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I pursed my lips and continued to stare out the passenger window, my thoughts rolling around and around, my heart telling me it wanted one thing despite the what-ifs, the worries, or how things may or may not end.
I let myself glance over at him, looking at his profile, finding him even more attractive by the way the shadows seemed to make his dark features even starker. His dark-brown hair looked almost black in the interior of the car, inkiness that spilled over his forehead. I wanted to reach up and push those strands away, maybe even tangle my fingers in his hair and pull him forward, make him kiss me.
Okay, calm down.
I still couldn’t pull my gaze from him. He had this five-o’clock shadow covering his cheeks and jaw, one that made him even sexier if that were possible. That facial hair made him look a little rough around the edges, and I felt my pulse beat faster.
He glanced over at me, and I quickly looked away, biting my bottom lip, because I was a little embarrassed that he’d seen me staring at him openly.
“How long have you lived in the city?” he asked, breaking up the silence, his voice so deep that my toes actually curled inside my shoes.
I cleared my throat and prayed my voice didn’t falter, didn’t stutter from my emotions. “My whole life,” I answered. “My mother passed away when I was twelve, and it’s just been my father and me.”
He looked at me for a moment before turning his attention back to the road. “I’m sorry about your mother.” I could hear the sincerity in his voice. “Do you like the city?”
I looked back out the passenger window, thankful he didn’t probe about my mother. Not that I didn’t want to talk about it, but when things like that were dredged up, it tended to bring the mood to a dark place. And I wanted things to be light with Bishop.
I really thought about his question and knew I never wanted to pretend with him. “Actually, no. Not really.” I looked back at him, my head still on the headrest of the seat. “I’d love to move away from all of this one day, but with my father’s not doing well because of his autoimmune disease and him declining over these last few years, staying put is the only option right now.” I smiled then. “One day I hope to have a little bit of property for him. He loves to garden.”
“I’m sorry… again.” He sat up straighter but didn't say anything else. But the tone of his voice told me he knew the pain I felt.
He knows that agony.
I wanted to ask, wanted to know his story, but I’d never pry. But maybe he sensed it, felt that I wanted to hear, because he cleared his throat, and said, “I lost my mother to cancer shortly after I graduated high school.”
There was a long stretch of silence, but I waited, stayed silent. He too knew the pain of losing a parent. A mother.
“I know how hard it is talking about a parent who passed away. It’s easier for me now, all these years later, but back then, after that happened,” he said, his voice going deeper, “I clammed up, shut myself away, and blocked everything out.”
I know what you mean.
“I was the same way.” I spoke honestly. “It’s taken a long time for me to come out of my shell too. And it was all thanks to my father. He didn’t push me to talk, didn’t try to empathize with me. He was feeling the same things I was, but he knew I needed to do it in my own time, my own way.”
“My mother died three days before my nineteenth birthday. My father was long gone by then, so it had just been her and me.” There was another stretch of silence, and I was struck by how similar our lives had been in that regard.
Single parents raising a child. Although Bishop was truly alone.
I want to be there for him.
“It was hard for her. She worked two jobs just to put a roof over our heads and food on the table.” He cleared his throat again and shifted on the seat, as if he didn’t want to stay still. As if he couldn’t. “She was my best friend. We talked about everything. She had a love for music, specifically jazz. We even talked about going into business together, maybe with a restaurant, or a bar. Of course it was only this fantasy, something we’d talk about while we ate dinner. It was a pipe-dream for sure, but it made her smile, so I loved us going down that road.”
That’s why he’d opened up Lyrics.
“I didn’t have plans for myself, not really. I was going to get a job after I graduated so she didn’t have to worry about money so much and so she wouldn’t have to work two jobs.” His hands tightened on the steering wheel. “But she really wanted me to get a degree. She wanted me to be the first in our family to have a college degree. And when I graduated, I did that. I went to the community college and was working on getting a business degree, because I was going to open up a bar for us. One we could run together.”
