Seb turned to his son. “What do you know about flirting?”

Matty shrugged, his eyes still on Via’s necklace, as if he were a little embarrassed about the topic. Well, that made three. “Just that Brian Addison was teasing me and Joy for playing together and said that we must be flirting because I’m a boy and she’s a girl and we were teasing each other. But I don’t think we were flirting.”

“Brian Addison sounds like a twerp,” Seb replied, reaching out for his son. Matty went from her arms to Seb’s without a peep. “Or he probably has a crush on Joy. Or on you,” he added, realizing that he didn’t want to instill something ignorant in his son.

Matty shrugged. “I don’t get it.”

Seb nodded. “Trust me, it doesn’t get less confusing. But we can talk about it more at home if you want.” And then he looked up at Via, straight into those brown eyes of hers that made him want to press his nose to hers. “But just to be clear, yes, we were flirting.”

She sucked in a little breath, and Seb couldn’t tell if she was thrilled or put off by his forwardness.

“Why?” Matty asked.

Again, Seb went with the truth. No point in lying and confusing everyone. “Because she’s fun to flirt with. And sometimes it just happens. Because she’s so pretty.”

Her hand went nervously to her necklace and she toyed with it, just like Matty had. The gesture snapped a twig somewhere inside Seb. There was no more sneaking up on this feeling. It was there and in his face and in hers. Whatever this feeling was, it had jumped the fence. It was out now, in between them, living and breathing.

Now they had to decide if they were going to walk toward it together or turn tail and run.

“Yeah,” Matty agreed. “Plus, she smells like sweaty muffins.”

Seb and Via both barked out surprised, delighted laughter, tinged with equal parts hysteria and relief. Matty had tossed them in the soup, but also, it kind of seemed like they’d both been too scared to jump in the first place.

THAT WEEK’S STAFF meeting was just as charged as softball practice had been. She’d sat with her shoulder pressing against his damn near the whole time. Her legs looked slim and long in her work-fancy trousers that ended in heels of some kind or the other. And, to Seb’s surprise, she wore a little gold ring on her left thumb.

He’d reached out and touched it halfway through the meeting. The metal was warm and almost soft under his finger. She’d glanced up at him, her bottom lip between her teeth.

“Frosting,” he’d whispered.

She’d grinned at him in such a way that he’d practically wobbled out of the meeting half an hour later. He didn’t get to see her much that week at all, but he ducked his head into her office right after work on Friday afternoon. She looked up from where she was packing files into her messenger bag beside her desk.