LONG SHOT: (A HOOPS Novel)

by Ryan, Kennedy

  “Your server will be over in a sec, but I’ll tell her to hook you up.” She winks at me before turning back to Grip. “I’m singing in a little bit. They’re finally letting me on stage.”

  She gestures to a small space set up for live music.

  “Nice.” Grip’s smile reflects genuine pleasure. “’Bout time.”

  “Don’t leave before I’m done.” She squeezes his shoulder. “I may have a gig for you.”

  “For real?” He glances down at his beeping phone, a frown wrinkling his forehead before he returns his attention to Jimmi. “My money isn’t nearly long enough. I’ll do anything but strip.”

  Jimmi gives him a head tilt and a come-on-now twist of her lips.

  “Okay, you got me. For the right price, I probably would strip.” A devilish smile crinkles his eyes at the corners. “But not my first choice.”

  “It’s deejaying at Brew. Maybe tomorrow night.” Jimmi crosses her arms over the menus pressed to her chest. “Could be a regular gig, for awhile at least.”

  “Cool.” Grip’s glance strays back to his phone, his tone distracted.

  “Everything okay?” Jimmi eyes the phone in his hand.

  “Yeah.” Grip lifts his eyes, splitting a look between the two of us. “Sure. Let’s chop it up after your set.”

  “Okay. How long you here, Bristol?”

  “Just a few days. I leave Friday.”

  “Good!” Jimmi beams. “We’ll get to spend some time together.”

  “I’d like that.” Now that I’ve gotten past the breasts stuffed into the bikini practically assaulting me, I mean what I say. She seems cool. “Good luck on stage.”

  We’ve bonded a little over scallops and tits, so my smile for Jimmi comes more naturally.

  “Thanks!” She squeals and wiggles her fingers in a wave. “Gotta go get ready.”

  “So you and Jimmi went to high school with Rhyson?” I ask, watching Jimmi teeter off on her wedge heels.

  “I’m sorry. I thought you knew that.” Grip shakes his head. “I really did just kind of grab you and toss you in the car.”

  “It’s fine. I appreciate your help.” I peel the paper from the straw Jimmi left on the table, focusing on that instead of looking at Grip. “I actually know very little about my brother’s life since he left.”

  “What do you want to know?” Grip relaxes, stretching one arm along the back of the booth.

  “Lots I guess.” I shrug, keeping my voice casual. “I’ll let Rhyson tell me his stuff, but what about you? If you were at the School of the Arts, you must be … a musician? Dancer? What?”

  “I’m Darla, your server,” a petite girl says before Grip can respond. “How you guys doing today?”

  “Fine, Darla.” Grip flashes her a smile, not even trying to be sexy, but Darla melts a little right where she stands. I practically see the puddle. The lashes around her pretty, brown eyes start batting, and I might be too nauseated to eat my scallops.

  “I’m fine, too, Darla.” I wave a hand since she seems to have forgotten I’m here. “And actually really hungry. Jimmi mentioned scallops. How are they prepared?”

  “Scallops?” Darla’s brows pinch. “We don’t have scallops on the menu.”

  “No, she said they were an off-menu item.” I hold onto my patience even though my stomach is starting to feed on itself as we speak.

  “No, we don’t—”

  “Darla.” Grip grabs her hand, stroking his thumb over her palm. “Maybe you could double check on the scallops because it seemed like Jimmi knew about them.”

  After Darla visibly shudders, her smile widens and she leans a little toward Grip.

  “I am new,” she admits shyly. “I could check on it for you.”

  “I appreciate that.” I give her a gentle reminder that they were actually for me, not the man she’s salivating over.

  Darla’s smile slips just a little as she uses the hand Grip isn’t holding to retrieve the pad from her back pocket. Obviously reluctant, she drops Grip’s hand to pull the pencil from behind her ear.

  “And to drink?” She sounds like she’ll have to trek to Siberia to fetch whatever I order.

  “Water’s fine.” I look at the tight circle her irritation has made of her mouth. “Bottled please.”

  I wouldn’t put it past her to spit in it.

  “I always get the Mick’s Mighty,” Grip pipes up. “And fries. Let’s just stick with that. And that new craft beer you guys got in.”

  “A beer?” Darla squints and grins. “Are you twenty-one?

  “I don’t know.” Grip doesn’t look away, seeming to relish how mesmerized our girl Darla is. “Am I?”

  Darla eyes him closely … or rather even closer, her eyes wandering over the width of shoulders and slipping to crotch level where his legs spread just a little as he leans back. Darla bites her bottom lip before running her tongue across it. This is just sad. Exactly the kind of behavior that could set the women’s movement back decades. In Rochester, New York, Susan B. Anthony is turning over in her grave as Darla licks her lip.

  “Um, were you still going to check on the scallops?” I give her a pointed look. I mean seriously. How does she know Grip and I aren’t a couple? I’d be insulted if he were mine. Hell, I’m insulted, and he isn’t.

  Darla shifts hard eyes back to me, heaving a longsuffering sigh and straightening.

  “Yeah. I’ll go check on the scallops.” Her face softens when she looks back to Grip. “And I’ll get your order in.”

  “The beer?” His smile and those eyes wrapped in all that charisma really should be illegal.

  “Okay.” Darla giggles but still doesn’t ask for ID. “The new craft coming up.”

  “Well, that was sad for women everywhere,” I mumble.

  “Don’t blame Darla.” Grip’s cheeky grin foreshadows whatever outrageous thing he’s about to say. “Blame all this Chocolate Charm.”

  My laugh comes out as a snort.

  “I’m guessing that’s a self-proclaimed moniker.”

  “I see you’re immune to it, but you do catch more bees with honey.” Grip offers this sage, if unoriginal, advice. “Or in my case, with chocolate.”

  “Where’d you read that? The Player’s Guide to Catching Bees?”

  “No, I learned it the way I learn most things.” His eyes dim the tiniest bit. “The hard way.”

  I’m not sure what to say, so I don’t say anything for a few seconds, and neither does he. It should be awkward, but it isn’t. Our eyes lock in the comfortable silence.

  “So before Darla buzzed through,” I pause for effect, waiting for his quickly becoming familiar grin. “You were telling me about the School of the Arts. You’re a musician?”

  “I write and rap.”

  “As in you’re a rapper?”

  “Wow, they said you were quick,” he answers with a grin.

  “Oh, sarcasm. My second language.” I find myself smiling even though it’s been a crappy day with too many complications and not enough food. “So you rap. Like hoes, bitches, and bling?”

  “At least you’re open minded about it,” he deadpans.

  “Okay. I admit I don’t listen to much hip-hop. So convince me there’s more to it.”

  “And it’s my responsibility to convince you … why?” he asks with a grin.

  “Don’t you want a new fan?” I’m smiling back again.

  “I just doubt it’s your type of music.”

  “We’ve known each other all of an hour, and already you’re assigning me ‘types’. Well, I’m glad you have an open mind about me,” I say, echoing his smart-ass comment.

  I halfway expect him to volley another reply at me, but he just smiles. I didn’t anticipate conversation this stimulating. His body, yes. Conversation, no.

  “So are you any good?” I ask. “At rapping, I mean.”

  “Would you know if I were good?” he counters, a skeptical look on his face.

  “Probably not.” My laugh comes easier
than most things have today. “But I might know if you were bad.”

  “I’m not bad.” He chuckles. “I think my flow’s pretty decent.”

  “Sorry,” I interject. “For the rap remedial in the audience, define flow.”

  “Define it?” He looks at me as if I asked him to saddle a unicorn. “Wow. You ever assume you know something so well, that it’s so basic, you can’t think of how to explain it?”

  “Let me guess. That’s how it is with flow.”

  “Well, now that you asked me to define it, yeah.”

  “Just speak really slowly and use stick figures if you need to.”

  Rich laughter warms his eyes. “Okay. Here goes.”

  He leans forward, resting those coppery-colored, muscle-corded arms on the table, distracting me. I think I really may need stick figures if he keeps looking this good.

  “A rapper’s flow is like …” He chews his full bottom lip, jiggling it back and forth, as if the action might loosen his thoughts. “It’s like the rhythmic current of the song. Think of it as a relationship between the music and the rapper’s phrasing or rhythmic vocabulary, so to speak. You make choices about how many phrases you place in a measure. Maybe you want an urgent feeling, so you squeeze a lot of phrasing into a measure. Maybe you want a laid back feel, and you leave space; you hesitate. Come in later than the listener expects.”

  “Okay. That makes sense.”

  “And the choices a rapper makes, how well the current of that music and his phrasing, his rhythmic vocabulary, work together, that’s his flow. Cats like Nas, Biggie, Pac—they’re in this rarefied category where their flow is so sick, so complex, but it seems easy. That’s when you know a flow is exceptional. When it seems effortless.”

  “Now I get that.” I give him a straight face, but teasing eyes. “I can see how you won your rap scholarship.”

  “Rap scholarship! It sounds so weird when you say it.” He sits back in his seat, a smile crooking his lips. “I actually went for writing. Rapping was kind of Rhyson’s idea.”

  “Rhyson?” Shock propels a quick breath out of me. “What does he know about rap?”

  “I’m guessing more than you do.” His smile lingers for a second before falling away. “I wrote poetry. That’s how I got in. Rhyson was looking for a way to translate his classical piano sound to a more modern audience, so I helped him. And he convinced me that all these poems I had could be raps. The rest is history.”

  “So you have an album or something?”

  “Not yet. Working on a mix tape.” He clamps a straw between his teeth. “Also working on paying my rent.”

  “Thus the Deejaying?”

  “Deejaying, sweeping floors for studio time, writing for other artists, doing stuff with Grady.” A careless shrug of his shoulders. “Whatever comes, I do.”

  “You write for other artists?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I don’t get it. Rappers don’t write their own stuff? I thought it was so personal and rooted in where you’re from and all that.”

  “To not know much about hip-hop, you have definite ideas about it,” he teases.

  “You’ll find I have definite ideas about everything.” I chuckle because it’s true. “Even things I know nothing about.”

  “Ah, so that’s a family trait.”

  He’s so right. Rhyson and I are both obstinate know-it-alls.

  “Apparently.” I nod for him to continue. “You were saying.”

  “So hip-hop’s like any other genre. There are some guys who write everything themselves, and it’s like what you’re describing. But a club’s a club’s a club. Love is love. Anybody can write it. So sometimes guys like me, who are kind of writers first, we help.”

  “Would I know any of the songs you’ve worked on?

  “Probably not.” He grins. “Not because they’re not on the radio, but because I doubt you listen to those stations.”

  “You’re making a lot of assumptions about someone you just met. Maybe I know all of them. Try me.”

  He rattles off four songs.

  I know none of them. Dammit.

  I’ll have to eat crow, which if Darla doesn’t get my scallops, I might gladly do.

  When Darla returns and confirms that they can provide my scallops, I place my order. The hurried meal I ate this morning is a distant memory, so I dive in as soon as the food arrives, working my way methodically through every morsel on my plate. I eat the scallops so fast you’d think I sprinkled them with fairy dust to make them disappear.

  “Remind me to keep you fed.” Grip takes another bite of his burger.

  “Very funny.” I glance up sheepishly from my empty plate. “How’s their dessert?”

  We share a slow smile, and I can’t remember when I’ve felt this way with another person. Laughing at each other’s jokes, comfortable with each other’s silences, calling each other out on our crap.

  “Grip.” A tall man with dark brown skin and eyes to match stops at our table. “I thought that was you.”

  “What’s good, Skeet?” Grip stands, and they grasp hands, exchanging pats to the back. “Haven’t seen you in months. Congrats on the new album.”

  “Man, thanks.” Skeet’s eyes flick to me. “Who’s the little shawty?”

  The little shawty? Does he mean me?

  Grip catches my eye, apparently finding it funny.

  “This is Bristol,” he answers with a laugh. “Rhyson’s sister.”

  “Rhyson, Rhyson. Who’s …” Skeet frowns for a second before he remembers. “Oh. That white dude who plays the piano?”

  Not exactly how I would describe one of the greatest living classical pianists, but we can go with that.

  “Yeah, that’s him.” Grip’s smile appreciates the irony of Skeet’s description. “Bristol’s visiting for the week.”

  “Nice.” Skeet smiles politely before turning his attention back to Grip. “What’d you think of the album?”

  Grip screws his face up, a rueful turn to his mouth.

  “That bad?” Skeet demands.

  “It was a’ight,” Grip concedes. “Honestly, I just know you have something better in you than that.”

  “Well, damn, Grip,” Skeet mumbles. “Why don’t you tell me what you really think?”

  “Oh, okay. Well, that shit was whack,” Grip says.

  “Um, I was being sarcastic,” Skeet says. “But since we being honest …”

  “We’ve known each other too long to be anything but honest. It just felt kind of tired.” Grip sits, gestures for Skeet to join us. “Who’d you work with?”

  “You know that guy Paul?” Skeet sits and steals one of Grip’s fries. “They call him Low.”

  “That dude?” Grip sips his beer and grimaces. “Figures.”

  “Well you ain’t been around,” Skeet says defensively. “I didn’t know if you was still down or whatever.”

  “Am I still down?” Irritation pinches Grip’s face into a frown. “I’m the same dude I’ve always been. I’m working with anybody who can pay, so don’t use that as an excuse.”

  “Right, right, but you know how some of these niggas go off and get all new on you.”

  My eyes stretch before I have time to disguise my surprise when he uses the N-word so freely in front of me. I squirm in my seat, sip my water, and try to look invisible. That is one of the worst words in the English language, and I would never use it. I’ve never said it, and I never will. It’s hard for me to understand how people of color use it for themselves even casually.

  “Well, I ain’t new.” Grip pulls out his phone. “Let’s get some dates down to hit the studio. See if we can write some stuff for your next one.”

  While they set up studio time, I happily consider the dessert menu. I was totally serious. It feels like I haven’t eaten in days, and I have room for more.

  “Sorry about that,” Grips says once Skeet is gone. “But the struggle is real. Don’t work, don’t eat, so I work whenever the opportunity presents itse
lf.”

  “Do you really think his album is weak, or did you just say that to drum up business for yourself?”

  “Oh, no. The shit’s weak as hell.” Grip’s deep laugh rolls over me and coaxes a smile to my lips. “I don’t lie, especially about music. It’s the most important thing in my life. It’s my gift, so to me it’s almost sacred.”

  “Now I understand how you and Rhyson became so close,” I say wryly. “Music always came first with him. Or at least it used to be. I don’t pretend to know him anymore. Not that we’ve ever been that close.”

  It’s quiet for a moment while I pretend to read the dessert menu.

  “You love your brother,” Grips says softly, drawing my eyes up to his face. “I know guys like us aren’t easy to put up with. We lose ourselves in our music. We neglect everything else in our lives, but don’t give up on him. Cut him some slack. He’s working his ass off.”

  “I guess I’m not doing a good job of hiding how hard this is, huh?” I manage a smile.

  “Well, I’m also really perceptive.”

  “Not to mention incredibly modest,” I reply.

  Laughter comes easily to us again, and something about the way he’s considering me across the table makes me think it surprises him as much as it surprises me.

  “I am perceptive, though.” Grip takes one of the last bites of his burger. “Like your face when Skeet—”

  “Dropped the N-word in front of me like it was nothing?” I cut in, knowing exactly where he’s going. “Yeah, like what’s up with that? I don’t understand anyone being okay with that word.”

  Grip looks at me for a moment before shuttering his eyes, shrugging and picking up one of his last fries.

  “Probably because to him it is nothing. I mean, if he says it. If we say it.”

  “But I couldn’t say it, right?” I clarify unnecessarily.

  He holds a French fry suspended mid-way to his mouth.

  “Do you want to say it?” He considers me carefully.

  “God, no.” My gasp is worthy of a Victorian novel. “Of course not.”

  “You can tell me.” He leans forward, his eyes teasing me conspiratorially. “Not even when you’re singing along to the hippity hop and they say it?”

  “We’ve already established that I don’t listen to the hippity hop very much,” I say wryly.