Checkmate With Bishop: A Hellions MC Novel (20 page)

“He told me to stop calling him ‘sir’,” J.R. mumbled, his voice again reflecting off the window as I turned onto the street that would see us to the Hellion driveway.

Although my heart was still wanting to let loose from my bitch side, I pushed those feelings away.  J.R. needed to make his own mind up about Stan, about the kind of man his father was.   The words that finally came out of my mouth were both true and heartfelt.  “I don’t have a problem with you doing what he asks.”

And as we pulled in, following the cones that pointed back and away from where the party was already in full swing, I felt the tension my stomach increase.

This was it.

The time where my boy, my stalwart little man, would be exposed to the lifestyle that had so enthralled his daddy. 

And was the one that had completely and utterly shattered my marriage to a man I suspected I still hadn’t gotten over.

Even though he pissed me off more than any person on the planet.

*.*.*.*.*

Bishop watched as Dory’s new model SUV carefully worked its way down the driveway, going toward the back of the yard.  He excused himself from the group of men around the grill and after grabbing the pile of fabric next to him, began walking toward where she carefully parked, his heart going a mile a minute.

It was, he knew, a momentous occasion.  One which would see him formally introducing J.R. to his brothers, to the family that Bishop named as his own.

“Hey,” J.R. said after sliding off his seat, pushing his pant legs down his long legs.

“Hey, yourself, little man,” Bishop greeted back, unable to stop his smile at the happiness that bubbled up inside at just the view of his kid.  “Dory.”

“Stan,” she said back, but her eyes didn’t connect with his, running instead first to the tables of Honeys before sliding to the group of men by the big barrel the group had fashioned into a bar-be-que grill.

He waited until she stood beside him, until after J.R. had closed his car door before ascribing them their positions.  “J.R. and I need to do the official meet and greet,” he advised.  “The Honeys are already expecting you, babe.” 

There was a flare in the depths of her green orbs at his speech, one he’d anticipated as Bishop had tried to find a way to work it all out.  And he realized he’d managed to get a hand up in working a power-play between them.  Something that shouldn’t have been surprising in that he was on his home turf. 

“Got something for you, J.R.,” he said, handing the kid the vest he’d personally worked on that afternoon after returning from the park.

Bishop watched as his son stared at the pile of denim before reaching out for it.  At the way the kid held the vest up, staring for long moments at the back, which sported both the upper and bottom rockers that bracketed the skull in the middle of flames.  The kid’s eyes, so much like his own, slammed into Bishop’s before the kid was putting on the denim, the thing that told one and all that J.R. was a part of the Missoula branch of his family and had Bishop swallowing deep.  But it was the sight of the ‘Property of Bishop’ on the left breast-front that had the stinging of his eyes start.

“Damn it, Stan,” Dory mumbled, but he didn’t even acknowledge her and whatever argument she was prepared to mount.  He couldn’t, not with a heart so full of emotion.  So fucking full that Bish found himself holding his breath.

It was a moment between him and his son, one of such poignancy he almost couldn’t give it words.  He reached to arrange the drape of the material over the kid’s shoulders, to smooth it along the boy’s still skinny chest.  “Looks good, dude.”

“Seriously?”  The boy’s head was down as he took in the view before he twisted as if to try and see the back.  “I get to wear the Hellion emblem?”

“You’re mine, kid, and as such need to wear this whenever we’re either with the brothers or on Hellion property, dig?”  Was that his voice, the deep growl overflowing with an undefined pride that filled the air between where the cars and trucks were parked?  “It’s a symbol of both me and the club, one that you were born into and contains your heritage, Stanley Robert Bastian…” his breathing hitched as he gave voice to his son’s full name, only adding the remaining bit, the one that tied them together, at the very end.  A name he was so proud Dory had thought to give their son.  “Junior.”

J.R.  stroked a hand down, catching on the patch that announced one side of his parentage, before he raised his face back to his father’s.  “Thank you.  This is…gosh.  Thank you!”

In an effort to dispel the emotions of the moment, Bishop looked to Dory, seeing her face soften as she watched as J.R. continued to delight in his cut.  “I’ll take good care of him, babe.  But for now, you need to get with the Honeys as I take our boy and have him greet the men.”

She didn’t raise her chin, but her eyes lifted and yet remained gentle as they met his own.  “Yeah, Stan.  Just keep him safe, okay?”

“Always, babe.”  And with that, Bishop used a hand on the skinny back, steering his kid to the group of bikers that were crowded around the place where flames were just then flaring. 

And as Bishop cast an eye behind him, he saw Dory stridently yanking at the hem of her top even as she pulled it up over her pretty tits.  A sight that had his dick both tingling and throbbing by turns.  Which only proved his dick had a mind of its own since his mind still churned with fury at how she’d kept J.R. from him.

He only hoped he’d survive the coming hours, at having both his past and his present pound against him, each taking their own measure of flesh by turns.

Chapter Sixteen

“So you’re like, fuckin’ Bishop’s ex, right?”

Shit, it hadn’t taken long before word had spread over the group of Honeys and the Hellion’s bits of ‘treats’ as they’d been called back in the day, to start their attack.  “Yeah, that’s me.”

“The one that went and had his kid without any of us knowing?”

Double shit!

I’d thought I’d been prepared for this, the twenty freaking questions that had always been a part of anything the Honey’s thought were important.  But even I had to admit, my and J.R.’s situation was probably new.  “Yeah, that’s me.  I’m the guilty party.”

I wasn’t even trying to name which Honey was whom or who they had shown up with as I poured two fingers of Patron into a plastic cup before filling another with water.  All I knew was that I needed to keep my shit in check even as I watched Stan drape an arm over our kid’s shoulders as his mouth moved.

I’d already figured I wasn’t one of the ones that would be welcome but I’d never been to a Hellion party that hadn’t included more than a few feminine outcasts.  Ones the Honeys had, each in their own way, decided didn’t belong.  There were those girls that were watched, tolerated and those that were given the boot, sometimes without the girl in question ever uttering a sentence.

“But because I have his kid, I’m almost guaranteed a place at your table, right?”  I was just old enough and had just enough confidence to override the cat-calls of the girls who were posing around the picnic area.  And I made use of that knowledge as I took a place on the bench opposite Dallas, Trey’s lady.

“Are you gonna spew shit my way, too?” I asked her, knowing that I was confronting the queen of the Honey hive since Trey, or the Stephen of my youth, was her man.

“Naw, Dory.  In fact, I owe you an apology,” she mumbled from around the brim of her cup that she had poised at her lips.  “At the hospital, I wasn’t sure about you and my guy.  Trey explained it and to my mind, it’s all good.”  I saw her gaze roam over both tables, going through both sides.  “But it’s been hard trying to figure who’s a friend and who isn’t since he claimed me.”

I felt the skin at the back of my neck crawl as I tried to imagine myself in her position.  I’d known Trey as a teenager and had seen him with more than his fair share of skanky chicks.  But even I had to admit that someone like Dallas, someone both without pretense or subterfuge, suited him perfectly. 

Although the bit about her being ‘claimed’ by Trey bothered me.  “As the queen, you gotta know you have enemies.  Of girls that are willing to almost commit murder to take your place.”

She smiled and took another deep drink of whatever was in her cup.  “You think I don’t fucking know it?  Every week it seems there’s another ho’ trying to entice him.”  I watched her shoulders lift then release with her shrug.  “I don’t get why he’s with me although I’m grateful.  Not by the fan-fare or all the Hellion attention and shit.  Just at, you know, having him in my life.”

Oh.  My.  God.

A Honey queen bee that wasn’t so up in her own shit that she didn’t lord it over the rest of us?  Not freaking possible, in my opinion! 

“Hey, ain’t you Bishop’s chick? The one that had his kid without him knowing?”  The auburn-haired girl who dropped into the miniscule space beside me didn’t waste any time in either squeezing out the other Honey or hanger-on away as she wiggled her pretty hips in order to create room on the bench next to where I sat.

“Yeah, that’s me,” I breathed as I emptied my cup of Patron before reaching for my cup of water.  The booze was just starting to permeate my brain, creating the soft glow I remembered so well and I turned my eyes back to where Stan stood, to where J.R. sat next to his dad, reveling in how both their gorgeous faces played in the firelight of the huge grille.

“Carly,” the beautiful woman replied, shooting out a hand in greeting, something that the younger girls hadn’t done when I’d met them.  “Pleased to meet you.  So, how’s this going to go?  Am I supposed to hate you or give you a hug?”

“I think that’s still up for grabs.  Wanna get in on the bet?  It’s already four to one against me,” I offered, immediately liking the way Carly just grabbed the bull by the horns and addressed the emotions we could all feel but weren’t acknowledging.

Carly tilted her head, her leaf-green eyes sparkling.  “Since I’m into underdogs, put me down for twenty on you, sugar.”

“But I’m not, by any stretch of the imagination, behind, girlie,” I offered with a chin-jut.  Oh, yeah.  Carly reminded me of Joy, of a woman that could both push a friend yet be of the most loyal of anyone you could envision.  “As a betting girl, you’re smart to put your money on this piece.”

She smiled and it was like heaven opened up with the beauty that she revealed in just the widening of her mouth.  “Piece of pink, you mean?  Shit, you really
have
ridden with the Hellions if you look all stuck-up and shit but spew that particular brand of nasty.  Welcome, Dory.”

It was the first I’d felt a part of the group since I’d joined the feminine side of the Hellion yard.   But I’d not only heard but saw how, even when faces turned away from mine, that all of them, each and every one of those bitches, were quiet. 

Were listening.

I saw two other women, older yet wearing their years well, step up behind Dallas.

“You didn’t look like that before,” said the petite Asian woman, as she crossed her arms over her chest in challenge, while flipping her long, long hair over her shoulder with only a head toss.

There was a smacking of lips and I turned my eyes to the other lady.  Unlike the Asian girl, she seemed more…tired.  Worn out and world weary in her appearance.

But her eyes were sharp as they hit mine.  “You used to have hair down to your waist,” she spat as her hands reached for the table edge, the girl in front of her sliding away.  “So what the fuck happened between you and Bish anyway?”

My eyes went between them, the two older ones and finally dredged up the memory of how they used to look, used to be. 

And my heart did a double thump as I remembered.

Teeny and Lily.  Two of the meanest Honeys in the club were glaring straight at me.

Two of the biggest bitches in Dee’s circle, of those that had lived within the hive of Hellion Honeys.  Without even thinking twice, my head started moving from side to side, looking for the former Queen of all that ruled on the girl-side of the Hellions. 

But I saw no trace of Dee anywhere.

Especially not when Dallas raised her hand.  “That’s
not
how this is gonna be played, ladies,” she said firmly and I could again see what Ste…shit,
Trey
, thought in making her Queen even without them exchanging vows.  “She’s a guest.  With long-time ties to the Hellions.  I think we need to listen to what she has to say.”

I glanced around the table and saw more than a few frowns were present but those were about equal in their inquiring gazes.  And after realizing that, I acknowledged Dallas’s words with a shrug.  “I’m not here to create problems.  Stan…ah, I mean,
Bishop
invited me and J.R. to hang out.”  I pointed a shaking thumb in the direction of the grill.  “J.R. is our kid.”

“So why’re we just finding out about the kid’s ass
tonight
?” Lily braved, so tiny, but so goddamn fervent in her question.  “I mean, you ain’t been around for more than an age, bitch.”

“That’s true.”  In my experience it was always best to acknowledge your mistakes by agreeing before offering your excuse.  So I again went through my story—of leaving Stan, finding out I was pregnant just after I’d filed for divorce and moving to Casper.   “Bi-bishop never knew.  He does now.  End of story.”

“So you think you can just fuckin’ waltz right the hell back in here and be accepted?”  Teeny’s eyes were narrowed and her gaze was as sharp as her words.

I glanced around the grounds before trying to stop the swallow my throat so wanted to do.  “Oh hell, no.  I’m not here to get all up in the Hellion Honey bidness,” I affirmed, adopting the slang I knew they all used to use.  “Jay-sus.  Once was more than enough for me.  I just tagged along when Stan…ah,
Bishop
invited my kid.  Old home evening, you know?” 

Yeah.  That swallow came roaring back as soon as I stopped to take a breath.  And I watched as a number of Honeys noticed my involuntary move.  “I’ll be gone…,” I started and realized that those words wouldn’t mean shit to the ladies who were huddled around the table.