Page 100 of One Night with Number Nineteen

“Yahoo!” he says again.

Laughing, I tell him goodbye and turn on the engine.

Unfortunately, my phone buzzes before I can pull out of the spot.

The name on the screen makes my stomach twist.

“Hey, Mom.”

“Oh, it’s terrible, sweetheart,” she wails. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“What’s happened?”

“The guy fixed the garage door, only he didn’t fix the garage door, and now it won’t open and I need to get my ice cream into the house, but I can’t get into the garage.”

My temple throbs and I rest my head on the steering wheel.

“Go through the front door, Mom.”

Silence. Then, “I can’t carry this in all by myself. The whole trunk is full.”

Sighing, I say the only thing I can, “I’ll be right there, Mom.”

A relieved exhale. “Thank you, baby. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

That’s what I’m afraid of.

Because I know exactly what happens when I’m not there.

And what it costs to put the pieces back together.

Thirty

Lainey

SAWYER: Running late. My mom needs me. Don’t wait on me for dinner.

LAINEY: Is everything okay?

SAWYER: Yup. Just a problem with my her garage door. Don’t worry. I’ll still bring the cookies.

LAINEY: We don’t need the cookies. Just bring yourself when you can. I’ll save you a plate.

SAWYER: Thanks, Pages. I’ll be there as soon as I can.

Then later—much later:

SAWYER: I’m sorry. I’m not going to make it. Please tell Ollie I’m sorry too.

I stare at my phone, something about the exchange from the day before still making my spidey senses tingle.

But I just tuck away my cell—and the odd feeling along with it—same as I have every time I’ve looked at Sawyer’s message over the last twenty-four hours, and focus on my computer and the video call all of us girls are on as we watch the Grizzlies game together.

Or well, right now as we hang out and chat during intermission.

“I don’t know which looks better,” Harper is saying, holding a framed print of a fictional rabbit and then a different one of a fictional pot-bellied bear up against the wall in her baby’s nursery. “What do you guys think?”

My eyes lock with Faye’s then Kailey’s then Veronica’s.