“To be a father and husband.”
Asante’s smile fell from his face and he reached over to grip my hand in his.
“Trust me. I’m counting down the fucking days.”
“Me too.” I lifted his hand and kissed his knuckles. Then, I sighed and leaned my head back to look up at the stars. “Me too.”
15
ASANTE
Between Winnie getting arrested for fighting her sister, looking for a house for Bishop and I to move into, Knight, Casmi and Nova welcoming their second daughter, Charlotte Barron to the family and doing my best to keep track of the money Bishop was pouring into the club both with and without my knowledge, the months leading up to me and Bishop’s wedding seemed to fly by.
I wasn’t complaining about that because I was down to go get married at the courthouse with a moment's notice. That wasn’t how the Barron family operated though so I was just trying to make sure I played my part for both him and his family.
We’d gotten the backyard wedding that we’d said we wanted but Brandon and Melanie had made it clear that just because it was a backyard wedding didn’t mean we were alleviated from making a statement for the family so that was what we were going to do.
I didn’t have many people to invite outside of Nadira and some of my military friends who’d actually shown up.
Bishop had stated he didn’t have a list himself but apparently his parents had a lot of people to invite and our wedding hadstarted off with a list of three hundred people. Bishop and I had gotten his parents to get that number cut in half.
Neither of us had seen the wedding decor. All we cared about was being able to marry each other. Everything else was background noise and Bishop had promised me that after the wedding we could go back to fading into the background the way we both enjoyed being.
I couldn’t wait.
I turned one way then the other looking at my reflection in the full mirror in front of me. I’d retied my tie at least six times in the past twenty minutes and honestly, I wasn’t even sure anything was wrong with it. I was just nervous, not because I didn’t want to marry Bishop but because I didn’t really fuck with the spotlight and I knew this would be the biggest day of our joint lives until we had children enter this world.
I paused and looked back when knocking sounded at the door.
“Come in.”
I turned around completely and grinned when I saw that it was Rook, a large vase of white flowers in hand.
“What’s up, man?” He grinned as he walked over to me and dapped me up with his free hand.
“Shit. Sweating,” I admitted.
He chuckled. “Nerves are normal. You’ve got this.” He offered me the flowers and I lifted an eyebrow. “I don’t know. Winnie, Casmi and Nova thought it would be sweet to get one of these for you and Bishop each but nobody wants to come to your door and overwhelm you so I got the job.”
“Well, tell them thank you.”
I took the flowers from him and set them on the desk behind me.
One of the only traditions Bishop and I had kept from traditional weddings was not getting ready together. We wereboth in small rooms on opposite sides of the wedding aisle. Nobody was walking down the center. We were going to walk out at the same time and just meet in the middle of the aisle. There was no wedding party. Rook would be the one to marry us. He’d gotten certified immediately after the announcement that we didn’t want a best man or woman.
Nadira and Knight would sign as our two witnesses.
“You sure you good?” Rook checked.
“Yeah. I’m excited. Why? I look nervous?”
“Hell yeah. I’ve got to make sure you’re not getting cold feet. I’d hate for me and King to have to stomp you out in front of everybody for leaving my brother at the altar.”
“Fuck out of here” I chuckled.
“Well shit. We all know Bishop ain’t leaving you out there.” Rook exhaled. “I’m happy for y’all.”
“I appreciate that and uh, I know I never really addressed it but I want to tell you thank you.”
