Page 36 of Just a Heartbeat Away

He let his mind circle back around to one very interesting piece of information he’d recently learned. Via DeRosa was twenty-seven. Not twenty-four, like he’d been assuming. Did that matter? It was only a three-year difference, so it shouldn’t really matter. But here Sebastian was, texting a thirty-year-old woman for a date, and that was only three years’ difference from twenty-seven. Ugh. His math didn’t make sense. He knew that. He knew he was highlighting certain rules and crossing out others. But it didn’t have to be airtight logic, he reminded himself. The simple fact was that Via was too young for him. Completely different stage of life.

Sebastian took a swig of his fairly warm beer and grimaced. His life had been a hell of a lot simpler before Tyler had forced him to start dating again. Well, he amended, he was going to have run into Via DeRosa again regardless of Tyler’s pushiness. He was probably always going to have ended up with this crush.

Seb started pulling the label off his beer bottle, careful not to leave any glue behind. He wondered if he would have had a crush on Via even if Cora was still alive. He’d first met Via in the weeks after Cora’s death. He couldn’t even remember it. Most of those early weeks were a complete blur. He was pretty sure that Matty’s grandparents, the Sullivans, had brought him to and from pre-K for the first few months, though Seb had very little memory of that time. He’d continued to go to work at the architecture firm. He’d barely eaten. Barely showered. Barely spoken.

He was grateful that Matty didn’t really remember that time. He didn’t want Matty to think of him that way. But he realized, with a twisting pang in his gut, that if Matty didn’t remember that time, then he wouldn’t remember his mother either. And Seb desperately wanted Matty to remember Cora.

Cora’s parents were rigid people, good with Matty, but hardly the kind of people who wanted to reminisce about their daughter. Sebastian’s parents were nostalgic people, but they were snowbirds who basically disappeared from Seb’s and Matty’s lives for everything but the summer months. Tyler brought Cora up every now and then, and so did Mary, but honestly, Seb often felt like Cora existed only within the confines of his own memories. And that terrified him, because she’d been such a force when she was alive. She’d changed every room she walked into. Injected every space with a sour-bright burst of energy and command and intensity. Cora had always reminded Sebastian of a Warheads candy. So sour it hurt, but still you wanted more.

She hadn’t been easy to be married to. Neither had he. They’d been making it work. He could see now, though, that he and Cora had been sprinting to keep up with their lives, with each other. He, more than anyone, knew that you could only sprint for so long before you gave out. Seb wondered, painfully, if he and Cora would have figured out how to jog. Long haul.

He couldn’t picture her at anything but breakneck pace. He’d been shocked at how quickly her flavor had seeped out of his and Matty’s life. She was such a strong presence and then suddenly, terribly, she’d been gone. And there was so little of her left.

Seb wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. He didn’t allow himself to wonder if Cora would think he was doing a good job with Matty. He knew for a fact that she would be surprised. Because when she was alive, he’d been a subpar father. Often absent. Around for the fun parts and gone for the troublesome parts. And then right after she’d died, he’d been aterriblefather.

Neglect.

He was lucky. So fucking lucky that Via hadn’t gotten the authorities involved. She’d given him a kick in the ass and set him on his way toward becoming a better father. Looking back, he could see now that the checklist she’d given him, the talking-to, it had been small. A sweet little nudge in the right direction. But at the time, it had saved his life. And Matty’s.

His phone dinged from the other end of the couch, and Seb jolted like he’d accidentally sat on a beehive. Crabby sprang to his feet on the couch, letting out a surprised yelp, staring in one direction and then the other.

“It’s all right, you sweet little dummy,” Sebastian murmured, pressing his face into Crabby’s fur as he reached past the wagging behind for his phone.

Seb took a deep breath and ripped off the Band-Aid. He opened the text from Fin’s number.

Like a date?

Seb groaned and dropped his head backward. She wasn’t making this easy on him. Why did he feel like this was a test? He hated texting. He sucked at it. There was too much subtext. Too much room for error. Not enough honesty. If he’d been sitting next to her, he would have known if she’d cocked her head to one side, blushed, bit her lip. Or if she’d recoiled or dropped her mouth open in horror. Instead he just had three words and a question mark and not a clue as to whether or not she wanted it to be a date.

She asked for your number, Seb.

He took a deep breath and opted for the truth.

Like a friend date where we decide if we like each other enough to go on a real date?

He let out a long, slow breath and resisted the urge to toss his phone away again. He was a grown man. He wasn’t a teenage girl squealing into a pillow at a sleepover. He could wait for a reply like a normal—

His phone dinged, and he pounced on it.

Good answer. Sunday morning? Matty can come too if you want.

Sebastian pursed his lips in surprise. That was sweet of her. And considerate. And it was an infinite relief to him to know that Matty could be his wingman on a date he was pretty sure he didn’t want to go on. Then he pictured his energetic son sitting in a café listening to two adults talk. He grimaced.

Better make it a coffee date at the park then?

They made arrangements to meet at the Ninth Street playground at 10:00 a.m. Matty would be thrilled to go to the playground twice in one day. Once in the morning with Fin and once in the afternoon with Joy.

Cool. That was great. Low pressure. No pressure at all. Just two adults getting to know one another.

Sebastian groaned and scraped his hands over his face. This was so dumb. He didn’t want to go on a date with Fin. He just wanted to get over his crush on her friend.

“This is all your fault,” he muttered to Crabby. The dog’s only response was to roll onto his back. He happily received the belly scratch.

VIAWASINa very bad mood when she arrived at softball the next afternoon. First of all, it had been a bad day at school yesterday. A regular of Via’s, Sarah Tate, had had a panic attack during their appointment. Sarah was a little slip of a fourth grader, always jumping a foot in the air at the smallest noise, wilting at anything that even slightly resembled criticism. Sarah had panicked because she had a scheduled visiting time with her father coming up. And honestly, she was just plain scared of him. Via hated the feeling that there was nothing she could do. She’d stayed late brainstorming with Principal Grim, was late for happy hour because of it, and then was late to see Evan.

Which brought her to the second reason for her wildly foul mood. Evan had wanted to come watch her play, but she’d really wanted him to get a jump on his job search instead and it had turned into a very long, very messy argument. Maybe she’d pushed too far; she knew that she’d been both pushing against him and pushing against the drafty feeling in her chest. And maybe it wasn’t fair to bring that baggage into the argument and not explain it to him.

But really. It had been a few weeks of him fruitlessly job-searching, and her skin got all itchy when she thought about it. She had no idea how he could possibly stand to be unemployed in a city this ready to spit you out. She would have taken a job at Crown Fried Chicken by now. Anything to pay the bills she knew he had rolling in.

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