Chapter 31
JULIETTE
The gymnasium is thinning out fast.
Chairs scrape, voices echo, kids peel off toward classrooms, and the buzz of the brunch dissolves into something softer—endings and goodbyes are mixed with people folding moments away like they’ll take them out again later.
Theo barrels toward me the second he spots me.
“Mom!” He launches himself into my arms, squeezing hard. “Did you see? Sawyer came. He sat with us, and talked about being a hockey player, and he told the waffle story.”
“I heard,” I say, hugging him back, my chest tight in the best way. “I heard everything.”
He pulls back, eyes bright, still vibrating. “I get to go back to class with Mitch and Lucas. We’re gonna talk about hockey all day.”
“Lucky teachers,” I say.
He grins and runs off, mouthing a last “Love you!” over his shoulder before disappearing with his friends.
I watch him go until he’s out of sight.
When I turn back, Sawyer is still there, talking with a couple of dads who look way too invested in the conversation for men who just finished a school brunch.
One of them catches my eye. “Hey, so Sawyer mentioned something about Mother’s Day coming up.”
Sawyer shoots him a look. “I did not—”
“You absolutely did,” the other dad says. “He said we should probably step up this year.”
I laugh. “That sounds like good advice.”
The first dad nods enthusiastically. “So listen, I was thinking about coming by your shop. My wife really likes…what are they called? Monsteras?”
I grin. “I know exactly what those are.”
“Perfect,” he says. “I want, like, the nice kind.”
“We’ve got you covered.”
They thank me, wave, and drift off, still talking about plants like they’ve just unlocked a new hobby.
Sawyer turns my way, hands shoved in his pockets now, expression softer without the kids, the noise, and the audience. For a moment, neither of us says anything.
We just stand there, looking at each other in the quiet space where something important has happened.
Funny how it feels louder than the brunch ever did.
I look at him. “Good morning.”
Sawyer smiles, soft and easy, like this is exactly where he’s meant to be. “Good morning.”
I take a step toward him. Just one. Tentative. Like I’m testing the ground before I trust it.
“Thank you,” I say. “I honestly don’t even know how I keep thanking you at this point.”
He shakes his head immediately. “You don’t have to.”
“No,” I say quickly. “I do.”
I scrub a hand through my hair and glance up at the ceiling like the words might be written there and I just need to read them in the right order.
“I cannot believe you,” I say slowly, dropping my gaze back to him, “Do you know that you are the biggest walking green flag, Sawyer Stockton, that I have ever met in my life?”
“What?”
“A walking green flag,” I repeat. “Like the opposite of a warning sign.”
He lets out a short laugh. “That feels suspiciously like an insult.”
“It’s not,” I say, gesturing vaguely. “I thought—hockey player. Gets attention. Dates gorgeous women. Lives in a world where people clap when he enters rooms. Red flag city. What was I supposed to do with someone like you landing in my life?”
He opens his mouth, then closes it again.
“But then,” I continue, voice picking up speed now, “you save my son’s birthday.
You don’t hesitate nor do you even make it a thing.
You just…do it. Even after I waiver, and say the things I said on Saturday, you show up today for a Father-Son Breakfast. Without needing credit. Without making a speech.”
His smile eases off, replaced by a look that’s all consideration now.
“And then,” I add, letting out a breath, “I find out you were part of the reason I got the grant.”
His eyebrows shoot up. “I was?”
“Yes,” I say. “Apparently, you helped the mystery shopper.”
He winces. “I talked too much about soil, didn’t I?”
I laugh. “You talked the exact right amount about soil.”
He exhales dramatically. “Good. I was worried you were going to say something so much worse.”
His self-deprecation can wait until later. I shake my head, still stunned. “You set off this whole chain of events that I genuinely do not think we can undo even if we tried.”
I look at him fully now. Really look.
“And that,” I say softly, “blows my mind. Because I don’t want it to stop.”
The gym is quiet. Empty now. It’s only the two of us, and the echo of everything that just happened.
“I didn’t plan any of this, Juliette,” Sawyer steadies himself. “For you. For Theo. To fall so hard and fast, but now that it’s happened…I don’t want my life to be any other way.
“I know,” I say. “Believe me. I get it.”
He takes a step toward me this time, closing the space I left between us.
“Juliette,” he says gently, “I’m not trying to be anything. I never was. I don’t want to replace David.”
“And I’m not looking for a replacement,” I say quickly, but too quickly because I can tell by the look on his face it’s not landing the way I want it to. “What I mean is that, to me, replacing something means getting another type of the same thing, just different. I don’t want that.”
“What do you want?” Sawyer asks.
“You. I want you. I’m so sorry I reacted the way I did the other night. It wasn’t fair to you.”
“But,” he says, his voice hushed and thick with understanding. “You had to do it. For Theo.”
My chest tightens, my heart pounding so loud I’m sure he hears it. I don’t even realize my hand floats to my chest to rest.
But he does.
“Is your heart pounding like mine?” he asks, taking my other hand and placing it on his chest, where I can feel his hammering a mile a minute, too.
“Yeah,” I whisper. “That’s exactly it.”
“It’s applauding for us. Because we’ve gotten here.” He winks. “Someone tiny and wise taught me that.”
Of course he did. I only know of one tiny, wise human who I’ve ever told that to, of course he’d share it with Sawyer. Standing here in the school gym, with my hand on Sawyer’s chest and a school full of little humans and education all around us, I realize the truly terrifying part.
I don’t want him to stop being here with us.
Not now. Not ever.
I swallow and look at him, really look at him, standing there like he hasn’t just quietly rearranged my entire life in the most magical and unexpected way possible.
“I felt like a black cloud,” I say, the words tumbling out now that I’ve opened the door.
“Like I was carrying all this heaviness around, just following me everywhere. And then you showed up—like a ball of sunlight, this giant orb of yellow and orange and ridiculous bright light—and you just…landed. Right square in our lives.”
His expression softens, like he’s bracing himself for something important as he steps closer.
“You know,” he says quietly, “I never thought I could meet someone and fall in love with their kid while I was falling in love with them.”
I can’t help but chuckle. To think my son was a matchmaker in this? I’m going to send that kid to any college he wants if this lasts.
“But I think,” he adds, shaking his head like he’s still wrapping his mind around it, “that might be exactly what happened.”
I don’t interrupt. I can’t.
“Then there’s you,” he says. “I’ve never wanted to protect anything harder. Or hold something closer to my chest. What this is—whatever this is—it matters to me. You matter to me.”
My throat tightens.
“From the moment I saw you,” he continues, voice low, steady, devastating, “I knew. Or at least I really hoped. Way down deep. That this was going to be more than I thought it was.”
He smiles then, small and vulnerable, but also absolutely fearless.
“Because there was something about you, Juliette Gianelli,” he says, “that had me hooked from the start. It’s not that I am falling in love with you, it’s a case of I am in love with you.”
For a beat, the school gym disappears.
Then I’m stepping into him, my hand drifting up his chest, feeling the steady rise and fall of his breath beneath my palm.
“Good,” I whisper. “Because I’m pretty sure I’m already in too deep. I love you, too, Sawyer Stockton.”
He laughs softly, like the sound slips out before he can stop it, and then I kiss him.
It’s not rushed this time. Not careful in the way that pulls back.
It’s careful in the way that chooses. My hands curl into the front of his jacket, and his mouth meets mine like he’s been waiting for permission he already had.
His hand slides to my waist, steady and warm, pulling me just a fraction closer, like he’s anchoring us both.
For a few suspended seconds, nothing exists but this—the warmth of his mouth, the confidence in his kiss, the way my heart answers without hesitation.
Then footsteps echo down the hallway.
We break apart, laughing softly, foreheads still touching, his thumb brushing once at my side like he can’t quite help himself.
He grins, eyes bright and unmistakably happy. “Worth it.”
I smile back, heart full and steady instead of racing. “Absolutely.”
And standing there in an elementary school gymnasium, stealing kisses and building something real, I know this part for certain—
This isn’t a moment that fades.
This is the beginning of the kind of love that shows up.
Every. Time.