Page 27 of One Night with Number Nineteen

Because she stops me, her fingers wrapping around my wrist.

“Sawyer?” she asks as I glance down, expecting her to be offering me those sugar cookies I teased her about earlier.

My heart thuds at the look in her eyes.

The uncertainty, the worry, the need.

“Yeah, Pages?” I rasp.

A deep breath, her gaze slipping from mine, her teeth worrying her bottom lip.

“Will you stay?”

A beat of quiet as my heart rolls over in my chest, as my pulse thunders through my veins, as my throat stoppers up and steals any hope of a reply.

“Just for a little bit longer?”

My phone buzzes in my pocket.

I don’t have to look to know who it is.

My mother.

Reaching down, I silence the call.

“Yeah, Pages,” I murmur. “I’ll stay.”

Eight

Lainey

I don’t know what’s come over me.

What I’m asking.

Why I’m asking Sawyer for it.

But the sight of him reaching for the handle had panic tearing through me, had me asking…him to stay.

Dumb.

So freaking dumb.

I’ve got this—I always do.

Who cares if my hands are shaking and my heart feels like it’s been lodged in the back of my throat for the last couple of hours?

I’ve got this.

And, God, Faye is right next door.

I don’t need Sawyer to stay.

But even as I open my mouth to take back the words, he murmurs, “Yeah, Pages. I’ll stay.”

Pages.

I hadn’t really processed him calling me that earlier.