Bishop laughed a sort of humorless laugh. “I ain’t saying it was right, but it was the easier change to focus on. Didn’t leave the same sort of gaping hole,” he admitted, meeting his friend’s gaze and knowing he would understand better than most what both changes felt like in a person’s life. Vic had after all risen up the ranks of their MC at the very same time, had had to figure out what it looked like to be the right hand man to the man in charge. “And we had a lot of fucking people expecting us to make the right calls after Rodeo abandoned this place.” Abandoned all of us was the unspoken part of that sentence that Bishop knew he didn’t need to tack on for Vic to understand it.
“Don’t think I could even if that’s what I wanted,” Bishop admitted, his mind drifting to thoughts of his boys. Boys that looked so much like him, but also had enough of their mama in them to be a constant reminder of the woman who’d never be there to watch them grow up. “I ain’t even sure if I’ll ever get to a point where someone enters the picture in the future,” he admitted. “Truthfully I’m real happy with life now, with the boys. with Hazel. But, it ain’t right of me to expect her to live with me and raise my boys and not have her own life…” Bishop ignored the way his heart sort of constricted at the idea of Hazel leaving them.
Bishop nodded. “You know I never saw myself as the marrying type, always figured I’d be on my own, then Willa happened and for a few years I thought I could do it,” he paused. “But I ain’t ever been anything more than a man who walked on the wrong side of the law, and well, she wasn't the type of woman to stand for that.” Teagan had accepted that side of him more freely than Willa ever had. Maybe that had been the draw, he could have companionship without having to change who he was. “So what I’m getting from this is I’m damn well overthinking all this shit,” Bishop said with a laugh. “That ain’t a big surprise. You know I appreciate your words of advice, brother.” It was strange, Bishop was so often the one bringing the vice, not receiving it. But when it came to his love life he had always been kind of shit at sorting it out.