Page 30 of Just a Heartbeat Away

“I... I guess I’ve just been thinking about my foster homes a lot over the last few weeks. Something is reminding me of my experiences there and I’m not sure what.”

“Oh. Really?” Evan cleared his throat and reached for another slice of bread. He had a polite look affixed to his face. The one he always wore when she talked about her experience in the system, or even about her parents. At the beginning, when they’d first been falling in love, she’d sensed his genuine interest in her childhood. But when it had started to become clear that the stories were not very Oliver Twist, he’d sort of stopped asking about it. “Are there any foster kids that you’re working with at school?”

“Two, actually. But I don’t think that’s what...” she trailed off in frustration. She wished she hadn’t brought it up. She felt like she’d walked into a hallway only to find the far door was locked, and now she’d doubled back to find the original door was locked as well.Shine a light on the feeling, she urged herself. “I think it’s just that I’m kind of having this feeling I used to have when I was a kid. And I don’t know why I’m having it.”

“What feeling?”

She couldn’t name it. “It’s, well, it’s kind of like that feeling when there’s a storm outside and all the lights flicker out. You know?”

He squinted one beautiful eye at her and shrugged. “I mean, yeah, that’s happened to me before.”

“Well,” she soldiered on. “When that happens, everything goes quiet and dark. And you realize just how much noise your life usually makes. Like, with the refrigerator humming and the buzz of an old lamp, that kind of thing. And for a second, you just sit in the dark and the quiet, and listen to the storm outside and think, this is what life isactuallylike. And the lamp and the refrigerator, all they do is just cover it up.”

The other eye was now squinting at her as well. “That’s how you felt as a foster kid?” he asked slowly.

“I guess I just felt like I realized that the world was a naturally lonely place, only I hadn’t known because I had my parents there to protect me. But when they were gone, I realized the natural state of things.”

Evan’s eyes had stopped squinting but now, much worse, they were wide and filled with what she was certain was pity. “Oh, babe, loneliness isn’t the natural state of things.” He paused and the pity in his eyes intensified. She could practically hear him thinking the wordspoor little orphan girl. “You just need to make friends at school is all. You’ll feel less lonely then.”

She bristled. And she wasn’t sure if it was because this very affluent man with his entire family intact was telling her a thing or two about the world, or if it was because he was accusing her of not having made friends yet. Either way, she felt hot pokers of irritation rise out of her skin like the spines of a hedgehog.

“That’s not what I’m saying,” she insisted bullishly. “I’m not saying I’m lonely.” Or at least she wasn’t admitting it. “I’m just trying to describe this feeling I used to have that I’ve been having again. Like déjà vu. It’s a cold feeling. Drafty—”

She cut off when his warm hands slid across the table and laced fingers with hers. “If you’re cold, V, I’ll warm you up. I promise.”

She looked down at their linked hands. She had to admit that being held by this beautiful man, even just holding hands, did infuse a bit of warmth back into her body.

She looked at the lasagna on his plate and considered all the words she hadn’t been able to say just now. It was ridiculous and unfair to think that Evan would know some magic words that would cure her of this feeling. The warmth between their palms, the bread in the basket, the sunny little salad, a person to share lasagna with, those were all things to be grateful for. Evan certainly didn’t demand for her to be perfect. It would be the height of hypocrisy if she demanded that of him. She took a deep breath and tuned out everything but the feel of their hands pressed together.

And as for that drafty feeling? Well, it was her fault if she let herself sulk around and listen to the wind whipping through her.

“YOUDIDN’T.”

Sebastian’s large hand slapped a flyer down on Via’s very tidy desk. She slid the flyer out from his paw and read it, her grin widening with each word she read. “I see that Principal Grim took my suggestion for a mandatory yoga session for the staff. At—would you look at that—next week’s staff meeting.”

“Traitor.”

“It’ll be good for you.” She waved her hand through the air, and he snatched the flyer back, glaring at it.

“It wasn’t enough for you to smoke me in softball, you have to rub my nose in your yoga prowess as well, huh?”

“Yoga isn’t about comparing yourself to another. It’s about your own practice. Pushing yourself.”

“Well, I’m gonna be practicing myself straight to the emergency room next Monday.” He scowled at her.

Via laughed. “You’ll like it. I swear.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Then I’ll do something that you’re good at, and you can show me up.” Via bit her tongue and hoped the heat on her cheeks wasn’t visible. That had sounded suspiciously like she was asking him out on a date.Yikes. Yikes squared.

But Sebastian wasn’t looking at her, he was studying the flyer, a frown on his face. “At least the leggings aren’t mandatory.”

“I’m sure you can wear whatever you want. But just keep in mind, if you wear shorts, that sometimes you go upside down.”

“Dang. I was hoping to go commando that day.”

She blushed even further and so did he.

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