"Oh yeah?  Well you have stupid hair!" she yelled over her shoulder before slamming the door.  The door was only closed for a second before it flew open and she stuck her head back in the room, "And you look like you got dressed in the dark!"  She slammed the door again, this time hard enough to rattle the windows.

JC stood there dumbfounded as Joey slowly approached.  "Dude, what was that about?"

JC shrugged, "I have no idea.  She told me my new hairdo looked sexy.  I asked her if I my clothes looked OK and then, well, you saw it from there."

Joey shook his head, "No way, Clodagh wouldn't freak out about your outfit.  Try again.  What did you actually say?"

JC thought about it for a minute.  "OK, she said my hair looked sexy, I said thanks.  Then I said, ‘Hey, Clo, what do you think?  Do I look OK?  Jenna's taking me out tonight."

Joey clapped his hand on JC's shoulder.  "C, oh man," he sighed, "You're supposed to be the smart one.  Clodagh likes you, dumbass!"

"What?  No she doesn't."  JC shook the idea off as impossible.

"Yeah, she does," Chris piped up, "or at least she did.  Dude, how could you not know?  Haven't you noticed the way she looks at you?  Or how she's always around you?  How she's your personal gofer?"

 "What are you talking about?  Of course she's always around, she's Justin's assistant!"  JC was starting to rant. 

Justin nodded.  "That's just it, JC.  She's my assistant.  Don't you find it funny that she's always around you then?"

JC rolled his eyes, "Whatever, guys.  She hangs out with all of us."

"Yes, that's true, but how many of us have had movie marathons with her on the bus?"  Joey countered.

"We all have, remember the Star Wars marathon just last week?" JC smirked.

Lance shook his head, "Oh no, I believe what Joey is referring to is the chick flick marathon you had the week before."

"Those weren't chick flicks, they were baseball movies-Field of Dreams, A League of Their Own..." JC was cut off by Justin who covered his mouth with his fist and coughed out, "Chick flicks!"

 "Uh-huh," Chris nodded.  "And why were you having a baseball movie marathon anyway?"

"Because I had a crappy day and my friend" he made sure to emphasize the word, "wanted to cheer me up."

"We're your friends," Chris continued, "Did you not wonder why we didn't want to cheer you up?"

JC snorted, "Probably because you all were the reason I was in the bad mood in the first place."

"I'm done," Chris stood up.  "Who's next?"

Justin stood up and tagged Chris.  "I'll give it a shot." 

Chris laughed, "He's all yours, have at him," then he left the room.

Justin turned to JC.  "So, Jace, Clodagh didn't freak out until you mentioned you were going out with Jenna, right?"

JC nodded, "Yeah, and?"

"Have you ever noticed that Jenna takes every chance she can get to put Clo down?"

"What?  No!" JC dismissed him, "Jenna is a sweetheart.  She's always looking out for Clo, offering her help and stuff."

Justin snorted, "Yeah, Ok, maybe that's true in your reality!  Here on planet Earth, Jenna always makes little cracks about Clo's weight.  She's not offering her advice; she's trying to point out the fact that Clodagh is not super skinny like she is."

"Why would being skinny matter to Clodagh?  She's just fine."

"JC, how many women do you know who want to be called ‘just fine'?  She's self conscious, you moron, and it doesn't take much for someone like Jenna to knock her down."  Justin was having a hard time believing his friend was this thick.

"I meant that Clodagh is fine the way she is.  She doesn't need to lose weight.  She's what they call an armful of woman.  You know when you hug her you're not going to break her in two."

"Finally!  We're getting somewhere," Joey cheered.

"We are?"  JC asked.

"Then again, maybe not," Joey sighed.  "OK, JC, stay with me here.  Clo got upset when you mentioned you had a date with Jenna, right?"

JC nodded, and Joey realized that JC was not going to have an epiphany on his own; they were going to have to smack him over the head with it.  "When you told her you were going out with another woman, she flipped, right?"

"Yeah, Joe, I think that has been established," JC crossed his arms over his chest and gave him a dirty look.

"Somebody put on some coffee," Joe muttered as he found himself a comfy chair, "we're going to be here for awhile."

Chris found Clodagh right about where he had expected to, on the basketball court pounding the heck out of a ball.  One of the reasons she got along so well with Justin was that she liked hoops almost as much as he did.  She claimed that she was able to get a lot of her thinking done on the court.

"Hey," Chris called to her, "Pass it?"

"Sure," she nodded and bounced the ball to him.

Chris dribbled the ball to the free-throw line and tossed it up.  Clodagh got the ball, dribbled it a bit and passed it back to him.  They shot the ball around for awhile without really talking.  As Chris noticed that Clodagh handled the ball a little less aggressively, he started to talk.

"JC's a dumbass," he said.

"I don't want to talk about it.  I am perfectly happy in my denial that I had a total meltdown in front of my boss and his friends."

Chris scoffed, "You think that was a meltdown?  You should have seen what Justin's last assistant did right before she had her mental breakdown."

Clodagh shot the ball, and sunk it, nothing but net.  "Whatever, Chris.  That might be funny if I wasn't his first and only PA to date."

"Oh yeah," Chris stopped dribbling and held the ball still while he thought about that, "maybe that was my assistant."

That finally made her laugh.  It was more of a snort because of the force behind it.  "Now that makes a lot more sense!"

"Hey!" he said, "I'm out here, being nice to you and all I get are insults--and to think that I was on your side too!"

"Well, it's not my fault that your friend is a dumbass.  If he is too dense to realize that Jenna just wants to date a celebrity and get discovered so that she can become famous and spend all his money while she's doing it, then he's too stupid for me to be interested in and maybe he deserves the little gold-digging tramp."

"I'd certainly agree with you there," Chris smiled.  "That woman is definitely a user."

"How come we can all see it, but he can't?" Clodagh wondered.

"Because he's JC and I love the guy, but he's easily distracted by overtly attractive women who fawn all over him. "

"Well, what guy isn't?" Clodagh laughed.  "All that cleavage is hard for a guy to ignore, right?  I'm pretty sure she somehow hypnotized him with her boobs."

"I'm sorry he's an idiot," Chris walked over to Clo and put his hand on her shoulder.

She smiled.  "Oh, Chris, it's not your fault."  She patted his hand that still rested on her shoulder, "Besides, it's really for the best anyway.  I've come to realize that JC really isn't what I'm looking for in a boyfriend."

Chris couldn't hide his smile, "He's not?"

"Nah," Clodagh shook her head.  "I figured it out awhile ago.  Don't get me wrong, he's a great guy, but JC is way too intense for me.  I don't need more stress in my life.  I need someone who makes me laugh, someone who knows how to relax and just be, without worrying about every little detail."

"You don't say," Chris grinned as he stepped in front of her, hoping he wasn't misreading her signals.

"Yeah, I do," she looked deeply into his eyes.  "Know anyone like that?"

"Yeah, I do," he replied as he reached out to cup her cheek. 

"I was hoping you'd say that," she leaned up on her toes, bringing her lips up to graze his.  She lowered herself and was about to step back when Chris pulled her closer to him.  He held her face in both hands and deepened the kiss, taking his time to memorize the feel and shape of her lips.  Clodagh wrapped her arms around him, leaning her weight into his body as her knees went weak.

 Neither one of them heard the door to the basketball court open nor saw the four guys stop dead in their tracks and watch them in awe.

 JC was the first to recover speech.  "See, Joey!  I told you she didn't like me!"  He turned on his heel and stomped back inside.

Joey just shook his head and turned to Lance and Justin as they followed JC.  "Well, I certainly never saw that coming!"

Justin paused and looked back over his shoulder as if trying to be certain of what he had just seen.  "Wait a minute.  If JC is right, does that mean that we're the dumbasses?"

Lance and Joey stopped and looked at him for a moment.  "Nah!" they all said at the same time and continued back into the building, leaving Clodagh and Chris (who was most certainly not a dumbass) to carry on with their "basketball game".