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“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 and 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.”
Bishop jumped up and grabbed his father in a bear hug, and Edison had to dodge out of their path to avoid getting trampled. It was like two lions colliding. “Geez,” Edison said, blinking rapidly as Mike spun Bishop and gripped him from behind. He dropped low as if he was about to do something big that had Bishop grappling to get into another position.
“Don’t you fuckin dump me,” Bishop growled, trying to pry Mike’s large arms from around his waist.
“You’re not getting out of the hold.” Mike muscled Bishop against the wall, sounding like they were about to burst through to the other side. They knocked stuff over—not caring if it broke or not—and tussled around the trailer as if they did it every day. “Give it up, lil homie.”
Edison stood there shaking his head in bewilderment, wondering what the heck the end game was going to be. Both of them kept one-upping the other until Edison got bored. “You guys are insane.”
“See. Now my boyfriend thinks I’m an idiot,” Bishop grumbled. “Get off me before I head butt the fuck out of you.”
