I clearly have no objection.
“Are you Magic Mike-ing for me again today?” she asks, eyes twinkling and dimples dimpling.
“Only if your brother does too.”
Griff’s shirt flies out of the burger bus window.
That seems to be a yes from him, which means?—
“Are you so for real right now?” Bea interrupts me from also stripping out of my shirt with her reaction to her brother’s chest. “A parrot? You got a tattoo of aparrot?”
Griff points to the tattoo on his left pec. “Dude, this is Long Beak Silver. He’sfamous.”
Bea lifts her eyes to the bus’s ceiling. “Your body. Your body. Your body.”
“Plus, I lost a bet,” Griff stage-whispers to me. “Long story.”
I pull my own shirt off and point to a small scar on my shoulder. “I lost a bet once as well. Though I suspect you have a far better story.”
“Mine involves accidentally crashing a future-Hall-of-Famer breakfast. Multiple sports. Crazy road trip.”
“Mine involves a friend in school not believing me when I said that my skin was fireproof.”
Bea’s moss-green eyes go the shape of saucers.
Griff rubs his chin. “You might actually win this one. I think that was dumber than thinking I could win a bet with the Berger twins and a bunch of Cooper Rock’s old teammates too. Don’t mess with hockey and baseball royalty when they get together, especially when most of them are bored in retirement. Hey, you want to trade autographs? Mine’s gonna be worth more than yours someday.”
Bea points to him behind his back and mouths something that looks likehuge fan.
I, naturally, smile delightedly. Assuming I’ve read her lips correctly.
Though even if I have not, it’s never a hardship to watch Bea’s lips.
“I can see you,” Griff says to her.
“Good. Go shake your booty and bring in some customers. But put your shirt back on before the kids get turned loose for lunch. You can take it off again after they’ve all gone back to their program.”
And that’s how I end up not having lunchtime nookie with Bea on Wednesday.
Though I am fond of this last brother of hers before she’s sold out for the day.
He’s rather amusing.
And less inclined to tell me to leave her alone than her other two brothers.
Yet, at any rate.
Likely because he’s too busy talking to all of the locals who want to hear about his baseball career. And the young man does mention a time or two that he’s seen a little ofIn the Weeds, which Bea informs me later meansall of it, multiple times.
“So he has terrible taste?” I murmur to her.
She simply smiles, putting those dimples on display and reminding me that I still have not had the chance to lick them properly.
We’ve been heavy on thefriendsside of thisfriends with benefitssituation these past days, despite my constant longing for more.
“Do you have plans this evening?” I ask Bea when Griff is distracted with three younger women as she’s cleaning up.
“Griff’s taking us all out for pizza.”
