Page 106 of Just a Heartbeat Away

But she couldn’t stop the sigh as she sat down at the table. She was lonely. It wasn’t a new feeling; it was something she’d lived with ever since her parents had died. The second she was alone, she got incredibly lonely. Time with Fin made it subside, time with Evan used to. And time with Seb and Matty damn near demolished it. But they were in White Plains for the week, and Via was here, with nothing to do but work and make a menu for her and Fin’s annual Thanksgiving.

Her phone gave a buzz and skittered sideways on the table. Via leaped forward and nearly threw it on the floor in her haste to answer it. She tried not to feel guilty at the little bursting bubble of disappointment in her gut when she saw that it wasn’t Sebastian.

“Hi, Fin.”

“I’m gonna pretend you’re actually happy to be talking to me.”

Via couldn’t help but laugh at her friend’s intuition and candor. “I’m not unhappy. I was just...”

“Hoping to flirt with your man?” Fin’s smile was very clear in her tone. “I don’t blame you. How’d this week go?”

Via knew, without having to ask, what Fin was referring to. The Sunday night after the wedding, when Via was staring down the barrel of a week with her nosy colleagues, she and Fin had come up with a game plan for how she was going to deal with any of the possibly impending gossip: she was going to tell the damn truth.

We like each other, we’re seeing what happens. What’s new with you?That was Via’s line. To anyone who asked. Via had practiced it in her head forty times on the walk to school and had still had to change into her backup shirt when she’d gotten to her office. She’d been a sweaty, nervous mess the whole day.

“Well,” Via replied to Fin’s question, “Sadie texted me from her honeymoon to tease me about me and Seb flirting on the dance floor. And Grace and Cat pumped me for information at the staff meeting.”

“Did you give them the line?”

Via smiled. “Yes. And neither of them tolerated it. They basically threatened to give me a swirly unless I told them some details.”

Fin laughed. “So...did you?”

“I told them a few things.” Via thought back to the conversation with her two feisty friends. “It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. They weren’t gossipy, really. They were...happy for me. Thrilled, actually.”

“Did you talk to the principal yet?”

“Yes. Seb and I had a meeting with her after work on Wednesday to disclose our relationship, so that she’d know we were dating, in case we were breaking any rules. But she just laughed and clapped her hands and claimed that she’d known all along.”

Fin paused. “You don’t sound as relieved as I’d thought you’d be.”

“I guess I’m still waiting for the other shoe to drop? I mean, my friends have all been nice to me about it. But I still feel like everyone is whispering about me and, I don’t know, it makes me nervous.”

“Cost of doing business.”

“Hmm?”

“Sister, part of leaving the shadows is people realizing you’re there. You’ve been so desperate to blend in as Via Nothing-to-see-here DeRosa, that you have no idea what to do with the reality of people actually seeing you. Odds are, they aren’t gossiping. They’re probably just processing. Even with as hot as the two of you are, two people steadily dating isn’t going to be a topic of conversation for too long, you know?”

“Steadily dating.” Via laughed out the words. “You make it sound so appetizing.”

“Isn’t that pretty much your dream come true?”

They laughed and talked for a few more minutes before Fin had an appointment with a client to get to. The second the phone clicked off, the quiet of her home seemed to fold in around Via. And not in a good way. Alone again. Blue aura. Defined by loneliness. She could handle it, the same way she always had. By filling up on love when she got the chance and one foot in front of the other for the rest of the time. It unnerved her that the few days she’d spent with Seb and Matty this week had beensospecial that her lonely moments were starting to seem even lonelier. It was like trying to get reacclimated to a cold shower after she’d been introduced to hot bubble baths.

She was starting to get worried that there was no going back to the old way.

It wasn’t terrible, she told herself, this loneliness. But she curled her feet under her as she sat at the table. She tried to press herself tight and small, an attempt to ease the ache of emptiness inside her.

Via threw herself into her homework and was ten minutes into making notes when someone knocked on her front door.

“Who is it?” she called as she crossed her living room, pausing on one side.

“Seb.”

Her heart kicked as she flung the door open. And sure enough, there he was. One hand on either side of the doorjamb, larger than life. His winter coat was open at the zipper and his boots were mostly untied. His hair was covered in a stocking cap. He pinned her in place with his gray-green eyes.

“Seb! Oh my God. Come in!” She stepped aside and he came in, kicked off his boots and hung his winter wear on her coatrack. “Why are you here?”

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