Page 17 of His Greatest Treasure

“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.

7

AVERY

“I don’t wantto go to ballet, Mom,” Nova moans, kicking her feet in the back seat.

“You wanted to go every day for the last two months. If you’ve changed your mind now, I’m sorry to say it’s too late.”

I turn into the parking lot of Illumina and turn the radio down, muting the twelfth consecutive song request from Nova. With school starting this upcoming Monday, I know she’s feeling nervous. It’s why I’ve let her play all of the Nickelback songs she wanted on the way here. An introduction to a new ballet studio and other girls her age is bound to be intimidating, even if she’s never been afraid of social events.

Nova thrives in crowds, but like me, new faces can intimidate her. She just doesn’t show it.

“Fine. But nobody better not pick on me.” She cracks her knuckles and snaps her teeth like an animal. “I watchedKung Fu Pandaa lot, right, Mom?”

“Oh, only about a hundred thousand times. I’m sure you’ve picked up quite a few skills from that panda. Let’s just try not to beat up the other ballerinas, okay?”

“We’ll see.”

“Behave,älskling.”

“What?” she asks, blinking innocently.

I blow out a laugh and meet her stare in the rear-view mirror. “Behave,sweetheart. And stop pretending you don’t know your Swedish, or I’ll have to ship you back and have you stay with Uncle Oskar and Aunt Klara.”

She sticks out her bottom lip and scrunches her nose as she thinks about it. “They have cute dogs.”

Oskar and Klara wouldn’t let me live it down if they knew Nova would willingly go back just to spend time with them and their dogs. Friends of my parents, the two of them have been around since I was born. Oskar played on the same team as my dad, but their bond grew deep enough to last long after they both retired.

“You’d leave me for a couple of dogs?” I ask, unbuckling my seat belt.

“Not totally.”

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