Page 22 of Somebody To Love

“Don’t know why anyone would have the audacity to tell people what to get them for a gift. In my day, people used to be grateful just to get things. None of this demanding certain presents for events and holidays.”

Penny hunched her shoulders, used to Apple’s caustic attitude. Even so, she hated confrontation of any kind and retreated in on herself at any sign of an argument.

“It’s still our day, sister.” Olive came out from behind the register counter with a cup of tea, handing it to Penny with a smile. “We may be old, but we’re not dead.”

“Speak for yourself.” Wrinkled lips pinched. “I haven’t gotten any action in years. I might as well be dead.”

“Apple!”

“What? We’re all adults here, as you pointed out, sister.”

“We’re in the middle of business. It’s not proper to talk about…intimate affairs.”

“Ha!” Apple pointed one sun aged knobby finger. “The last thing you got intimate with was the washing machine. I heard the moans coming from the spin cycle the other day.”

“Apple!”

Penny felt her face flame as she furiously typed away on her laptop, wishing she were anywhere but here.

“What? Penny doesn’t care. The girl spends day and night with Bravo Jackson and doesn’t touch a single fine hair on that boy. I’m sure she gives her spin cycle a good ride every night, too.”

Oh dear, could the ground open up and swallow her whole now, please?

Olive’s face turned as red as Penny’s hair. “Apple Frances Blithe!”

“Honestly, girl,” Apple pushed the screen on her laptop down, forcing Penny to glance up. “I don’t know how you can constantly hang out with that fine specimen of a man and not take a little nibble.”

“Um, it’s not like that. BJ and I are just friends.” Friends who asked each other for their sperm, but still, friends.

“Psssshhh,” the old woman waved a hand in the air. “Waste, if you ask me.”

“Men and women can be friends, Apple. Just because you’ve never made any male friends, or female for that matter,” the latter part whispered under Olive’s breath. “Doesn’t mean every friendship of the opposite sex is looking to..to hook up with the other.”

Olive turned to her, a sweet smile wrinkling her round cheeks. “Did I use that phrase right, dear? Hooking up? Is that what you young people are calling it?”

She had no idea. Penny hadn’t “hooked up” with anyone since her ex and she didn’t plan to anytime soon.

“Um, if we could get to the website? I think you’ll find the changes I made—”

“Land sakes, child, we don’t give a flip about any of that. You know we can’t navigate our way around the inter-sex highway.”

“There’s more than dirty sites on the world wide web, Apple.”

“Tell that to my ex-husbands, Olive.”

This was a disaster. Helping the Blithe sisters often was, but today it seemed even worse. Perhaps because they kept bringing up sex, or maybe it was all the “men and women can’t be friends” talk. She knew Apple always spouted sour grapes, just the old woman’s nature, but today it hit close to home.

With everything going on right now regarding BJ and her request for him to help her have a baby on top of last night’s very vivid and somewhat naughty dream, Penny was having a hard time finding her professionalism. What she really wanted to do was go back to bed and finish her sexy slumber.

No. No, she did not!

“How ‘bout it, girl?”

“How about what?” Had she missed a question in there when the septuagenarians had been discussing the benefits of the spin cycle and the dangers of the perverted side of the Internet?

Apple shook her head. “You and BJ? How can you resist tapping into all that fine man meat?”

Ugh! She was going to lose the bagel and cream cheese she ate for breakfast this morning. “Um, I don’t—I mean, we’re friends. I don’t really think of BJ that way.”

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