t regret.

“Get ready to eat your words, Oliver Bateman,” she calls from the hallway.

A second later, she’s swooping into the room with her phone in her hand, the screen lit up with the proof that she wasn’t lying. I stare at the screen for too long with an obvious winced expression.

“So, what do I get for being right?” she asks while locking her phone.

I grab my coffee and gulp half of it down, not caring that it burns my throat. “Bragging rights aren’t enough?”

“I suppose they can be.”

“I didn’t know,” I blurt.

“It’s fine. Not a big deal or anything.”

I let it go because I’m not sure how to soothe the sting without telling her the reason I made sure not to search her up in the first place.

“I’m not sure how you take your coffee, so I left the creamer beside it.”

“Coffee with a dash of creamer, usually,” she says before fixing her coffee the same way I did mine. “How do you?—”

The ringing of her phone cuts her off, whatever it was she was going to ask me lost in the sound. She moves quickly, answering the call without hesitation.

“Chris? Is everything okay?”

Her concern morphs into anger in the blink of an eye. I take a step toward her, abandoning my coffee on the counter.

“What do you mean you’re dropping her off early? This isn’t just early—it’s ridiculous. You’ve had her for less than twenty-four hours!” With her fingers pinching the bridge of her nose, she speaks again. “Too fucking late now. Yeah, I’m home . . . No, I’m not going to lie to her for you. If you’re content with cutting your time short with her, then that’s your loss and your problem. I’m not going to try and make light of it on your behalf. That’s your job . . . See you soon, then. Bye.”

She drops her phone on the counter beside the coffee machine and laughs. It’s loud and dark and swirling with a million emotions. I don’t move despite wanting to comfort her.

“He’s bringing Nova home?” I ask.

“Yep. One night and he’s done with her. Just like that. Fucking pathetic asshole.”

“When will she be here?”

“Forty-five minutes, give or take a few. I have to go.”

“Yeah, you do. Bring breakfast over with you so you don’t have to cook again. Has she eaten?”

I’m already grabbing a takeout container and filling it with the pancakes we made when I feel her hand on my back.

“Bring it all. Come over and eat with us.”

“Nova will want to spend time with her mom. Not me.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that. She was the one who convinced me to invite you for dinner after the pool incident.”

I look at her over my shoulder, trying not to get my hopes up. “Are you sure? ”

“Yes. She’ll be happy to see you. Especially because we made pancakes. I have whipped cream and sprinkles at my house too, so consider that an incentive.”

“Let’s go, then.”