Page 114 of Panty Dropper

CHAPTER 49

Billy

“Smells good, sis.” Jimmy dipped his finger in the sauce simmering on the stovetop and popped it in his mouth. “Tastes good, too.”

“Hey!” Cheyenne swatted him away. “Out!”

I sat at my table and watched as my younger brother was banished from the kitchen. It wasn’t the first time, and I knew it wouldn’t be the last. He plopped down in the chair across from me at the kitchen table and kicked his feet up.

I reached across and shoved them off. “We’re gonna eat off that.”

“We’re gonna eat off plates, not the table,” Jimmy clarified.

Hank was on his phone out back on the deck. Cash was covering for me at the bar, but I’d promised him that I’d be in by eight. That was usually the time we really got slammed on Friday nights. Reagan was due here in about twenty minutes, so if I wanted to get this family meeting done, it was now or never.

“Cheyenne, can you come sit for a minute?”

“Um…” She opened the stove then closed it. Lifted a lid off of a pot and stirred it. Turned one of the heat dials down. And twisted an egg timer. “I can sit for fifteen minutes.”

“Even better.”

From my seat at the table I pulled open the glass slider and whistled. When Hank looked over I said, “Family meeting. Now.”

“You really are turning into him,” Jimmy taunted me as he put his feet back up onto the table. Cheyenne promptly knocked them off on her way to sit down.

“Thanks for the assist.” I gave her a fist bump as she took the seat beside Jimmy.

Hank hadn’t even closed the sliding door behind him before Jimmy started in with the questions. “So what is this about? Did Reagan get knocked up? Am I going to be an uncle?”

I knew he was joking around, normally I’d knock on wood, put up the sign of the cross, or do something else superstitious to send a message to the Universe, God, Karma—whatever or whoever was out there—that I did not want that to happen. But, thinking of Reagan carrying my baby was not something that I would be upset about if the forces that be granted it.

“What are those?” Hank pointed to the documents in front of me, getting straight to the point, just like he always did.

“First, I wanted to start off by letting Cheyenne know that before Pop died, he mentioned to Hank that there was a trust in our mother’s name.”

Cheyenne’s face lit up. “My grandpar…I mean, our grandparents—”

“Nah sis, they’re all yours.” Jimmy made a show of wiping his hands.

“I overheard them talking about a trust. I asked Reagan to look into it.”

“You did?” That was news to me. I wondered why she hadn’t mentioned anything to me about it. Was that why she’d offered to go to the police station?

“Yes. Do you remember after the will reading, I stayed behind? That’s what I wanted to talk to her about.”

I pushed down, for now, all thoughts about why Reagan might’ve kept that to herself. I had big news to share. I’d deal with that later.

“What did the old farts say about the trust?” Jimmy smiled, enjoying his own joke.

Her eyes darted around the table, and she looked down at her hands nervously. “I didn’t really hear too much.”

“They talked shit about us, didn’t they?” Jimmy asked the question we were all thinking.

“Um…” She bit her bottom lip.

“Just tell us what they said,” Hank said flatly, which for him was damn near nice.

I’d noticed he didn’t growl as much to Cheyenne as he did to us.

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