But it wasn’t there yet and he took a few moments to enjoy the relief even if it was going to be short-lived.
Running a hand over his face before pulling his long braid over his shoulder, he turned over onto his side and let his eyes drift to the window that overlooked his backyard. It was a sight that never failed to both comfort and calm him, even if he was already experiencing a momentary cease-fire in his body’s war with itself. A battle that he knew people were starting to take notice of, if the constant harping by Trey, his best friend and Hellion president, was any indication.
“Swear to fuckin’ Christ, Bish,” the man had bellowed just yesterday afternoon in an impromptu meeting in Bishop’s office. “Either you fuckin’ get your shit together or I’ll fuckin’ drag your pretty ass down to the doc myself!”
Bishop had no doubt Trey meant every goddamn syllable.
Which told Bishop it was time. Time to get everything in order, to get with an attorney and get everything in place. Because he knew that once he went to the doctor for the necessary tests, for all the poking and prodding, where all the different machines would be employed in order to determine what was doing in the deepest parts of him, that he wouldn’t be released.
No. Bishop knew. Knew that he wouldn’t be allowed to leave, to return home or back to his office at Hellion Construction. The only way he’d be leaving the hospital would be by way of a body bag.
He’d seen it go down with his dad and with his grandpa so he knew the drill. Understood the way medical shit worked, which is why he had made the choice not to get tested until he could no longer function.
What for? The outcome was all going to be the motherfucking’ same! At least by waiting, he got to live the remaining bit of his life on his own terms for as long as he goddamn could.
And that was all he was asking for at the moment.
Well that, and to be able to talk to Dory.
Just one more time to talk to the woman who had left such a huge hole in his heart and in his life. A gaping chasm in the center of his chest that Bishop swore had never healed completely. Not if his body’s reaction to just hearing her voice on the outgoing message was anything to go by. Of how he’d closed his eyes in order to better savor the sound of it after so many years without hearing it except in his memories. And how every joint in his body had gone to liquid as his mind supplied the picture of her mouth as it rounded over the words telling him to leave a message.
Following her sultry suggestion, he had spoken but he didn’t remember what he said. He knew he wouldn’t have fucking offered up much since leaving dumb-ass voicemails was not one of his strong suits. More than likely, he’d just told her who it was, given his number and demanded she call him back.
Reaching for his phone that sat next to the clock, he checked it. No calls, no texts and no voicemails. Would she even respond? He sure the fuck hoped so. It had taken a lot to admit that there were words that needed saying, of amends that had never been made that he wanted to get off his chest before…
Shaking his head at where his thoughts were headed, Bishop threw off the covers and sat up carefully, uncertain that his sudden movement wouldn’t arouse the sleeping bitch that had taken up residence on his insides. When no pain followed, he stood and made his way to the kitchen in order to start the coffeemaker. Without even thinking, his hand reached for the small bottle of pills he’d purchased on the sly but he stopped the movement half-way to goal. He didn’t want to take them if there wasn’t a need and at that moment, there wasn’t one. Having already done the addiction road in his early teens, Bishop didn’t need to go there again. And taking pain meds when he wasn’t hurting was one sure as shit sign he’d be walking that avenue again.
True, when the agony was on him, he’d swallow three at a time just to escape the sharp shards of torment his body inflicted. But that didn’t give him permission to start his day in a drugged fog. There’d be plenty of time for that later.
After he got his affairs in order.
All of them.
While the coffee brewed, Bishop fired up his laptop, determined to find an attorney outside the sphere of Hellion influence who could help him with all the legalities that needed to be in place beforehand. One who could tell him in advance what documents were needed so that his will could be carried out without the goddamn government taking everything first. A lawyer who knew his shit and yet who wouldn’t blab Bishop’s fucking bidness to everyone who had no need to know.
In other words, someone who could have Bishop wrapping up the end pieces of his life in the right fashion and in the right sequence so that those he left behind wouldn’t suffer. Something neither his father nor grandfather had done before the colon cancer that ran on the male side of the Bastian family claimed them.
Each of the men had been in their forties when they were first diagnosed and each had gone through bouts of chemo and radiation to try and kill the disease without killing the patient. But the treatments, at least to Bishop’s mind, hadn’t done anything but further weaken their already depleted bodies.
And he was determined not to allow that to happen to him. To become so frail and weak, he couldn’t control his bladder or bowels, so high on painkillers, he wouldn’t be able to complete a sentence. No fucking way! Bish didn’t believe all the stuff on the Internet that talked about the latest breakthroughs and treatments for the insidious disease. In his opinion, until the medical community could guarantee their goddamn results, you could count him out!
Which is worse, dude? Having your guts on fire or your head and heart? Christ, he’d been doing that a lot, talking to himself even if it was the silent kind. Shaking his head hard enough to flick his braid, he poured a cup of coffee and looked around the kitchen which was just becoming illuminated in the morning light. A soft focused brightness that caught on the worn linoleum and the chips in the paint of the cabinets. To his mind, the kitchen was well broken in, had character after all its years of use. Some of which had included him as he was growing up.
The crew should be arriving in a couple of hours to begin the initial work on the refurbishment. It had been the first decision he’d made in what he knew was to be a long string of them, but he couldn’t sell the old place without giving it a facelift. And the kitchen was the first area that was going to be done. By his estimation, it should only take a month to get most of it done in order to put a ‘for sale by owner’ sign in the front yard. Unlike the house next door which had taken three years to bring into the twenty-first century.
No. He needed it done. The sooner the better in his estimation since he didn’t know how long he really had before...
But experience with both his dad and grandpa taught him well on how short the time could actually be after the disease got to a certain point.
Of how each goddamn second counted.
*.*.*.*.*
He was just putting the finishing touches on his work day, closing screens on his computer and preparing to lock some of the more important documents in his fire-proof vault when Trey wandered in. And ‘wandered’ was the operative word since his big friend and Hellion brother didn’t say anything. Just entered and eventually sat his ass down in one of the guest chairs of his personal office, propping his size thirteen boots on the edge of Bishop’s desk.
Bishop glanced his way once but when no words were said, he kept on with what he was doing, letting his mind roam where it would as he went through his evening and end of the week routine.
He’d felt blessed and lucky that he’d only had two bouts of pain throughout the day and neither one so bad he’d thought he was gonna pass out. On a scale of one to ten, which all the different websites recommended, he assigned the pain as a six during the worst of that day’s episode. And all during the day, the residual ache had only been a four.
Bishop could deal with fours. Fours were a cake-walk, fucking easy-peasy and let him endure the day with his mind functional.
Enough so, he’d made an appointment with D. Arthur Whitcom
b, Esq., attorney at law for Monday morning. From the man’s website, he appeared to be a one-person firm with only a secretary and a receptionist. Perfect in Bishop’s mind. And when he’d called, the sweet, little thing on the other end of the phone sounded very happy that he was willing to make an appointment. But then it stood to reason that an attorney with all the qualifications listed on the webpage might receive a lot of ‘emergency’ calls of the nefarious variety.
Dory still hadn’t called back and her lack of response played on his mind.
Had he waited too long? Was she already on to a new life, the kind of life she deserved and had no residual emotion for someone she’d once, back in the day, loved? Maybe. But Bishop didn’t give a fuck. They had unfinished business between the two of them and no one or nothing was going to stand in the way of him telling her…
“Bish?” Trey’s deep growl stopped the leaner man in his tracks, the only movement in the room was of Bishop’s hazel gaze hitting the president’s chocolate brown eyes. “We gotta talk, amigo.”
“No one’s stopping you, buddy,” Bishop threw over his shoulder as he shoved a folder into the safe built into the concrete floor behind and to the right of his desk. “If you got something on your mind, then it’s fucking up to you to start the convo, dig?”
Bishop caught Trey’s head nod as he swung the safe’s door closed and put the carpet tile back into place. Not too long ago, Bishop would’ve simply shot to his feet, relying on his thick thigh muscles to carry the rest of him up. That move, however, was long since gone and he placed a hand on the floor to give him the leverage. He’d tried working out in the gym that now consumed half of the equipment shed after the move to open Hellions-Billings, but he didn’t have the stamina nor the muscle strength to wield the heavy weights anymore. He was lucky if he could walk five miles an hour for a full hour, on the treadmill.
It was just another motherfucking thing about him that was no longer the norm.
“Think things are getting worse, not better, brother.” Trey’s tone, one of heartbreaking sympathy, had Bishop avoiding the other man’s gaze. “And I need to know just what the fuck is going on.”
If Trey’s tone had been anything other than it was, Bishop would’ve lost it and demanded to throw dogs in the parking lot even though he knew he was in absolutely no condition to go a round with the other man.
So instead of playing it brash or from the balls, Bishop went truthful.
“How old am I?” he asked his president. Or rather, he asked Trey’s boots since he couldn’t look the man in the eye.
“Uhm, thirty eight?”
“Yep. And how old were my dad and grandpop when they…” Bishop found he couldn’t finish the thought, to actually say the rest of it out loud and the words just dangled in the air between the two men.
That was until Trey put two and two together.
“Fucking Christ! Bishop!” Trey’s bellow resounded against the office walls and echoed out the door, down the hall and clear into the warehouse portion that abutted the manager offices at Hellion Construction. “Just shut that fucking shit down now, brother!”
Bishop glanced up to where Trey towered, never knowing when the other man had found his feet, but immediately saw Trey’s thick finger was pointed straight at Bishop’s face.
“I never, fuckin’ ever, wanna hear you spew that shit again, yeah? You ain’t your daddy and you ain’t your pops! You get me?” Yeah, Bishop got him as could everyone in Missoula County proper. Trey’s hand went to his goatee, the one that Bishop knew Trey had grown to try and cover up the pretty-boy dimples that took him from ‘badass’ to beautiful in order to stroke it. A self-soothing move the big man used when he was upset, nervous or just feeling a lot of emotion he wanted to keep inside.
And it hurt to know that Bishop had caused both the stroking and the bellowing. Especially since it was over something neither one of them could help.
“I got it, Trey. Can’t lie to you, buddy. But real and true, I know I got it.” Bishop had planned on telling Trey later, after he was in the hospital and the tests were still being reviewed, but he knew it was too late for that. They were just too close, had grown up at the same club and knew too much about one another for him to deny what Bishop knew was happening.
Trey stared at Bishop with stark eyes, brown orbs so filled with pain and sorrow that Bishop felt his chest compress. “What’d the doc say? What’d the tests show?”
Bishop shrugged. “No doc and no tests, yet. Have other shit to do before I submit myself to all that garbage.”
The sound of the chair’s cushion was the only thing heard as Trey dropped himself back into the seat. “You haven’t been?” And while the words were simple, the tone was more in the incredulous arena.
Bishop finally met his best friend’s eyes. “Nah. Too much shit to take care of before I subject myself to all that fucking crap.”
Trey was quiet as he stared at the man before him as if trying to process the info given. “Stella is head nurse at St. Pat’s. So all you gotta do is say the word…”
“I know, Trey. I know,” was Bishop’s tight response. Stella was Trey’s aunt and one of the few in the family who hadn’t joined the Hellions either by marriage or by becoming a Honey. She’d chosen a nursing career instead, which Bishop had to admit suited her personality to a ‘T’. “When I’m done getting my shit together, Stell’ will be the one I’ll contact.”
Trey did a deep, hard blink as he stared at a spot over Bishop’s shoulder. It was a hard conversation between two men who had known each other most of their lives. One that Bishop had never counted on as having to give and which Trey obviously had never wanted to receive.
“What kind of shit are we talking about here, amigo? Property? Money?”
Bishop kept his face on his friend as he nodded. “And Dory.”
“What about Dory?” Trey breathed on a deep growl. Of everyone that knew of Bishop’s short lived marriage, Trey had taken it the hardest when she’d left. But then the man had only been seventeen when her bumper had made haste to disconnect from Missoula…and from the man she’d married.
“I need to talk to her, buddy. But she hasn’t returned my call.”
Trey dropped a palm to the desk with an audible tap. “You need me to fuckin’ talk to her, to convince her it’s important she calls back, all you gotta do is say so.” The man, the Hellion president that held the gavel, seemed so motherfucking determined as if calling Dory was the be-all and end-all to the situation.
Bishop bit the inside of his lip at his brother’s words in order to curb the smile that threatened to burst forth before he nodded. He wasn’t sure he could open his mouth to respond without laughing. And he knew Dory would take Trey’s interference just as Bishop would in her placeas a puppy biting at her heels.
“Like I said, I’m working it, dig? Just like I’m fucking working everything else, Trey.” Bishop swallowed over the lump in his throat as his mind realized that it was up to him, was his motherfucking responsibility to control the end of his life and how it would go down. “Let me work it, dude. Let me work it the best way I know how.”
Trey’s eyes bored into Bishop’s and found both men swallowing hard and deep. “Know I’ve got your back, Stan, yeah?”
At the sound of his own name, his legal name, Bishop’s body went to tense. But not so turned to stone that he couldn’t respond. “Yeah, Stephen. I know. Just like I’ve always had yours, big guy.”
Chapter Three
Friday nights we closed the shop at five when most of the other hair salons kept their doors open until at least seven, which was only one of a myriad of ways that Luscious was different than the competition. But Joy and I had been determined to make our place, make our little company special within the community.
And we had.
We catered to everyone: the teens, the seniors and especially the biker-girls that were willing to spend a lot in order to look better than their much younger competition. And since I ha
d knowledge of the biker world, I knew what those ladies of a certain age both needed and wanted.
It was a special trade and one that not every shop in town wanted or even knew how to work.
But I did.
And I exploited my previous experience in the Hellion Honeys so that Joy and I became the salon of choice when the biker-bitches rolled into town on the back of the machines their men rode. From April through middle September, our shop was the place to be in Casper!
Enough so that we could close at five on Friday nights without guilt, without a care to do what normal people did with their free time.
Which was, in my case, shop for groceries.
With a growing thirteen year old at home, it was a constant struggle to keep him fed but one I didn’t lament in the least. Even if it did mean that each and every shopping expedition resulted in more bags than the cart wanted to hold. But I’d learned how to load the conveyer belt, putting all the heavier items on it first in order to double-deck the purchases before toting them out to my SUV. Knowing which of the sacks to put in what passed for a trunk and which to load into the backseat.
Pulling into the narrow driveway of my small house, I saw the lights on behind the curtains and smiled. Of all the mothers I knew, I was the luckiest because my J.R. was always exactly where he said he’d be at the exact time he’d told me.
I flicked my high-beams and did a short bleep of the horn to signal my arrival as always. Which I knew my kid would be watching for. So I wasn’t surprised to see my ever-growing son holding the kitchen door open with his butt as he struggled into his shoes while shooting me a smile.
A smile so much like his father’s, it caught on my heart.
Checkmate With Bishop: A Hellions MC Novel Page 2