Keeping her eyes on his, she cocked her head to one side. She let that same hand inch forward and carefully, carefully, touch the cuff of his navy shirt, rolled to his elbow. “Is this a new shirt, Seb?”

He looked a little dazed, his eyes a little fuzzy, as he shifted his hips against the seat. Via swore she could see his heartbeat in his neck. “Ah, yeah, actually.”

He scraped a hand over the back of his neck and around to his stubble.

“When you mentioned my other shirt last week, it got me thinking that I hadn’t bought any clothes for myself in a long time. Maybe a couple years.”

Since his wife?

“It’s easy to just roll out of bed and slap on my dad uniform. And I guess I just wanted to...look a little nicer.”

For me?

“Well, you do look very nice. I like it. But I also like your dad uniform. It’s very lumberjack.”

He snorted, set his beer aside and wiped his chin with a napkin as he laughed. “Christ. That is not the look I’ve been going for.”

She laughed, too. “That’s my problem, too. I go for a certain look, and everyone thinks it’s something else completely.”

“What look do you go for with all this?” he asked, leaning away from her and squinting at her outfit, like he was trying to get the whole picture.

“I pretty much desperately try to wear anything that will make me look thirty.” They both laughed, but as soon as she’d said it, Via knew she’d said the wrong thing. Reminding him that she was still in her twenties right now was so stupid. They’d just stepped into this new, hot little rhythm. They’d been flirting. She was positive. And now his face was sobering, and he was thoughtfully looking into the golden effervescence of his beer with a look so sad she just wanted to nuzzle his neck like a puppy. Great. Just great.

Seb jolted a little and pulled his phone out of his pocket. He’d gotten a text.

“Sorry,” he muttered distractedly. She couldn’t help but notice he’d tipped the screen away from her a little. Was he texting someone he didn’t want her to know about? Another woman maybe?

Of course, he probably was, Via tersely reminded herself. She needed to stop acting like a lovesick kitten. This was a single, virile, incredibly attractive man who dated people. It was common knowledge. Dating often included texting. There was nothing wrong with him texting some other woman right now.

Seb chuckled and handed the phone over to her.

Oh. He was showing her whatever had been texted to him. It was a picture of Matty and Crabby leaping toward one another in the air. They were obviously in the middle of some sort of wrestlepalooza. They were on a dark green mat of some kind.

Via laughed delightedly, her mood significantly warming as she looked down at this kid she liked so much. He looked delirious with delight, and a little hysterical.