Page 116 of The Auction
The only thing I was sure of in that moment was that if he did come back, alive, I was going to kill him.
TWENTY-EIGHT
JULIETTE
The first fewweeks after I read Creed’s letter had been tough.
Every day was an exercise in waiting.
Waiting to hear his truck pull up. Waiting to hear someone else’s truck pull up.
If that would even happen. I mean, how would I get notified of his death? It wasn’t like he was still in the military.
By letter? His old boss showing up?
What if Tank heard he was dead and he came back?
Had Creed even thought of that possibility?!
Pulling my phone out, (my brand new phone I’d bought with Creed’s money), I added a note to the list of things I planned to point out to him, if he did come back. Things he hadn’t even considered.
Tonight, I’d decided it was time to leave the farm and all that waiting behind. I parked the truck along the sidewalk in town. About a block up from Pete’s bar. I was meeting April out tonight for some drinks as a final send off. She was leaving for Montana State on Saturday. I hopped out of thetruck in a pair of jeans and a new top we’d found together at Retro Fits.
The jeans were a bit too tight and the top was a little too red.
Together, it felt like revenge.
My hair was blown out. I had blush on my cheek bones. And if a cowboy hit on me tonight I planned to tell Creed every excruciating detail.
If he ever came back.
April was already at the bar chatting it up with Jackson, who was bartending tonight.
“Oh good, you’re here,” she said. “Jackson’s only letting me have three beers so I wanted to wait until you got here.”
“Make mine a vodka and soda with a splash of cranberry,” I told Jackson.
His brows went up.
It’s what I heard Taylor Swift drank at the award shows and she always looked like she was having fun, so I was going with it.
“Twenty-one,” I reminded him. “You need to see ID?”
He sighed. “Why do I have a feeling Creed is going to want to have words with me when he gets back?”
“Well, we don’t know if he’s coming back now, do we?” I asked, with as much snark as I could muster.
I told myself I was getting over him every day. I told myself that if he did show up, the first thing we were doing was getting a divorce. I told Peasy not to get attached to me because when we did divorce we were going to have to sell the farm.
I told AP I was claiming full custody of him so he should get used to that, too.
I told myself a lot of things.
And each day passed and there was nothing. No word. No letter.
Nothing.
“You have my new number?” I asked April. Although of course she had to have it, that’s how we coordinated meeting up tonight.
