Page 24 of His Greatest Treasure

“It can be. If you love flowers, then you love flowers. You should stop by sometimes. It’s a mess right now, but it has good bones.”

“I’d like that,” she says softly.

I make the offer to exchange numbers and inwardly laugh at how often I’ve done the same thing over the past couple of weeks. Before we moved to Vancouver, I don’t think I gave anyone my number in months.

Things are already changing so quickly, but I think I like it. A fresh start might have been what we were needing all along.

9

OLIVER

Me: The weeds in your grass are hideous.

Ary: Are you offering to pluck them for me, or do you just enjoy pissing me off?

Me: If you mowed the lawn, the weeds would disappear.

Ary: Bye, jackass.

I scowl at my phone,this morning’s conversation with my neighbour not appeasing me by any means. Yeah, my messages could be construed as rude, but it’s impossible not to give in to the urge to piss her off every chance I get. She doesn’t care about her yard, but I do. Only because if hers looks like shit, it makes mine look like shit. Yeah, that’s it.

I’d mow it for her if she asked, which is what I was hoping she’d do. I thought my offer was clear when I texted her telling her how terrible her lawn looked the other day. Instead, she left me on Read.

Me: I’ll mow it nexttime I do mine.

I send the text and immediately want to unsend it. But there’s no time. As if she’s been sitting there waiting for me to reply, hers comes a beat later.

Ary: No thanks. I’d prefer you pick the weeds by hand.

“What’s your problem, Olliepop?” my cousin Tinsley asks.

The nickname grates, but I ignore it. “If you were a single mom with no support, can you tell me why you wouldn’t want to accept help from someone who has offered multiple times? Are all women so damn stubborn?”

Okay, themultiple timesis a stretch, but oh fucking well. I’m guessing about the no-support part yet feel it in my gut that I’m right. Her small rant about her daughter’s father was enough of a giveaway to put together that she’s raising her almost completely on her own.

Tinsley’s best friend, Noah, dips his fingers into the waistband of her shorts, tugging her close to him. The dark possessiveness in his eyes as he tries to flay me open with them would scare me shitless if I hadn’t grown up with the psychopath.

“She’ll never be a single mother. What the fuck kind of question is that?”

I roll my eyes, shrugging off his words. He’s a scary fuck, but he’s family. Even decked out in head-to-toe tattoos, including one that spans the entire expanse of his throat and makes it appear as though it’s been photographed in an X-ray machine, he doesn’t scare me.

“I’m not talking about Tinsley, you brute.”

Jamie shares the same way of thinking I do. “Are we not going to talk about how Noah clearly made his move on her, though?”

“Am I supposed to be shocked or something?” I ask, blinking at the obvious display Noah’s been putting on with Tinsley since they stepped inside his parents’ house.

He’s been pining after her since he was a kid. It’s about damn time he stopped pussyfooting around.

“You’re so boring,” Jamie mutters.

“And the two of you are headache inducing,” Dad says, offering Tinsley a tight, apologetic expression. “Good for you and Noah. You look good together. Always have.”

From Mom’s spot on the arm of Dad’s chair, she slots into the conversation. “He’s right. I love the two of you together so much.”

“I should have taken Maddox up on that bet when we were teens,” Jamie says.

Adalyn comes bouncing into the living room, her purple hair bright. Cooper is following behind, staring at her like it would pain him to look away.

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