Page 72 of Stuck with Me

I shrug. “She was nice. But honestly, the best thing about my grandma was that she was predictable. I never had to be anxious when I was with her.”

Rosie gives me a sweet smile and it causes a twinge in my chest.

“Now that I know about Gigi, it makes sense why my granddad would pick my grandma to marry. She was safe. Predicable. She was loyal.”

Rosie shoots me a glare and there’s instant fire in her eyes.

“Not that I’m not saying Gigi wasn’t those things.”

“Then what the hell are you trying to say? Because you better clear it up real quick before I stab you with this needle.”

I hold my palms up in surrender. “All I’m saying is, what my granddad had with your grandma, it was surprising he settled down with someone after the way things ended with her. Choosing my grandma was safe. Her family lived in the same town. She’d always been your typical responsible good girl. She wasn’t going anywhere.”

Rosie doesn’t seem fully convinced. I want to take back this entire conversation and erase it from the last five minutes. We were finally getting to this place where the tension wasn’t one way or the other. Where we either want to tear each other clothes off or scratch each other’s eyeballs out.

“Until she did,” Rosie’s voice sounds small. “She got sick.”

I nod. The memories of watching Granddad fall apart the worse my grandma’s Alzheimer’s got invade my mind now. It was awful. My heartrate picks up and I know I need to focus on my breathing.

“He was a wreck.” I exhale a strangled breath. “But then…he was okay. I watched him go from the depths to—shit, do I dare say, relief? Happiness?” I feel like an ass saying it. But it’s the truth.

Rosie’s fingers still and she lowers her hands as she looks at me.

“What?”

“That’s exactly how Gigi was when my grandpa passed.”

We stare at one another, neither of us speaking for a moment, but our minds racing.

“You don’t think?” I begin.

She purses her lips.

“It was because…they…?”

“It would make sense. From what we’ve learned the two of them stayed in contact over the years but for the last year before they both passed, maybe they were together? You said your granddad was traveling a lot. And Gigi was spending a lot of time at the cabin.”

“I guess if we want the answers, we need to get back to the letters,” I state the obvious.

“But first,” she pauses as she shoves the crochet needle in my hand. “My wrist is getting sore. Your turn. We still have all day without power, so we’ve got time to get to the letters.”

“I can think of something else we can do with our time.” I waggle my brows.

“If we weren’t keeping our hands to ourselves, I’d smack you in the gut right now.”

“C’mon, I thought we were done with that silly agreement?” I’m tempted to bring up how she allowed me to hold her hand all night. But I don’t.

She looks at me, unimpressed. So I begin twisting the yarn around my finger and pushing the needle around and through the yarn. I don’t make it very long before I’ve royally screwed it up and she has to unwind what I’ve done and then she forces me to start over.

It’s cute the way she makes little huffing noises out her nose when she gets irritated with me. I sorta want to bottle up the sound and listen to it when she’s being an ass. Which is nearly all the time. Like when she told me just now that we’re still adhering to that dumb agreement.

Because all I want to do is touch her.

Everywhere.

CHAPTER20

Rosie

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