Bishop

Kyle Vincent is an annoying pain in my arse. It seems wherever I go, he’s there putting in more effort, trying to be better than me, making me look like an idiot in front of Bennington. If I practice for an hour, he’ll stay out for two. If I get the kids I’m working with to do barspins, he gets his to grind. I clean the kitchen, he cleans it again and does the bathrooms. It’s driving me up the wall. Then there’s the constant stream of pure shit coming out of his mouth. Seriously, the kid never shuts up. He’s always asking questions, getting in digs at me. He’s always around and I can’t escape him. He’s even started invading my dreams. They used to be my one chance to be with Jake, but now Kyle has elbowed his way in. He’s slowly working his way under my skin, and I hate it. What’s under there is purely for Jake and as soon as I get these community service hours over and done with, I’m going over to Aussie to get my guy. In the meantime, I’m stuck with Kyle and his incessant buzz.

“What’s it really like on tour?” he asks as we clean the kitchen.

“Nothing but parties and hanging out,” I tell him.

“Really?”

“Yep, all the girls you can handle and even some you can’t. Not that you could handle many, kid.”

“Fuck off,” he says, blushing.

“The truth hurts. The women on tour want men, not boys.”

“Yeah? So how do you explain you and Jax’s girl, what’s her name? Bentley, that’s it,” he says, clicking his fingers.

I’m just about to reply when Bennington cuts in. “He can’t because it never happened.”

“Except it did,” I respond.

“Bullshit,” Bennington says, “you wouldn’t know what to do with a woman like her.”

“You saying that I’m no good with women?” I ask, more venom in my voice than should be, but I don’t want a little shit like Kyle knowing the truth about me. He already thinks I’m worthless, no need to confirm that by letting him know everything he thinks he knows about me is a lie.

“I’m saying there’s no way you’d still be alive if you managed to take her away from Jax Ryan,” he replies.

“You don’t think I could take the little punk?”

“No,” he says and walks out.

Kyle bursts into laughter. “Bro, you just got told,” he says.

“Shut up,” I mumble, and go back to mopping the floor.

“How come you aren’t on tour anymore?” he asks.

“I wanted to take some time,” I say, feeding him the same line I’ve fed everyone else.

“And you don’t have a team anymore.”

“Maybe I don’t want a team.”

“So you’re giving up on riding?”

“No, I just need to figure some stuff out.”

“Like what? What could a rich boy like you ever have to figure out? You wake up with a roof over your head, one I bet you don’t even have to pay for, you’ve got food in your belly, clothes on your back, a bike between your legs. What more could you possibly want?”

His assumptions, the same assumptions I’m sure everyone has of me, piss me off. I throw the mop down. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been sleeping in the bunk across from yours. This is my home right now. I’m working here, doing this slave labour shit so I do have a roof over my head and food to eat. I’ve got shit going on that you’ll never know about, let alone have to deal with.”

“Oh yeah?” he asks, crossing his arms. “Daddy was an arsehole to you, right? Said mean things about you? Never loved you? How tough. You try never having a father in the first place. Or a mother. I was dumped on the doorstep of a church when I was two days old. Bounced around from foster family to group home and back again a dozen times. Everything I have I earned the hard way. If I wanted something, I had to work for it. I scrimped and saved, did everything I could so I could get a bike. It was a piece of shit, but it was mine. Worked my hands to the bone again to get the parts I needed to make it halfway decent. But you wouldn’t know about suffering for something you love, would you? Everything is handed to you on a gold fucking platter.”

I blow out a breath. “Okay, so maybe I’m an idiot.”

“Maybe?” Kyle asks, quirking an eyebrow.

“More than maybe,” I concede.

“I still think you’re a pussy,” he says.

“Hey, I’m trying here.”

He shrugs. “Maybe you are. Maybe you aren’t, I don’t know. What I do know is that if you ever really wanted something, you wouldn’t be here, like this. You gave up, you gave up everything. All I want is to make it out of here and to do what I love. You had that and now look at you.” He shakes his head and walks away in disgust.

I finish up in the kitchen and walk outside to the park course where Kyle is tooling around.

“I may not have had as rough a start to things as you have,” I say, “but that doesn’t mean my life has been all roses either.”

He stops and crosses his arms. “Oh yeah?” I can hear the doubt in his voice loud and clear.

“Look, I know what you think of me. It’s the same thing everyone thinks. I’m a poor little rich boy, complaining because he was given everything and is kicking a gift horse in the mouth, right?”

He shrugs but nods.

“It must drive you nuts to see me do that, but if you knew what strings came with being me, you’d turn out the same as me.”

He scoffs. “I doubt it. I’d take whatever I was given, run with it and never look back,” he says.

“No you wouldn’t,” I say, “because you’d be holding onto something, anything, with your dad, with my dad, that wasn’t there. You’d spend so many days wanting him to be proud of you that you’d do almost anything to make it happen, realising, but not really realising that it was never going to happen. That no matter how hard you worked, or didn’t, it was never going to matter because he gave up caring a long time ago.”

“Huh?” he asks.

Taking a seat on the lip of one of the bowls, I ask him the same question Bennington once asked me. “Why do you ride, Kyle?”

“Because I love it,” he answers immediately.

“Why else?”

“Because it’s fun, because I’m good at it, or I think I am, because it’s a way for me to express myself.”

That gets my attention. “Really?”

He nods. “This is the one place where I get to be me. Where I can leave everything behind and just focus on me and my bike. It doesn’t matter that I may not have the best equipment, or the best technique, all that matters is how well I connect with what’s going on underneath me.”

“Huh,” I say, considering.

“But we’re not talking about me,” he says, snapping me out of my reverie.

“Right. So yeah, you ride because of all those reasons, and they’re good reasons. I ride because that’s what my father wanted me to do.”

“Why?”

“Because he wanted something new and flashy that no one else had to show off to all his cronies. I had an interest in BMX so he took that, built on it, and turned it into something I no longer loved. He turned it into a job for me, a chore.”

“Riding could never be a chore for me.”

“I envy that about you.”

“But you’re free of your dad now aren’t you?”

“Yeah, but—”

“So why can’t everything go back to the way it was for you before your dad forced you to ride?”

“I don’t know. Too much water under the bridge maybe?”

“Nah.” He shakes his head. “I think you’re scared.”

“Is this another chance for you to have a shot at me about how I’m a pussy and a has-been and a never-will-be?” I ask.

“Maybe,” he concedes, “but what’s holding you back? You say the problem before was that you were being forced to ride. You’re not anymore. I saw the other day how much you enjoyed being back on your bike, so what’s the problem?”

I blow out a breath and run my hands through my hair. “I don’t know. I just feel like… like maybe I was using my father as an excuse. That because I was being forced to ride I didn’t have to give it my all because it was all to make him look good. Now, I don’t have that to hide behind. It’ll all be for me this time.”

“You think you won’t be good enough?” Kyle asks.

I shrug. “Maybe.”

“It’s a definite worry,” he says, and I shoot him a look. He laughs but keeps going. “But you still love to ride, right?”

I stop to consider his question. Do I still love riding? “I think I do, but it’s been so long since I’ve ridden without expectation or pressure.”

“Dude,” he says, “you have a whole complex here that is a BMX rider’s dream. You’ve been here for what? Two months?” I nod. “There’s been plenty of time and opportunity for you to hop on and tool around.”

“I dunno, it just feels… different.”

“Of course it does,” he says. “That’s what freedom feels like.” He gets up and holds a hand out to me. “Okay, you need to get off your fat arse and get it on a bike.”

“Fat arse, huh?” I ask, taking his hand and getting to my feet. I lift my shirt to expose my still six-pack abs. “This is hardly fat,” I say as I run a hand down them. Kyle watches the movement with interest, his eyes wide, and licks his lips. My dick twitches in my pants, but I ignore it. Just because I’ve been spending a lot of time with Kyle and have been without Jake doesn’t mean that he’s not still the one for me.

Kyle and I spend the rest of the afternoon riding. Just riding. It’s nice. It’s strange though. For so long I associated riding with my father, and having to live up to his expectations, and dreading the inevitable when I wouldn’t. Now, there’s none of that. I think being with Kyle helps. The kid is focused on nothing but fun and doing something for himself. He’s so carefree and light. It’s nice to be around someone like that, someone who has no expectations of me. For him, riding truly is something he loves. It doesn’t matter if he’s riding in front of a massive crowd or purely for himself, his motives are pure. I think it’ll take him far. I wish I could be like that again, and maybe if I spend enough time around him, I can. I think I can. What’s more, I hope I can, and that’s a big step for me.

We ride until we’re tired and I can’t remember the last time I lost time like this.

“Thank you,” I say to him, as we get ready for bed.

“It’s all good,” he says.

“No, I mean it, thank you. I can’t remember the last time I spent so much time riding for fun, and I did, I had fun today.”

He looks up and sees me looking at him. He blushes. “You’re welcome, I guess.”

I give him a smile back. “You’re a good kid,” I say.

He returns my smile but says, “I’m not a kid.”

Going over to him, I ruffle his hair. “Yeah, you are, but you’re a good one, so it’s all right.” With that I hop into bed, my thoughts a lot lighter than they have been. My eyes fall on the picture of Jake and me and I know he’d be proud of the progress I’m making.

A few hours later I’m woken by the sound of a bike crashing and an almighty storm of swearing. Groggily I get up and check on what’s going on. Kyle is picking himself up off the floor of the Vert. He checks over his bike, adjusting the handlebars before going again. I stand in the shadows and watch. His body is strong; the air whips around him as he rides, pushing his shirt up and around him. His arms flex as he pulls the bike up the side of the ramp, his brow creased in concentration. I realise after a moment he’s beautiful and my dick twitches once more. After watching him for a bit, I manage to figure out what he’s doing.

“If you tuck your elbows in tighter and flick your wrist quicker you’ll have enough time to spot your landing,” I say, coming out of the shadows. He jumps in surprise. “You are going for a 360 tailwhip, right?” I ask.

“Yeah,” he says, panting.

I nod. “Tuck and flick,” I say, showing him the body positioning. He repeats the movement a few times on the ground. “That’s it. You need to spin fast enough so you can spot the landing. It may look good in the air but if it doesn’t stick it doesn’t mean shit.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Go on,” I say, gesturing to the ramp, “try it again.” He does, managing to go a little bit faster but not enough for a clean landing. “Better, but you need to be a little bit tighter.” Again he tries, but the result is the same.

“It’s no use,” he says after his tenth try.

“So you’re just going to give up?” I ask.

He shrugs. “I can’t do it.”

“You can’t do that, then you may as well give the whole thing up,” I say. “And that would make you just like me, wouldn’t it? What happened to you having so much more determination than I ever would, huh?”

“Fuck that,” he says as he drops in again.

This time his landing is fractionally cleaner.

“Whoop!” he says as he comes to a stop.

“See?” I say.

“Yeah.” He nods.

“Good, now try it again.” He does it a few more times, each time getting better and better. Finally he manages to get it. “Do it once more,” I tell him. He does, to the same result.

“Yeah!” he yells on landing.

I laugh. “You got it.”

“Thank you.” He comes over to me.

“No probs,” I say and offer him a hand to high five. He takes it, but when I go to pull away, he holds on.

“Kyle,” I say, looking into his light eyes.

“Thank you, Bishop. Really,” he says, still holding my hand.

“You’re, ah—” I clear my throat. “—you’re welcome.”

“You know, under that arsehole exterior, you’re a pretty good guy. Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.”

“Er, thanks,” I say, and try to get my hand back, but he starts stroking it with his thumb. My heart starts beating faster.

“I noticed you look at that photo on the wall beside your bed every night when you go to sleep.” I nod. “Is he your boyfriend?”

I shake my head.

“Do you want him to be?”

“It’s complicated,” I say.

“So you are gay,” he says.

I nod.

“Is that why your dad hated you?”

“N-no,” I stutter. “It’s because I’m a fuckup.”

Kyle takes a step closer to me so we’re almost pressed up against each other. His other hand grabs my hip and he rubs the space between my shorts and T-shirt. “You’re not a fuckup, Bishop.”

I snort. “Yeah, I am. I fucked up my career, my relationship with Jake, everything.”

“Jake, is that the guy?” I nod. “Where is he now?”

“Aussie.”

“So he’s not in the picture?” Hope flashes across his eyes.

“He is but—”

“But he left you,” Kyle finishes.

“He did, but he did it for me, so I could sort myself out,” I tell him.

“If you were mine,” he says, eliminating the space between us and pressing his hard dick against my own, “it wouldn’t matter what you did, I’d never let you go.”

“Kyle,” I whisper as he leans in and takes my lips with his. They’re not as full as Jake’s are, but I still find myself kissing him back. He groans when I open my mouth and our tongues touch.

“Fuck, you feel good,” he says as he grinds up against me.

“Mmm,” I moan as I nip and kiss across his cheek, then down his neck. His hands come up into my hair, massaging my scalp.

“I dreamed of this, you know,” he tells me as I continue to kiss him.

“Has anybody ever told you, you talk too much?” I say, panting slightly.

He reaches down and palms me through my shorts. “Give me this and you can tell me anything you like, Bish.”

It’s the use of the nickname, the name only Jake calls me, that pours cold water all over me. I take a step back and run my fingers through my hair.

“What’s wrong?” Kyle asks.

“You called me Bish,” I say.

“Do you not like it? I can call you whatever you want.”

I shake my head. “It’s what Jake calls me. No one else has ever given me a nickname.”

“Oh,” he says. “But he’s not here, so what does it matter?”

“It matters because it’s his. I’m his. It doesn’t matter if he’s one k or a thousand ks away, I’ll always belong to him. He’s all I’ve ever wanted and even if I can’t have him, I don’t think I will ever want anyone else,” I say.

“Oh.”

“You’re a great guy, Kyle. A pain in my arse 99 percent of the time.” We chuckle. “You’re going to be one hell of a rider, just like Bennington says. You deserve someone who can give you everything they are.”

“And you can’t,” he says.

I shake my head. “No, I can’t.”

He nods. “It was worth a try, right?”

I crack a smile. “Sure.”

“Does this mean you’ll stop helping me? You know, with my riding?”

“Of course not. Bennington was right, you are one hell of a rider and I think being around you is going to be good for me.”

“So you’ll keep riding?” The hope comes back into his eyes.

“Can’t let you have all the spotlight.” I throw him a grin.

“Mates?” he asks, thrusting out a hand.

“Mates,” I confirm, taking his hand. We shake, both smiling. “Now let’s get some sleep, we’ve got some serious training to do.”