AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“See you around, Green.” I lifted my chin at him as I rounded the truck to the passenger side.
“You should watch her, Jacobs.”
I stilled. “You got something you want to say?”
“Nope. That’s it.”
I watched him as he strolled across the gravel parking lot until he got into his own ride.
“Mind telling me what that was all about?” I asked as I climbed in the cab.
“He’s a jackass. That’s it.” She clamped her lips shut, and I narrowed my eyes.
“I thought y’all were friends.”
“Definitely not. You want some Dairy Queen? I could go for a Blizzard.”
The closest one was the next town over about thirty minutes away. If that meant avoiding my family and the horse I’d let down a little longer, so be it.
“Me too.”
She turned up the radio and cracked the window before she threw the truck in reverse. George Strait’s voice came through the speakers singing that nobody in his right mind would’ve left her. I jabbed the power button to cut off the noise, unable to listen to the words that hit a little too close to home.
My head had cost me Juliana, but my heart had stayed behind with her.
Chapter Nine
Juliana
“What are you doin’up so early, girl?”
Nana gingerly sat down in the rocking chair next to mine on our front porch. The December wind had already kicked up this morning, but I braved it, wrapping a blanket more tightly around my shoulders.
I shrugged even though I knew exactly why I was up before the sun.
“This have to do with that Jacobs boy?” Guess Nana knew too.
“Why don’t you like him?” I blurted. Between my father and Nana, if I’d been Mitch, I’d have hightailed it far away from me and my family years ago.
“Who said I didn’t?” She blew on her steaming mug of coffee, both hands pressed against the warm porcelain.
“You don’t have to. Daddy and you are both awful to him,” I said, voice rising.
“That boy can’t just waltz in here and think he’s good enough for you. Besides, a little fear never hurt nobody.” She took a sip of coffee. “And we’re kind, relatively speaking. You should’ve seen my daddy with your grandfather. He held a shotgun every time Jeffrey Sr. came around.”
A smile played on her lips.
“Somehow that doesn’t make me feel better.” I pushed on the wooden planks of the porch with my foot, rocking a little faster. “How come you’re all so nice to Alfie?”
“‘Cause he ain’t the one you’re in love with.”
I paused, the entire world around me going still. This wasn’t news, but it shook me.
“If we were meant to be, he wouldn’t have broken up with me over the trip.”
“Honey, you should’ve told him sooner. And you were going to live together. That ain’t no small thing.”
I burrowed into the rocker. It had taken all of my courage to sign up for the study abroad trip in the first place. I’d never been far away from home, and leaving Mitch behind for that long had been the worst part of the decision. But I didn’t want to have a lifetime of regret over the ‘what if.’ Now I had to live with losing him.
