Page 141 of One Night with Number Nineteen

“Fuck,” he says. “I was joking, man. What happened?”

“It doesn’t matter. I’ll fix it.” I have to.

“I know you will. But”—he grabs my shoulder—“you don’t have to do it alone.” I start to shrug him off, but his fingers tighten as he calls to Tawny, “Yo, T! Do the other guys first, yeah?”

She raises her hand, silently telling us she heard him.

Then he turns back to me, orders, “Spill it.”

And hell, I should refuse purely on principle. But somehow, the words just…come out. So many of them, telling him about the lunch and the pictures and the swag bag and the tire blowing and about arriving late and missing fucking everything and finally, about the argument with Lainey.

“…and then she tells me that she needs me to think about what makes me happy.” I scoff. “What makes me happy is spending time with her and Ollie and taking care of them and…”

“Taking care of everyone else,” Leo says quietly.

I blink.

“But is that because it really makes you happy?” he asks. “Or because you have to in order for people to…” He trails off, sighs quietly.

“In order for people to what?”

His eyes hit mine. “To love you.”

My lungs inflate. “Dude, that’s not⁠—”

“True?” He lifts a brow, crosses his arms. “Again. Bullshit. You’re so damned worried about disappointing anyone that you’re running around trying to please everyone. But you can’t sustain that, man. Something’s going to give at some point.”

“That’s not what’s happening.”

“No?”

“No.”

Smitty’s voice echoes down the hallway and I take a step back. “I need to get going.”

“When did you know about the scheduling conflict with the lunch?”

I freeze. “What?”

“When did you know that making both the lunch and concert would be tricky?”

“The night before, man.” I shake my head. “It was too late to cancel.”

“Maybe.” But his tone tells me he doesn’t believe that—and part of me knows he’s right. It wouldn’t have been ideal, but I could have rescheduled with Bri.

“So why didn’t you tell Lainey?”

Because I went downstairs and we had sex on her desk and my mind wasn’t thinking about schedules?

Only I don’t say that out loud.

Because…fuck.

I never had any intention of telling her that night. And I could have told her yesterday morning—but I had no intention of doing that either.

A sinking feeling grows in my stomach.

“You know,” he says quietly, “it’s okay if you make a mistake sometimes.” He drops his hand onto my shoulder, shakes me slightly. “You apologize and move on.”