Disclaimer: All familiar characters belong to Janet Evanovich. I am not making any money from this. Mistakes are mine.
My Train of Thought Has Left the Station by Debra8652
Chapter 4
Switching to Lester's POV
I, Lester Mateo Santos, have been given the dubious distinction of taking an illustrious group of Rangemen out to Shorty's for pizza and beer as compensation for their hazardous-to-their-mental-health assignments of working surveillance with Beautiful during the past couple of weeks. At least Ranger is footing the bill even though he and Beautiful won't be there.
Where are the rest of the Core Team? Pfft. Ranger seems to have recovered from Beautiful's thought processes from last week and took her to Point Pleasant for the weekend as a vacation for us. I meant "them" - as a vacation for them. My bad.
Bobby claimed he needed to be at the hospital with Vince. That's a big fib. Vince took his Grandpa in for bunion surgery and returned him to his parents' home. Bobby just didn't want to hear what Beautiful did to the guys' brains while they were trapped in an SUV with her. He'd already seen their glazed expressions when their shifts ended.
Tank - ha! He drove Steph and Grandma Mazur to Edna's appointment with her eye surgeon. Edna insisted on telling Tank that she was getting implants and that Medicare was paying for them. Tank nearly drove off the road. Technically, Edna is correct - they are intraocular lens implants for persons who have cataracts.
So, I am tasked with wining and dining, or beer-ing and pizza-ing, a herd of Rangemen. We will stick to beer as I can't have them drinking shots every time someone relates their experience with Beautiful or they'll be as drunk as skunks.
It seems that Beautiful was on a diet and exercise rant during her first surveillance assignments. Beer mugs ready and, action!
Woody started us off by relating Steph's observation that, "I don't run, so if you ever see me running, you better run too because there's something chasing me."
Manny is up next and quoted Steph as saying, "The fact that Keith Richards has outlived Richard Simmons really makes me question this eating healthy and exercise thing."
Binkie continued the theme with this Steph-ism, "The gym gives you energy, but you need energy to get to the gym. Feels like a pyramid scheme if you ask me."
The pizzas just arrived and we need more beer. A lot more beer.
Brett said that Steph ate a carob protein bar right before she got into their SUV and claimed, "There should be a calorie refund for things that don't taste as good as you expected."
Sounds as if Beautiful was done with her diet and exercise rant by the time she worked surveillance with Cal, as he related Steph's opinion that, "Whoever came up with the word dentures really missed the opportunity to call them substi-tooths." That's hard to argue.
Next up was Gene - Steph told him, "I don't care how old I get, if I walk by a toy with a 'try me' button, I'm pushing it." She definitely would.
Junior related this bit of Stephanie wisdom, "If at first you don't succeed, skydiving definitely isn't for you."
Zero was last and said that Steph was on an IT tangent when she said, "Dear Autocorrect, it's never duck."
Good thing I have Ranger's black Amex card as we're going to need another pitcher of beer. And rides back to Rangeman.
A/N Eight memes for eight MM. Your reviews are appreciated.