Page 50 of One Night with Number Nineteen

“Nope,” Lainey says.

I blink. “Um.”

“Sit down for five minutes,” she says. “I’ll finish breakfast.”

“But—”

“Five minutes, Cupcake,” she orders.

Ollie moves to stand beside her and nods firmly. “Five minutes, Saw-yur.”

“I—”

But they just move back to the griddle, to the stove, and completely rocked to my core…

I sit and let them take care of me.

I knew Lainey was dangerous from the moment I met her—knew I wanted to be too close, wanted to stay too long, yearned for things I had absolutely no business wanting.

And now Ollie…well, he’s making me want all of that twice over.

It’s why I tried to keep my distance.

And…it’s why I’ve failed so spectacularly at staying away.

But sitting here, watching Lainey and Ollie finish breakfast while Mr. Cricket warms my neck, I know the truth.

I don’t want to be anywhere else.

Fourteen

Lainey

Holiday-themed Grizzlies gear surrounds us, the early afternoon crowd clearly ready for some hockey.

Luna and the others have a box for the matchup against the Hawks—which sounds very fancy. Then again, just coming to a hockey game in the first place sounded fancy to me only a few months ago. Now I know the people on the ice—and in the box—and…

Well, maybe I’m a little fancy too.

Especially since Ollie and I are spending Christmas Eve here.

Later tonight, we’ll all go over to Luna’s house in our pajamas, play some games and watch some movies, and then⁠—

“Santa!”

Then, yup, Santa will be coming.

After Sawyer left the house yesterday to do things involved with his actual life instead of rescuing me from parking lots and watching over my house and cooking me several delicious meals, Ollie and I made a quick trip to the mall. He chastised me twice for my language in traffic, and then I let my four-year-old buy some truly questionable last-minute presents. Later, we hung out in my office and…I continued plotting that book I’m not going to write.

Except…I kind of did write it.

Or five thousand words of it.

Dumb, since it’ll likely end up shoved in a drawer (or really, relegated to some random folder on the desktop of my computer that I’ll never open).

But when my brain gets hooked on an idea like this…

I can’t let it go.