SEBASTIAN WAS JUST chatting with one of the lunch ladies when he heard the shouting from down the hall.
Becca, the lunch lady, scrunched her wrinkly face up. “What the hell is that?”
Seb was already skirting around the lunch tables and jogging down the hall. That was a man screaming his royal head off. Not the kind of sound anyone wanted to hear in an elementary school.
Lunch wasn’t scheduled to start for another fifteen minutes, so Sebastian wasn’t worried about kids flooding the hall immediately.
Following the echoing, reverberating voice, Sebastian found himself half a hallway down from Via’s office.
“If this bitch thinks she can tell me shit about how to raise my daughter—”
Sebastian left his stomach behind as he ran even faster.
One of the third-grade teachers poked her head out of her classroom door; clearly the man’s voice was carrying.
Sebastian was ten feet away from Via’s open office door when he heard the firm, dulcet tones of Principal Grim’s voice. Well, thank God Via wasn’t in there alone.
Sebastian skidded to a stop in the open doorway, one hand on either side of the frame. His breath caught at what he saw.
A humongous man, maybe six feet tall and a doughy two hundred and fifty pounds, was leaning across Via’s desk, viciously pointing a finger at Via and Principal Grim, who stood side by side. Via’s cheeks were pink, but she looked calm. Shit, even her hands were tucked into the pockets of her trousers. Fin’s purple necklace glinted against the golden skin of her chest.
Principal Grim looked just as calm, if not a little less patient. Her wild dyed hair was starting to come a little loose from her barrette. She raised a hand to quiet the man shouting obscenities, and when that didn’t work, she raised her voice herself.
“Mr. Tate. I’m going to ask you one more time to sit down. And you are obviously being extremely inappropriate if even Mr. Dorner could hear you all the way in the cafeteria.” She gestured toward the doorway.
Sebastian intentionally pulled up to his full height of six foot four. He wasn’t as big around as this guy, but he wasn’t as squishy either. He crossed his arms over his chest and let his biceps flex a little.
The man, a sheen of sweat shining on his forehead and his brown hair sticking up in a few places, sneered at Sebastian. But he sat his ass down in the chair.
Principal Grim gave Seb a meaningful look, and he stayed right where he was in the doorway.
“Mr. Tate, I understand that you have taken offense to some of the things that Miss DeRosa has written in this report. And that you resent being asked to come in to go over them. But I will have you know that I familiarized myself with your situation and reviewed this report before she was authorized to show it to you. I stand by everything she says. I have complete confidence in her.”
“She doesn’t know shit about my family life.”
“She’s a licensed and qualified professional who knows a great deal more than you think she does. And honestly, the fact that you view this kind of aid as a personal attack reveals quite a bit, Mr. Tate.”
He puffed up. “She can’t tell me I can’t see my own fucking kid.”
Via took a small step forward. “Mr. Tate, I’m going to repeat myself here. I’m not the one who said that you couldn’t see Sarah. The courts did. I had to get special clearance to even allow you to come in for this meeting, seeing as it isn’t during your previously appointed visiting hours. Your case administrator and I thought it would be a good idea to go over some strategies—”
“I don’t need strategies to hang out with my own fucking kid.”
“I’m telling you that, based on my conversations with Sarah, you do need strategies. Some of them aren’t as bad as you think. Here.”
Seb watched as she opened up a folder and selected a few papers to hand across the desk.
The man leaned forward and, in the blink of an eye, smacked the papers out of Via’s hand with a full swing of his arm. Via gasped and jumped backward, cradling her hand against her stomach.
“Hey!” Principal Grim and Sebastian yelled at the same time.
“It’s okay!” Via shouted.
“Out.” Sebastian’s voice was deadly low, on a register that was only ever used for fighting. Lithe as a cat, he’d inserted himself between the desk and Mr. Tate and that put him pretty close to nose-to-nose with this guy.
Seb’s adrenaline pumped through his veins, making everything stand out in high definition. The bead of sweat on Mr. Tate’s brow, the chip on one of the teeth he was currently baring, the spiraling, rainbow glitter of the crystals catching the light in the window of Via’s office.
“Out. Now.”
“Fuck this,” Tate growled as he stalked to the doorway, Sebastian not more than two inches behind him.
Principal Grim was there too, the ballsy little lady. She put two fingers in her mouth and whistled to the security guard who was running down the hall, belatedly on the way to see what all the ruckus was. The guard radioed for some assistance, and it wasn’t more than three minutes before Mr. Tate was escorted out of the building with three guards and Principal Grim. Sebastian didn’t follow.
The lunch bell rang; they’d need him in the cafeteria, wading through an ocean of tiny people, opening juice boxes and settling swapped sandwich disputes. But he didn’t go. Instead he turned back into Via’s office and quietly shut the door behind him.
“It’s okay,” she repeated. She was standing with her back against the far wall of the office with one hand cradled in the other.
“It sure as hell is not okay,” Seb said, a little more forcefully than he might have liked. He closed the distance between them in two long strides, dragging her desk chair along behind him. She lowered herself into it steadily, taking a long breath in and then out.
“Look at you,” he muttered, resisting the urge to brush the hair out of her face. “Your color’s all high. Your eyes are blown out.”
She looked like she’d just gotten off a roller coaster. But in a bad way.
“Let me see.” He reached for her hand and she let him take it. She used the other hand to tug at the neckline of her shirt. Sweat was turning the hair at her temples an even darker brown. Seb reached over and lifted the small window with one hand, and she let out a little choked sound as the cool air washed over her.
He bent over her hand, kneeling beside her. Dang, she was so small. If he’d laid her little golden hand on top of his, her fingers wouldn’t even have made it to his second knuckles. She wore no rings or polish, just clean fingernails.
He would have found that very sexy if it weren’t for the sour pit in his stomach. She winced when he pressed gently on the back of her hand. It was pink and a little puffy.
“I can make a fist,” she told him. “And wiggle them.”
“Show me.”
She did and he was satisfied that nothing was broken. “It’s just gonna be a bruise, Seb. And on my left hand, too. Not even that big a deal.”
Her voice was steady and her breathing was returning to normal. Her cheeks were still pink, and her eyes were still wide, though.
Seb rose and, suddenly painfully aware of his size, backed up to lean against her desk. He planted his hands beside him and tried to think small thoughts. Last thing he wanted to do was intimidate her right now.
“I mean, you get to say what’s a big deal or not, when it happens to you. But that seemed like a big deal. He was screaming obscenities at you.”
“This is Brooklyn, Seb. I hear worse than that practically every time I ride the train.”
He grimaced. “I’m not talking wackos on the subway, Via. This is your place of work. That man—”
He cut himself off.
“We were handling it up until then.”
“Well, I can’t argue with that. You two looked like you were ready to put him on the witness stand or something. I swear. Remind me never to get on the wrong side of you and Grim.”
She smiled a little at that and straightened out her blouse. He noticed that she didn’t use her left hand, and her right was shaking just a little. “This whole thing is gonna be such a mess. Oh God. There’s gonna be so much paperwork to do.”
“Paperwork,” he repeated blankly. “Violetta, a WWE contestant just tried to smack your hand into the next dimension and you’re worried about paperwork.”
She glanced up at him in surprise. “You called me by my full name.”
He resisted the urge to pinch between his eyes. “I’m attempting to make a point here.”
“Sebastian, we all deal with scary shit in our own way. Yours, apparently is to puff yourself up like a grizzly bear and then talk it to death immediately after it happens. Me? I just need a second. Okay? I need to think for a second.”
He deflated a little. She was right. He was demanding all kinds of crap right now. And for what reason? He didn’t even know. Just to reassure himself that she was okay. Maybe he was fishing for some sort of verbal contract that she’d never get into a situation like that again as long as she lived.
“You’re right. Just about took a decade off my life, but you’re right.”
“I can already see your new gray hairs,” she said, with just a touch of dry in her tone.
He grimaced at her. “Trust me, they’re not new.” He glanced at the clock on the wall. He’d been missing from lunch for five minutes. It was probably Lord of the Flies in there. He glanced back at Via, who was shoving her chair back behind her desk and taking a deep swig of water. She was trembling. “Damn it. I don’t want to go.”
He hadn’t meant to say it out loud.
“I’m fine, Seb. Really.” She waved a hand through the air and it was meant to be casual, but the darkening red on the back hit Seb like a punch to the eye. “I’m gonna take a second, cry, fix my makeup and get on with my day. Which is now probably going to include a multipage incident report. Asshole,” she murmured under her breath.
Seb grinned. One well timed asshole had restored way more confidence in her well-being than all the hand waving in the world. “Well, do you at least have any lunch?”
“I do. I brought a salad from home. I’ll be fine.”
Her office door flung open and Principal Grim strode back in, bushy hair flying. “Via, darling, that was quite the show, now, wasn’t it? How’s the hand?”
“I’m fine,” she said to Seb, a steely look in her eye. “It’s fine,” she said to Principal Grim.
Seb nodded, took one last look at her and ducked out to do his job.
IF THE BASKET of fries he’d dropped off at her office without a word right after lunch had been considered hovering, then Seb was straight-up helicoptering as he waited outside her office after the final bell.
The thing with Via, though, was that he was pretty sure she’d tell him if he was overstepping.
The point ended up being moot because the second she stepped out of her office and saw what waited for her, she cracked into an eye-rolling smile. Matty stood there on one side of Seb, sucking on a juice box and crunching on some peanut butter crackers. Crabby stood on the other side, wagwagwagging, that pink tongue lolling every which way.
“Well, if it isn’t the brute squad.” She laughed.
“You’re getting an armed escort home whether you want one or not, my dear.”
“Armed?” She raised an eyebrow.
“Yeah. Matty’s packing.”
She burst out laughing and Matty looked back and forth between the grown-ups. “Packing what, Daddy? Are we going somewhere?”
“Just to Via’s house.”
“Why do I need a bag for that?”
“You don’t, twerp. I’m just being annoying on purpose.”
“Why?”
“Because it makes Miss DeRosa smile.”
The smile wobbled off her face, and he could have kicked himself. Was he flirting with her right now? His off-limits friend who’d been accosted earlier in the day? Could he be any denser?
“Well,” she recovered quickly. “I suppose I wouldn’t mind the company.”
They walked home, three people and one happy dog, Matty filling the silence with school chatter and snack crunching. Seb was kind of shocked at how close their houses were, not more than a ten-minute walk. That was practically living together by New York standards.
She lived in a boxy apartment building on Eighty-sixth Street, next to the aboveground trains and so close to the drink you could smell the salt on the air.
“Sometimes I think Brooklyn has microclimates like San Francisco,” Seb remarked as they strolled up to the front of her building.
“Oh?”
“Yeah, here you are only ten blocks from me but you can smell the ocean from your spot.”
“I know. And the chebureki.” She nodded to where two stooped Russian men sat across from one another at a makeshift chessboard. One of them had a little steaming cart next to him, selling the savory Russian pastries for a dollar apiece.
“Oh yeah, I guess this is almost Bath Beach. I heard the Russian population was moving out this way.”
She nodded. “Another Italian neighborhood with no more Italians.”
“I guess we’re all just Brooklynites in Brooklyn.”
She nodded and he wondered if she was thinking about her parents. “Want to come up and see the place?”
She’s nervous to go up alone. The thought struck him like a jolt from a toaster, and he felt warm and weird all at once. God, he didn’t like thinking about her being scared. He sort of hated her boyfriend right about now, this Evan guy. Why hadn’t she called him? He surely had a key. Shouldn’t he be waiting up there with a glass of wine and a fresh-baked lasagna? Bubble bath and a foot rub? Something to soothe her after the horrible day she’d had.
The other half of Seb, the half that he wasn’t as proud of, was glad that he got to be the one to go up there with her. Some ancient, testosterone-pumping part of his chemical makeup pictured himself peeking in her closets with a Maglite, kicking at a misshapen lump in her curtains, making sure the place was safe for her.
“Sure.” He rocked back on his heels, answering immediately. “You don’t mind the dog?”
She looked at him like he’d gone crackers. “Crabby? No. I don’t mind Crabby.”
Via took Matty by the hand and led him through the front lobby of her building. It was one of those old, decrepit buildings that had gotten a bad facelift sometime in the last decade. There were sheets of frosted green glass dividing the entryway in two and a skinny purple carpet leading toward the elevator. But the granite floors were spiderwebbed with cracks, and the pleather armchairs that sat next to a fake fern in the corner were layered over with dust. Such typical Brooklyn.
She walked straight past the row of little metal cubbies and didn’t check her mail. He wondered if that was because she didn’t usually get any or if those mailboxes didn’t open, a problem he’d had at an old place.
The elevator was brass and reflective, old-world. There was even a gate that had to be yanked to one side to get it to start. Matty did the honors, delighting in the smudgy fingerprints he left on the shiny brass handle.
Via led them to the dark wood door of her apartment. All the other doors had crooked, rusty numbers, but hers had a perfectly shiny, aligned number 5C. He knew, without a doubt, that she’d done that herself and it made him want to bury his nose behind her ear. Kiss both eyelids.
He was such a goner. Such a dumbass for doing this to himself.
Her hand shook, just a touch, as she scrabbled the key into the lock.
“Violetta.” He stilled her with just his fingertips to her wrist. “I’m just coming up to see your apartment; you know that there is nothing wrong in there. There’s no way that...” He could be in there.
“I know.” She nodded resolutely. Her lips were white from pressing them together. But then she tossed her hair back and attempted a smile. “But what’s the point in being friends with Thor if you don’t get to watch him throw a little muscle around?”
That caught him off guard. He laughed. And then laughed harder at the expression on Matty’s face.
“Did Miss DeRosa just call you Thor?”
“You’d have to ask her.”
Seb put one hand in between Matty’s shoulder blades, a silent reminder to be good in our friend’s house. He tightened his grip on Crabby’s leash.
She swung the door open and led them inside. Sebastian immediately realized that he was holding his breath and shook his head at himself.
“Don’t worry about your shoes,” she called, though she kicked her own small heels into a basket.
Seb looked meaningfully down at Matty and they followed suit, no matter what she said. She dumped her bag onto her couch and sidled into her kitchen. “Matty, you want a snack?”
His little boy padding after Via and Crabby behaving for once, Seb took the opportunity to really look around. It was spick-and-span. Not obnoxiously so, but still, she obviously was a cleaner. Her furniture all matched, though it was as horrible as she’d warned him. Cheap particleboard crap that you couldn’t even have the satisfaction of burning due to all the chemicals. But her space was nice. Maybe a little plain, with a pop of color here and there.
He liked it. But it was...lonely.
He couldn’t exactly explain why, but the loneliness was palpable in this house, like a scent on the air or a reflection in a distant mirror.
Seb hated himself for doing it, but he looked around for evidence of the boyfriend. A baseball cap was slung crooked on her coatrack, but he recognized that as hers from softball. Beyond that, everything looked decidedly girly. Even the books on her very packed shelves were organized in a rainbow based on the color of their spines. He didn’t know any guy who would do that.
“Matty’s having pretzels and hummus. Do you want some?” She appeared in the doorway of her kitchen, one foot balancing on the top of the other.
“Sure.” He paused. “Are we overstaying our welcome? Your radar for that goes completely out of whack once you have a kid.”
“Let me rephrase. I’m inviting you to come have pretzels and hummus.”
He nodded and walked with Crabby into the kitchen. He stopped in his tracks. The living room had been lonely. But this room right here? This was downright crowded. There was a riot of color in two different fruit baskets, with plenty of vegetables thrown in as well. She’d taken the door off her pantry and every can on her shelves was again arranged by rainbow color. And she had a lot of cans. There was a lumpy, lopsided bouquet of every color on her windowsill, currently backlit by the afternoon sun. Her dishes on the drying rack were mismatched and bright, and she had a wall lined with hooks where every kitchen utensil imaginable dangled.
He was no expert, but he could recognize the good stuff when he saw it. Copper ladles and sharp, heavy knives with pearl inlaid in the handles. There was something mouthwatering percolating in a slow cooker, and when she opened the fridge to get the hummus, Seb’s jaw dropped straight open.
“Good Lord!” His hand landed on hers as she started closing the fridge door. He yanked it back open. “What, are you running your own farmers market or something?” There was every green thing imaginable, roots curling akimbo, three different shades of every vegetable. “You have two different kinds of beets. Who in God’s name needs two different kinds of beets?”
She laughed, but there was a very healthy blush working its way up her cheeks. “I like cooking, okay?”
“Apparently.” He knew his eyes were as big as pancakes, but he seriously had never seen this much produce outside of a grocery store. “You really cook with all this?”
“Of course. I’m usually cooking for two.”
He felt some of his rising giddiness pinprick away into the air. Of course. She cooked for Evan the Supermodel. Ponytail-having bastard.
“Fin comes over most nights to eat with me. And most mornings, now that I think about it.”
Hmm. What the hell did that mean? That she didn’t cook for her boyfriend? It was a stupid mystery to try to be solving when he could just be enjoying her company.
“This doesn’t look like our hummus,” Matty said dubiously as he eyed the Tupperware she’d just cracked open. He’d slid up onto one of the chairs at the small breakfast table and was drumming skeptical fingers on the linoleum top.
“It’s homemade,” she replied absently as she fished in one cabinet for pretzels.
Seb’s heart sank. This was where his picky-ass kid was going to turn up his nose at a beautiful woman’s homemade food and make Seb feel like an inept father who stuffed his kid full of mac and cheese.
But then Via did something amazing. At the same second she was selecting a pear from her fruit basket, Via dipped a pretzel in the hummus and just jammed it right in Matty’s mouth. His eyes widened in surprise as much as Seb’s did. And then Matty’s eyes widened even more.
“It’s good.”
“I know,” Via replied from the kitchen sink where she was washing the pear.
Seb slid down next to Matty and tried it. Damn. It was better than good. This Evan asshole better marry Via DeRosa, or he deserved a punch straight in the dick.
Via brought a plate of sliced pears and slid down across from Matty and Seb. Crabby’s tail thumped under the table and she reached down to give him some pets.
Seb watched her while he crunched his pretzels. He saw the toll the day had taken on her. Her wrinkled silk shirt, her lipstick chewed off, the eye makeup slightly smudged over one eye. And that hand, already tipping from dark pink into purple. He wanted to speak to her but didn’t want Matty to overhear. Seb pulled out his phone.
I’m so sorry for what happened today, Via.
She jolted just a little as the text vibrated in her pocket but she ignored it, obviously too polite to answer a text while she had company.
Seb made eyes at her until she got his message and opened her phone. He asked Matty questions about his day at school while she pecked out a one-handed response.
I’m okay, Sebastian. It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t anyone’s fault but his.
He took a deep breath. She was right of course. But still...
I wish I would have intervened sooner. And then you wouldn’t be hurt. Don’t console me. You’re not supposed to console me when you’re the one who left that room with a bruise.
She smirked at him as she read his text.
Then what do you want? Tough love?
God. He wanted any type of love that she would throw his way. If he were a different man, maybe he would have typed that out. But he had a kid chomping pretzels next to him and a dog sleeping on his foot. And she had a boyfriend. And was twenty-seven years old, for fuck’s sake. How many times had he been through this with himself?
Anything to make you feel better.
She frowned down at his text. She sighed and took a big bite of pretzel and hummus, looking out the window. She was tweaking her nose one way and then the other when she finally responded.
Yeah. Worst birthday ever.
“It’s your birthday?” He hadn’t meant to speak it out loud but there it was. His stomach gave an almighty flop, like a sea lion on a wet dock. In all his musings over Via DeRosa’s age, it simply hadn’t occurred to him that the woman had birthdays. Dumb but true.
Just because she’s older doesn’t mean she’s old enough, he reminded himself. He’d been clinging so tightly to the number twenty-seven that twenty-eight felt strangely slippery in his mind, like he couldn’t quite pin it to the same bulletin board that her former age had been fastened to.
“Really?” Matty straightened like he’d been electrocuted. At six years old, birthdays were far from routine. In fact, they were pretty much as special as dinosaur sightings.
“Really,” she admitted, pursing her lips together.
“Oh God.” Sebastian face-palmed. “Matty, finish up. We’ve gotta get out of here. I’m sure Miss DeRosa has a fancy dinner or a party or something to go to.”
Via shrugged. “You can stay for a bit. Fin is coming over for dinner, but beyond that, nothing too special. You’re not crashing.”
Matty was doing his best electric-shock-part-two impression. “Dad, can we stay for dinner?” He leaned in very close to Seb’s face, all hummus breath and bits of pretzel flying everywhere. “There’s usually cake on a birthday,” he whispered loud enough to make Via burst out laughing.
Seb was glad that someone was laughing. Because to him? This was mortifying. “We’re having dinner with Tyler and Mary, remember? To celebrate your grandparents leav—because we haven’t gotten to see them in a while.”
“They can come,” Via said, in that quiet, calm, easy way that just slayed Seb. “I obviously have plenty of food.”
“Oh. Are you sure? You’re going to cook for all of us on your birthday?”
She leaned forward, her voice low and conspiratorial. “Don’t you kind of want to see Fin and Tyler in the same room again?”
Seb grinned. Well, she made a good point.
She turned and let Matty capture her attention as they chatted about the hummus and the potential for birthday cake. Seb just watched her. Her color was back and the dullness in her eyes had faded almost completely. Maybe they were overstaying their welcome, he wasn’t sure. He was just glad they got to stay.
FIN ARRIVED AT 5:30 with a backpack full of cheap wine and fancy grape juice for Matty. She’d kissed both Seb and Matty full on the mouth, smelling like sage and lavender, and whisked through the house in a skirt that went to the floor.
She was blindingly beautiful, but Seb found himself completely comfortable around her now that she was simply his friend.
Mary and Tyler arrived together at six, when they would have arrived at Seb’s. Mary had a small gift in tow, and Tyler had delighted Via with a handful of pink carnations. Seb wished he had something to give to Via that would make her whole face go long and open and lit up like that.
He’d settled for being her sous chef while she cooked for everyone. Though he had to admit that it was probably more of a gift for himself than it was for her, standing hip-to-hip at the counter, his elbow brushing hers every so often. Seb held his breath and butchered some tomatoes he was supposed to be dicing when she laid one hand on his shoulder to boost herself up to an overhead cabinet.
He studied his handiwork. “I really can’t tell if I’m making this easier or harder on you by offering my cooking skills.”
She gave up on reaching the spice she’d been grappling for and bit her smile back as she peered at his gelatinous mess of tomato on the cutting board. She looked up at Seb, her eyebrows raised and her bottom lip between her teeth.
“Well, it’ll still taste the same, won’t it?” he asked anxiously.
Via burst out laughing. Seb couldn’t help but drop his eyes to her mouth. “You’re doing fine, Seb.”
He laughed with her but a truth had just come crashing down around his ears. He liked her so much he was willing to torture himself by being around her. His mother-in-law’s advice echoed in his head. Her voice was spooky and ominous, and he knew Muriel would have rolled her eyes at how melodramatic he was being. But he wondered if she was right. He wondered if maybe, just maybe, the adult thing to do here would be to respectfully tell Via of his feelings. No pressure, just information.
He nearly jolted at that treacherous line of thought. So what if she dumped Evan? Would that matter, really? Even if she fell into Seb’s arms, his arms would still be forty-two years old. With a kid and a baggage claim full of issues. He tersely reminded himself Evan wasn’t in the way of him and Via. Everything was in the way of him and Via.
She tapped his shoulder and he turned, looking down at her.
Didn’t mean he wouldn’t mind her kicking her boyfriend to the curb, though.
“Mind grabbing that lemon pepper?”
He easily reached up into the cabinet and handed it down to her.
“Thanks.” She grinned up at him, all golden skin and amber-brown eyes and crooked teeth and damn. Just. Damn.
He cleared his throat. “Can’t believe you got Matty to eat that hummus earlier today.”
“Sometimes kids just need you to make the choice for them.”
He nodded, in total agreement on that front. “You’re really good with kids. Did you always know that you wanted to work with them?”
“Mmm, since I was twenty or so. At that point, I’d had two years of college under my belt and I was far enough away from the system to feel a little less...haunted by it. And that was around the time that Jetty passed. Fin and I had to go through her house, her belongings, and I saw physical evidence of all the ways she’d supported me through the years. Trophies, photos, letters from me to her. It made me realize how much she’d done for me. Made me want to do the same for other kids.”
“Made you want to foster?”
“Maybe someday,” she said as she weighed her head from side to side. “I think I’d be a good mom. But I’ll need a lot more money for that.” She grinned at him. “And a much larger apartment.”
He turned away from her quickly, momentarily stunned by that easy smile of hers. She wanted to be a mom but wasn’t ready...for circumstantial reasons. Did that mean that if she suddenly had more money and a bigger place, she was emotionally ready to be a mom?
His stomach churned as she moved around next to him, sliding his tomato mush into a pot and then placing some onions to dice on his cutting board.
“Mostly, I was thinking of ways to reach the most kids at once. Do as much good as I could, you know? I considered being a social worker, but that ended up hitting a little too close to home for me. I’ve seen so many of them over the years. I ended up going into education and the further I went into the program, the more clear it became that I needed to focus on counseling as well. So I went back for my master’s and here we are.”
He chuckled at her nonchalant delivery. “Voilà.”
She smiled at his wry tone. “Easy as pie.”
“Yeah. Getting a master’s is just like pulling a rabbit out of a hat.”
She opened her mouth to reply but just then Mary bustled in from the other room, a joke in her eyes. “Oh my God. I think Fin is telling Tyler’s fortune right now, and the poor guy looks like he’s about to pass out.”
“She’s not!” Via looked horrified, like her friend had decided to put the punch bowl on her head after one too many jungle juices. She hustled immediately out of the kitchen, seemingly to intervene. Seb took a deep breath and was grateful for the momentary reprieve from her little, golden presence. The kids conversation had been a step too far for him. He didn’t need to torture himself with information like that unless he was going to actually do something with it.
The second she was gone, Mary’s midnight blue eyes slid over to Seb, a sly little look on her face. “And what’s going on in here?” The last word was punctuated by her rolling up on her toes.
Seb leaned forward and really gave Mary the once-over. She’d pulled her hair back in a tight, matronly bun, and she wore an extremely unflattering sweater. “Why do you look like that?” he asked, in lieu of answering her pointed question. “That’s the ugliest sweater I’ve ever seen.”
He expected her to be outraged. Mary was a very fashionable woman and had often found herself in the position of defending her sophisticated fashion choices to Tyler or Seb. But today she just grinned. “I changed after work. I just didn’t want to seem threatening at all.”
“Threatening? To who?”
“Don’t be dense, Seb.” She raised an arched eyebrow and looked pointedly at Via as the shorter woman scuttled back over to the stove.
“It wasn’t a full-on reading, but she was definitely trying to spook the hell out of him.”
“Miss Via?” Matty asked as he strolled into the kitchen like he owned the place.
Seb turned quickly, and Via laid a hand on his arm. “I told him he could call me Via when we’re doing friend stuff and not school stuff. He actually insisted on keeping the Miss.”
Seb loosened and nodded at his son, impressed with his politeness.
“What’s up?” she asked him.
“When’s dinner? I’m really hungry. Plus, I finished that coloring book.”
Seb winced. There was no way he’d finished that coloring book in twenty minutes. He knew exactly what he’d find when he went to look at it. A two-color scribble on each page and a declaration that it wasn’t fun if the page wasn’t perfectly pristine.
“Oh, well, that’s great that you finished it,” Via said. “Because nobody has made me my birthday fort yet.”
“Your birthday fort?”
“Yeah.” Via cocked her head at him, spoon in the air. “Every birthday, someone makes me a big fort that I can eat my birthday dinner in. But nobody has done it yet. You wouldn’t happen to be good at making forts, would you?”
“I’m the best at forts. The BEST.”
He really was. So good, in fact, that Seb wondered if his son might be as interested in architecture as he’d been at one point.
“Great. I have to finish dinner, but I’ll get you started.”
“I’ll help,” Mary chirped, her eyes on Via, obviously just about as charmed by her as Seb was.
Who am I kidding? No one is as charmed by her as I am.
It was half an hour later that everyone sat on the floor of Via’s living room with plates of homemade pasta in their laps and a pillow fort precariously towering over them. Crabby hovered, semi-obediently, at the edge of the fort, licking the air at the scent of the sauce and windmilling his tail at anyone who glanced his way. Fin had lit some candles and dimmed the lights. The room twinkled a golden orange, and all of them had instinctively lowered their voices to match the mood.
The conversation flowed much more casually than the other time the group had spent together. Tyler still sat as far from Fin as he possibly could have and alternated between looking anywhere but at her and staring her down.
Seb could only hope he looked a little more casual. But he probably blew that when he choked on his wine when Mary opened her big mouth.
“Where’s Evan tonight, Via?” Mary asked.
“Oh.” Via looked up quickly, wiping her pretty mouth with a napkin. “He’s still upstate with his family.”
Upstate.
She’d said she had stuff to do upstate and then had spent the next week crying. Seb forced the traitorous wine down his throat and crammed a bite of pasta in his mouth, avoiding everyone’s eyes. He could swear that both Mary and Fin were looking at him.
His mind raced as his stomach tightened down like a tank preparing for battle. Seb figured there were a few different things that could have happened here. Either she’d gone upstate to visit her boyfriend and then cried her eyes out because she had to come back to Brooklyn and just missed him so badly. Or maybe going upstate had nothing to do with Evan and it was all a coincidence? Or. Or. Or. She’d gone upstate, and things had gone badly. I mean, he’s not here on her birthday, a little, asshole-ish voice whispered in Seb’s ear. What if they’d broken up?
When he finally looked up again, the conversation had flowed on, and it was past 7:30. Matty pushed his bowl of pasta aside and laid his head on Seb’s crossed knee. Seb absently pushed his son’s hair from one side to the other. The candlelight flickered as Fin rose to clear everyone’s plates and Seb’s eyes lifted to Via’s naturally. She was looking at him. At his hand on Matty’s head. But then she was looking directly in Sebastian’s eyes. Unwavering. Her eyes were a dizzying color, somewhere between gold and brown. And for a minute, all they did was just look at one another.
Seb felt drunk and disoriented when Fin came back in with a lit birthday cake, and Via broke their staring game to laugh and clap her hands.
He had only had one glass of wine, but he felt like he was currently floating in a lazy ocean the temperature of a Jacuzzi.
He shook his head and joined in with everyone as they sang for her birthday. Matty perked up at the prospect of chocolate cake, and Mary brought out her present for Via.
“Ugh.” Seb groaned as Via carefully peeled back each layer of tape and wrapping paper. “You’re one of those people? Just rip it!”
“Sebastian, you have so much to learn about our Violetta,” Fin told him, a little smile on her face. “She’s gonna save that paper, and later, she’s gonna iron it.”
“Serafine!” Via admonished as a healthy blush bloomed on her cheeks. “There’s no reason to waste it! It’s reusable!”
Seb’s stupid, wasted heart thumped hard. An idiotic, clumsy ka-bump. He hoped his smile wasn’t as dopey as he thought it probably was. Look at him. So far gone, he was crushing on her wrapping paper habits.
“The coasters I wanted! Oh, Mary!” Via flung herself across the pillow fort and grabbed Mary up in a hug. They both laughed.
“I take that to mean that you like them.”
“Give them here, sister,” Fin requested in that slow, curling drawl. She inspected the coasters. “That’s nice frosting.”
“Frosting?” Tyler asked.
“Jetty, the woman who raised us,” Via explained, “used to say that a good, steady life was like cake. And that every once in a while, you deserved a little frosting. Just little things, little gifts to yourself. Things that don’t make sense to spend your money on unless you’ve paid your bills and have a job and all that. Frosting.”
“Via’s always liked her frosting extra shiny,” Fin said, a loving smile on her face.
Seb thought of the copper utensils and pearl-inlaid knives in her kitchen. He looked around at her decor, little bursts of prettiness all over. Colored glass that caught the light, a pillow with little mirrors embroidered around the edges. He thought of those little gold studs she wore, understated and still, somehow, princess-like.
Seb felt like he could have stayed in the soft, comfortable cave of the candlelit pillow fort with his friends for the next couple of weeks. He didn’t want the world to make him leave. But his lonely dog was whining at the edge of the fort, and his son’s head had lowered to his knee again. The sun had long since set, and it was a school night, after all.
Via was one of those people who cleaned up the kitchen as she cooked—Muriel’s wet dream, although he tried not to think about that for all sorts of reasons—so there wasn’t much cleanup to do, besides the pillow fort.
“Sorry to bail,” Seb said as he rose up with Matty in his arms. The kid was already spider-monkeying himself around his dad’s hips and neck, one hot cheek on his shoulder and cake breath wafting up into Seb’s face. Seb tightened his arms around his boy, filled with love for him.
“No, no.” Via waved away his apology. “It’s almost bedtime. I’m just so glad you stayed. Fin and I probably would have eaten at the regular old dinner table instead of a pillow fort.”
“You liked the fort?” Matty asked sleepily, tilting his head to see Via.
She stepped over to Matty and Seb, absently stroking a hand over Matty’s back. Her hand briefly brushed over one of Seb’s, and he refused to clench it into a fist, even if it felt like he’d been sunburned in a good way.
“I love the fort.”
“It was my birthday present to you.”
Seb knew he was biased, but damn, his kid was sweet sometimes. Apparently Via thought so, too, because she leaned forward, puckering her lips, and gave Matty a kiss. The top of her head brushed against Sebastian’s chin, and he shifted a little. He was extremely conscious of their nosy-ass friends all watching him.
“All right.” Was that his voice? All gravelly and gruff as hell? “Thank you for having us. Sorry we’re leaving you with a mess.”
“I’ll stay and help clean it up,” Mary insisted.
“I’ll help you get your dog and kid and all the rest of your crap home, Seb.” Tyler was already gathering Matty’s schoolbag.
The goodbyes were quick and nondramatic, and it wasn’t until Seb and Tyler were walking home, side by side down the dark sidewalk, that they looked at one another and shook their heads.
“Jesus Christ, man,” Tyler murmured, checking to make sure Matty was asleep on Seb’s shoulder. He was.
“Yeah. I mean. Damn it.”
They both knew what they were talking about.
Tyler sighed. “I won’t give you shit about how dopey you were with yours, if you don’t give me shit about how dopey I was with mine.”
Seb laughed and shook his head, at himself and his friend. “Deal. God. We’re like a couple of teenagers.”
“Middle schoolers, I’d say. We had girlfriends in high school, remember? It was middle school that we were blushing at parties, too scared to tell the pretty girls that we wanted to make out in the back of a movie theater.”
“That’s what you want to do with Fin?” Seb asked dryly.
“I probably wouldn’t kick her spooky ass out of the back of a movie theater.”
They laughed and chatted, making fun of themselves for the rest of the walk back to Seb’s.