Just a Heartbeat Away

by Cara Bastone

  “Ample Hills ice cream is definitely worth pulling out a shall,” Sadie agreed. “Are those your parents? They don’t look anything like you.”

  “No, those are his grandparents on his mother’s side.” He was well out of earshot so he allowed himself a single sigh. “They’ve been here a week.”

  “A week!” Sadie screeched and then threw a hand over her mouth when her voice carried. “Sorry.”

  Seb laughed. “It’s okay. It’s not as bad as it sounds, really. They’re super helpful people.”

  He couldn’t help but notice that Via was inching away from the conversation and that Rachel was inching in.

  “How is that big project you’ve been working on?” Rachel asked, blinking those sweet blue eyes at him. Seb wondered how she planned on playing softball in clothes that tight.

  “Project?”

  “You mentioned last week that you were thinking of starting a new furniture project.”

  “Right.” Seb’s gaze shot over toward Via before glancing away. She was practically standing behind Rachel now, facing out toward the field. “Yeah, I’ve started it. It’s turning out really well. A coffee table and two matching side tables. My typical copper and oak. I’m thinking I might work on a dining table to go with it as well.”

  “Wow,” Rachel breathed, and it was then that Seb realized just how close she was standing to him.

  Okay. So. That had apparently become a thing while he’d been too busy crushing on Via to notice. He liked Rachel. She was cute, too. Young thirties, sweet face, always had a nice manicure. But he didn’t think about her when she wasn’t around. She didn’t make him want to tuck an afghan around her feet. Maybe he couldn’t explain it that well. Either way, he took a decent-size step to one side and caught Rae up in conversation until the game started.

  Halfway through the fifth inning, Seb determined that Via truly was avoiding talking to him. He sidled up to one side of her as she leaned against the chain-link fence, watching Sadie steal second base. He left a healthy two feet between them.

  “Hi.”

  She jolted and gave him the fastest glance of all times. Her cheeks were pink. “Hi.”

  “Uh, are you wanting me to leave you alone? I’m wondering if I should apologize for the way I acted that night last week. I know we’ve just started becoming friends, and maybe I pushed the limits too fast.”

  “No! Seb!” She turned then, one shoulder on the fence and her cap pushed high off her forehead. “Of course you don’t have to apologize for that. That was an incredible moment. I was grateful to be there with you through that.”

  He mirrored her pose and the movement brought them closer. He looked down at her, a solid foot between their heights. He noticed, for the first time, that he’d always just thought of her eyes as dark, but they were almost amber around her pupil. She’d taken off her gold studs to play softball, but there was a light purple stone on a silver chain around her neck.

  “All right,” he conceded. “Are you okay, then? You’ve been MIA.”

  “Yeah. Yes.” She flicked her eyes out toward the field again and her hand came up to absently brush against the purple stone. “I took a few days off to go upstate.”

  “Vacation?”

  She shook her head and her eyes filled. “There was just something I had to do. And once I got back, well, I’ve been spending a lot of time with Fin.”

  He was deeply relieved to hear she’d been spending time with her best friend. Maybe it was because he didn’t know anyone else who resembled her—the slightness of her physicality, gold skin, dark eyes, that squished nose—but looking down at her now, she just looked very solitary. It worried him. Because of Matty, Seb’s mini-me, Sebastian never had to worry about being completely alone. But Via on the other hand, she had no family. Not even a Muriel to criticize her in her kitchen. It made Sebastian want to invite himself over to her house, bring his kid and dog and make sure that there was enough noise in her life.

  She used her wrist to push at the tears that swelled in her eyes and looked away from him, out toward the field. He wasn’t made uncomfortable by other people’s tears, but he knew when it wasn’t the time to push. “What’s the purple for?” He nodded at her necklace.

  Her fingers brushed it again. “Amethyst. Apparently, it’s kind of a cure-all. Or so Fin says.”

  “So you’re not okay.” He crossed his arms over his chest and searched her face for an answer. She looked so small right now, her delicate collarbone peeking out of her shirt like a piece of elegant jewelry. The only things big about her were those baleful eyes, and they were filled to the brim with unshed tears. He had the insane urge to make her soup, turn on a Disney movie or soft music. Damn it. He kind of wanted to rub her feet. He inwardly grimaced. Now was not the time to perv out.

  She laughed at herself, the sound tight with tears as she swept her cap off her head and rubbed at her eyes with her wrist. “I don’t know what I am. Don’t mind me. I’m just a crazy lady who came to play softball.”

  “Man, I’ve been there before. Well, except for the lady part. Trust me, I was a crazy man for just about all of Matty’s year four on this Earth.” He nudged her gently with an elbow. “You were there.”

  “Oh, Seb, you were just fine. And don’t worry, this isn’t that kind of crazy. I think I’m just having a midlife crisis.”

  Sebastian threw his head back and laughed at that one. Really laughed. His cap came a little loose at the movement, and he jammed it back on his head. “Via, I hope to God you live longer than fifty-four years old. There’s no way this is a midlife crisis.”

  She gave him a watery smile. “Fine, an identity crisis, then.”

  He cocked his head to one side. He’d always thought of Via as someone who was very certain in who she was, but he supposed everybody put up a bit of a front in that regard, particularly at work.

  “Hi, Sebastian.”

  Seb turned and spotted Giles. He attempted not to wince at the interruption.

  “Hey, man.” He held out his hand.

  Giles shook his hand and kept a straight face for only a second before he melted into bubbling, effusive praise. “We are over the moon about the mirror we commissioned from you. Seriously. It is gorgeous. And exactly what we wanted. And hand delivery, my, my, my! Expect a positive review on your website.”

  “You’re the client he was building the mirror for?” Via’s eyes were wide, but she was, thankfully, holding in the smile that teased at the corners of her mouth.

  “You saw it?”

  “I saw it in an intermediary stage. He does good work. It was very cool.”

  She hadn’t liked it any better than Seb had, he knew, but she was sweet.

  “It’s more than cool—it’s revolutionizing our living room. Seriously, if I could turn my eyes into heart emojis, I would.”

  The mirror had been a real bitch to make and boring as hell. But Seb couldn’t argue with that kind of customer satisfaction. It was always nice to feel appreciated. And Giles looked like he was about two steps from wearing a shirt with Seb’s face on it.

  “Well, I’m glad you like it, man. I truly appreciate your business.”

  The inning ended and it was time to shuffle back to the outfield. Via winked at him, a little pink in the cheeks, as soon as Giles turned away. Seb swallowed back his laugh and tried not to watch her jog out to shortstop.

  Instead, he turned and looked into the bleachers. Art and Matty were playing some card game, facing one another, Crabby was sniffing around underneath, and Muriel was looking right at him.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  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 th
ing 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?”