Page 112 of His Greatest Treasure

“Oliver can be his father’s son when it comes to mood and demeanour, but oftentimes, he’s more like his mother than I think anyone realizes. Once they set their mind to something, there’s no going back. No second option. You’ve been the one thing Oliver’s always wanted and wished he could have had. Now that you’re here, I have a feeling he won’t be letting go as easily as he did the first time.”

“He told me he loved me,” I whisper, her words sinking their claws into my heart.

Ava peels my fingers from around my glass and pulls them into hers before guiding them to rest on the countertop. “And he means it.”

“Falling in love with him was the easiest thing I’ve ever done.”

“That’s how you know it’s the forever kind. When loving someone feels natural. Like it was always meant to be that way,” she says.

“I need to take care of Chris, Ava. I don’t want him to be a hurdle I have to constantly jump over.”

I refuse to fully integrate Oliver into my life until I have this mess sorted. If we’re going to be a family, I want us to have a stronger foundation than I’ve allowed myself in my past relationship because this isn’t going to be one I let wither away.

This one will be for keeps.

Forever.

37

TYLER

My wifealways said she wanted two boys, and that’s exactly what we got.

One loud and brash with a laugh you can hear from space and another that likes his privacy and scowls more than he smiles. Oliver was born looking exactly like me. Even down to the wrinkle between his barely there baby eyebrows.

He was the angel child, the one that set us up for failure once Jamie came along like a fucking terror from hell. Oliver didn’t cry, slept through the night from three months old, and took to breastfeeding like a champ.

Jamie preferred screaming at night and forcing our hand to formula. He grew to be a sarcastic little shit who has no problem being the loudest one in the room. So similar to his mother, she took to him easier than I did. To this day, she’s the one who understands him with little thought.

I love both of my sons equally and with a fierceness that was unheard of in my past. It terrified me how easy it was to attach myself to them and to witness the extent of the love I was capable of giving another person outside of Gracie.

And while all of that is true, Oliver will always be the son I was able to connect with the easiest.

From a very young age, he portrayed himself in a manner that I could relate to in a soul-deep way. If he wanted to be alone but didn’t know how to ask for that little bit of support he needed, I was there to sit in a chair beside him and provide silent comfort. When he was struggling with expressing himself, I was the first one to knock on his door and offer advice that I wish I’d had growing up.

No matter the circumstances, I made sure I was available to him for every moment of disappointment or happiness that he didn’t know how to handle.

My past is shaded in greys and blacks, but from the moment the boys were born, I worked to ensure both he and Jamie could look back and see theirs in a kaleidoscope of colours.

So, after I get home from a run on a Thursday afternoon and my gorgeous wife tells me that Oliver’s shown up at home, I’m instantly on alert. I find him two minutes later, bent over the back of the couch in the basement rec room while staring at the shelves of old family photos on the wall in front of it, and hope to fuck I have advice at the ready.

Neither Gracie nor I come down here often anymore, if at all now that the boys are gone. I’ve all but forgotten about the open bins of old Vancouver Warriors shit in the corner of the room.

It’s been tucked away for years now, too fucking many of them to admit without feeling like I’m one fast-food meal away from going into cardiac arrest. I’ll never admit that I’m old and withered now, no longer a guy in prime health with an impressive career in the NHL and a row of trophies to prove it.

I spent a generous chunk of my life in the NHL, but that chapter’s closed. Dad is my only title now. The only one that’s ever mattered to me besides Husband.

“You didn’t want to brood at your own house?” I ask.

Oliver doesn’t react to the question, as if he already knew it was coming when he noticed me step into the room.

“I don’t want to be there right now.”

“Oh? Why not?”

He doesn’t answer me, so I move to his side and set my hand on his shoulder before squeezing just once.

“Running from something?”

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