Just a Heartbeat Away

by Cara Bastone

  She wanted to cross over to him. But she had the feeling that a lot hung in the balance of her answer. She did the only thing she could. She told the truth. “It gives me a little thrill, I suppose. The same way any new information about you does. But I’d figured that’s about how old you were.” She took a tentative step forward. “I love learning new things about you, Seb. I’m hungry for it all. I wanna know everything.”

  He made a sound, almost like she’d punched him. Seb crouched down, onto the balls of his feet and gripped his silver-brown hair with both hands for a moment. She took another step toward him. When he rose up again, his eyes were blazing. He was bright with so many emotions she couldn’t have begun to separate one from the other.

  “All right,” he said, almost to himself. “All right.”

  He stepped toward her and met her in the middle of the hallway. He reached for her face, took her in his hands, swallowed her up in that warm grip.

  “All right,” he said one more time and let his hands fall to her shoulders. “Okay, here’s what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna stick to the original plan. We’re gonna go downstairs and drink a little and dance a little and celebrate Sadie and Rae.”

  She squinted up at him, her blood humming and her heart turning cartwheels in her chest. “Okay...but I gotta say, I’m kind of partial to the coat closet plan.”

  He laughed and groaned and dragged her to his chest all at once. “Yeah. Me, too. But we’re going slow, remember?”

  Via sighed and traced her hands up the lapel of his coat. When she got to his neck, she tucked her fingertips into the collar of his shirt, making him squirm. “At the risk of sounding repetitive here, why the hell are we going slow?”

  He quirked a little indulgent smile at her. “Let me think of a way to explain it.” His eyes got distant as he thought, and his hands traced over her back. Via briefly let herself dream of a world where Sebastian Dorner absently touched her with freedom. It made her shiver. He brought those green-gray lasers back to her face. “You like dark chocolate?”

  “Of course.”

  He smiled at her almost affronted tone.

  “Well, you know, a Hershey’s Kiss you can just unwrap and eat any old time, right? Circumstances don’t matter, it’s always—” he shrugged “—pretty good. But dark chocolate? A really nice slice of dark chocolate?” He brushed the waves of hair back from her neck and landed another one of those endless, searching kisses on her throat. “Well, that’s not the way you eat the dark chocolate you’ve been saving.”

  He took a second and exhaled against her. “You ever tried to eat dark chocolate when it’s cold? It’s still delicious, better than any other chocolate by far. But if you let it warm up, in your mouth, it melts. And there are fifty—a hundred—times the flavors there. You can taste things you never knew existed.”

  She was pretty sure she’d never breathe again, but whatever, it had been a good life. “So that’s what we’re gonna do?” she asked, sounding like she’d just run a mile.

  “Yeah.” He kissed her neck again. “I’m gonna warm you up, Via. Until I can lick you off my fingers.”

  “Fuh-uck.” She dropped her forehead to his chest and was utterly delighted when he burst out laughing. She lifted her face to his. “I guess I’m not gonna argue with that.”

  He slid his hands to hers, their palms meeting for the first time. She gave a deep sigh. She tugged herself away from him and yanked his hand. He loomed over her, barely budging.

  “Well, let’s go do the Electric Slide,” she said, making him laugh and follow after her.

  They held hands until they made it down the stairs and then she turned to him.

  “You don’t have to explain, baby,” he said, reading her mind and making her pulse skitter at the endearment. There was just really something about that word in his deep voice that made her feel like she was lifting off from Earth. He took her fingers and rubbed them over the stubble on his face. “You’re not quite ready for holding hands in front of everybody.”

  He kissed her fingers and let them drop.

  She was both wildly disappointed and intensely relieved. Tonight, they didn’t have to make public declarations. They could just dance the night away, laughing and shouting with their friends. And that’s exactly what they did.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  THE NEXT MORNING, Sebastian lay in bed and stared at his ceiling. He could swear the helium in his heart lifted him straight off the bed, covers and all. He scraped hands over his face and stretched, cracking nearly every joint in his body.

  Lord, the woman could kiss.

  He let himself drift in memory, eyes half closed, body heating as he remembered the feel of her in that hallway. Slight and hot, she’d been like a slim, electric feather in his arms. He’d wanted to lay her down right there.

  She didn’t care about the age difference. Seb still had to get over it. But he wasn’t going to let it keep him from kissing her. It didn’t bother her and that was just about all he needed to know. For now.

  He rolled and picked up his phone off the nightstand. 8:00 a.m. He’d only slept for five hours after walking Via home and kissing the lights out in her front lobby. He hadn’t dared follow her upstairs. He stood by his dark chocolate theory.

  Seb could hear Matty talking to himself in the living room, playing some imagination game with his toys. Used to be, the second Matty woke up, he was feetfirst into Seb’s bed. But these days, he often occupied himself for an hour or two. It made Seb both sad and happy that that was true. Kid was growing up.

  He unlocked his cell phone and sent a text without thinking too hard on it.

  Come over for breakfast.

  He stared at it for a second. And then sent another.

  Or invite me and Matty over for breakfast at your place.

  He didn’t care if he sounded bossy or overanxious. He needed to see her. In her normal clothes, no makeup. Just plain Via. He needed to kiss plain Via. The person he’d been crushing on for so long.

  Right now, she was an emerald-golden-peacock-princess in his memory. That green dress. The glinting of her tan skin in the dark hallway. Shit. It was like a dream. Might as well not have even happened. He needed some good old-fashioned Sunday morning kisses. Messy hair and T-shirts.

  When she didn’t text back right away, he wondered if he’d texted too early. Hell, they’d been out all night, maybe she wasn’t even awake yet.

  But when he came back to his phone a minute later, toothbrush in his mouth, he saw a text waiting for him. Like a little present from the gods of crushes.

  I’ll be over in twenty. Should I bring anything?

  He thought for a second. I’ve got pancake stuff and orange juice. And if picking anything up is going to delay you, then skip it. I just want you.

  He rinsed off in the shower, slid some sweatpants on along with a soft gray T-shirt, slathered on a little deodorant and called it a good job. Another text.

  You’re making me blush, Mr. Dorner.

  He opened his bedroom door and lingered in the doorway for a second. Gimme proof.

  A minute later he got a picture of her. A selfie.

  God. She was young.

  And so fucking pretty.

  Her hair was up in a bun, there was no makeup on her face and the hood of a sweatshirt was pressed up against her neck. Sure enough, there was a very healthy blush on her cheeks.

  Seb traced a thumb over the picture. He completely understood what she meant last night, about being hungry for any little detail. Feeling thrilled about any morsel you might pick up. This picture was like finding a gold coin on the beach. He closed out of it, took two steps down the hall and then opened it up again. Just looked.

  God, you’re pretty.

  He closed the phone, shoved it in his pocket and went to spend some time with his son.

  * * *

&nb
sp; MATTY ANSWERED THE door for Via; he had a bored look on his face, his pajamas still on. “Do penguins live in the Antarctic?”

  But he pronounced it “Antarquick.”

  “Let her in before you make her a Jeopardy! contestant!” Via heard Seb’s deep voice calling from one end of the house.

  Matty stepped aside but his eyes were on her, still obviously waiting for the answer to his question. She stepped into the house and toed off her boots. It was chilly this morning, and she’d worn winter boots, thick wool socks, slim jeans and a dark blue T-shirt underneath her bulky ivory wool sweater.

  “Some do,” she told him. “But not all of them. Have you learned about hemispheres at school yet?”

  He nodded.

  “Well, penguins only live in the southern hemisphere.”

  “I told you she would know!” Matty hollered back through the house at his dad.

  Seb appeared in the doorway of the kitchen, a dishtowel over his shoulder and a cup of coffee in his hands. “I should have known she would know.” His eyes darted to his son. “Remember what we talked about?”

  Matty half scowled, half smiled. His eyes darted between Via and Seb. “Yeah. That you’re gonna kiss and that I’m allowed to ask whatever questions I have.”

  Well. That was pretty much the moment that the force field inside her chest pulsed once and absolutely exploded. The world didn’t stand a chance. Planet Earth was swallowed whole into the feeling in Via’s chest. Nothing was safe. She was in love with the entire world. The freckles on Matty’s nose. Crabby padding in from the other room. The Armenian couple loudly chatting in their front yard two houses down. She loved it all. Seb’s barely cut grass in his postage-stamp yard. The damn dishtowel. She loved everything.

  He’d told his son that they were gonna kiss. Questions welcome.

  Well, just. GOD.

  The ache in Via’s cheeks told her exactly how hard she was smiling. Seb crossed the hallway, gently kneeing Crabby to one side. He put the cup of coffee in one of her hands and framed her face.

  “You look cute,” he told her and kissed her.

  It was quick and sweet and left Via utterly dizzy. She stepped forward when he stepped back. Bracing one hand on the wall, she took a quick, necessary sip of coffee. “So,” she said, her voice just a touch unsteady. “Pancakes?”

  “Pancakes,” Matty agreed, reaching up to toggle around one of the knobbier parts of her sweater. He led all three of them into the kitchen.

  * * *

  VIA JUST MADE things better. He couldn’t explain it exactly. And he didn’t think the mystery needed to be unraveled anyway. But just having her there made everything a little brighter, tastier, sweeter. Seb watched as she and Matty chatted over the kitchen counter. She sniffed at the pancake batter and then proceeded to raid his spice cabinet.

  It was nothing compared to hers, but, apparently, she found what she needed. She sprinkled this and that into the batter and then remixed it. She handed it to him to put on the griddle and casually searched through his fridge.

  “Well, that doesn’t sound fair,” she was saying to Matty as she quickly diced up some bananas and put them in a little bowl with just a touch of brown sugar sprinkled over them. Next was the broccoli. Seb had no clue what she was going to do with that. But she did some magic something with potatoes, peppers, onions and garlic and had some sort of hashy side dish percolating within minutes. He watched her slide the broccoli into the pan as well.

  “That’s what I said!” Matty agreed. “But Brian said that it didn’t matter how I felt. That he was the one who’d gotten it from the top of the play structure, so he was the one who got to keep it.”

  “But he was the one who threw it up there in the first place!” The it was a very cool mossy stick that Matty had found in the woods next to school. It had a bend in it that looked just like an elbow and had apparently been quite the hot ticket item at PS 128, grade two.

  “I know,” Matty agreed vehemently, mutiny in every line of his face. Seb, spotting the crayon that Matty had absently picked up, slid a fresh sheet of computer paper under his son’s hand, wanting to spare his countertops.

  Matty started drawing. Seb stepped around Via to put the first round of pancakes on a plate. He tried to ignore how good it felt to dance around a kitchen with her. Effortless and exciting at the same time. She piled the hash into a steaming bowl and set everything on the counter in front of Matty.

  Seb poured orange juices and tried to transmit, via Dorner brainwaves, good manners toward his son.

  As predicted, Matty wrinkled his nose at the suspiciously vegetable-looking side dish. “Do I have to eat that?”

  “You should try it,” Seb said.

  “Matty, what spices do you like?” Via asked.

  “I don’t know. Salt. And cheese.”

  Seb’s cheeks flamed. “God. I swear we don’t eat like cavemen here. He also likes oregano. The green stuff in pasta sauce,” he reminded his son. He snapped his fingers. “Oh! And rosemary. You like rosemary potatoes.”

  “Well, rosemary would taste really good on this.” Via turned to the spice cabinet and hunted some down. She served herself some of the hash and then sprinkled some rosemary over top of her portion. She gave it a little flourish, like a witch over top of a brew.

  Matty watched her, not entirely convinced. But when Seb scooped a little of the hash on his plate, Matty did exactly the same thing as Via and sprinkled rosemary on.

  “Sweet baby Jesus,” Seb groaned when he tasted the pancakes. “What did you add to these?”

  She just winked at him. “They taste even better with the bananas and sugar.”

  They sure did.

  They ate slowly, chatting and laughing. Matty carefully picked around the broccoli in the hash, but he ate everything else from it.

  Sometime during breakfast, a mid-November gray drizzle had started, and Matty used the development to leverage himself into a movie. Turned out, he wanted to watch a movie that Via had wanted to see, too. Seb had already seen it twice, thanks to Matty’s cajoling. It was some dumb sports movie. But he didn’t complain. Because Matty and Crabby lay in a pile on the floor, happy and full. And Seb and Via sat on the couch.

  First she sat squarely on one cushion, him on the other. It wasn’t long, though, before he reached out for her hand, lacing their fingers and giving her a slight tug so that she was leaning against him. He tucked her into his side and was delighted when she curled into him, her knees pressing into his thigh.

  By the end of the movie, Seb had an arm thrown around her shoulders and was driving them both insane by tracing pictures over the slice of skin at her hip where her sweater had ridden up.

  “Okay,” Seb said when the credits rolled. Good God, his voice sounded like he’d run it through a cheese grater. “Time for day clothes. It’s not raining anymore. We’re gonna hit the playground.”

  Matty rolled away from the TV and spotted their position for the first time. His blunt face pulled into a question mark. “Why are you sitting like that?”

  “All snuggled up?” Seb asked, remembering that he’d resolved not to hide things from his son. He didn’t want to confuse Matty.

  “Yeah.”

  “Because it feels good, and we both wanted to.” That was the best he could come up with.

  “Warm and sweet on a rainy day,” Via added. “Wanna come see?”

  She held out one arm to Matty, and to Seb’s surprise, he automatically rose right up and skirted around the coffee table to come over to her. He crawled up on the couch and snuggled into her side, tossing his legs over her lap and wiggling his toes at his dad. “Yeah. I guess it’s nice.”

  Seb tweaked one of Matty’s toes and made him giggle.

  “Do I still smell like sweaty muffins?” Via asked with a smile on her face.

  “Nah. Just regular muffins,” M
atty said as he took a hearty sniff. “And the breakfast you cooked.” He slid away from the grown-ups. “I’m gonna get dressed.”

  Matty ran full speed into the kitchen first, Crabby nipping at his heels. Seb knew exactly what he was doing. Checking the kitchen thermometer.

  “It’s thirty-eight degrees, Dad!”

  “All right,” Seb called back. “So that means pants and a long sleeve and good socks!”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Matty muttered and Seb watched him plod down the hall toward his bedroom to change.

  “He hates winter clothes. Actually, he hates anything that’ll keep him warm. The kid would live in the freezer if he could.”

  Via smiled, looking down the hallway where Matty had just disappeared. She squeaked when Sebastian looped her waist and tugged her to him, chest-to-chest. He was slouching back against the couch, and they were somewhere between sitting up and lying down.

  “We’ve got about five minutes until he’s back out here,” Seb whispered into the hollow below her jaw. Via made a noise, something that reminded Seb of a nervous kitten.

  He kissed her right there, where he could feel her wild little pulse under his lips. And he did it again. She tried to turn her head but he nudged her back with his nose, exposing that long, gorgeous neck. He trailed a hot line with his tongue up to her ear and allowed himself the distinct pleasure of finally laying lips to those little gold studs that had driven him nuts for months.

  Then, one finger on the bottom of her chin, he guided her mouth to his. Maybe it was the time limit looming over them, or every little brush and touch in the kitchen and on the couch, or maybe they were just still that heated from last night. But they both immediately melted into the kiss. It was all tongues and stuttered breath. She was a hot slide against him, and he couldn’t help but press his teeth into that pouty bottom lip.

  They heard Matty’s footsteps slapping down the hall, and he gave Via one more kiss, straightening them up. Seb rose and quickly rearranged himself in his underwear, not wanting to give his son an eyeful. When he looked down, though, he’d apparently given Via an eyeful. She stared at his pants, her eyes wide and unfocused, one hand over her mouth like she was trying to keep the kiss trapped inside.