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“Well, we come in here for our Bible study,” one of them tells me.
“Bible study, huh?” I say, acting as if I have no idea what they’re talking about. “Every day? You’ve all been around a while, haven’t you covered that book front to back by now?”
One of them chuckles. “Sure. But it’s always good to review.”
“Okay,” I say, with a little shrug. “Just if that ever gets boring, the guys at Dick’s have probably heard it all a number of times too so you don’t need to tell them all about it. You could just sit around and talk about other things.”
One of the men surprises me with a chuckle. “Charles and Will and I actually went to church camp together for four summers in a row.”
Another nods. “I was in Sunday school every week with Will and Ben.”
I smile. “Sounds like Will knows all the Bible stories pretty well.”
“He should,” one says with another chuckle. “Maybe we should stop out there and quiz him.”
“Tell you what,” I say. “I’ll let you do a little Bible talk in the bar if you agree to also spend equal time doing arts and crafts with the kids.”
“Arts and crafts? Like glitter and stuff?” the church camp aficionado asks.
“Yep. Play-Doh, fingerpaints, all kinds of fun. You do some of that stuff with your grandkids, don’t you?”
“Sure. I guess that would be okay.”
“Maybe we could convince those guys to come to church,” one of them says to the others.
Another laughs. “You’ve known them as long as I have. We’re not getting any of them to church.”
“But—” The guy glances at the TV again. “Pastor probably doesn’t know that. And all we can do is try.”
“True,” his friend agrees. “If we have a stubborn case, we’ll just have to keep going out there to work on them.”
Another guy nods. “Good point. If it’s a guy we’ve known for a long time and we were friends with back in the day, makes sense we would want to do our best to bring him around.”
“And not just anyone is going to want to go out to thebarin the morning. That seems like something guys like us should do.”
I’m grinning at all of them. “Why don’t you just stop by tomorrow?” I ask. “We’ll see how it goes. I’ll make sure we have extra cinnamon rolls, just in case. Did I mention they’re free?”
They all sit up straighter.
“They’re having a special celebrity edition ofName ’Em Frame ’Em,” one of them says of the game show that’s on television as we speak. “Scarlett Johansson will be on. I love her.”
“I’ll want to hear that at full volume,” another agrees
“We’ll be there tomorrow,” the first guy tells me. “And we probably don’t need to bring the Bibles. Like you said, those guys have heard it all before.”
Ruby barely waits for the coffee shop door to shut behind us before she starts to laugh and says, “I don’t feel weakat allby how easily I fell for you and your charm and dropped my panties. I swear you can winanyoneover.”
I grin. “Not everyone, but I do have a pretty good track record.” I’ve always been very confident, and hanging out with royalty for the past decade-plus has definitely rubbed off on me.
“But the cinnamon rolls are not free at Dick’s, by the way.”
I wave my hand. I’m feeling incredibly triumphant. “They are now.”
“We give the money back to the women who bake for the ingredients,” she tells me as we head back for my car.
“Ruby, of course I will still pay them.” I’m offended she would think otherwise. “In fact, I’m going to triple whatever they usually get just because you insinuated that.”
She’s giggling as I open the door for her. I love that sound so fucking much. Especially when our visit to the coffee shop started with a run-in with her father.