Page 104 of The Auction
Which meant maybe I was the one to bring all of this down on our heads now.
“Crops are toast. Maybe we’ll salvage some plants, but for home use or local produce stands. We’re not going to have anything of real substance to sell to the sugar plants, though.”
One small chin nod.
“Means we’ll live off my thirteen hundred dollars and your savings for the winter. I’ll try and get work in town. Maybe you can pick up some labor jobs around here. Something to bring in money, but you have to understand this whole valley took a hit. Everyone’s going to be tight for cash.”
Another nod.
“By the time spring rolls around, we’ll basically have what’s left of your savings to invest in seed money. We’ll re-plant, hope the top soil didn’t all get washed away, and we’ll have to hope we don’t see weather like this again. At least for ten or so years, until we can build up your savings again.”
His sharklike eyes stayed on me.
“We’ll probably want to get rid of our streaming services. The only thing we can justify is wifi, so we have some contact to the outside, and the one phone. We’ll need to sell off one of the trucks for cash, if we’re going to get the tractor up and running. Again, we’re going to want to do that online ‘cause no one around here is going to have cash for a truck.”
“Go on,” he said.
“No perks. No frills. Let’s hope we can find some of the chickens.”
The only good news today, of the twelve we had, we only found two that had drowned.
“So what you’re saying is, no more spa days,” Creed quipped.
My lips twisted. “Pedicures, of course, but only once a week.”
“Am I ever going to get a steak again?”
“Not unless you poach one of Mr. Talley’s cows and butcher it yourself or you let me dress up ground beef into the shape of a steak.”
This time his lips twisted.
“Or,” I said, fidgeting with the string that dangled from the hood of his sweatshirt he’d given me last night and I had yet to takeoff.
“Or?”
“We could list the property. The house. Sell the whole damn thing.”
My heart was thumping in my chest, waiting to see what he said next. Because what I didn’t say was that we could just get divorced and split the money. What I didn’t say was that we could just…end this.
“That’s what you wanted all along, isn’t it?” he asked me, quietly.
“Sure. Yes. That’s what I…wanted.”
Did he hear the way I said that? Past tense?
The logical next question was to ask me what I wanted now, which I had an excellent answer for.
I don’t know. What do you want?
What was that called? Avoidance? Self-preservation? I’d never been in one of these…shit, I guess I had to call it a relationship…before, and I found navigating it to be challenging. I wanted him to say the following, in no particular order.
Hell no, we’re not selling.
I just got here.
We just started this.
I like you too much to leave.
