by Kennedy Ryan
Thus, the trying so hard.
“Someone special?” I ask, looking up from the greens with what I hope is a natural smile.
Jade’s answer is a cocked brow and dead eyes.
“Huh?” she asks, voice flat. “What’d you say to me?”
“Um . . . I just saw you texting and smiling and thought maybe . . . there’s a guy or—”
“I don’t do dick.”
My hands freeze under the stream of cold water. I can’t keep my foot out of my mouth around this girl. Did Grip tell me she was a lesbian and I forgot?
“Oh, that’s fine.” I shrug and keep smiling. “I mean, I’m fine with that.”
“Glad I have your permission to fuck who I want.” She rolls her eyes like I’m stupid, and I feel stupid most of the time when I’m talking to her. I know people. I get people, I figure them out. It’s part of my job to understand and charm them and, well, it sounds bad, but use them to get what I need for my artists. But, I can’t understand Jade, and I sure as hell can’t charm her.
“I didn’t mean it that way, Jade. I just find myself grinning like an idiot when I’m texting Grip and thought—”
“So now I’m an idiot?”
I toss a leaf into the sink, frustration making my movements jerky.
“Would you stop picking apart everything I say?” I draw a calming breath in through my nose and push it out through my mouth. “I’m trying to make conversation, that’s all.”
The slow, sweet smile that slides onto Jade’s face is incongruous and should be my first clue that she’s up to tearing me apart.
“Okay. Let’s make conversation, Bristol.” She straightens from the counter and crosses over to stand beside me. “Since you all in my grill and up in my business, I’ll tell you who I’m texting.”
She pauses, eyes riveted to my face for my response. I school my features and won’t give her one.
“It’s Qwest.”
That name should not give me heartburn, but every time I hear it, it’s like a lit cigarette behind my ribs. Maybe it was seeing Qwest with Grip all those weeks and knowing he was fucking her, fearing that she was fucking his feelings for me right out and I would be left lonely and still in love with him. Maybe it was Black Twitter rallying behind her and turning on me, painting her as the victim and me as the villain. I don’t know why I feel this way when I hear Qwest’s name, but she is my sore spot, and Jade knows it. She’s twisting her knuckle into a bruise on my heart, and even though I was prepared, I know my face doesn’t hide it.
“Oh, I didn’t know you and Qwest were together.” I laugh, trying to make a joke of it . . . a bad, awkward joke, which is the only kind I can seem to manage with Jade.
“Oh, no. Not me and Qwest. She loves dick.” Cruelty engraves a smile onto Jade’s smooth, pretty brown face. “Just ask Grip. He knows.”
These are the cleanest greens anyone will ever eat. I’m scrubbing this one leaf mercilessly, almost to the point of translucence, training my eyes on the sink so Jade doesn’t gain any ammunition from the hurt I know she would see. All I want is to be this girl’s friend, and she can’t tolerate five minutes with me. She’s carrying on an entire conversation with Qwest while I’m standing right here trying harder than I’ve ever tried with anyone.
“I meant that I didn’t realize you two knew each other,” I mumble.
“We didn’t really, until recently. I’m writing some stuff for her new album.” Her pause fills with anticipation of something I know will be at my expense. “Grip introduced us a few weeks ago.”
The knife slips off the stalk, slicing into my finger, matching the tiny nick Jade just made across my heart. It’s not a big deal; rationally, I know that. Grip is contractually bound to work on Qwest’s next album, writing and producing. Hell, I negotiated the deal, but he wasn’t mine then—only he’s always been mine, even when I didn’t claim him, and it screws a wrench through my eye that I’m the one who threw them together, that Qwest knows the weight of his body because of me. That glorious fullness when he swells within me—she’s had that. The sweet heat of his panting breath in my ear when he comes—she felt that before I did. I can’t ever take that knowledge from her, but I want to strip every memory of him from her mind, body, and heart. So, I know it’s not the tiny injuries Jade inflicts now that are at the bottom of my irrational response; it’s all my old self-inflicted wounds that haven’t quite healed.
“You know it’s just a matter of time, right?” Jade tilts her head, considering me. “He’s not the first black man turned out by some white pussy.”
“Shut the hell up.” I snap my eyes to her face. “Don’t talk about us. You have no idea.”
“You’re just a high to him.” Jade’s full lips curl around her derision. “And just like any high, he’ll come down. You’ll wear off once he gets tired of explaining his blackness and answering your dumb questions. One day he’ll want to be understood, not just fucked.”
“I do understand him.” I’m certain of it, but in a way, she carries the same brand of charisma Grip does, the same confidence that, even twisted around a lie, entices you to believe.
“Just watch him with Qwest the next time they’re together,” she sneers. “They fit. Everyone sees it except you. She’s just waiting for him to wake up from this dream, shake off that jungle fever. Maybe you’re a black man’s fantasy, but she’s real life, and when it comes down to it, Grip is nothing if not real. Deep down, you know it.”
Her lies and speculation circle me like rope, slowly restricting me. For a frozen moment, I can’t speak, and even though Grip’s love is gospel to me, my religion, my truth, some little voice within me whispers, What if she’s right?
Jade doesn’t say more words. She’s quiet, allowing the ones she’s already spoken to take root. I know she’s hoping she’ll get under my skin, but she won’t. Even with that tiny granule of doubt, I try not to let her. I’m still staring at the blood surging from the tiny cut on my finger when Grip walks into the kitchen.
“Babe, what’d you do?” He moves my finger under the flow of cold water, concern clumping his brows.
“It’s just a cut.” I swallow against the unreasonable hurt that he introduced Jade and Qwest.
“Well I don’t like any kind of cut on you.” His voice admonishes and caresses at once. “Jade, where are the bandages?”
“God, Grip. The girl’s fine.” Jade huffs an exasperated sigh. “It’s not like she’s gonna lose a finger.”
Grip angles a glance at her, his frown deepening. “Would you just go find a Band-Aid?”
Jade’s eyes connect with mine before she shrugs and heads out of the kitchen.
Grip watches the door for a moment, even after Jade leaves, questions queuing up in the eyes he turns back to me.
“She bothering you?” he asks. “I know she’s still coming around about us.”
Is that what he thinks? Jade shows no sign of coming around any time soon, but even irritated with her, I see the affection, the place she holds in his heart, and I really don’t want to come between them—especially not when that relationship is so newly restored.
“No, it’s cool. She’s . . . just being Jade.” I try to free my finger, but he doesn’t let me go. “My finger’s fine.”
“I’ll be the judge of when it’s fine.” He offers a lopsided grin. “And who thought it was a good idea to leave you in the kitchen with a knife?”
I know he’s teasing me about my legendary culinary ineptness, but now is not the time. I’m still a little bruised from my conversation with Jade.
“I may not be a great cook, but I’m not a child.” I snatch my finger back. “Like Jade said, it’s just a cut.”
When the words come out harsher than I mean them to, Grip grabs my finger, taking it into the warm silk of his mouth, sucking and running his tongue along the injured groove. Electric current spears me down the middle, landing in my core. He sucks all the oxygen from the room, and my lungs desperately push breath f
rom my chest. He studies me under hooded lids, knowing exactly what he’s doing to me.
“Was Jade messing with you?” he asks, his voice husky, but his mouth a firm line. He’s abusing the sway he holds over my body. I know it, but he still makes me want to confess. I close my eyes and clear my head long enough to tell him only what I want him to know. I need to make my own way with Jade, and I won’t do myself any favors if she thinks I go running to Grip to complain every time we disagree.
“No.” I meet his eyes steadily. “I was just a little surprised. She was texting Qwest about a song they’re working on, and I didn’t realize they even knew each other.”
“Yeah,” Grip says. “I introduced them.”
His eyes are clear, free of discomfort or regret. I know he doesn’t think this should be problematic at all. It shouldn’t be, but I can’t resist pressing a little.
“You didn’t tell me they were working together.”
“Should I have?” Grip bites the inside of his cheek and frowns a little. “I didn’t think it was important. Qwest was looking for new material, and Jade’s looking for artists to work with.”
“And you thought they’d be a good fit.”
“Of course.” Grip’s powerful shoulders lift and fall carelessly. “They have a lot in common.”
“Really?”
“They both have this badass sensibility. I knew Jade’s lyrics would feel right to Qwest. They’ve both overcome a lot, lived through a lot of the same things.”
Things I have no idea about, things they can easily bond around when I basically have to negotiate a treaty just to have a conversation with Jade.
“You admire her.” It’s a statement, because it’s obvious he does. “Qwest, I mean. You admire her.”
“I respect her, yeah,” Grip says. “I mean, hip-hop’s a male-dominated industry where most of us call women bitch and ho without blinking, and she shoved her way to the top. Her drive and talent and intelligence have made her one of the biggest names in the business, and she takes no shit from nobody.”
Grip watches me carefully, probably catching on to the fact that this means more to me than it should.
“Does it bother you that I respect Qwest?”
I could just say yes, but it’s not that simple. I, too, admire everything Grip just described about her. I relate to it because in many ways, those are the challenges I face in my career, too. Those aren’t the things that bother me, and I have to be honest with him and with myself about what does.
“It doesn’t bother me that you respect Qwest. I think it bothers me that you fucked her.”
He doesn’t even flinch, and I wonder if I can still shock Grip, or if he knows me so well he anticipates my thoughts, reads them in the air over my head before they make it to my mouth.
“And I hate every son of a bitch you ever fucked,” he says, his voice remaining steady though his eyes darken. “But I can’t change your sexual history, just like you can’t change mine. We can only worry about the future.”
His hand slips between our bodies, between my legs, to cup me, his wide palm hot as a brand through the thin linen of my shorts.
“And this,” he says, pressing into my pussy, “is the sum total of my sexual future.”
“Are you using my body against me?” I ask, my voice sandpapered by lust.
“I will use whatever is at my disposal to keep you with me forever.”
“And you think my pussy is at your disposal?”
Grip slides one finger over my clit through my clothes.
“You think it’s not?” He grabs my uninjured hand and presses it to his crotch. “Because this is completely at your disposal as much as you want, any time you want it, and any way you want to use it.”
He links his fingers with mine, careful of the cut on my pinky, and settles our twined hands over his heart.
“And this is yours, too, Bristol, all the time, whether you want it or not.”
My eyes rest on our hands over his heart, and I feel some peace for the first time since I walked into the kitchen to talk to Jade, maybe since we arrived . . . maybe since I woke up today with this party hanging over my head. When things are out of control, he’s always my peace, always my sigh of relief. He’s the reminder that come what may, there’s us, and we aren’t going anywhere—ever.
I step closer, his hand still between my legs, my hand still on his dick, and rest my forehead against his chin.
“I’m sorry.” I breathe the apology into the Grip-scented skin of his neck. “I just feel . . . possessive, probably even more when it comes to Qwest because I know she would never have had you if I hadn’t thrown the two of you together. I love the way you love me, in and out of bed, and the idea of someone else having you . . .”
My words trail off as his dick thickens and lengthens in my hand. My eyes zip up to his face, where his eyelids hang heavy over the dark storm of his eyes and his lips are parted on a hot breath.
“Does it turn you on that I’m possessive of you?” I ask.
“I’d fuck you in that sink right now if it wasn’t full of collard greens,” he says, his eyes speculating like he might follow through on his threat anyway.
Despite power surging through me from the knowledge that I affect him this way, and even with the air so thick with lust I could cut it with the knife I used just minutes ago, I laugh. It’s a robust sound that scrambles from the bottom of me and climbs to the very top, like I’m a mountain and this sound scaled every challenge, every obstacle, to soar.
“Is that you laughing like a bird again?” Grip’s chuckle vibrates from his chest into mine.
I slide my hands over the ridges of his abs and chest to link my wrists behind his head, peppering gentle kisses over his lips.
“You’re never gonna let me live that down, are you?”
“Not a chance.” Grip rests his hands at my hips, pulling me into his hard heat. “You can be a bird—my pretty bird.”
I lift to touch my lips to his, ready to settle into a stolen kiss before we have to get back to the party.
“I shoulda known,” Ms. James says from the kitchen door, hands braced on her hips. “Sent you in here to get Bristol, and here you go, all booed up.”
Grip and I both laugh, holding each other loosely, our bodies cooling off as his mother approaches the sink.
“I heard you needed this.” She hands me a Band-Aid before leaning over to inspect my handiwork, nodding her approval.
“Good job.” She starts transferring the greens into a large pot of water. “That’s enough for today.”
“But I just washed!” My mouth hangs open. “I didn’t learn anything new.”
“You gotta work your way up to my greens, girl.” A quick grin creases the still smooth skin at her eyes. “Next time, you boil.”
I take in her friendly face like a balm to the abrasions from my conversation with Jade. The first time I was in this house, Grip’s mother and I weren’t friendly. We didn’t exchange smiles, and there was no affection slowly growing between us. It’s been baby steps for us, both of us loving Grip and wanting to know and like each other for his sake. If I can have this with Ms. James, I have to believe one day I’ll have it with Jade, too. This warmth I’m basking in between Grip and his mother, the sense of family with them in this kitchen and permeating the entire house—I want it. I never had it for myself growing up, and I’m adopting it as my own.
I lean into Grip’s chest, tucking my head into his neck and smiling at his mother, who watches us with eyes warmer than I ever thought they would be.
“You’re right, Ms. James.” I give her a quick nod, returning her smile. “Next time.”
9
Grip
Bristol’s laugh hooks me from across the yard, drawing my attention from the abysmal hand of cards I’m holding. If you’re playing Spades and all your cards are red, that’s not good. These cards are bleeding, but at least Bristol is still having fun. It’s amazing the wonders food and alcohol can
work. With a full belly and a bottle of beer, she’s seated in a circle of lawn chairs, shoes off, hair tumbled from the knot she had it in earlier. She throws her head back, the muscles in her throat contracting to push out the sound that takes over everything else, at least for me.
She’s sitting with Shon and several of the girls I’ve known all my life. Once they realized Bristol knows everyone in the music business and manages many of its hottest stars, she became really popular. They wanted all the gossip she could divulge. Talk of music quickly shifted to her shoes, her bag collection, where we’ll be living in New York, all the details of our so-called glamorous life. Bristol isn’t one of those women who has lots of friends. Over the years, she has handpicked a tight circle of people she trusts and would do anything for. Under the prickliness, and when she sets her mind to it, she’s all charm. She has my lifelong friends eating from her hand and hanging on her every word.
Bristol was nervous and stiff at first, and I can’t blame her. This isn’t an easy group to jump into. Some are territorial, many mistrusting, and a few just downright racist when it comes to white women. But, they’re also the most loving, supportive, give-you-the-clothes-off-their-back people you’ll ever meet. They’re my family, with or without blood. I know some of them don’t like or understand that I’ve chosen to spend my life with Bristol, but that’s all based on shit assumptions. I’ve seen too much good in their hearts to believe they’ll hold on to those notions once they see how much I love her and how good she is for me, once they see how much she loves me, and that is one thing Bristol can’t hide. My dick twitches when I remember her confessing her possessiveness in the kitchen. This party is for me, but I’m wondering how soon we can be out. I leave tomorrow for New York, and Bristol won’t be able to join me there for at least the next week or so. With Kai’s debut album dropping Tuesday, Bristol can’t and won’t leave her side.