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“Life’s good. How about you?”
“Doing good.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“Got yourself a new girlfriend?” the guy asked as he approached the cash register, eyeing Misha.
“Nope. This is Doctor Michelle Barnes. She’s going to be working with us at the clinic.”
The teen’s eyes widened for a moment before he said, “Sorry about that. Nice to meet you.”
“No worries,” Misha assured the embarrassed teen. “It’s nice to meet you too.”
“That’s Jeff. He plays on the basketball team with Cole.”
The young man nodded and smiled. “And Coach took us all the way to the state championship this year, and we won.”
“That’s great,” Misha said. “Congratulations.”
A young woman brought a couple of pizza boxes to the front counter. “You guys having a pizza party?”
“This is our payment for helping Michelle move into her new place.”
“Ahh. That makes sense.”
“You better have made one of those half pineapple or Will is going to whine at me,” Jay said.
“I did,” the girl said. “Double pineapple, in fact.”
“You don’t need to butter him up,” Jay said to her. “You’re his favorite baby cousin.”
“I’m not a baby,” she protested. “And just for that, I’m going to put pineapple all over your pizza next time, too.”
Jay pointed at her. “You’re definitely related to Will.”
Misha enjoyed watching Jay banter with the teens. It was clear they knew him and respected him, which spoke well of the man.
While they waited for the last of the pizzas, Misha paid for the order. Once they had them all ready to go, Jay called out, “Who’s your favorite Halverson?”
There was a chorus ofDocandCole, followed by loud laughter.
“You’re all mean,” Jay said as he shouldered the door open, then held it with his foot for Misha.
“We love you, Coach!”
“Yeah. Yeah.” He let the door close on their laughter and led the way back to the SUV, a broad smile on his face.
“You’re good with kids of all ages,” Misha said as she waited for Jay to open the door of the car.
“Kids are great,” Jay replied as he bent to put the boxes he held on the back seat. Straightening, he turned to take the ones she held. “It’s adults that really complicate life.”
Misha definitely couldn’t argue with him about that. “How do you know them all? Through your brother and sister?”
“Sort of.” Jay opened the passenger side door for her, then jogged around to slide behind the steering wheel. “I coach basketball at the high school, so I know the boys mostly from there. Skylar is on the cheerleading squad, so I know some of the girls from them having been part of that with her.”
“Is basketball a big sport around here?”
“Now it is,” Jay said as he backed out of the parking spot and headed toward the house. “When I first joined the team as a freshman in high school, it wasn’t anything to talk about. That’s changed over the years. Now the school has two strong teams—basketball and football.”
