Page 56 of His Greatest Treasure

“Did you ever want another sibling?”

“No. I had all of you when I was younger, and then my friends back home kept me busy. Now I have Nova, and she’s enough for me.”

“Jamie was a lot growing up.”

She nods, looking at me over her shoulder. “He kept you on your toes. The two of you would argue constantly.”

“We still do. Drives Mom nuts.”

“It’s just sibling banter, though, right? You two get along well?”

“Yeah. We’re close. He’s just a lot. Loud and hyper half the time.”

“And you’re the opposite. Quiet and broody and grumpy,” she teases with a wink before focusing on the pancakes again.

“The best three qualities in a man.”

“Agree to disagree on that one.”

I pull the second mug of coffee to the side before moving to the fridge. Grabbing the creamer from inside of it, I ask, “Why’s that?”

“Well, for starters, men like that love to fill your pool with Jell-O, make you eat food you hate, and don’t follow you back on Instagram.”

“Fuck, I thought I was being unique. You’re saying those are common actions from a guy like me?” I close the fridge and move back to the coffees. “And how do I follow someone back that doesn’t follow me in the first place?”

“I’ve followed you since I was here last,” she says, ignoring everything else I said.

“No you haven’t.”

“Watch the pancakes for a minute,” she orders before taking off out ofthe kitchen.

I shake my head and pour the creamer into my coffee, stopping when it goes from black to a dark brown before mixing it with a spoon.

There’s no way she’s followed me all this time. Why would she have wanted to keep up with my life after going back home? It’s not like I post online often. My entire feed is just photos of my family and the occasional one of my backyard or the sky with some lame quote Jamie encouraged me to caption it with.

I made an effort not to look her up online, but if she’s been doing the opposite this entire time, I’m going to feel like a colossal douchebag even more so than I already do.

Taking over the pancake flipping, I finish the last ones on the pan and turn off the stove. Breakfast was my idea after we woke up and she didn’t run like hell out of my house. It was a shameless seizing of an opportunity to spend more time with her that I don’t regret.

“Get ready to eat your words, Oliver Bateman,” she calls from the hallway.

A second later, she’s swooping into the room with her phone in her hand, the screen lit up with the proof that she wasn’t lying. I stare at the screen for too long with an obvious winced expression.

“So, what do I get for being right?” she asks while locking her phone.

I grab my coffee and gulp half of it down, not caring that it burns my throat. “Bragging rights aren’t enough?”

“I suppose they can be.”

“I didn’t know,” I blurt.

“It’s fine. Not a big deal or anything.”

I let it go because I’m not sure how to soothe the sting without telling her the reason I made sure not to search her up in the first place.

“I’m not sure how you take your coffee, so I left the creamer beside it.”

“Coffeewith a dash of creamer, usually,” she says before fixing her coffee the same way I did mine. “How do you?—”

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