“Don’t you do it.” I leveled a finger at him through the glass.
Jules had already signed those papers. If he ripped them up, I’d have to hunt her down and get her to sign new ones. And I didn’t want to see her any more than she wanted to see me.
She didn’t want to seeanyone. In the past two weeks, since the news of her dark extracurricular activities broke, not only had she made no attempt to contact me or any of my family, but she’d also deleted all of her social media.
So yeah, I blame what happened next on pure panic.
I grabbed the sledgehammer out of the truck bed, hauled back, and swung at the driver’s side window. Theo screamed like he was being murdered as the hammer hit—THUD.KRRACK—the glass exploded into a spiderweb of fractures racing in every direction.
I swore, annoyed it hadn’t shattered—stupid safety glass—and hit it again. Which elicited more screams from Theo. But this time, I created a hole big enough to reach through.
I unlocked the door and pulled it open, blood dripping off my hand. “Give me the papers.” I wiped glass off the seat.
Theo gaped like I was possessed. And yet, he still wouldn’t back down. “No.” He bridged his hips up, jammed the papers down the front of his pants, and sat back down. “I don’t care what you do to me. Kill me if you want.”
I sat on the seat and shut the door, more glass falling onto my lap. I needed to breathe, or Iwasgoing to kill him. Andthough I couldn’t feel an ounce of it at the moment, I reminded myself that I loved Theo.
My head dropped to the steering wheel, and I did the relaxation breathing my mom taught in her flexibility class. Four counts in, eight counts out.
Screw that.
As quick as he’d been on the grass, I drew back and sucker punched him right in the center of his sternum. While he gasped for air, I ripped the papers out of his pants.
He moaned and groaned—making a big show of it—but I didn’t let it slow me down. I threw the truck into drive and smashed down the gas, gravel shooting out behind us.
“Griff, stop.” He winced. “You can’t do this.”
“Why do you care so freaking much?” I snapped as our tires screeched onto the blacktop of the back road.
Sitting on his front porch in this bitter cold weather, BJ Shumaker, Theo’s neighbor across the street, threw his hand up like,Are y’all crazy?
Why yes, BJ, yes, we are.
“Because I do,” Theo said. “Because I love you, and Juliette loves you, and I know she wanted the divorce at first, but she was just hurting because you left.” His hands were moving as fast as his mouth. “She doesn’t have a family, Griff. We’re it. If you divorce her, who does she have? No one.”
“Theo,” I breathed. “Juliette doesn’t love me. If she did, don’t you think she would’ve tried to contact me in the past two weeks?” I smacked the steering wheel. “And she’s a freakinghooker.I can’t be married to that.”
“You don’t know that?—”
“I do!” I shouted, at my wits’ end. “Liam was there!”
“She’s scared.” He tried a different angle. “That’s why she hasn’t contacted you. In time, when things calm down, she’ll come back, and she’ll tell you everything—and you’ll find out it isn’t what you think. She will.Shehasto.”
“She won’t! Gah! Man, why can’t you leave it alone? I need out. Don’t you understand that? I can’t be married to her.”
The wind whipped across my face, numbing my cheeks. It felt good. Now if only I could figure out how to make my heart go numb.
“Why not?” Theo asked. “People can change. People can turn things around. Duprees believe in that.”
“Please… stop.” I exhaled slowly, my chest aching like it was carrying something that wouldn’t fit.
Since the news broke, one thought had plagued me every day:I don’t know how I’ll ever be happy again. Finding out Jules wasn’t what I thought she was, and that possibly she’d never wanted me at all? I didn’t know how I was even walking around anymore, lungs still functioning, heart still beating, like I wasn’t dying one breath, one heartbeat at a time.
“I-I can’t handle it, okay?” My voice shook. “If you care about me like you say you do, you’ll just… you’ll stop.”
We rode the rest of the way in silence. But the closer we got to Dupree Ranch, the more Theo squirmed. I had no idea why. Maybe that’s what he did when he was cold?
But when we drove under the big metal sign, I found out exactly why.
