I set the phone face-down on the bar. Picked it up again. Shoved it in my pocket where I couldn’t see the screen. My jaw ached from clenching it.
Glitch was right. I had to give her space. It was the hardest thing I’d ever done.
?
On day eight, her email finally arrived.
Why should I believe this isn’t just temporary? What happens when the novelty of being “reformed” wears off and you go back to your old ways?
I stared at the words, feeling the weight of them. She wasn’t making this easy. She shouldn’t make it easy.
I can’t prove it won’t happen,I wrote back.All I can tell you is that going back would mean forgetting what it feels like to lose something that matters. And I never want to feel that again.
Her response came two days later.
What about the club? Are you expecting me to believe an entire culture changed just because you had an epiphany?
No. The club is still the club. But I’m not the same president I was before. I don’t participate in the same shit I used to. My brothers think I’ve lost my mind, but they respect the results.
What results?
The club is more profitable now than it’s ever been. Turns out I make better decisions when I’m not drunk or distracted.
I worried that was too flippant. But she responded the next day with something that might have been approval.
At least you’re honest about your motivations.
?
The emails continued. Weeks of questions and answers, of careful honesty and slowly dissolving walls.
She asked about my childhood, about King’s influence, about the culture that had shaped me. I told her things I’d never told anyone—about watching my father dismiss my mother, about learning that women existed to serve men’s needs, about the slow realization that everything I’d been taught was wrong.
She told me about Nashville. About her job, her friends, the apartment she loved. About rebuilding her life from scratch and discovering she was stronger than she’d ever known.
We didn’t talk about getting back together. Didn’t make promises or declarations. We just... talked. Like two people who used to know each other and were trying to figure out if they still could.
A month in, her email arrived at two in the morning.
I was awake—hadn’t been sleeping well since this whole thing started—and I saw it come through on my phone, the screen lighting up the dark bedroom. I sat up against the headboard, heart already beating faster than it should.
I’ve been thinking about forgiveness lately. Not whether you deserve it, but whether I’m ready to give it. Those are two different things.
I read it three times. Then I got out of bed and went to my office, because this deserved more than a phone screen. I sat atmy desk in the dark, the glow of the monitor the only light, and typed my response with fingers that weren’t quite steady.
What’s the difference?
I hit send and sat there, knowing she wouldn’t respond tonight. She never responded immediately. But I couldn’t make myself go back to bed, so I poured a whiskey and watched the cursor blink.
Her reply came the next evening, while I was in a meeting with Colt about the Kentucky expansion. I felt my phone buzz in my pocket and lost the thread of whatever he was saying.
“Dutch? You good?”
“Yeah. Keep going.” But I wasn’t listening. My hand was in my pocket, wrapped around the phone like it might disappear if I let go.
The second he left, I pulled it out.
Deserving forgiveness is about you and what you’ve done to earn it. Being ready to forgive is about me and what I need to let go of the anger.
