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There were already a ton of people in the gym, filling the bleachers set against the walls and creating lots of noise. Charli led the way to a section of the bleachers where her parents were seated with Kayleigh. Layla clambered up the steps to sit with her grandparents. Charli and Janessa scooted their way onto the row in front of them where Wilder sat.
The bleacher surface was hard, but no one seemed to notice as they chatted with the people seated around them. Aria shrugged out of her jacket, then laid it across her lap. Janessa sat down beside her and set the large bag she’d brought between her feet.
“Doing okay?” she asked with a smile, as if sensing that Aria was feeling a bit nervous.
“Hey, there,” a woman said as she slid onto the row in front of them. “Coming to cheer on your boss’s brother?”
Aria tried to place the woman, but she didn’t think she’d been one of the patients that had been to the clinic during the two days she’d worked there. Of course, she’d been overwhelmed with the training as well as checking patients in, so she might just not be remembering her.
“Actually, she’s here to cheer on her friend’s brother,” Janessa said. “I mean, she was my friend before she was an employee.”
“Ah, so nepotism got her the job.” The woman nodded like that clarified something for her.
“No. The reason she got the job was because she was a qualified candidate with previous medical environment experience.”
“I had previous experience as well,” the woman said. “In that very clinic.”
Aria glanced at Janessa in surprise. Well, that kind of explained the woman’s attitude.
“Oh, Gareth!” The woman got to her feet as Gareth climbed the steps to where they sat.
He paused with a frown on his face, then walked into the row and sat down beside Aria. Two men followed behind him, both of them wearing big grins as they looked at the woman.
“Hey there, Chelsey,” the one closest to Gareth said. “What brings you to the game today? Pretty sure you’re not a cheerleader anymore.”
The woman—Chelsey—glared at the man. “Shut up, Jackson.”
Jackson lifted his hands in surrender. “Just pointing out the obvious.”
“You wouldn’t know obvious if it bit you on the butt.”
“I suppose youwouldbe the queen of obvious,” Jackson said with a nod. “After all, you’ve been fairly obvious in your pursuit of first Jay, and then Gareth. Perhaps if you spent less time spiking their coffees and offering to give them massages, you might have had more luck.”
“Don’t encourage her, Jack,” Gareth said with a groan.
Spiking his coffee? Oh! Chelsey must be the receptionist they had to fire. Aria looked at Gareth in time to see him roll his eyes.
“I think you need to go sit somewhere else, Chelsey,” Janessa said. “We’re just here to enjoy the basketball game.”
“I can sit wherever I want,” Chelsey said with a toss of her head. “It’s a free world.”
“Chelsey.” This time it was Janessa’s dad who spoke. “Do I need to give your mother a call?”
Aria didn’t think that was much of a threat, but she was clearly missing something since Chelsey immediately frowned, then got up and walked away.
“What was that about?” Aria murmured to Janessa once Chelsey had left hearing range.
Janessa gave a huff of laughter. “That was Dad reminding Chelsey that she and her parents had agreed that Chelsey wouldn’t come around Gareth or Jay anymore.”
“It was that bad?”
“Oh yeah. It wasn’t just the spiked coffee. Chelsey had a book she’d created to show how much she had in common with the guys.”
“Okay?”
“It was filled with pictures of me and Jay,” Gareth said. “She had picture after picture after picture showing us going around town. If she had a picture of me coming out of a coffee shop, she’d written next to it what I’d ordered and that she liked her coffee that way too.”
“We’ve known her our whole life. Jay even dated her a couple of times in high school,” Janessa said. “But something flipped a switch in her, apparently, and made her start acting really strangely around the guys.”
