Page 97 of Just a Heartbeat Away

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.

MATTYANSWEREDTHEdoor 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 aJeopardy!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.

VIAJUSTMADEthings 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!” Theitwas 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?”

---