Chapter 10 Bishop #2
“Where the hell is this coming from? Be real with me. What’s going on?”
King exhaled. “Rook and I had a talk about you deserving happiness. Knight and I got a fair shot because we walked into this with open eyes and open hearts. If you’re already in love, we’re setting you up for sadness and misery.
That’s not fair and it’s a new day. You should be able to be with whoever you want. ”
“So, you and Rook are talking about my bedroom?” I shot my twin a look and he shrugged without remorse.
“Look, he came to me and told me he wanted you to get to choose your partner, man or woman. We didn’t get into specifics about Asante or none of that.”
“And Rook saying that I should get to choose my own spouse was enough to change family tradition?”
“Nah. Rook made a deal that if he married Winnie and gave up his choice to have any input on his wife, you’d get to explicitly choose who you married.
Mom and dad couldn’t argue with that. It was a strategic choice for them and I guess me too at first, but honestly, you do give up a lot for this family, B and I may not be good with feelings and shit, but you deserve to be happy and I want you to hear me when I say this shit.
I’ve never, ever been embarrassed of you or who you fuck in your free time.
Nigga, we share blood. You could fuck anybody outside of Xavia and I would stand behind you.
If you needed to hear it, there it is. Don’t ever question that. ”
“So that’s why you married Winnie?” I faced my twin.
“And I’d do that shit again if it means you and Asante get a chance. You deserve that shit, Bishop,” Rook said simply.
“And you don’t care about the fact that your divorce will be one of the first, if not the actual first one in our family?”
“Nah. I’ve never really given a fuck about all that tradition shit anyway, and ay, I’m not sacrificing shit.
You know like I know that I didn’t want to get married.
I’m in this marriage now with a woman who knows that and won’t expect regular husband shit from me.
It’s a business deal and just like you get to be with Asante, I get to spend two years deciding what I want to do and enjoying my life a little bit more.
” He shrugged. “It’s a win for both of us. ”
“I appreciate you doing this for me, Rook,” I said softly, my brain running a thousand miles a minute.
“Nigga, I’ll do whatever for you.” Rook scoffed..
“I know.”
“Look, Rook set this whole shit in motion and Knight and I both agree. Fuck the outside noise and all that other shit. At the root of this family business shit is family and we’ve got you, no matter what you decide.
Alright?” King asked. “I know getting to choose isn’t the normal thing around here so I don’t want to put too much pressure on you, but I do need to know sooner rather than later because if you decide to do shit the traditional way, I have questionnaires and interviews that need to happen before I can even compile a book.
You’d have to pick some from there and I’d still have to do second rounds and have them in to meet mom and dad. It’s a process.”
I nodded mutely, sniffed and cleared my throat. I wasn’t as in touch with my feelings as Knight or anything but I definitely wasn’t as aloof as King. I fell somewhere in the middle and right now those emotions were threatening to surface as tears. I bit them back to the best of my ability though.
“Do you think we should have a family meeting?”
“For what?”
“For how this is going to affect the family.”
I knew King was trying to be an ally and prove his love to me but ultimately shit like this wasn’t done often and with the temper my brothers had, I was probably setting the family up for a lot of bullshit just so I could stay with Asante.
I would ultimately be putting my happiness first and in this line of business I wasn’t sure being selfish was the best move no matter how much I wanted to.
“No. This isn’t a family decision. It’s yours.”
I nodded and took a deep breath.
“Alright. Then, I don’t need the time to figure it out,” I confessed. “I’m going to ask Asante.”
I knew that was a quick decision, but I also knew that there hadn’t been a single time since I’d gotten close to Asante that we’d spoken of calling shit off when I got married.
That had never been an option for either of us.
If we both had faith we could survive me being married to someone else, there wasn’t much I didn’t think we wouldn’t be able to tackle.
I wanted to do this and if I ended up being a martyr for other men in this life, so fucking be it. At least as I was going to taste happiness on the way down.
“Fuck.” King chuckled. “Then congratulations.”
“Congratulations!” Rook hit me on his my back and I chuckled.
“He hasn’t said yes.”
“Don’t do that.” King gave me a look. “If Asante plays with you, I’m go meet his ass in the parking lot of his club and up the blick on him. I swear to God.”
I chuckled at that and King shook his head.
“So…” Rook kicked his feet up. “When are you popping the question?”
“I mean, I have to get a ring first but I don’t know. Right now I’m just focused on getting you through this weekend. Asante’s not going anywhere and I have almost a year,” I said simply.
I wanted to keep shit nice and simple even while I felt like I was about to explode inside out of pure excitement. I couldn’t wait to tell Asante. I couldn’t wait to be with him in our home and for the first time since I’ve known him, not have a big cloud of uncertainty following us around.
“Yeah well I’m there for whatever you need to make this happen,” Rook offered.
“Thanks.” I leaned toward him and dapped him up. “For everything.”
“Always, man.”
King’s phone let out a loud beep and he pulled it from his pocket and glanced at the screen.
“I’ve got to move, but I’m glad we had this conversation.” He stood up and we stood as well out of respect for him. “Both of you keep me updated on marriage, current and potential.” He looked between us and we both nodded.
King dapped each of us up, hitting us on the back before heading out the door. As soon as it shut in place I turned toward Rook and hit him in the stomach.
I felt like I could let out all the excitement I’d been trying to hold inside in front of King and now that I was alone with Rook I felt like it all was flooding back inside of me, making me so excited it was hard to do anything but focus on it.
“The fuck are you doing, Rook?” I snickered and he laughed in return.
“Looking out for you.” He shrugged. “That’s all I ever do.”
“Yeah, well…” I sniffed and shook my head.“Thank you.”
I sniffed again and Rook yanked me into him for a hug. We weren’t an overly affectionate kind of family, but fuck, I could’t lie, after what Rook had done for me, having him console me like this had even more emotions running through me.
That shit we said about being too halves of the same soul wasn’t a joke. I’d do whatever if it came down to my brother and shit, he’d just proven that he’d do whatever he needed to in my honor too.
The thought made me wrap my arms around him and he hit him on the back to initiate the embrace.
“You know I’ve got you, B,” Rook assured me. “Always.”
I nodded at that and cleared my throat as we pulled apart from each other.
I looked out at the guests that were arriving at the house then over at Rook, back and forth. He had his eyes focused on the line of cars that were dropping people off in front of the manor, hoping each one was carrying my newest sister-in-law.
“She’s going to show right?” I voiced the question that had to be running through at least half of our family’s heads.
“She’s going to show,” Rook said simply. He took a sip of the beer in his hand. “I’m not worried.”
“Maybe we should be. The last time you saw her you were arguing and she was storming out.”
“And she’s still going to show.”
“How are you so confident about that?”
“I don’t know why you’re not,” he countered. “We both know what lengths people would go to for money, especially the amount she’s promised.”
“Money ain’t everything.”
“Did you see the way she was about to have a breakdown when her impending husband died? She’ll show.”
“Alright.” I nodded once and let my eyes travel down the trail of cars again, trying to see if I spotted one that looked anything like what they’d ridden in to the house for the wedding. Well, I’m going to head inside and I’ll see you and Winnie in there.” I hit Rook on the back.
“Yeah, alright.” He continued to stare straight ahead and I looked out at the guests one more time before heading inside.
Our family was already making the rounds and a huge smile took over my face when I saw Casmi and Novalie waddling toward me, both of them pregnant and glowing.
“There’s my favorite sister-in-laws.” I hugged them each at the same time, then pulled back and looked between their stomachs. I whistled and shook my head. “The fact that y’all are pregnant at the same time will never stop blowing my mind,” I admitted.
Nova grinned and Casmi giggled.
“They’ll pretty much be twins like two of their favorite uncles,” Nova teased.
“Then, they’ll be set up for life.” I reached down and touched Nova’s stomach then Casmi’s.
Casmi, Nova and Xavia were the best possible women to join our family and I loved the fact that they were genuinely like sisters to me instead of just in-laws. I cared about them the way I cared about my brothers and they knew without a doubt that I would shake shit behind them.
“How y’all feeling though?”
“So far, so good.” Casmi touched her stomach.
Nova regarded me carefully. “How are you feeling?”
My eyebrows knitted together. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, it probably isn’t easy watching your partner in crime get married, especially when you guys thought you had another year. Like, what’s the living situation going to turn into?”