Bishop: A True Lover's Story

“No need to work through lunch. I’m gonna dock you anyway, so you might as well eat.” Mike stood beside him while he knelt over the bush, double-checking the right side.

Bishop kept trimming.

“That looks pretty good to me.”

Bishop stood to his full height, staring his boss dead in his eye. Same exact height, build, stance, demeanor, voice, everything. He clenched his teeth as he removed the gloves he’d borrowed from Manny, since he’d been in the truck making calls most of the morning. They had another business to do after this and a large home in Lake Placid that required twenty-two crates of pansies to pick up, and three hundred pounds of mulch. It was going to be a long-ass day and food sounded good. But, he’d fucked up and he had to do penance. He moved to the next bush and got to work. Trent rolled his eyes, grumbling as he hefted his shears and followed Bishop’s lead.

“Bishop,” Mike said sternly.

“We didn’t mean to be so late. What had happened was—”

“It won’t happen again. Period.” Bishop cut off whatever the hell Trent was about to say. Any sentence that started like that was going to be nonsense. And Bishop wasn’t about that, or at least he was trying not to be.

Mike stood there, staring with dark, hard-to-read eyes. “You guys look like you had a rough night.”

Bishop didn’t comment, and Mike hadn’t posed it as a question. “We’re good. Hey, look. I have a side job after we finish in Lake Placid. Think I can use the truck when we knock off?” He’d hope the obvious subject change would give his boss a hint that the topic was closed.

“I just don’t want you to end up in any more shit, Bishop. I know the look you get when you’ve fucked up.”

“Mike,” Bishop growled.

“Excuse me? I’m Mike again? I thought we’d settled that.”

He needed to borrow the truck and Mike’s supplies. He didn’t have time to puff his chest out at him. Or deny him what he wanted.

“I’m not in any shit. I got a job, okay,” Bishop murmured stiffly. “Dad.”

Trent snickered behind him, and Bishop had a sudden urge to mule kick his best friend. “Go grab us something light, Trent, while I finish this.”

Trent didn’t have to be told twice. He hurried to catch up with the guys crossing the street to the Burger King.

“Sure.” Mike’s thick brows rose almost to his hairline. “You bid on it yourself.”

“Not exactly, boss man.”

Mike huffed, yanking his wide camouflage hat off his head and slapping it against his thigh. They even had the same buzz cut. “You still don’t wanna call me Dad? That’s what I am.”

“Oh, I know. But it’s kind of a hard habit to break after thirty years. I mean you fuckin insisted I call you Mike my whole damn life, acting like we were brothers or cousins all the time because you were embarrassed to have a kid. Now that I’m grown as hell you want me to call you Daddy?”

“Not Daddy. Hell no! That just sounds wrong… especially with…with you know… you being gay and all—”

Bishop glared at his father while he continued to grip the hedge trimmers, almost daring him to continue saying that ridiculous shit.

“And I was never embarrassed to have a kid so young… just terrified. But that was a long time ago. Look. You keep telling me you’ve changed. And I see it. I do. But, I have too.” Mike glanced behind him as if to make sure no one had snuck up on them. Yeah, neither one of them were all that good about expressing their emotions to each other. They’d been more like squabbling brothers than anything else, certainly not a normal, healthy parent-child relationship. “When your own crew set you up to take a robbery charge and I had to sit through that trial and listen to all the shit you endured as a kid growing up on the block with a single dad who didn’t know the first thing about being responsible, I felt like I was being punished too for my mistakes. Not putting you around positive people, not helping you make the right choices… not making sure you went to school.”

“You giving me excuses?” Bishop asked. Because he wasn’t interested. He’d told Mike a million times that he didn’t blame him for his own bad decisions. No one had held a gun to Bishop’s head and told him to skip school and join the Young’s Park gang. Hell, even though Mike had joined the Devil Wreckers—a notorious motorcycle club—when he was nineteen and dragged Bishop along with him into that world, he was now trying to take the blame. Here was his dad, all grown up, trying to claim responsibility for him. And he didn’t know how he felt about any of it.