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“How aboutdid you have to melt ice cubes?” Gareth suggested, as he gave Layla a glass.
“You should come to school with me and hand me lines when the kids start acting crazy.”
Gareth returned to his seat beside Aria. “You need help to outsmart a bunch of elementary kids?”
Charli sighed. “Some days. Yes.”
Aria wasn’t sure why Layla wasn’t shushing them all so she could hear her movie, but the little girl seemed able to tune out the adult conversation around her. For the rest of the movie, Aria didn’t talk much, preferring to listen to the others interacting. The more insight she gained into this family, the more she was so very grateful that her road had led her to Serenity Point and the job at the Halversons’ clinic.
She wondered if her mom would have agreed to move with her if she’d still been alive when this job offer had come to her. It would have been so wonderful to have her mom there with her.
Aria stared unseeing at the cartoon characters on the screen, thoughts of her mom flooding her mind. It had been over a year since her mom had passed away, and while she missed her every single day, she’d definitely felt her loss more acutely when her circumstances had been so terrible.
Now, though, Aria missed her in a different way. She wished her mom was there with her, not just for her own sake, but also for her mom’s. After the rough life her mom had had, Aria felt like coming to Serenity would have been so wonderful for her.
There was no chance for that now, and Aria mourned the loss of what might have been for them. In the months following her mom’s death, when things had fallen apart at her job, she hadn’t been sure that she’d ever be happy again. Having lost her fiancé, mother, and her job within such a short period of time had almost killed her.
But now, she felt like happiness was seeping back into her life. A small trickle of it, coming in unexpected ways through unexpected people.
“Everything okay?”
Gareth’s quiet question drew her from her thoughts. She looked over and gave him a small smile. “Everything’s fine.”
His smile at her words was bigger than hers had been, crinkling the corners of his brown eyes. She’d always liked blue eyes, but for some reason, Gareth’s brown ones seem to glow with a warmth that made her feel like he really cared.
“Princess movies can make me space out, too.”
“Do you watch them frequently?” Aria asked.
“Anytime I babysit, which, admittedly, isn’t very often. But even though Layla likes to watch these movies over and over, she seems to understand that the adults in her world aren’t as big a fan of princesses as she is.”
“I don’t recall being obsessed with princess movies as a kid,” Aria said.
“What were you obsessed with?”
Aria thought back to when she’d been a kid. “Books. Mom used to take me to the library every week, and she’d let me check out as many books as I was allowed.”
“I’ve always been a fan of books, too,” Gareth said. “Which was a good thing, as I spent a lot of time reading them for college.”
“So you don’t read fiction?”
“I do, but my preference is non-fiction. Now most of my reading time is focused on medical journals. My curiosity about medical stuff is always quite high. How about you?”
“I’ve read a lot of true crime books, but I also like suspense fiction.” She’d spent a lot of the past year reading to fill her spare time. Since she had basically been confined to her room in the apartment, reading had been the only thing she’d had to do.
She could hear the other three women talking amongst themselves, and she wondered what they thought about Gareth conversing with her the way he was. He could have sat anywhere in the room, so it was a bit odd that he’d chosen the seat next to her.
Given the questions he’d been asking about her, she got the feeling that he was just trying to get to know the person who’d taken up residence with his sisters and niece and had also taken a job in his family’s clinic. He probably wasn’t one to just take his sister’s word that Aria was a good person.
Jay didn’t appear to have the same concern, since he hadn’t pursued any type of conversation with her beyond what they’d exchanged at work. She just hoped that nothing she said would be a red flag for Gareth. There were red flags in her life, but as long as she wasn’t put in a nursing role, they wouldn’t matter.
She had no desire to share what had happened with anyone. That whole ugly chapter needed to be firmly closed. She’d embraced the role of receptionist and was happy to work in a medical environment again, even if it wasn’t in the role she’d studied so hard to achieve.
Charli asked Gareth a question about the service the next day, shifting his attention away from Aria. The discussion between them carried on until the end of the movie.
“I guess I’d better head for home.” Gareth got to his feet. “Thanks for letting me hang out.”
“And eat our pizza,” Janessa said.
