Page 103 of Grumpy Sunshine

“About an hour and a half,” the woman replied.“We decided to test out his blue pills after this, so he said he’d take me to dinner first.He forgot about your dinner date, though, or he probably would’ve saved the blue pill for tomorrow.”

Utter and complete silence at the table.

Then Keely, who I could just barely hear, said, “Thank God I’m not down there.”

“I’ve heard the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach,” I teased.“Maybe you should’ve cooked him dinner.”

“Don’t cook to impress him,” the patriarch’s date said.“Impress him with blow jobs.Men will eat three-day-old pizza, so they’re not gonna be falling all over themselves if you pack him a great lunch.”

I opened my mouth and then closed it.

I didn’t know what to say to that.

“Um,” Milena said quietly, being the closest to the rest of us, sitting on the opposite side of Copper.“That’s a very interesting take.Thank you for sharing it with us, Merna.”

The waiter finally arrived with our drink orders and said, “Please help yourself to the buffet.I’ll be getting you some refills throughout the night and taking away the empties.”

Oh, did I mention that Pops had required everyone to go to a buffet for dinner?

Apparently, they had the best early dine options in the city.

Who knew?

Everyone got up at once, and I volunteered to stay behind to watch everyone’s stuff.

Chevy ran his hand down the length of my hair and took off, as did the rest of the table.

Milena was the first one back with a modest single plate of food.

Merna was back second with so much food piled onto her plate that it was wobbling with each unsteady step that she took.There was no way she was going to be able to eat all that food.

I took that as my sign to go gather my own food, and when I saw all the options, I realized that I was going to leave this place stuffed to the gills.

Chevy passed behind me with two plates of food, each piled decently high.

“Wow,” I said as he passed.

Chevy shot me a grin and kept walking.

Keely followed up, and she had a regular plate with a regular amount of food.

Dima, on the other hand, had so much food on his plate that it looked like he would pop if he ate it all.

I looked down at my meager four pieces of orange chicken and small amount of noodles.

Should I get more?

I’d never been to a buffet before.

I had zero idea how much food I could actually eat.

So I got little tastes of everything, heading to the table with my food.

“That’s pitiful,” Merna said as she saw all my food.“You’re paying nineteen dollars and ninety-nine cents to eat that?”

I shrugged.“I’ll get more if I like what I got.”

Everyone dug in.

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