Chapter 4 Bishop #4
“Glad to be here.” I looked down at the menu in front of me, letting my eyes trail over each selection carefully even though I was aware of the way Asante’s eyes were burning into me.
Once I made a selection, I met his eyes.
“You just going to stare at me?”
“As long as it takes to figure you out,” he said.
“I pride myself on being hard to read. It comes with being a part of my family’s security.”
“I’m not worried, Bishop. I know for a fact you can be cracked.”
“You believe that for real. Don’t you?”
“Anyone can be found out if you ask the right questions and pay attention to what they don’t say just as much as you pay attention to what they do say.”
“Well let me know when you figure me out.”
“Deal.”
We both looked up and over at the chef as she made her way over to us. We put our orders in and she sauntered back to the kitchen with both of our eyes on her.
“Alright. You know about my family and shit. What’s up with your family?”
“I’m the younger brother to one sibling, Nadira. She’s probably my best friend. My parents are Kenyan American. My grandparents are still in Kenyan. We visit them at the end of each year as a family. They’re good people.”
“Do they… know?”
“That their only son likes men?” Asante checked. “Yeah, they know.”
“And?”
“Ask what you want to ask, Bishop.”
“Well with eighty percent of Kenya practicing Christianity -”
He cut me off. “Eighty-five percent,” he corrected, “And about eleven percent is Muslim.”
“Do they accept you?” I just blurted my question out.
“They know that I like men. When I first came out, Nadira stood beside me. My parents shunned me and cut me off which was kind of impossible considering I went to the military where I made enough money to take care of myself and had food and shelter. They kind of warmed up after I got married. They were heartbroken when I divorced. My father likes to act like my marriage to a woman erased the fact that I fuck men. My mom warmed up when I went no contact. My dad somewhat follows suit but I know that he thinks since I’m bisexual, eventually I’ll fuck the right pussy that will make me straight. ” He snickered and shook his head.
“So what happens if you marry a man?”
“They get right or they get left.”
“You’d cut your family off?”
“If it came down to it,” he deadpanned. “My parents are grown and I’m only here to live my life for me like they’ve lived their lives for them.
I can’t live in their expectations for the rest of my life and just be fucking miserable.
I mean, I love my parents and I respect them and the sacrifices they made for me and my sister but ultimately, outside of taking care of them in their old age, my loyalty is to myself.
I’ll send money through Nadira before I just cut them off financially or something but I’m not letting nobody son me at my grown ass age.
Respect is earned not given and I’m not letting nobody play with me or the person I dedicate my life to, parents or otherwise.
” He tapped his knuckles on the table. “What about you? What happens if your marriage doesn’t work out? ”
“That’s not an option,” I admitted. “Divorce is strongly frowned upon in our family.”
“What’s the actual success rate?”
“Meaning?”
“How often do people stay married because their parent said so and how often are they still together because they love their spouse?”
“In our family, we’re two for two. King and Xavia are happily in love and Knight, Nova and Casmi are happily in love.”
“So your parents are good at the whole match making thing?”
“Seems like it.”
“Alright, humor me. Tell me how your parents find these people.”
“You really want to know?”
“I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t.”
“Alright. So every family who lives like we do, usually large families from old money, send over the information of their available daughters who are interested in marrying the man who is up for grabs. Our parents go through the binders together. They pick their favorites. They have interviews with their top choices. They narrow that down and do family interviews. Then, they usually choose from there. Sometimes shit happens where the marriage is more political than anything else and happiness doesn’t fucking matter but we haven’t had to deal with that in our family in a long time. ”
Asante whistled and I snickered.
The chef walked back out with salads, bread and soup and set them down on the table between us.
We watched her head back to where she’d come from.
“She signed an NDA,” Asante said.
“What?”
“I know you don’t want certain shit getting out so now you have the option to take whatever you want out of here and leave whatever you want out of here.”
I scoffed and shook my head.
“Be for real, Asante. Why you single?”
“You trying to say I’m the full package or what?”
“Shit. Maybe I am, but ultimately we know I’ve been avoiding dating for real because of shit with my family and whatever. What’s your story? You don’t seem like you’d have trouble finding someone.”
“I wasn’t looking,” he said simply. “After my divorce, I just needed some time for me. Then with trying to get reacclimated with civilian life and figuring out my next move, it didn’t seem like a good time to be trying to date and shit so I didn’t.
” He plucked up a piece of bread and bit into it.
“And I’m not fucking perfect by a long shot. ”
“Oh yeah?” I picked up my own fork to dig into my salad. “Let’s hear it then.”
“I’ve got trust issues. My pride is a motha’fucka and I’m not the best at communicating.”
“You sure? Because you seem to be communicating just fucking fine with me.”
“Nah. I hold a lot of shit in and take a lot of shit on the chin but I’ll shut down on somebody quick and that goes for everyone, friends, family and all.”
“Oh. That’s why you were giving me the silent treatment?”
“Nobody was giving your simple ass the silent treatment,” he argued.
We both chuckled and I shook my head at that.
“Yeah, alright. Well I’m not the best communicator either so we’re going to have to work on that shit.”
“We?” Asante repeated and lifted an eyebrow. “There’s a we now?”
“There could be,” I didn’t hesitate. I could hear Rook’s voice in my head telling me that if I wanted to date anyone of my choosing the time constraint on that was getting worse by the day.
If I was going to do it, I needed to do that shit now.
“If you wanted there to be,” I added. “What I’m trying to say is if you want to just keep hanging out and see where shit goes for the next two years, I’d be down to do that, but uh, I also understand if you don’t want to get invested in this shit. ”
“Good to know.” Asante sat back in his seat and lifted his glass to his mouth slowly. “Let’s just see how it goes.”
I nodded once at that. “Let’s do it.”