“Seriously?” Abby let her gaze sweep across the large room. “And she was in her eighties at the time?”
“Yep. She was quite a woman.” Ricki smiled.
“That she was,” Blythe added. “When she passed, she left Ricki the house.”
“That was so nice,” Abby said. “Since you’d been taking care of her.”
It startled Abby when Blythe laughed, but when Ricki joined her, Abby’s jaw relaxed.
“Granny didn’t need taking care of,” Ricki said. “She’d have given you an earful if you’d said that to her. We were roomies, as she called it.”
So many questions rushed through Abby’s mind. None that she’d say aloud. Didn’t a woman in her twenties need privacy? Maybe that explained why Ricki was still single. No, she didn’t know that. Perhaps Ricki’s girlfriend didn’t live with her, or maybe she did.
Abby’s pulse raced. Here she stood in Ricki and Blythe’s living room, and she knew little about them. What if this was a bad idea? No, she felt undeniably comfortable with them, so she needed to stop panicking.
“And she means roomies in the truest sense of the word,” Blythe said with a chuckle. “Granny insisted Ricki had to do everything a healthy twenty-year-old did if she lived here.”
“Stop.” Ricki put her hand over her face.
“First year, she almost kicked Ricki out. She—”
“You’re killing me, Smalls.” Ricki moved her hands from over her face to her ears.
Blythe ignored Ricki’s theatrics. “She informed Ricki that her girlfriend better spend the night, or Ricki needed to get her own place. Granny said she wouldn’t be the reason Ricki wasn’t getting laid.”
Abby’s eyes widened. She looked between Blythe and Ricki, but Ricki wasn’t denying it.
Ricki’s cheeks were bright red, but she met Abby’s gaze. “It’s true.” Then she shook her head. “She was a character.”
“So you—?” Abby didn’t want to finish her sentence.
“Yep. I brought my girlfriends here after that.”
Abby couldn’t help but wonder what the girlfriends thought when they realized Ricki’s grandma was in the house.
“The best part,” Blythe began.
Ricki groaned. “Oh, god, you’re not going to tell her that, too?”
“We’ve come this far.” Blythe smiled at Ricki before turning her attention back to Abby. “The best part is Granny would meet the girls—that’s what she called them—and tell them she was deaf as a doorknob without her hearing aids. Then she’d wink and say,I remove ’em when I sleep, so you kids can be as loud as a herd of wild buffaloes, and I wouldn’t hear a thing.”
“So your Granny was killing you, Smalls,” Abby said.
Ricki and Blythe both laughed.
Ricki clapped her hand on Blythe’s shoulder. “Granny would have liked Abby.”
A thoughtful expression crossed Blythe’s face. “Yeah, she would have.”
Abby’s insides warmed, realizing what a tremendous compliment she’d just received.
“So,” Ricki said, clapping her hands together. “Abby, are you hungry? I was going to whip up a snack.”
Blythe raised her hand. “If she isn’t, I am.”
“You can get your own. I’m asking Abby.” Ricki met Abby’s gaze.
“If it wouldn’t be any trouble.”
