“Your best friend thinks you need more friends?”

“She’s more like my sister than my friend.” Via shrugged. “We grew up in the same foster home. Though my foster mom was her aunt.”

“Ah,” Sebastian said as a memory swirled through his brain.

I don’t know what you’re going through, Mr. Dorner, no one can. But I’ve lost people in my family and... I know what it feels like to spin off into nothing.

She’d grown up in a foster home. Had she lost her parents? Seb swallowed through the worst of the humiliation that came whenever he remembered that day.

Neglect.

He ran his hand over his son’s clean hair and took a bite of one of those apple slices in his hand, all to remind himself that he wasn’t neglecting his boy. He was doing the checklist. More than the checklist, in fact.

He cleared his throat. “I heard you went to the staff happy hour, though. That’s pretty social.”

She nodded. “Very social. Those ladies know how to cut loose.”

He laughed. “Yeah, I tried my hand at a few and then decided I preferred my rear end to remain un-pinched by my colleagues.”

Via laughed but her mouth opened in horror. “No! They didn’t!”

“Oh yes, they very much did.” He shrugged. “I didn’t really mind. It was kind of like an initiation onto the staff. They all loosened up around me after that. I think before that there was kind of a fox in the henhouse vibe.”

“Lion among the flamingos.”

“What’s that?”

“Oh.” Via waved her hand through the air as her slashing cheekbones washed over with a light pink blush. “Nothing. It’s just what I thought at that very first staff meeting.”

“That I looked like a lion surrounded by a bunch of flamingos?”

She blushed harder and switched her bag to the other shoulder.

“Daddy, can Miss DeRosa come over for dinner?”

He pulled his eyes away from the pleasantly pink Miss Via DeRosa and looked down at his son, who was grinning like he did when he wanted an extra half hour of TV.

“Ah...” He glanced back at Via.

“Oh, I can’t tonight, Matty.”

Matty’s face fell as he looked up to his dad for the assist.

“You really are invited, Via, if you wanted. And I know Matty wants you to come. He only pulls out the ‘Daddy’ big guns when he really wants something.”

She smiled but her eyes skittered away. “I’ve got plans with Evan. You remember? My boyfriend.”

“Okay. Maybe another time then.”

Another time? The poor woman had already said no twice. Why the hell was he setting himself up for her to say no a third? AND she’d just taken the opportunity to remind him that she had a boyfriend.

She nodded in a noncommittal way.

They walked in silence for three sidewalk squares before Seb broke the silence again. “You and Evan live together?”

What? Abort! Seb, you dumbass. Quit asking personal questions about her boyfriend!