Page 13 of His Greatest Treasure

Her lips press together as she nods, her features tugging in a way that makes me feel terrible for not being able to come right this moment. “Now I know how my parents felt when we moved here.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t move here to hurt you.”

It’s still hard being away. I think it always will be.

“Oh, don’t apologize to us. We know. It’s only fair for you to get to experience what we had growing up. Canada is a part of you,” Dad soothes.

“I’ll try to come as soon as I can. I’ve got to save?—”

“Not a chance,”Mom interrupts me. “We’ll pay for you. Don’t be silly.”

I frown. “I’m thirty, Mom. I can pay for my own trips.”

“Not when I’m the one begging you to come. Enough of that nonsense. We’ll talk about this later.”

“We can consider it a birthday present, hmm?” Dad offers.

Knowing better than to continue arguing about it, I let the topic go. “I’m supposed to pick up Nova in a couple of hours and still have a few things to do first. We’ll call you tomorrow morning, okay?”

“Okay,mitt hjärta,”Dad says before Mom has a chance to jump in. “We’ll talk later. Love you.”

Mom brings the phone closer to her until it’s only her face in the camera. “I love you, Avery.”

“I love you both. I’ll call soon.”

Ending the call, I release a tight breath and stand, my legs stiff. I let the phone fall to the empty chair and stretch my back before heading for the blow-up pool we put up a couple of days ago.

It’s only a small one that doesn’t even come up to my hips, but with a couple of weeks left of this obscenely hot weather, it’ll do.

The water is cold when I step into it and drop to my ass, not caring much about the sudden drop in temperature. I smell like sunscreen and the anti-algae chemicals I dumped into the water earlier as I try to relax, my head so full it could explode.

The silence is damn loud without Nova here. If she were, she’d be splashing me in the face or shooting me with a water gun, and while I’d shoo her away, saying I want time to soak peacefully, I’d give in and pick up a water gun to join her.

My entire life revolves around her, and while that isn’t a bad thing in the slightest, sometimes I do wish that I had . . . more for myself. Sure, I have flowers, but they won’t keep me company either. They won’t wrap me in muscled arms or distract me from overthinking with warm breath on my neck . . .

I jolt out of my thoughts when a door slams. Shifting, I stare at the house beside mine and wait for another sound to follow.

Oliver’s house is nicer than mine, but only slightly. The yard is bigger, with a massive shed and grass decorated with crisscrossing lines from a mower. Mine is overgrown and infested with dandelions. I’d be embarrassed that he must have seen the state of it already if I gave a shit about him and his opinion. Which Ido not.Obviously.

The moment his back door swings open and he steps outside in little more than a pair of gym shorts and a towel thrown over his shoulder, I know I should look away. He’ll bitch me out the moment he catches me staring, but Christ. First, he comes and yells at me for moving in wearing a pair of sinful grey sweatpantsand nothing else, and now this? I’ve never seen so many abs outside of gym rat videos or TV.

At least there are only a couple more weeks of summer left. Then he’ll have no choice but to layer up with clothes to keep warm.

He lifts his hand and squirts water from a bottle into his mouth before proceeding to soak his bare chest in it. I almost laugh at how porny it looks, but I can’t because he’s also so fucking sexy, all glistening and wet in the sun.

His hair is messy and already damp, and his cheeks are red, his chest puffing with every breath he takes. I swallow the excess moisture in my mouth and curl my fingers in the pool water when he heads toward the rack of weights beside his shed and starts to pick two up.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I mutter.

He’s really going to work out in the backyard right now. In the heat while dripping in water and what I think is sweat from whatever other activity he was doing before now. I tip my head back and force my eyes shut before he catches me looking.

With my fingers still curled, I get to my feet, the water swishing and splashing around me as I nearly slip on a slick spot of whatever the hell this pool is made of. I grow tense, freezing when something drops to the ground in the direction of where Oliver stands.

“Pool’s a bit small, isn’t it?” he asks, that gruff voice of his falling like a sledgehammer between us.

“Wish I could say the same about your ego,” I reply stiffly.

Why didn’t I buy a house with a real fence instead of a pathetic wire one that doesn’t give me a single inch of privacy?

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