on, started the bike, and rode in a sharp arc around her before gunning it and moving quickly down her driveway.
And then I started preparing for what I’d say at church. My original plan had been to run by the spa compound, change, run a little, and then go to church. However, we’d spent longer at the cabin than I’d planned, so I was going to walk in smelling as if I’d fucked Banshee for the past two days.
And I was good with that.
Church happens in four steps. Old business pertaining to the membership but not our businesses. New business in the same category. Then old business pertaining to one of our enterprises, and then new business in that category.
As we all deposited our cellphones in the outermost room and filed through the tunnel into the heavily secured chamber, I told Mad Dog, “I have new personal business I’d like to bring up, when it’s time.”
He nodded, and I saw my brothers exchanging looks with each other. Everyone seemed relieved I was going to bring it up so they wouldn’t have to.
Twenty minutes in, when Mad Dog asked if there was any more old business, and no one spoke up, he looked at me before telling the table, “Frost came to me a few days ago and let me know Banshee owns one of the subcontracting firms working on the retirement home. He was upfront that he didn’t know where it was going. He pulled me and Squatch in. He didn’t try to hide it.” Our president smirked at me. “From the scents you’re wearing this morning, it seems to have gone somewhere.”
I nodded. “The woman formerly known as Banshee will now be known as Cheyenne. Her friends call her Shy, but so does her ex-husband, so I’m sticking with the full name. Ya’ll are welcome to call her either Cheyenne or Shy, but never, ever call her Banshee again. She was reeling from her divorce, trying to get some separation from her ex, and she used us to help her make the break from being someone’s wife to being single and on her own. She isn’t the same woman she was when she was here.”
“You had a thing for her back then,” Dementor said.
“Yeah, but I was too stupid to see it. I’m not asking for her to come back to the clubhouse yet. I know we’ll have to do something to address the way she walked out, but I’m hoping we can find a balance so it’s enough without being too much. That’ll be up to ya’ll, and I’m not ready to argue it or bring it to a vote yet. I would, however, like to be able to take her to our restaurant when some of ya’ll are around. She needs to start feeling comfortable with the idea of coming back as my ol’lady. And no, she isn’t yet, but that’s where I’m hoping to end up. She’s mine. She doesn’t know it yet, but there it is.”
Squatch leaned forward and met my gaze. “I’d like a semi-private apology from her for dissing me — in front of the membership and sweetbutts, including any ol’ladies that need to hear it. As long as that happens, I’ll be good with you delivering whatever sentence the club votes on.”
“It’s supposed to be three times whatever the punishment was going to be when they walked out the door,” Mad Dog said.
“Nothing had been decided,” I pointed out.
Mad Dog tilted his head. “I’d proposed thirty to sixty with a belt.”
“I was considering forty or fifty,” said Squatch.
I shook my head and looked down. I wasn’t sure she’d voluntarily walk in, knowing she was going to get one hundred and twenty with a belt. I didn’t even think ninety would fly — not as hard as they’d have to be to pass muster with my brothers.
“Frost and I will talk about it,” Squatch told the room. “We can’t let the other sweetbutts think she got away with that, but if she’s Frost’s now, we have to figure out how to handle it so we can welcome her to the family once it’s done.”
I looked up and met Squatch’s gaze, and he shrugged. “I can say I was thinking twenty-five, but not all with a belt. Maybe you can start her out OTK or something? I don’t know. Be thinking of what you think she’ll be able to handle. We’ll talk.”
Mad Dog looked around the room. “Anyone take issue with that plan?”