He hadn’t meant to say it out loud.

“I’m fine, Seb. Really.” She waved a hand through the air and it was meant to be casual, but the darkening red on the back hit Seb like a punch to the eye. “I’m gonna take a second, cry, fix my makeup and get on with my day. Which is now probably going to include a multipage incident report. Asshole,” she murmured under her breath.

Seb grinned. One well timed asshole had restored way more confidence in her well-being than all the hand waving in the world. “Well, do you at least have any lunch?”

“I do. I brought a salad from home. I’ll be fine.”

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.

IF THE BASKET of 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 he flirting with 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.