Bishop leans in closer, letting my eyes study the dark beard along his chin and up the side of his face. His piercing blue eyes are dim now because of the room, but they’re beautifully haunted. It just creates more of a need to be here.
Blue is cold like he is.
I’m warm and cuddly (not that we’d necessarily have to do that), but he’s fully aware that I’m an asset that is residing right in front of him.
“It’s up to you, Bish,” I transmit cooly. “I mean—fuck it, maybe Blue can—” Bishop’s grip finds the waistband of my jeans again and twists the fabric, letting the material dig into my skin to get me to shut up.
“I don’t know what your fucking problem is but, again, I’m not obligated to tell you shit, nor are you entitled to be involved in what I do. We may work together, be on the same team, but when it comes to my personal life…you don’t belong in it. You never did. Everything was a mistake.”
His words sting, yet I steel my spine against them.
I’m not going to beg him for shit because he’s right. He did away with me like the next piece of trash he needed to pitch out.
“And I’m so glad you feel that way,” I surmise through the burning at the back of my eyes.
I will not cry in front of him. I will not show him what he does to me. Bishop destroyed me then obliterated my happiness for his own fucked up reasons.
Bishop stares at me for a long moment before opening his big-ass mouth again. “I’m glad we were able to have this chat then. Extremely enlightening and useful for future conversations. Because there is no one else I’ve ever met that I’ve wanted to shove my dick so far down their throat that it’d rupture their vocal cords, so I don’t have to hear them speak every two seconds.” His hands drift up towards my naked skin, and he digs his fingers into it. “Your encroaching in my life is fucking old. I don’t want you here. The only benefit about you is that you’ve made me come harder than I ever have in my life. I guess I can thank you for that, wife.”
Abruptly, he releases me and steers back for the door, calling out to his dog again to follow.
Wife, what the fuck does that word even mean anymore?
He doesn’t honor us getting drunkenly married one night, our feelings brimming over to where things were about to change for us. We were on the brink of allowing everything to shine through.
Then we woke up.
The reality of our lives settled in.
We tried, and I did my own things to jack up our relationship.
Bishop and I were doomed before we even started.
So why he won’t divorce me…I think it’s so he can watch me struggle to seize that chunk of my heart that I’ve wanted back for years.
I should’ve kept the dog.
“What the fuck?” With the door still open, I stand on my porch and stare at five familiar faces, all standing as a united front next to each other on the gravel drive.
Kyson.
Marty.
Mills.
Blue.
Fucking Emmy.
Then some gangly-looking asshole on Marty’s right side.
“Who the fuck is that?” I growl, nodding at the stranger with slitted eyes that has zero effect on anyone in my midst.
Mills strides up, ignoring my question with a shit-eating grin on his face as he removes his designer sunglasses and continues in my direction.
“Motherfucker,” he quips cheerfully. “I fucking missed you.” He hops up the two wooden steps and bro-hugs me while I remain still in the doorway of my trailer.
Mills doesn’t miss a beat of my sullen mood, stepping down and away from me so I can go back to glaring at the rest of my second family minus our commander, Ledger.
“Brought you a gift,” Marty emits flatly before shoving the guy at his side forward. “Tell him your name, asshole.”
The dude glances back before tucking his chin into his chest, almost shyly. “Name’s Crackhead Chuck.”
“Who?”
“Runs with Bubba,” Kyson fills in, shoving his hands into his jean pockets. “Thought you might want to look into some things.”
Like what?
“Is this a joke?” I leer. “How in the hell is that—” I point at him. “—running with anything. What are you twelve?”
“Nineteen,” he affirms, missing the insult. “And I ran Bubba’s accounting for his business when he was in hiding.”
Wow, talk about how times have changed. This kid is singing like a canary about his dead boss, and you'd get your ass beat for looking at someone wrong back in the day. The simple fact that Bubba must’ve been desperate for help to hire a child who probably just learned how to do math last year.
I rub at one of my temples, watching Blue chopping on her gum, bored out of her fucking mind, and Emmy with a white paper bag in her hands. Kyson is studying the park for anyone that might be eyeballing us, and Marty matches my annoyed scowl. Mills, on the other hand, looks excited like we’re about to hit a theme park or something.
“Did you guys expect to do this in the middle of the day or…”
Blue moves, grabbing the back of Chuck’s green shirt and guiding him inside the trailer. Her light Daisy Duke shorts ride up her toned legs as her red hair blows seductively in the gentle breeze.
Too bad there isn’t anything else there to keep me occupied. She was meant to put another wedge between Emmy and me and nothing more.
“Move,” she orders, shoving Chuck up the stairs and through the threshold.
“You couldn’t do one thing,” I growl at her as she passes, smelling of artificial watermelon from her bubblegum.
“Blame your butt buddy, Ky, for not keeping Emmy on a leash,” she sasses back, brushing my chest with her arm. Then she stops and peers up at me with gorgeous pools of green eyes. “But it’s nice to see you,
