She gave him a watery smile. “Fine, an identity crisis, then.”

He cocked his head to one side. He’d always thought of Via as someone who was very certain in who she was, but he supposed everybody put up a bit of a front in that regard, particularly at work.

“Hi, Sebastian.”

Seb turned and spotted Giles. He attempted not to wince at the interruption.

“Hey, man.” He held out his hand.

Giles shook his hand and kept a straight face for only a second before he melted into bubbling, effusive praise. “We are over the moon about the mirror we commissioned from you. Seriously. It is gorgeous. And exactly what we wanted. And hand delivery, my, my, my! Expect a positive review on your website.”

“You’re the client he was building the mirror for?” Via’s eyes were wide, but she was, thankfully, holding in the smile that teased at the corners of her mouth.

“You saw it?”

“I saw it in an intermediary stage. He does good work. It was very cool.”

She hadn’t liked it any better than Seb had, he knew, but she was sweet.

“It’s more than cool—it’s revolutionizing our living room. Seriously, if I could turn my eyes into heart emojis, I would.”

The mirror had been a real bitch to make and boring as hell. But Seb couldn’t argue with that kind of customer satisfaction. It was always nice to feel appreciated. And Giles looked like he was about two steps from wearing a shirt with Seb’s face on it.

“Well, I’m glad you like it, man. I truly appreciate your business.”

The inning ended and it was time to shuffle back to the outfield. Via winked at him, a little pink in the cheeks, as soon as Giles turned away. Seb swallowed back his laugh and tried not to watch her jog out to shortstop.

Instead, he turned and looked into the bleachers. Art and Matty were playing some card game, facing one another, Crabby was sniffing around underneath, and Muriel was looking right at him.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

SEBASTIAN WAS JUST chatting with one of the lunch ladies when he heard the shouting from down the hall.

Becca, the lunch lady, scrunched her wrinkly face up. “What the hell is that?”

Seb was already skirting around the lunch tables and jogging down the hall. That was a man screaming his royal head off. Not the kind of sound anyone wanted to hear in an elementary school.

Lunch wasn’t scheduled to start for another fifteen minutes, so Sebastian wasn’t worried about kids flooding the hall immediately.

Following the echoing, reverberating voice, Sebastian found himself half a hallway down from Via’s office.

“If this bitch thinks she can tell me shit about how to raise my daughter—”

Sebastian left his stomach behind as he ran even faster.

One of the third-grade teachers poked her head out of her classroom door; clearly the man’s voice was carrying.

Sebastian was ten feet away from Via’s open office door when he heard the firm, dulcet tones of Principal Grim’s voice. Well, thank God Via wasn’t in there alone.