Page 55 of His Greatest Treasure

“Have you slept in bed with a woman before, or are youalways just this awkward?” she asks when I remain rigidly on my back.

“I have. Sorry.”

She blows out a breath. “I shouldn’t have pushed you into sleeping in bed with me. I’m sorry. Go if you want to.”

I should face palm myself. “I could have asked whether you wanted me to just carry you home instead of putting you in my bed in the first place.”

“I like it here,” she admits, turning onto her back. The corner of the blanket lifts at the same time she looks at me. “Like you said, I’m safe.”

“You are.”

“So get under the blanket with me.”

I don’t make her ask twice. Moving closer, I rest my head on the edge of my pillow and cover myself with the spare blanket. She sighs and tucks it beneath her chin, shutting her eyes again.

“Good night, Oliver.”

Leaving the blanket beneath my pecs, I close my eyes. The heat from her skin warms me better than the blanket does as she reaches out and touches my hip.

I grab her fingers and hold them tight. “Good night, Avery.”

The next morning,I push down the top of my coffee machine and hit the Start button while Avery uses a spatula to flip a pancake on the stove.

“You were always a little pyromaniac when you were a kid. I’m not surprised you chose to become a firefighter.”

“I didn’t like starting fires,” I grunt, watching the coffee start to fill the mug beneath the nozzle.

“No? So that time Maddox’s dad let you light the burn pile on fire, you didn’t dump an entire jerry can of gasoline on it just to see how high the flames could go?”

“He told me to add gas to it.”

She snorts a laugh and flips another pancake. “Not the entire thing!”

“He should have made that clearer. I was ten. Of course I was going to dump the whole thing on it.”

“Alright. You win.”

Changing the topic from myself, I pull the full mug of coffee to the side and say, “I don’t remember you loving flowers enough to open up your own store to sell them when you were younger.”

Dressed in proper clothes now after running home to change before we started breakfast, Avery turns from the stove to face me. The yellow shirt she’s wearing is baggy over the high-waisted leggings and hides the bare strip of skin along her stomach that I’ve grown used to seeing since last night.

She tucks her hair behind her ears and leans a hip to the counter. “I’ve always loved flowers. They’re prettier in Sweden, though, and I never spoke about them much around you and all the guys. Maybe that’s why you never knew.”

“I should have asked.”

“Why? Did you care about flowers in your younger years? I doubt you and Maddox discussed them much in your free time between hockey practices.”

I dig out the used coffee pod and replace it with a new one before sliding another mug in place beneath the spout. “You remember those?”

She turns back to the stove. “I never got to see many of your games, but I remember hearing about them all the time. Hockey was Maddox’s entire personality, and football was Jamie’s. You never really cared much for either, did you?”

“No. I just played to kill time.”

“I get it. My parents tried to get me to play hockey, but much to my dad’s disappointment, I can barely skate without gripping the boards.”

“No shit?”

She slides two pancakes onto the plate beside her and spraysthe pan with oil before pouring two more thick circles of batter onto it. “No shit. My dad got over it fast. Being an only child has its perks.”

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