Via knitted her brow and took a big gulp of her water. It made her so sad to think that Sebastian was spending time with women who pulled away from him because of who he was, his situation. What a bummer. She didn’t like the thought of him looking so hard for companionship and just getting lonelier in the process.

“No promising prospects?” she asked in a friendly way, although her voice sounded weirdly gruff to her own ears.

He shrugged and then looked up quickly. “I hope you don’t feel weird that Serafine and I aren’t a love match. We texted yesterday and both agreed.”

“Oh really?” Via felt a strange tug in her stomach. She had been worried about Fin and Sebastian dating, sure, but at least she’d known that Fin would be sweet to him. And that he would be respectful of Fin.

“Yeah. She’s lovely. And beautiful. But in the end, she’s just too young for me.”

Sebastian’s eyes were on the video game when he said it, and Via was glad, because his words jolted her. Too young? It had honestly not occurred to her that Sebastian would think of himself as significantly older than she and Fin. Sure, he was obviously very mature and in a very settled stage of his life. But just looking at him, he didn’t seem that old. Sure, he had some gray hairs, and no hint of boyishness at all.

Evan had wide shoulders but slim hips and always kept his face shaved smooth. Sebastian had the more gruff, substantial look of a man who was done growing. He was simply...adding. Muscle, mass, beard.

She thought he was probably in his late thirties. Or maybe early forties. She considered asking, but the words wouldn’t come. She took another gulp of ice water and let her eyes drift to the photos on the wall.

There was a series of photos of baby Matty squishing his cheek against the face of that same stunning woman in most of the other pictures. She looked like a Swedish princess. Long blond hair and sky blue eyes.

“What was your wife like?”

The question was a surprise to both of them. But Via asked it with the candor and matter-of-fact-ness that could only come from having lost people close to her as well. She knew what it was like to have people cringe away from your grief, your loss, and it had meant that she’d kept it bottled up for years longer than she should have. She hadn’t planned on asking him the question, but she didn’t particularly regret it once she had.

Sebastian cocked his head to one side and pulled the blanket back over his lap. Via tossed him a pillow and he jammed it behind his head as he shimmied down to a half sit. The soup had given him a little color back but she could still see the fatigue in his eyes.

“Cora was...very intense. Very particular. The only one like her. She had this feeling about her. Like licking a battery.” He sort of laughed to himself. “She was loud and crass and people had very specific reactions to her. You were either laughing the second she came into the room or groaning. For instance, Ty never really warmed to her. She stressed him out. But Mary and she were best friends. Mary thought she was the funniest person alive.”