“I’ll miss you when I’m in White Plains,” he told her, leaning down.

“I’ll miss you, too. Eat something green for me.”

He smiled against her mouth. “I really will miss you, Via. I wish we weren’t going for the whole week.”

“It’ll be good for Matty to be with his grandparents. And you and I can talk on the phone. And when you get back, it’ll just be the best.”

And she would try very, very hard, not to make her loneliness his problem while he was gone. A week did seem like a very long time when it stretched out, imminent and ominous.

He kissed her again and walked her out to the cab that was idling in his driveway. Seb leaned down, sized up the driver and apparently deemed him acceptable. One more kiss and then she was in the cab, waving bye and trying not to be a baby.

“IF YOU SIGH one more time, I’m going to send you out in the backyard with your son.”

Muriel’s voice snapped Seb out of his reverie.

“And you’ve promised that you’d stop moping.”

“Right. Sorry, Muriel.”

Sebastian was on his back on her kitchen floor, fixing the garbage disposal on Sunday morning. He and Matty had been in White Plains for a day, and Seb thought he was going out of his mind. He couldn’t stop wondering how Via was spending her time. He knew that she and Fin had their own Thanksgiving traditions together, but there were a long few days rolling out before Thursday. He thought of her lonely apartment. How alone she’d looked at the softball field after her breakup. Over the week leading up to the holiday, there were bound to be lengthy, silent stretches of solitude for Via. Not that solitude was a bad thing, but he couldn’t help but think that she needed more noise in her life. Noise that he and Matty and Crabby were more than happy to provide.

He really wanted to be in Brooklyn. He wanted to spend this week with Via. But he wasn’t going to deprive Matty of time with his grandparents, and he damn sure wasn’t going to subject Via to time with Matty’s grandparents. Everything in him wanted to hit the gas, but he didn’t want anyone he cared about to get trampled in the process. So here he was, lying on the kitchen floor, sighing.

“Don’t be sorry.” Just do better. The subtext had all the subtlety of the broad side of a bus.

Sebastian could see Muriel’s neat white tennis shoes standing next to him. At first, he’d thought she was just overseeing his work, but he was pretty sure she was taking notes up there, trying to learn how to do it on her own if she had to.

“Right.”

Things were quiet for a while, and he was impressed when she passed down a wrench without him having to ask.

“So, things aren’t better with your woman?”

Involuntarily, Friday night passed through Seb’s mind like a high-speed movie. He coughed. “Ah.”