Page 115 of His Greatest Treasure

She laughs, holding the phone out so it catches both of our faces in the camera. “He’s not a fuckface.”

“Yes, he is. Especially if he has the nerve to fault our son for his relationship with his daughter.”

“He can try, but it won’t work,” she says in an attempt to soothe me.

“He can try what?” the fuckface asks, appearing on the screen now.

“To blame Oliver for the relationship our children have entered into,” I answer.

Matt glowers at me. “It is his fault! You should have seen the way he looked at her when they called us.”

“And how was that? Like he loves her?” Gracie asks softly, yet with a hint of venom that makes my dick hard in an instant.

“Like he wants to bundle her up and keep her from me forever!”

“Oh, you’re so dramatic,” Morgan huffs, finally appearing once she takes the phone from her husband. “He’s not taking the relationship well.”

“Do you think there’s something wrong with my son, Matthew?” I ask accusingly. “I assure you that there is not one person out there that’s better for her than Oliver.”

“I doubt it. She could have started dating an astronaut or something.”

“You only want that so you could pray that he’d wind up lost in space and be gone forever,” Morgan says.

Matt gapes at her in betrayal. “You think so low of me?”

“We know you better than you think,” Gracie tells him.

I reach for the phone and take it from my wife. “I’m going to hang up the call now.”

“This conversation is not over, Tyler! I swear, I’ll send him to space myself?—”

I hang up before he can finish his sentence and throw Gracie’s phone onto the other side of the couch. She squeaks when I grip her by the thighs and stand, forcing her to hold on to me to keep from falling to the floor.

Heading in the direction of our bedroom, I ask, “Now that fuckface is gone, where were we?”

38

OLIVER

Avery should takeaway the spare key to the shop she gave to my mother because it was entirely too easy to convince her to let me have it. One fast blink of my lashes and she was putty in my hands, offering it up with warm words of encouragement and a tight hug.

Tool boxes fall to the tile with clunks that make me flinch and rush to assess the potential damage they’ve caused. My squad watches as I shift each one and smooth a hand over the tiles beneath to make sure there are no dents or chunks taken out before pinning each and every one of them beneath a look that speaks to how on edge I am.

“Careful,” I warn.

“You got it, Lieutenant,” Hart calls, adjusting her baseball cap and the loose tool belt around her waist.

“You break it, you fix it. I appreciate you all coming to help me with this, but my fuse is short today.”

“Just today? I thought you were going to start taking swings at Cap when he tossed you on desk duty last shift,” Adams says, feeding into my displeasure with that reminder.

Desk duty has never been the end of the world. But to me, it feels like it more often than not. I’m too on edge riding the desk. Ilike to be out there saving lives, not locked inside while I watch my squad rush out in their turnouts with sirens blaring.

That’s not to say I didn’t deserve it. My attitude was piss-poor all last shift, and I’m positive it was the events of the day before that did my head in. Everything I was capable of doing before she came back into my life is impossible to accomplish now without her by my side. Her refusal to use my SUV instead of her rental is only another thing that I’m stressing over.

I’ve spent the last four days with my mind running fucking rampant with ways to convince her to let me help, but ever since speaking to my dad yesterday, I’ve shifted gears to what I can do to prove myself to her instead. And while finishing her shop up for her isn’t the only thing I want to do, it’s somewhere to start.

Mom told me she’s taking Avery to meet with a lawyer today to finalize the terms of custody she’s proposing to Chris. It was music to my ears. Pride flooded me at the strength and confidence it’s taking for her to put her foot down with him.

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