Page 65 of Just a Heartbeat Away

“Sure.” He rocked back on his heels, answering immediately. “You don’t mind the dog?”

She looked at him like he’d gone crackers. “Crabby? No. I don’t mind Crabby.”

Via took Matty by the hand and led him through the front lobby of her building. It was one of those old, decrepit buildings that had gotten a bad facelift sometime in the last decade. There were sheets of frosted green glass dividing the entryway in two and a skinny purple carpet leading toward the elevator. But the granite floors were spiderwebbed with cracks, and the pleather armchairs that sat next to a fake fern in the corner were layered over with dust. Such typical Brooklyn.

She walked straight past the row of little metal cubbies and didn’t check her mail. He wondered if that was because she didn’t usually get any or if those mailboxes didn’t open, a problem he’d had at an old place.

The elevator was brass and reflective, old-world. There was even a gate that had to be yanked to one side to get it to start. Matty did the honors, delighting in the smudgy fingerprints he left on the shiny brass handle.

Via led them to the dark wood door of her apartment. All the other doors had crooked, rusty numbers, but hers had a perfectly shiny, aligned number 5C. He knew, without a doubt, that she’d done that herself and it made him want to bury his nose behind her ear. Kiss both eyelids.

He was such a goner. Such a dumbass for doing this to himself.

Her hand shook, just a touch, as she scrabbled the key into the lock.

“Violetta.” He stilled her with just his fingertips to her wrist. “I’m just coming up to see your apartment; you know that there is nothing wrong in there. There’s no way that...”He could be in there.

“I know.” She nodded resolutely. Her lips were white from pressing them together. But then she tossed her hair back and attempted a smile. “But what’s the point in being friends with Thor if you don’t get to watch him throw a little muscle around?”

That caught him off guard. He laughed. And then laughed harder at the expression on Matty’s face.

“Did Miss DeRosa just call you Thor?”

“You’d have to ask her.”

Seb put one hand in between Matty’s shoulder blades, a silent reminder tobe good in our friend’s house.He tightened his grip on Crabby’s leash.

She swung the door open and led them inside. Sebastian immediately realized that he was holding his breath and shook his head at himself.

“Don’t worry about your shoes,” she called, though she kicked her own small heels into a basket.

Seb looked meaningfully down at Matty and they followed suit, no matter what she said. She dumped her bag onto her couch and sidled into her kitchen. “Matty, you want a snack?”

His little boy padding after Via and Crabby behaving for once, Seb took the opportunity to really look around. It was spick-and-span. Not obnoxiously so, but still, she obviously was a cleaner. Her furniture all matched, though it was as horrible as she’d warned him. Cheap particleboard crap that you couldn’t even have the satisfaction of burning due to all the chemicals. But her space was nice. Maybe a little plain, with a pop of color here and there.

He liked it. But it was...lonely.

He couldn’t exactly explain why, but the loneliness was palpable in this house, like a scent on the air or a reflection in a distant mirror.

Seb hated himself for doing it, but he looked around for evidence of the boyfriend. A baseball cap was slung crooked on her coatrack, but he recognized that as hers from softball. Beyond that, everything looked decidedly girly. Even the books on her very packed shelves were organized in a rainbow based on the color of their spines. He didn’t know any guy who would do that.

“Matty’s having pretzels and hummus. Do you want some?” She appeared in the doorway of her kitchen, one foot balancing on the top of the other.

“Sure.” He paused. “Are we overstaying our welcome? Your radar for that goes completely out of whack once you have a kid.”

“Let me rephrase. I’m inviting you to come have pretzels and hummus.”

He nodded and walked with Crabby into the kitchen. He stopped in his tracks. The living room had been lonely. But this room right here? This was downright crowded. There was a riot of color in two different fruit baskets, with plenty of vegetables thrown in as well. She’d taken the door off her pantry and every can on her shelves was again arranged by rainbow color. And she had a lot of cans. There was a lumpy, lopsided bouquet of every color on her windowsill, currently backlit by the afternoon sun. Her dishes on the drying rack were mismatched and bright, and she had a wall lined with hooks where every kitchen utensil imaginable dangled.

He was no expert, but he could recognize the good stuff when he saw it. Copper ladles and sharp, heavy knives with pearl inlaid in the handles. There was something mouthwatering percolating in a slow cooker, and when she opened the fridge to get the hummus, Seb’s jaw dropped straight open.

“Good Lord!” His hand landed on hers as she started closing the fridge door. He yanked it back open. “What, are you running your own farmers market or something?” There was every green thing imaginable, roots curling akimbo, three different shades of every vegetable. “You have two different kinds of beets. Who in God’s name needs two different kinds of beets?”

She laughed, but there was a very healthy blush working its way up her cheeks. “I like cooking, okay?”

“Apparently.” He knew his eyes were as big as pancakes, but he seriously had never seen this much produce outside of a grocery store. “You really cook with all this?”

“Of course. I’m usually cooking for two.”

---