Page 64 of Just a Heartbeat Away

Her office door flung open and Principal Grim strode back in, bushy hair flying. “Via, darling, that was quite the show, now, wasn’t it? How’s the hand?”

“I’m fine,” she said to Seb, a steely look in her eye. “It’s fine,” she said to Principal Grim.

Seb nodded, took one last look at her and ducked out to do his job.

IFTHEBASKETof fries he’d dropped off at her office without a word right after lunch had been considered hovering, then Seb was straight-up helicoptering as he waited outside her office after the final bell.

The thing with Via, though, was that he was pretty sure she’d tell him if he was overstepping.

The point ended up being moot because the second she stepped out of her office and saw what waited for her, she cracked into an eye-rolling smile. Matty stood there on one side of Seb, sucking on a juice box and crunching on some peanut butter crackers. Crabby stood on the other side, wagwagwagging, that pink tongue lolling every which way.

“Well, if it isn’t the brute squad.” She laughed.

“You’re getting an armed escort home whether you want one or not, my dear.”

“Armed?” She raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah. Matty’s packing.”

She burst out laughing and Matty looked back and forth between the grown-ups. “Packing what, Daddy? Are we going somewhere?”

“Just to Via’s house.”

“Why do I need a bag for that?”

“You don’t, twerp. I’m just being annoying on purpose.”

“Why?”

“Because it makes Miss DeRosa smile.”

The smile wobbled off her face, and he could have kicked himself. Was heflirtingwith her right now? His off-limits friend who’d been accosted earlier in the day? Could he be any denser?

“Well,” she recovered quickly. “I suppose I wouldn’t mind the company.”

They walked home, three people and one happy dog, Matty filling the silence with school chatter and snack crunching. Seb was kind of shocked at how close their houses were, not more than a ten-minute walk. That was practically living together by New York standards.

She lived in a boxy apartment building on Eighty-sixth Street, next to the aboveground trains and so close to the drink you could smell the salt on the air.

“Sometimes I think Brooklyn has microclimates like San Francisco,” Seb remarked as they strolled up to the front of her building.

“Oh?”

“Yeah, here you are only ten blocks from me but you can smell the ocean from your spot.”

“I know. And thechebureki.” She nodded to where two stooped Russian men sat across from one another at a makeshift chessboard. One of them had a little steaming cart next to him, selling the savory Russian pastries for a dollar apiece.

“Oh yeah, I guess this is almost Bath Beach. I heard the Russian population was moving out this way.”

She nodded. “Another Italian neighborhood with no more Italians.”

“I guess we’re all just Brooklynites in Brooklyn.”

She nodded and he wondered if she was thinking about her parents. “Want to come up and see the place?”

She’s nervous to go up alone.The thought struck him like a jolt from a toaster, and he felt warm and weird all at once. God, he didn’t like thinking about her being scared. He sort of hated her boyfriend right about now, this Evan guy. Why hadn’t she called him? He surely had a key. Shouldn’t he be waiting up there with a glass of wine and a fresh-baked lasagna? Bubble bath and a foot rub?Somethingto soothe her after the horrible day she’d had.

The other half of Seb, the half that he wasn’t as proud of, was glad that he got to be the one to go up there with her. Some ancient, testosterone-pumping part of his chemical makeup pictured himself peeking in her closets with a Maglite, kicking at a misshapen lump in her curtains, making sure the place was safe for her.

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