Page 6 of Unfiltered
“I know the real reason you’re jealous.” Blythe dramatically spread her arms, hoping to cause Ricki to forget her lastcomment. “But you have nothing to worry about. You’ll always be my best friend. No matter how many more followers Gilly has than you.”
“How many followers does Gilly have?”
“Almost three hundred thousand.”
“Well, she has three hundred thousand more than I do.” Ricki grabbed her water bottle from the counter and started filling it. “I’m going jogging.”
Blythe held her hands up and framed Ricki’s face. “But you’d be a natural. With your soft-butch sensitivity.”
It was another conversation they’d had many times, and it always ended the same—with Ricki brushing her off.
Ricki twisted the lid on her bottle. “I’ll catch you later,” she said as she walked from the kitchen.
“You’re just intimidated that you can’t compete with my charm,” Blythe called after her.
“Nobody can measure up to the Dykonic One,” Ricki called over her shoulder.
Blythe laughed. “No fair using my handle against me.”
She heard Ricki chuckle as she hustled up the stairs to her bedroom.
CHAPTER 3
Blythe hurried up thefront steps of the brick bungalow she shared with Ricki. She spotted Ricki sitting in a lounge chair on what they called their front porch, although it was enclosed with banks of windows on three sides.
Blythe stormed into the room. “Did you see this shit?” Blythe slammed her phone down on the table next to Ricki.
“Hello to you, too.” Ricki looked up from the book she was reading.
Blythe pointed and laughed. “Solitary? Really? The dancing librarian inspired you?”
“Get over yourself. It’s an interesting book.” Ricki slid the bookmark between the pages. She nudged Blythe’s phone over, so she could set the book on the table.
“Wow. And you bought it? Hardback.”
“What’s the big deal?”
“You spent twenty-five bucks on a book?” Blythe put her hand on her chest and pretended to swoon. “You don’t spend twenty bucks on anything.”
“That’s not true.”
“You’re right. You won’t even spend five.”
Ricki turned up her nose but didn’t respond.
“When’s the last time you bought a Starbucks?” Blythe pushed.
“Why should I when we have a perfectly fine coffeepot here?”
“Priceless.” Blythe clapped her hands together. “I’m telling you, if you’d let me record our conversations, they’d go viral.”
Ricki was expressionless as she stared at Blythe. “I tried to get it from the library, but I was number eighty-two on the wait list.”
Tiring of the conversation, Blythe picked up her cellphone. “Can you believe what that little punk did?”
She didn’t have to clarify who she meant since she’d been complaining about Chase Daughtry, aka @Dapper&Dykonic, for the past several months.
“Imitation is the biggest form of flattery.” Ricki grinned, and her eyes twinkled.
