Page 5 of One Night with Number Nineteen

Movement behind him reveals Luna and Aiden, who has their baby, an adorable little girl named Reese, strapped to his chest. They’re both carrying boxes and I open my mouth, wanting to order Luna to sit down and Aiden to not risk hitting the baby with a box, but Smitty is there again.

He settles a hand on my shoulder, voice still staying soft. “Just give in to the help.” A hitch of his mouth. “It’ll be much less painless.”

“Yup!” Luna calls, setting one of the boxes on the kitchen island and proving she has very big—and nosy—ears. “We’re going to help anyway, so save your energy for unpacking instead of arguing.”

I huff out a sigh.

Then I do what the ringleaders command.

And I…give in.

“Good choice,” my friend, Faye, and fellow romance author says. “It’s less painless.”

“You’d know,” I mutter.

“You’re right,” she says on a grin, her eyes flicking to the man who owns her heart.

Gray Roberts is the captain of the Grizzlies and conveniently lives next door. So, when Faye’s house burned down, she had a soft place to land—that being in the arms of the gorgeous, broody forward.

God, I couldn’t even write as good of a story as theirs is—fires and awful exes and a dash of banana bread.

No reader would believe it.

But it’s real and it’s why I’m currently able to move into this gorgeous newly rebuilt home (complete with all-new wiring and smoke detectors and sprinklers).

Gray carries in another box, followed by three more of our friends, Veronica, Ryan, and Bri, who’s basically Luna and Aiden’s adopted daughter.

She’s trailed by a new addition to the team: Rip.

He just signed his first multi-year contract and is living with Luna and Aiden as he finds his feet.

He’s also—and this does my romance writing heart good—trailing after Bri, looking a bit like a lovestruck puppy.

Messy forced proximity with a dash of forbidden love?

Yeah, I’m getting the full Grizzlies experience.

Grinning, I turn for the hall, sidestepping Leo and Harper (who’s pregnant and also getting herded to another chair to sort Christmas lights and generally just stay off her feet), and intending to sort the next run of boxes so they make it into their proper rooms when I hear Smitty call, “I thought you said you wanted burgers for lunch.”

My stomach does a funny little flip as I step onto the porch and see Sawyer standing there with several pizza boxes in his arms, a plethora of those foil-lined bags sitting on top. “Eh,” he says. “Kailey mentioned she wanted pizza and breadsticks from Dommie’s.” A shrug. “I can get burgers another time.”

He’s such a good guy.

A good guy who’s also incredibly good in bed⁠—

That was just a one-time thing.

A moment of insanity.

Glorious, ridiculously pleasurable insanity.

But still not going to happen again.

That doesn’t stop my cheeks from heating as I move over to the stack of boxes, searching the labels until I find the one that has the plastic utensils, paper plates, and napkins, snagging it…

For all of a second before Smitty snags it from me.

“Hey!”