Bishop

by A. E. Via

  “Yes. To my place.”

  Edison’s head whipped around. “What… now?”

  “Yes, Eddie. I told you someone wants to meet you.”

  Edison released a long breath. “Your father?”

  “Well, I only have three people in my life and you. Trent, you already see regularly, the other one is on his way home soon. So, yep, that leaves my dad, and he’s getting on my nerves so I’m gonna bring you over for just a quick second to say hi and bye, then we’re going to dinner.”

  “Bishop, we can stay a bit longer than that. I don’t want him to think I’m rude. People take offense if you act like you can’t stay in their house for more than ten minutes. We have to stay at least an hour.”

  “An hour! Where do you get these rules, Eddie?” Bishop asked. He’d never heard that before. He’d heard of overstaying your welcome.

  Edison grinned. “Old men sayings.”

  Bishop laughed. “Babe, I’m more worried about him offending you. His filter needs work. Me and him have a different kind of relationship than most dads have with their kids.”

  Edison massaged Bishop’s thigh. “Why don’t you talk about your dad more? I think you know just about everything about my pop by now.”

  “I don’t mind you talking about your dad. I can tell it makes you feel good and also the stories are pretty funny. He sounded like an awesome guy.” Bishop kept his eyes on the road when he reached over and stroked Edison’s cheek. “He had to be if he raised you.”

  Edison ducked his head, squeezing Bishop’s thigh even tighter, making him bear down on the gas. “Do you think your dad will like me?”

  Bishop gripped Edison’s hand, catching his worried eyes for a moment before he had to turn them back to the road. “Yes,” he said confidently.

  He only lived about twenty minutes from Edison, and since there’d been hardly any traffic, they’d gotten there sooner. Edison tapped his fingers on his knee, his big eyes roaming all over the small court before settling on their trailer. While it wasn’t luxurious, it’d been more than Bishop had been used to.

  Bishop took Edison’s shaky hand and kissed each of his knuckles. “Calm down. You’ll see when you meet him that you’re getting worked up for nothing.”

  “Nothing?” Edison scoffed. “I’ve never met my boyfriend’s parents.”

  “One parent.”

  “Okay.” Edison shrugged. “That’s even more pressure.”

  Bishop got out and went around the side to open Edison’s door. He tugged until he was out, again trying to reassure him. “You look hot.”

  “Thank you.” Edison smiled.

  “Feel better?”

  Edison nodded.

  Bishop kissed him once more, then led him up the three rickety steps and used his key to open the front door.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Edison

  Edison squeezed Bishop’s hand as if it was his only lifeline. He could do this, all he had to do was be himself, just like his pop used to always say. Edison straightened his back and held his head high, proud to be on Bishop’s arm.

  “Mike, what the fuck man!” Bishop yelled, his deep voice making Edison jump. He only had one foot in the door when Bishop wouldn’t let him go any farther, his huge frame blocking Edison from seeing what was happening. “Put some goddamn clothes on!”

  Edison’s eyes widened. Who’s he talking to? Bishop didn’t mention having a roommate.

  “Fuck you. It’s hot,” a rumbly voice filtered outside, sounding exactly like Bishop’s.

  “Eddie’s with me, you ass,” Bishop growled.

  “Right now?” Edison heard the surprise in the man’s voice, then scuffling and the sound of heavy footsteps. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming? I would’ve had drawers on. I’m not trying to have your boyfriend dump you for me.”

  Edison laughed abruptly but quickly tried to cover it with a cough when his boyfriend glared at him.

  Bishop turned back around and threatened, “Real funny smart ass. Just go put something on before we change our mind.”

  “No, no, no. I’ll be right back. Let ’em in, B.”

  Edison was confused. Who in the heck was Bishop talking to like that? After a few seconds, he opened the door wider and let Edison inside. The interior was dark with most of the drapes drawn together to keep out the setting sun. The trailer was all open space. There was a living area with a worn sofa and recliner positioned in front of a large television. Some kind of fishing show was blasting on it before Bishop grabbed the remote and turned it off. The room was silent except for the bustling and slamming of dresser drawers in the back room. Edison blinked, wondering who else he might be meeting. That naked guy sounded like a real character.

  Bishop put his hands around Edison’s waist from behind while he looked around. His arms felt good around him, but he didn’t want to be too handsy in front of Bishop’s only parent. He heard the confident footsteps before a man turned the corner with a broad grin on his face. Edison could feel his body go rigid as Bishop began to massage his shoulders.

  “Eddie. This is Mike…” Edison looked up at Bishop as if they were playing a joke on him. Bishop scrubbed the back of his neck. “This is my dad.”

  Edison continued to stand there and blink like an idiot. Bishop’s dad laughed a dry throaty sound—holy cow, he even laughs just like him—as he stuck his big palm out. “Calm down. I’m sure you weren’t expecting to get this turned on when you met me.”

  “Fuck. Here we go,” Bishop gritted.

  Edison slowly put his hand out, trying to get his brain to reboot, “I-I’m not. I swear I wasn’t thinking like—”

  “He’s fucking with you,” Bishop said against Edison’s ear.

  Edison laughed, feeling like a fool, knowing his face was ten shades of red.

  Mike held his arms out to his sides, glancing down at his body. “The hell I am. You’re looking at the oh-so-slightly more refined version of Bishop, Eddie.”

  “Edison,” Bishop clarified.

  Bishop’s dad didn’t seem taken aback, but amended what he’d said. “It’s nice to meet you, Edison.”

  “It’s really good to meet you, too…sssir… um, Mr. Stockley.” Edison wasn’t sure of the proper title to attach to the end of that sentence, because neither of them seemed to fit. He still couldn’t believe how much Bishop and his father resembled each other. So much so that Edison wondered how many times he’d glanced out of his office window and thought he was looking at his boyfriend but might have been drooling over the so-called ‘slightly more refined version.’

  “Just call me Mike, Edison. Only the motherfuckers at the IRS call me Mr. Stockley.” Mike shook Edison’s hand in a firm grip.

  Bishop’s dad had thrown on a pair of black track pants, and a white wife beater. It appeared as if he’d splashed some water in his hair to spike up the slightly longer strands on top which was the only way to tell the difference between the two men. Mike pointed towards the couch, “Go on and have a seat. Make yourself comfortable.”

  Edison nodded and moved towards the living room when Bishop suddenly grabbed his arm and steered him to the one chair. “I don’t even sit on that damn couch. You can sit right here.”

  Edison laughed when Mike flipped Bishop off like they were pals, not missing a beat as he plopped onto the sofa, giving Edison his full attention. “I’ve been asking Bishop to bring you by for weeks. He talks about you all the damn time.”

  Edison flushed, his heart skipping a beat at knowing Bishop thought of him so much when they were apart.

  “We’re not staying, Mike. Me and him just stopped by before we went to dinner.”

  “We’re not in a rush, Bishop, relax,” Edison said, starting to loosen up more since Mike was nothing like a conventional dad.

  “Yeah. Sit your big ass down and chill. Edison wants to chat with me.” Mike scowled.

  Edison was still feeling as if he’d stepped into the Twilight Zone. It wasn’t everyday a man learne
d that his boyfriend had a doppelgänger. How the hell old was Mike? Bishop said his dad had him young, but heck. Mike didn’t even have any gray hairs at the temple, or nothing. Even their thick, veiny forearms were identical when Mike leaned forward and braced his elbows on his knees.

  “Tell me a little about yourself, Edison. What’s your last name. Who your people is?”

  Edison ran his hand over the front of his shirt then remembered he wasn’t wearing a tie. “My last name is Scala.”

  “Now, is that Italian?”

  Bishop huffed annoyingly from where he was propped beside him on the arm of the chair, and Edison shot him a stern look before he continued. “It is. My father was Italian, and my mother was Portuguese. Which I’m sure is how I got this skin, because my dad was all scruff. He passed a couple years back, so I only have my aunt and uncle now.”

  “Where’s your mom?”

  “Dad,” Bishop warned.

  Edison shook his head. He wasn’t sure what Bishop thought he was protecting him from, but Mike wasn’t offending him. “Bishop… I can speak. If there’s something I don’t want to answer, then I won’t.”

  “Oh shit. You got yourself a live one here, B. I like him.” Mike’s laugh was hearty and more jovial than Bishop’s. “Edison, I thought you’d be more… I don’t know.”

  Edison believed he knew what Mike was saying. He thought that Edison would be a soft-spoken, no-swearing, pushover who needed to let his guy speak for him. He was gonna show Mike that he was the opposite. He was Bishop’s equal. His son didn’t want a weakling he could boss around. He needed a man who could hold his own and support him when he needed it.

  “So where are y’all going to eat? Bishop tells me you’re practically a master chef, Edison. I’m surprised you eat out at all.” Mike stood suddenly. “Oh man, I was supposed to offer you something to drink. Bishop where’s your damn manners?”

  “The same place yours are,” Bishop fired back.

  Edison laughed, starting to pick up on their antics. “I’m fine, Mike, I don’t want anything.”

  “You sure? We got water… on tap. Beer… I think we got some milk. All Bishop eats is cereal.”

  Edison turned to balk at Bishop. “Are you still eating those sugary cereals?”

  Bishop practically bared his teeth at his dad. “Rarely.”

  “Did Bishop tell you that my girlfriend almost gave me food poisoning last week?” Mike sat back down.

  “No.” Edison grimaced. “What happened?”

  “She made some kind of pasta that had chicken breast in it. But she didn’t cook the meat all the way through.”

  “Oh no.” Edison’s eyes went wide.

  “Exactly right. I thought I was gonna die.” Mike rubbed his stomach. “I was on the shitter for forty-eight hours straight.”

  “Nice of you to share that with us before we go to eat,” Bishop grumbled.

  “Anyway.” Mike ignored his son. “I’m gonna surprise her with a home-cooked meal when she gets off work tomorrow night. I’m making a little something that’ll have her praising me the same way Bishop does you.”

  “You’re not going to embarrass me, Dad. Edison already knows I’m crazy about him.”

  “I wasn’t trying to embarrass you, lil homie. I was just saying.” Mike looked at Bishop with a load of pride and happiness overflowing in his gaze. They may jibe and goad each other but Edison was already seeing that was how they showed their affection. Even the way Bishop switched between calling his father Mike or dad was done with love.

  “If you don’t mind me asking… what are you making her?” Edison inched farther to the edge of his seat. Now they were talking.

  Mike puffed his thick chest out and said, “pepper steak… over rice. My homeboy, Manny told me exactly what to do.” Mike glanced at Bishop before darting his dark eyes back to Edison. “Although…”

  “Don’t even fucking think about it,” Bishop said, shaking his head at Mike as if he was unbelievable.

  “What?” Edison asked.

  “He’s gonna ask you to cook… that’s what.” Bishop stared Mike down, who at least had the decency to look mildly guilty.

  “I was not. I was just gonna ask him for some pointers. Nothing more.” Mike shrugged. “But if he wanted to help…”

  “He doesn’t.”

  Edison stood and pushed his sleeves up a bit higher. “I’d love to help. Show me what you got, Mike.”

  Mike clapped his hands together and jumped up with the enthusiasm of a kid on his first day of school. “Right this way, chef.” Mike’s long legs ate up the short distance to the small kitchen.

  Bishop hurried to follow them, wrapping his arms around Edison and pulling him into his chest. Bishop whispered not-so-quietly against the shell of his ear. “I don’t want you to cook. I wanted to show you my bedroom.”

  Edison gently elbowed Bishop away before his dick took interest. Seeing Bishop’s bedroom sounded like an amazing idea, but Bishop had also brought him there to meet his dad. Edison wasn’t about to disappear into a back room like a horny adolescent—he’d been taught better than that. He wouldn’t be rude. “Later,” he mouthed to Bishop then washed his hands in the sink.

  Mike laid his few grocery items on the countertop, then started pulling some pots from out of the cabinet. There wasn’t much space to work with, but Edison wasn’t spoiled, he could cook in just about any kitchen as long as it was clean. And he liked that the two men kept their home really neat, for young, handsome bachelors. He took inventory of the few ingredients, then tried to remember his favorite Bobby Flay pepper steak recipe. “Do you have any onions?” he asked.

  “Oh. I do.” Mike rushed over to a small sliding door next to the refrigerator, that Edison realized was the pantry and took out a large, yellow onion.

  “Perfect,” Edison said. “You have everything you need. And I like that your friend told you to get more than just green peppers. I think the yellow and red add a lot of extra flavor and gives the dish a pop of color, don’t you?”

  Mike’s forehead creased, but he nodded as if he understood. Bishop sat at the dinette table and crossed his big boot up on his knee, his lust-filled eyes tracking Edison everywhere. He was used to Bishop watching him cook but he wasn’t used to Mike, and he found himself wanting to show his skills. Ordinarily, he’d have pre-measured all of his ingredients and poured them into little glass bowls to cut down on his cooking time, but he wasn’t about to ask for those. “Mike, do you have any paper plates?”

  “Hell yeah. We hate doing dishes.” Mike took out a stack of Styrofoam plates from the shelf over the stove.

  Edison laid out four plates, then asked, “Where’s your spice cabinet?”

  Bishop and Mike both barked the same startled laugh. Edison ducked his head, his cheeks heating, realizing his mistake. Mike clamped him on the shoulder and pointed to the disposable salt and pepper shakers sitting on the dinette table. Bishop passed it to him, and Edison set them beside one of the plates. That was okay. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d had to make steak without his favorite Montreal seasoning.

  “Do you have a cutting board by any chance?” Edison squinted one eye, daring to ask.

  “Fuck you, top chef.” Mike laughed, shoving Edison again. “I have one of those. We don’t chop our meat on the counter, we do have some civility in this trailer.”

  Edison liked Mike’s gritty sense of humor and the way he used his hands to emphasize his points. He was dying to ask how old he was, but refrained. He figured it’d come out some way. While Edison prepped Mike’s surprise dinner for his lady, he talked to him about his landscaping business and how amazing Bishop had been at pulling their books out of the red and back to operating in the green with his designs. Mike spoke with so much admiration for Bishop that he found himself feeling a twinge of jealousy and missing his pop so much it burned his chest. Eventually Mike got around to asking him a lot of questions about his job and seemed really interested in his father’s barber shop an
d what it was like growing up there.

  “Your dad sounded like a real stand-up guy, Edison.” Mike glanced over at Bishop then to where Edison was cutting the flat flank steak into long, even strips. He looked upset, or disturbed, and Edison hoped he hadn’t overstepped. “I um… I didn’t always do the right thing by my lil homie over there.”

  “Mike.” Bishop shook his head.

  Mike was leaning against the counter his sharp eyes intense on Edison. “I treated him like my homeboy instead of treating him like my kid. By the time he was ten everyone thought we were brothers… or cousins. But he grew up all right I think.”

  “I think he’s amazing, Mike,” Edison said. “You did a fantastic job.”

  Mike vibrated beside him. “Yeah? He is, isn’t he? Bishop’s a great man. He has like this eye, ya know. The eye of an artist. He’s gonna do big things too, way bigger than I ever dreamed. I wasn’t there to encourage him like your father did for you when you were in school and heading off to college.”

  “Dad.” Bishop’s tone had gone from threatening to almost pleading. “Don’t.”

  What don’t you want me to know, honey?

  “I’m just wanting Edison to know that I didn’t always get shit right and it took too long to pull my act together before it affected my kid. But, at fifteen years old, I simply thought keeping him would’ve been enough. I didn’t think it’d be that damn hard to raise him.”

  Edison stilled his knife and glanced up at Mike.

  “You heard me right. I was only a damn kid myself when I had B. His mom was a fucking married, twenty-nine-year-old bitch. She didn’t even stay at the hospital the full forty-eight hours before she jetted. I haven’t seen her trifling ass since, and she better hope I never do. But it’s all good now. Worked out for the best.” Mike looked over at Bishop and winked. “My little mistake by the lake.”

  “Nice.” Bishop chuckled. “I liked baby burden the best.”

  “Hey.” Mike pointed, acting pissed, but the quirk of his lips gave him away. “You’re my son. You were never a burden… you were a problem. There’s a difference.”