Just a Heartbeat Away

by Cara Bastone

  “Maybe they’re too young for you, old man. But not for me.”

  “We’re the same fucking age.”

  “Apparently not.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means that just because you have a kid you act like you’re over the fucking hill. You’re forty-two years old, Seb, not exactly about to join the AARP, okay?”

  Mary snorted, her laugh bubbling out of her, and Sebastian fought to keep a good grip on his temper. He wanted to fight, goddammit, he didn’t want to laugh right now. But Mary just had one of those laughs. Once she got started, you had no choice but to join in.

  “You don’t understand, Ty. Whatever, sure, forty-two isn’t geriatric. And maybe if I’d met her at a bar somewhere, we could’ve left together.” He didn’t explain which her he was thinking of and neither of his friends asked him to. It was already written all over his face. “But the fact of the matter is, we’re in completely different stages of life. THAT’S what the age difference means. I’m a father. Of a kid who is old enough to ask questions. A kid who deserves stability. I was married. I’ve buried a wife, for fuck’s sake. I can’t be running around with a woman who has to Google ‘how to pay my taxes.’ A woman who is young enough to—” He cut himself off and grabbed at a hank of his hair. “She’s going to have a dozen more boyfriends before she finds the person she’s supposed to settle down with. And I’m not up for that kind of carnival ride, you know?” The air was leaving his balloon, and in its place, was nothing but deflation. He wasn’t mad. He was just bummed. Really fucking bummed. “I can’t be. I’m too old, and I have way too much at stake.”

  Sebastian sat back and finally looked up at his two closest friends. He thought he’d see sympathy there, pursed lips and sad eyes. Instead he saw annoyance in one of them and frustration in the other; both of them had a fire burning. Mary leaned forward, Tyler opened his mouth—

  “Daddy!”

  A bell rang furiously down the hall and whatever his two friends were going to say to him had to wait. On perfect cue, his life interrupted.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  SHE WASN’T PARTICULARLY paying attention or anything, but it didn’t escape Via’s notice that neither Sebastian nor Matty came to school on Monday or Tuesday. She wasn’t surprised, figuring that Matty was still under the weather and Sebastian would obviously choose to stay at home with him. But Wednesday rolled around, and it was Tyler who brought Matty to school.

  Via noticed as she jogged through the school parking lot toward the front entrance, but she was so late for a classroom observation session that she hadn’t had time to do more than wave. She certainly didn’t have time to go over there and ask him where Sebastian was.

  Via was racing from one appointment to the next all morning, two of which were about Sarah Tate and her father, and it wasn’t until the last fifteen minutes of her lunch break that she even got a second to think about the fact that Sebastian was MIA for the third day in a row.

  She unlocked her cell phone and entered into a text strand before she exited out and called Evan instead.

  He answered on the third ring.

  “Hey.”

  “Hi. Just eating lunch, thought I’d call.”

  “Cool. I’m eating, too.”

  “Still think you’ll be home on Sunday?”

  There was a pause, where she heard him open a can of soda and scrape a chair across the floor. “No, I’m thinking I’ll drive back down on Saturday instead. I miss you.”

  She furrowed her brow. “You’re gonna rent a car to drive home? Isn’t it just an hour on the train?”

  “Crap. I spoiled the surprise. I wanted to tell you in person.”

  Via set down her sandwich and rubbed her sweaty palm against her gray pencil slacks. “What is it?”

  “Well, I got a car.”

  “What?”

  The weight of car insurance and parking tickets and repairs instantly tumbled down over Via, so fast she felt like she couldn’t have stood up if she’d tried.

  “It’s great, you’re gonna love it. A silver Lexus. Four-door. Parking will be a bitch on my block, but I can keep it parked by your house, that’ll probably be easier. I spend so much time at your house anyway.”

  “Ev, a car is an enormous expense. How did you afford it?”

  “My parents gave it to me.”

  “Your parents bought you a car,” she repeated blankly.

  “No.” He was irritated now. He’d obviously wanted her to be more excited than she was. “They didn’t buy it for me. So save the judgment. They gave it to me. My mom just got a new one, and they gave me hers. It’s used.”

  She said nothing and he barreled on. “And don’t get up my ass about all the expenses. They said they’re gonna keep it under her name, and they just added me to her insurance. They said they have no problem paying for it until I’m back on my feet.”

  “Back on your feet.” Again, the words were lifeless coming out of her mouth. She was basically parroting them back to him.

  “Yeah. That’s why they gave it to me. Because I explained how fricking hard it is to get around the city on public transportation. They thought it would help me to make it to all my job interviews.”

  “Job interviews?” she asked weakly.

  “Yeah, my dad’s friend lined up two paralegal interviews for me for next week. They’re downtown. Near Federal Hall.”

  Instead of elation and relief that Evan had two legit job interviews coming up, the only thing that was going through Via’s head was how easy it was to get to Federal Hall from almost anywhere in the city.

  Evan and his parents had decided that he needed a car for that?

  To spare him from two twenty-minute train rides at a whopping $2.75 apiece? In her opinion, driving would be significantly harder. He’d have to fight traffic and find parking.

  But, she realized as she dropped her forehead into her hand, that wasn’t the point. The point was that Evan had wanted a car and, snap your fingers, he got a car. Like a toddler whining for a juice box.

  He was saying something in that deep, familiar voice of his, the one that usually made her toes curl, but she couldn’t even make out the words.

  Via felt half of herself grip the edge of a door buried deep inside her. She wanted to slam it closed. With some attitude. She wanted the door to shake on its damn hinges. But the other half of her had two palms on that door, holding it open with all her strength.

  She still wasn’t listening to him. How could she? She was just. so. tired.

  The landline on her desk rang, jolting her straight up and making her realize how far down she’d slouched.

  “Ev? I have to call you back. My lunch hour is up.”

  She said goodbye and hung up with him.

  “Via DeRosa,” she answered her phone, her voice sounding strangely wooden.

  “Via! Hi! I hope it’s all right I called you at work.”

  “Ah, who am I speaking with?”

  “Oh!” A bright, bubbling laugh came through the line. “Sorry. This is Mary Trace. Sebastian’s friend? We met this weekend?”

  “Of course, sure. Hi, Mary. What can I do for you?”

  “Well, actually, I was calling to ask a favor.”

  “Oh?” Via had really liked Mary when she met her. The woman was friendly and sweet and obviously wanted to get to know Via and Fin. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t a little surprised to be getting a phone call from her in the middle of the workday.

  “So Seb is home sick—he got what Matty had, did you hear that?”

  “Oh shoot. No. I mean, I suspected when he wasn’t in school but that sucks. Strep is terrible.”

  “I know. And I was supposed to pick up Matty and bring him home today, but my shop assistant is a no-show, and I really don’t want to close down this afternoon.”
<
br />   “You want me to walk Matty home?”

  “Would you? I’d owe you a million favors. Or maybe just the friends and family discount at my store?”

  “I would have done it for free, but now that you’ve offered it, I’m holding you to that. I’ve been eyeing those brass-and-marble coasters for damn near a year.”

  Mary laughed that bubbly laugh again. “They’re yours.”

  “I’ll grab him after class and take him straight home.”

  “You’re a lifesaver. I’ll text Seb and let him know the change in plans.”

  “Tell him that Sadie will be with us, too,” Via added impulsively. She had no plans with Sadie that afternoon, but suddenly, walking Matty home from school and checking on a sick Sebastian felt really intimate. She didn’t need a chaperone per se. But yeah. The thought of one of her colleagues seeing her walk Matty home by herself and assuming something... It made her stomach flip uncomfortably.

  “Sure. Thanks again.”

  * * *

  MATTY WAS APPARENTLY overjoyed to be the kid who got walked home from school by not one, but two teachers.

  “You’re strutting like a rock star.” Via smiled down at him.

  “Am not!” Matty insisted, then screwed his face up into a little twist. “Which rock star?”

  Via and Sadie laughed as Via straightened his backpack on his shoulders.

  “Maybe Prince?” Via supplied.

  “Definitely Prince,” Sadie agreed. She had a huge smile on her face. “Just look at those little hips.”

  “My dad really likes Prince,” Matty said, absently reaching up and lacing his fingers with Via’s. “Sometimes on Sunday mornings we have raspberry pancakes and listen to ‘Raspberry Beret.’”

  Sadie and Via both threw their heads back and laughed. Hard. The image of huge, barrel-chested Sebastian making fruit pancakes and dancing to Prince with his son was too much for Via. She got that strange door open/closed feeling again, and it had her catching her breath.

  “So he’s pretty sick, huh?” Via asked, ignoring the tight feeling inside of her.

  “Yup.” Matty dipped the toe of his sneaker into a shoe print that had been pressed into the wet concrete decades ago. “I got him sick. But he says it’s okay because it was an accident. And that dads understand that sometimes they get sick when their boys get sick.”

  Sadie made a little gasping noise and pressed her hand to her heart. Via understood perfectly.

  “He should be better in no time,” Sadie reassured Matty. “He only had to miss a few days.”

  “That’s true,” Matty said thoughtfully. “But it’s not quite fair because when I got sick, I only had to miss school, but he had to miss fun stuff.”

  “Like what?” Sadie asked.

  “Well, he had to miss nachos day in the cafeteria today, which is his favorite. And also he had to cancel two dates.”

  Via missed a step when her toe caught on a crack in the sidewalk, but Sadie didn’t even notice. The redhead’s eyes were narrowed in on Matty’s face, an insane light in her eyes. She was finally getting a little Fabulous Mr. Dorner gossip, and she apparently didn’t give a rat’s ass about the integrity of the source.

  “Your dad goes on dates?” Sadie asked innocently, shamelessly.

  “Sadie!” Via hissed. It was so inappropriate to ask Matty this that she felt heat all the way to the roots of her hair.

  Matty didn’t seem to notice or understand the impropriety of the question. The six-year-old played with the toggle on his backpack strap and nodded fervently, almost viciously. “Yeah. Moms and dads can go on dates!” His face was knit with both certainty and confusion. Via got the distinct impression that he’d had this same argument with a classmate. “Well, I don’t really know about moms. But dads can. My dad goes on dates all the time.”

  Sadie inhaled, swallowing wrong in her excitement and coughing out her next words. “Really? He tells you about it?”

  Matty nodded, like the answer was so obvious he was surprised he even had to explain it. “He always tells me where he’s going and who he’s going to be with. He says it’s fair because I have to do that for him. But he goes on dates with ladies, and I go on playdates.”

  “Ladies?” Sadie asked, prying for more Mr. Dorner gossip. “Like lots of different women?”

  Via was mortified, utterly mortified. They were prying into this man’s private life. And for nothing more than gossip.

  “Sadie,” she murmured. She was going to take the first opportunity that they were alone to make sure Sadie knew that none of this could be shared with a single other soul.

  But apparently Matty didn’t care. “Yeah. Lots. But he says he hasn’t met his match.” Matty kicked a stone down the sidewalk in front of them and the movement had him tugging down on Via’s hand. Sadie didn’t even have to fish for more information; the kid was on a roll. “Daddy says that a lady can’t be a match for him if she doesn’t want to be a mommy. But that I shouldn’t hope too much because that’s really hard to find.” Matty squinted up at the two women walking him home. “But I don’t get it because there are tons of mommies. So I don’t understand why he can’t find one.”

  Sadie’s expression instantly became chagrined. She’d been pushing in a fun way, but it was so clear that this wasn’t a silly, salacious matter. This was Sebastian’s life. Matty’s life. This was a man who was trying to tread carefully enough that his son wouldn’t get caught in the crosshairs.

  “Well, you know,” Via started. She was gonna give this her best shot. And then she was going to tell Sebastian everything, so that he could decide if more explanation was warranted. She owed him that. This wasn’t a game. The man was a parent. And Matty was a person with feelings. “Finding the right person isn’t easy. Because people meet each other all the time, but they don’t always fall in love. Falling in love is a little bit magic. And you know how rare magic is.”

  “What do you mean, it’s magic? Magic like Serafine’s magic?”

  Via weighed her head side to side. “Maybe. Honestly, I don’t know. It’s still a little bit of a mystery to me. But I guess what I’m saying is that the best thing you can do is just be happy you have a daddy who loves you so much that he wants to find the perfect person to fit in with your lives.”

  “Okay,” Matty said, his eyes squinting across the street at a lady walking her poodle. He’d reached capacity for adult conversation. “You think that dog is Crabby’s mom? Because Crabby is half poodle, but we didn’t know who his parents were ’cuz we never met them.”

  “Could be.” Via gave his sweaty little hand a squeeze.

  “Who is Crabby?” Sadie asked, putting enough attitude in her question that Matty laughed.

  “My dog!” Matty let go of Via’s hand and sprinted up the last half a block, apparently very excited to get home.

  He was banging on the front door and bouncing on his heels when Via and Sadie caught up. The two women stayed down on the sidewalk as they looked up to the front porch.

  The locks slid and the door swung open to reveal a very tousled, very pale Sebastian yanking a T-shirt into place.

  “Dad!” Matty lunged forward and hugged Sebastian around one thigh before he dropped to his knees and let himself get completely tackled by Crabby. The ecstatic dog trounced the kid, covering him all over in licks and face rubs. Sebastian weakly smiled at the boy’s wild yelps of delight and sagged against the doorjamb as he looked down at the two ladies.

  “Hi.”

  “You look awful,” Sadie said candidly, taking a step backward like she could catch germs from ten feet away.

  “I feel awful. I just took another round of medicine. I can’t believe this was how Matty was feeling. I give him a lot of credit.”

  Sebastian’s eyes found Via’s and she found herself stepping up the stairs to the porch. His eyes were bloodshot, his face pal
e, there was a sheen of sweat covering all the skin she could see. He really did look awful.

  “Seb, maybe I should take Matty out for dinner. Give you a few more hours on your own to rest?”

  Matty looked up. “But it’s my cheese night! I wanna go but only if I can get mac and cheese and a grilled cheese and a cheese stick like I would have here.”

  Sebastian groaned and leaned his clammy forehead against the door. “Matty, you’re not supposed to tell people about cheese night.” He looked up with one cracked eye, his hair sticking up in a hundred directions. “I swear we eat vegetables on every other night.”

  Via couldn’t help but laugh. But her mirth dissolved when Sebastian wiped the sweat off his forehead with one shoulder and looked exhausted at the simple motion.

  “No judgment about cheese night. But, Matty, I make a mean grilled cheese. I really think I should help.”

  Sebastian looked like he was going to argue, and Via took another step up the stairs.

  “Come on, Seb. It’s no trouble. And don’t act like Mary wasn’t going to stick around and help for a few hours. Let me fill in for her, okay?”

  “Looks like you guys have it covered!” Sadie called from twenty feet away. Apparently, she’d been slowly backing away from the house of plague this entire time. “I’m gonna hit the road but, Via, just call me if you need something, okay? See you tomorrow, Matty! Feel better, Sebastian!”

  With a brisk wave and a backward skip or two, Sadie was jetting down the sidewalk toward the school.

  Sebastian lifted his eyebrows and gave a little chuffing laugh. “I look that bad, huh?”

  “You’ve looked better,” Via observed dryly. “Come on, Seb. Let me help.”

  He gave a deep sigh and stepped backward, letting her come in. “You’re right. I need a hand. Matty, you wanna show Via your puzzle collection? I’ll be right back out.”

  He closed the door behind Via and she hung her bag and coat on the hooks in the front hall. She noticed they were his copper-and-wood signature style. Sebastian disappeared down the hall, and she took the opportunity to really look around.