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“It’s a lost art, but my hands shake too much to attempt it myself anymore.”

I chatted her up until she made her exit.

“Where’s Rook?” I asked Clayton when she was gone.

Rook was Clayton’s twin. His real name was Ronan, but the nickname Rook had long since won that fight.

They were both in my grade, their birthdays only one month before mine. Clayton was born first by a few minutes, so technically he was older. And of course he lorded those minutes over Rook.

Clayton was my best friend, but Rook and I were nearly as close.

“With his new girlfriend,” Clayton said with a smile.

He had the nicest smile. The sweetest. The sort of smile to brighten my day. I could not have done without it, or him.

He was genetically gifted by God—all the Bishops were—with an angular face shaped by high cheekbones, sun-browned skin, blond hair, and soft brown eyes. And he was big, really big, though Chief still had him beat.

“You ready to go?” Clayton asked, nodding toward the door.

I nodded, pursing my lips. “Just need five more minutes, if you don’t mind waiting. There’re a few more customers to take care of.”

I didn’t bother to greet or address Declan.

It wasn’t like he was paying me any mind.

He was there, but not present, his face stoic, eyes anywhere but on me.

Declan was the oldest, and he acted like it. He was the leader. The shot caller. The quiet authority of the group.

Everyone called him Chief.

Riot had started it when Declan was little and already ordering his younger brothers around like somebody had put him in charge. “Yes, Chief,” his father would tell him, just enough mockery in it to make the rest of us laugh.

Unfortunately for Riot, the name fit.

Declan ordered people around, and people obeyed. He wasn’t mean about it. He didn’t need to raise his voice. He just took charge and no one questioned it.

Eventually Chief stopped being a joke.

All the Bishop boys had some version of the Texas drawl. Riot and Buck had only faint traces of it, and Sunshine and Marion less still. Mine was barely there.

The boys had somehow taken what they heard from the fathers growing up and amplified it, as though all five were involved in some lifelong contest to prove they were more Texan than the men who raised them.

Chief’s was my favorite.

Of course it was.

Slow and smooth, every word unhurried even when he was pissed.

I’d wished for his talent for command more than once. How handy that would be.

The first thing I would do was order Chief to stop hating me.

I turned back to Clayton. “How was football practice?”

“Great,” Clayton replied. “You coming to the game tomorrow?”

I shook my head regretfully. “I have to work.”