Page 13 of One Night with Number Nineteen

“Want me to put him in his bedroom?” Leo asks.

I nod. “That would be great. I’ll be right up.”

He slips from the room, and even before I can tell the girls to leave the dishes, my friends are up on their feet, grabbing plates and cups.

“We got it,” Faye says. “You go take care of Ollie Monster.”

“I love you,” I whisper.

“I know,” she whispers back.

“Mom!” I hear. “We played so hard Ollie fell asleep,” Veronica’s son, Alex says.

He’s twice Ollie’s age, but a total sweetheart.

“Well,” Veronica says, wrapping her arm around his shoulders, “it sounds like everyone had a good time.”

“It was awesome!” he exclaims. “Ryan got a jackpot on the quarter game and we got two thousand tickets.”

“Whoa,” Veronica replies, ruffling his hair, but her eyes are on Ryan’s.

And his are on hers right back.

“That does sound awesome,” she says after a moment.

He looks away.

She looks away.

And I, well I glance at Faye.

My friend just subtly shakes her head.

Later then I’ll figure out what the deal with those two is.

Because there’s tension and longing and…the potential of an HEA.

And speaking of tension—or rather, the absence of the type of tension that has Veronica’s cheeks going pink and Ryan’s jaw flexing as he looks away from her—Sawyer winks at me as he snags a tray from the coffee table and starts to carry it from the room.

We’ve slipped right back into the friend zone, thank God.

Even if I can still remember every single second of our night together.

“I thought you needed to head to that charity event,” Aiden says.

“I do,” Sawyer replies, not stopping his trek to the kitchen. “But the dishes will only take a second.”

Aiden frowns.

But Sawyer’s already disappeared with the platter, and then I’m zipping upstairs to tuck Ollie into bed. By the time I come back down, Reese is crying, demanding a diaper change, and Gray, Vi, and Faye are sorting out the leftovers in the kitchen, and Leo’s shepherding a tired Harper toward the door, Smitty and Kailey on their heels.

But it’s Sawyer who draws my focus time and again.

How he makes everyone laugh as he does the dishes.

How he spots a missed bowl tucked into a corner of the counter and washes that too.

How he smiles and jokes and works.