Bishop

I stuffed up. When Jake grabbed my hand at the café, I froze. The crazy thing is, I don’t even know why. Every night since he left I’ve been dreaming about the moment he touched me again, but when it happened, I just couldn’t process it. Then he took his hand away. I wanted to grab it back and hold it tight, but I didn’t do that either. To make matters worse, he gave me some fake arse smile and started going on about being friends. Friends? I don’t want to be his friend; I want to be his everything, just like he’s mine.

It was nice just to sit there and talk to him though. More than anything, I think what I missed most about Jake was the fact that he’s the one person who truly knows me, who knows there are certain things, like the sound of someone eating potato chips, that drive me absolutely insane. He also knows that I will seriously hurt someone if I don’t get a caramel frappuccino at least once a week.

After an hour or two we went our separate ways, but not before I made sure to organise another time to meet up.

“So, um, how about dinner one night?” I ask, shuffling from foot to foot.

“Sure, dinner sounds great,” he says, that goddamn beautiful smile he has on his face.

“There’s a great pizza place in Burleigh, maybe we can go there and then walk along the beach or something?”

“Oh yeah! There’s that fireworks thing next weekend. We could totally do dinner down there and then sit on the headland and watch them. Unless that would seem like too much of a date…,” he says, trailing off.

“No,” I say quickly. “That sounds perfect.”

“Good,” he says with another smile.

“I’ll make a reservation and let you know.”

“Sounds good. It was really great seeing you again, Bish. I’m so—” He stops and swallows. “I’m so proud of you and how far you’ve come.”

“It’s nothing,” I say, ducking my head.

“It’s not nothing,” he says as he gently squeezes my bicep. This time I don’t freeze, but look up into his blue eyes that I missed so much.

“Thanks,” I say quietly.

“You’re welcome. So, ah, I’ll see you next weekend,” he says, dropping his hand, the awkwardness of the situation getting to us both.

“Yeah, you can count on it.”

With another smile, he turns around and walks away. It’s painful to see him go but at least this time I know I’ll see him again, and when I do, I promise I won’t freeze again.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” I mutter as I race around my room in Bentley and Jax’s house. It’s half an hour before I’m supposed to meet Jake and I’m a mess.

“Dude, what’s the problem?” Kyle asks as he pops his head around the door.

“I’m meeting Jake soon and I can’t find my lucky belt.”

“You have a lucky belt?” he asks, arching an eyebrow.

“Yes, I do, and I need it if I’m not going to stuff this date up.”

With a sigh, he enters the room. “One, you’re going to be fine. This is Jake we’re talking about. I’m relatively certain he doesn’t give a shit if you’re wearing your lucky belt or not. Two, this is you. You don’t need a lucky belt. Three, lucky belts are stupid, you make your own luck. A stupid strip of leather isn’t going to help that one way or the other.”

I stop searching and blow out a breath. “I’m being ridiculous, aren’t I?”

“Yes, you are. Oi!” Kyle yells at Jax as he walks past. “Come here and tell Bishop he’s being ridiculous.”

“You’re being ridiculous,” Jax says. “Ridiculous about what?” he asks Kyle.

“He thinks if he isn’t wearing his lucky belt his date with Jake is going to bomb. I’m telling him it won’t.”

“Fuck that noise,” Jax says, “you can’t ignore your superstitions, that shit is important. Where was the last place you saw this belt?” he asks as he looks under the bed.

“Seriously?” Kyle yells. “You two are Extreme Games gold medallists, you do not need stupid gimmicks.”

“You ever think those stupid gimmicks are what got us those gold medals?” Jax asks. “If you want to hit the same heights we have you’ll get your arse down here and help us look.”

With a sigh, Kyle gets down and helps us.

“What the hell is going on here?” Bentley asks a few minutes later.

“We’re looking for Bishop’s lucky belt,” Jax says.

“This one?” she asks, holding the item we are indeed looking for. Buttons, her and Jax’s cute arse cat tucked in her other arm.

“Yes!” I say as I lunge for it. “Where was it?”

She shrugs. “I think Buttons got a hold of it. I found it in her hidey hole.”

“Aww, look at my girl,” Jax coos, grabbing hold of the cat and smooshing his face to hers. “Told you she was going places.”

“It’s a belt, Jax, not a car,” Bentley says.

“It’s Bishop’s lucky belt. Obviously she knew there was some good juu juu in it and she wanted it for herself.”

Bentley and Kyle shake their heads.

Tightening my belt and brushing myself off, I inspect myself. “How do I look?” I ask.

Kyle shakes his head, while Jax squints his eyes.

“You look great,” Bentley says.

“Yeah?” I ask.

“Go!” she says, not so gently pushing me towards the door. “It won’t look very good if you’re late.”

Glancing at the watch, I see she’s right. “Fuck!” I say as I race out the door.

I manage to make it to the restaurant with a couple of minutes to spare. Straightening my button-down shirt for what has to be the fiftieth time, I know I need to calm down.

“Hey,” Jake says as he walks up to me. He’s dressed casually in jeans and t-shirt. “Sorry,” he says when he sees what I’m wearing, “I didn’t know this place had a dress code. Do you think they’ll let me in?”

“You look fine,” I tell him. I actually want to tell him he looks better than fine but I’m nervous enough as it is and I really don’t want to stuff this up.

“Oh good,” he says, chuckling. “When we organised this I thought it was just a friendly dinner.”

“It is,” I say, each word killing me. “I um, Jax likes us to look good when we go out, in case we have our photo taken or anything. You know, because we’re representing him now,” I say, pulling a lie out of my arse.

“Ah, of course,” Jake says, nodding.

“Yeah.”

We stand there for a few more minutes, the awkwardness of our first meeting back in full force.

“Should we, ah, go in?” I finally ask.

“Sure.”

I was sure dinner was going to go down the same awkward route but when the waiter said the day’s special was a pizza with pineapple, the ice broke and it was almost like we were back to how we used to be.

“Pineapple has no place being on a pizza,” Jake says, shaking his head once the waiter had left.

“Right?” I ask. “It’s a fruit, you don’t put fruit on pizza.”

“It would be like putting onion in a fruit salad,” he says.

“Exactly!” I catch his eye as we laugh.

After that, dinner goes well. The conversation flows and we have a good time. At least, I think we do. I know I do.

“It’s almost time for the fireworks to start,” Jake says, looking at his watch.

“You want to head over?” I ask.

“Sounds good.”

During the quick walk to the headland, our hands brush. I want so badly to hang on to it, to take his palm in mine, to thread my fingers through his, but this isn’t a date, so I don’t. It kills me the entire ten-minute walk.

It seems we’re not the only ones with the idea to sit and watch, and the park is crowded. We manage to find a spot big enough for the two of us. It’ll be tight, meaning we have to sit close together. I don’t mind a bit.

The show is good, and even though we can’t hear what the announcers are telling the crowd, we still enjoy it. We wait a while once the show’s over, to allow the crowd to disperse.

“I had a great time tonight,” Jake says, turning to me.

“Me too,” I say.

“I don’t know if this is allowed, but I wanted to say that I missed you, Bish.”

Closing my eyes, I savour his words.

“I know things are different between us now, but my feelings haven’t changed.”

Still, I sit, letting the words I have wanted to hear for so long wash over me.

“I know you may not want to hear this—”

“I didn’t say that,” I say, opening my eyes.

“But at the café… you froze when I touched you.”

“Not because I didn’t want you to touch me.” I grab his hand. “It was because I wanted it too much. God, Jake, if you knew what’s been going through my head….”

“Yeah?” he asks.

I nod.

“Me too.”

“This was a date,” I say, after a while.

“What?”

“I was treating this like a date. I mean, if you want it to be,” I say.

“I do,” he says, “I really do.”

“I missed you too,” I tell him.

“God, Bish.”

I rest my forehead on his, our knees touching. Pressing my lips to his quickly, I lean back. “I want to do this right,” I tell him.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I want to do this the way I should’ve done things back in Auckland. I want to take you out, and show you off. I want to woo you.”

“Woo me?”

“Yeah.”

“Since when do you woo?”

“Since I’ve clearly been spending too much time with Jax Ryan.” At that we both laugh. “Can I do that though?”

“You never need my permission to take me places and show me off, Bish. You never need my permission to do anything.”

“I know, but I’m still going to ask. I want this time to be different, it is going to be different.”