Page 81 of Just a Heartbeat Away

Cat paused. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that it’s nothing. There’s nothing there.”

Cat bit her lip and stepped back, crossing her arms and making her knee-length poncho sweater tuck in the middle. “I’m gonna say one thing, and then I’m gonna shut up forever, okay?”

“Okay.”

“It really seems like there’s something there.”

“Oh God.” Via turned to the sink and let cold water run out onto her hand. She touched her frigid fingers to the back of her neck. “I don’t want to be the object of gossip, Cat. I can’t do that. I don’t have the luxury. I have my apartment, my one friend, and this job. That’s it. No family, barely enough money to keep me afloat for a few months if I got fired. And that’s all. I already look like I’m about seventeen years old, everybody tells me. And I just can’t have a rumor destroy everything I’ve worked for.”

“Via, darlin’, I think you’re getting ahead of yourself. First of all, you’re young and hot, and so is he, and I’m sorry, but that’s the stuff that rumors are made of. All right? Gossip isnota sophisticated bitch. It takes the lowest hanging, most obvious fruit and waits for it to make a baby or divorce its wife, all right?”

Via laughed, despite the panic and nausea coursing through her system.

“And second of all,fired? Grim is basically in love with you after the way you handled that whole thing with that angry dad. You’re not in danger of getting fired, even if there are salacious rumors buzzing around about you. I’m serious,” she added, her face following Via’s as she lolled it to one despairing side. “You’re single, he’s single, and as long as y’all don’t do it in the hallway, I’m pretty sure no one is gonna give two shits.”

Via somehow went completely tight with humiliation and still managed to laugh. “Let’s not put the cart before the horse, Cat. He and I have never even insinuated that we might...”

“Wanna put a baby in each other?”

“Oh my God.”

Both women were laughing now.

Cat stepped forward again, and this time she had a steely glint in her eye, her arms still crossed. “Via, I want you to leave this bathroom knowing, in your gut, two things, okay?”

“Okay...”

She held up one finger and then the other, her long brown hair tossing back over her shoulder. “One. Fuck the haters. And two. That man came here tonight to be close to you. No bones about it. And I’m pretty sure he wore a new shirt.”

CATWENTOUTFIRST,and Via followed a few minutes later. She was still scattered and trepidatious, but she took what Cat said to heart. There were already too many obstacles in the way for her and Seb. She didn’t need to be out here creating new ones.

Fuck the haters. He came here for me.

Via pulled up short as she realized that Rachel and Greg had vacated the table and were now standing at the bar, hip to hip. The seat next to Seb was open. She ignored every nervous, whiny impulse that was rearing up inside of her and instead she plunked herself down in the seat formerly known as Rachel’s.

“Hi,” he said, obviously a little taken aback by the look in her eyes, which Via could only guess saidcrazy woman.

“Hi.”

“Everything all right? Cat ran after you pretty fast.”

“Oh. Yeah, totally fine. Just a misunderstanding.”

Seb’s eyes searched hers. Those gray-green beauties, like seagrass turning belly-up in the wind. Via was holding her breath because of course she was. The man was big as a house and smelled like laundry detergent. Of course she was attempting to keep that scent inside her as long as possible.

“A misunderstanding that I should know about?” he asked slowly, quietly.

A little petal opened up in Via, a bloom of surprise. He wasn’t playing coy. He wasn’t coming right out and saying anything explicitly, but he was kind of, sort of, acknowledging that she and he might be mixed up in a misunderstanding together. That wasn’t saying nothing...right?

“Well...” Via chose her words very carefully. She was alternately terrified of slamming the door closed or flinging it way too wide open. “I guess I’m not sure.”

Seb’s eyes continued to search hers for a minute. “Fair enough. You want another?”

“Oh.” Via looked down at her empty beer glass. “Sure. I’ll buy, though. I didn’t exactly pay for my last one.”

She was rising up in her chair when he laid one of those gigantic, rough-palmed hands against her forearm. “Sit. Please. Let me buy you a drink.”

---