by Kate Stewart
“But he . . . didn’t he . . .” Discomfort tightens Rhyson’s words. “Him leaving your house that morning, that was—”
“Oh, no. I slept with him. That happened.” I shrug. “I guess. He says I did.”
A loaded silence stretches between us as Rhyson processes that information.
“You don’t remember?”
“I was taking a page out of Mother’s playbook, numbing with vodka so I didn’t feel.” My heart twists like a knife in my chest as Grip’s cutting words before he left for New York come back to haunt me. “That kind of backfired.”
“Wait. Let me get this straight.” Anger bunches the muscle along Rhyson’s jaw. “Did Parker take advantage of you? Like sleep with you while you were—”
“I can’t, Rhyson,” I say so softly I’m not sure he heard me. “He says I was willing. I just don’t remember much.”
“He says you were . . .” Rhyson narrows the rage in his eyes to slits. “That motherfucker.”
“That motherfucker,” I agree with a little laugh, even though it isn’t funny at all to wake up and have no memory of having sex with someone. “I mean, I’ve let that go. You need to let it go, too. It won’t accomplish anything.”
“You say you aren’t dating Parker,” Rhyson finally says after he’s composed himself some. “Does Parker know that?”
“Kind of.” I laugh at the expression on Rhyson’s face. “I’ve tried to tell him. He insists that I’m going to marry him one day and we’re going to rule the world.”
“Asshole,” Rhyson mutters.
“Exactly.”
“You should be careful of him, Bristol. All that power and money make him dangerous.”
“No, thinking he’s God’s gift is what makes him dangerous, but I’ve got it under control.”
“What does that mean?”
“Meaning it was convenient for me to let him play this little fantasy out in public so Grip would finally move on.” I toy with a loose string on the sleeve of my blouse and bite my bottom lip. “Thinking I’m with Parker moved him on to Qwest, but I’ve told Parker. He hasn’t accepted it fully yet, but he’ll tell the media the truth soon.”
“If you really think Grip is over you that fast, then you don’t know him.”
For a moment, hope flares inside me. Hope that maybe I didn’t completely burn the bridge between Grip and me. But it’s a bridge I’ll never cross anyway, so what’s the use?
“He has the right to know the truth.” Rhyson’s worried eyes hold mine. “To know how you feel.”
“The right?” I scoff. “They’re my feelings, and I choose not to act on them, so what good does it do for him to know?”
“So what? You just watch him fall harder for Qwest? Give him to someone else?” Rhyson’s voice is so full of disappointment and disapproval I almost flinch. “You’re braver than that, Bristol. You’re the most fearless person I know. And you let the threat of something keep you from what you really want?”
“You don’t understand what—”
“I do,” Rhyson cuts in. “It’s the same kind of bullshit that kept Kai from being with me. Allowing her past and the mistakes her parents made to dictate her future. Imagine if she’d just given up? Not taken a chance on me? She had every reason not to.”
He takes both my hands in his, squeezing as he looks at me, through me.
“We wouldn’t be married. She wouldn’t be pregnant.” A bleakness enters his eyes. “The prospect of spending the rest of my life without her would destroy me. Why would you choose that?”
“You think I’m fearless?” The words get hung up on the tears flooding my throat. “I’m not. I’m scared shitless, Rhyson. I care so much about the people I love. I’d do anything for them. If I let myself . . . have Grip, there would be no boundaries. Do you understand what I’m saying? What if I end up like our mother? A strong woman whose man is her Achilles’ heel? A drunken fool who takes whatever scraps he leaves and shares him to have whatever he’ll give her?”
“You would never allow—”
“Neither would she, but she does.” I shake my head. “I’ve seen it. How weak she is for him. She kept it from us for years because she’s ashamed.”
“All I know is the very thought of Kai with anyone else drives me insane,” Rhyson says. “And we may not be typical twins, but I do know we’re alike in that way. Actually having to watch her be with someone else, to see her fall for someone else and know that I allowed that to happen? I would be miserable, and so would you.”
Images of Grip holding Qwest’s hand and of them out in New York laughing and kissing twist around my mind, squeezing like a boa constrictor. My imagination fills in the dark gaps of what they’re like in bed together. Of how she runs her hands over his broad chest, over the whipcord muscles of his arms and legs. How she strokes him, takes him in her mouth, takes him in her body. Of her satisfying him in a way I never will. She knows him now in a way I don’t. They’ve passed secrets between their bodies.
The unrelenting flow of images flood my mind, torturing me.
Rhyson thinks I would be miserable?
Oh, God, I already am.
Chapter Sixteen
Grip
POETRY HAS LONG been a habit and a comfort for me. Ever since I was a kid, I would recite my favorite poems when I was afraid, nervous, excited.
Sad.
The words pull me into a rhythm. Something set and predictable, yet brimming with the potential to break wild and free.
In my favorite poem “Poetry” Neruda said he wheeled with the stars and that his heart broke loose on the wind. It seems particularly appropriate tonight because I do feel as if, with my debut album sitting in the number one spot, I’m tumbling through some galaxy I never thought to explore. A dark sky pelted with stars, with promises masquerading as constellations.
I quoted that poem to Bristol at the top of the Ferris wheel all those years ago when we got stuck. She was frightened, but our kiss chased her fears away. She flipped my heart upside down, upending everything I thought I wanted in a girl. That Ferris wheel was maybe a hundred feet off the ground, but with Bristol’s lips so soft, first hesitant then urgent, her fingers twisted around mine like she was just as desperate to hold onto me as I was to hold onto her—I was on top of the world. I didn’t have two pennies to rub together or a pot to piss in, but I was happy.
So fucking happy.
And tonight, I am at the top of the world, more successful than that pauper on the Ferris wheel could have imagined. I can see Bristol on the other side of the club where we’re holding my release celebration, but she may as well be in another hemisphere there’s so much distance between us. I’m a fool because given the choice, I’d take the Ferris wheel with her any day over tonight. That kiss, not this celebration, feels like the best night of my life.
“You do know you have the number one album in the country, right?” Qwest walks toward the edge of the stage where I’m seated. We just finished sound check for tonight’s performance. “You got nothing to look sad about, baby.”
“I’m not sad.” I curve my lips into something close to a smile to prove it. “Just taking a quick breather. It’s a lot to take in.”
“How about you take me in.” She stands between my legs hanging over the lip of the stage. One hand touches my chest through my shirt and moves down while her lips wander over my jaw and down my neck. Her hand searches between my legs. I’m limp as a noodle. It’s embarrassing to have a woman hot enough to melt butter practically molesting you, and your dick doesn’t care.
“Sorry to interrupt.”
Bristol’s voice snaps my head up, our eyes catching in the dim light of the club over Qwest’s shoulder. She’s scraped her hair back tonight so she’s all high cheekbones and matte red lips. I permit myself a glance over the naked shoulders in her strapless black pantsuit. The tight silk coaxes her breasts higher until they spill a little over the cups. A scarlet sash cords her waist, and her bright red heels scream
“fuck me.” But it’s Bristol, so they could whisper it, and I’d still hear.
My dick presses against my jeans, poking into Qwest’s hand and putting that knowing grin on her face. She assumes my sudden hard-on is for her, not my manager. I’m a fraud. This thing with Qwest has gone too far, and I’m going to have to do what I never wanted. I’m going to have to hurt her.
“Could we talk for a minute?” Bristol’s eyes drop to Qwest’s hand on my dick before popping back up and staring just past my shoulder. “I just need to go over a few things for tonight.”
We’ve hardly spoken this week. All the hard work we both poured into this release over so many months, and when the project is colossally successful, we can barely look at each other.
“Sure,” I mutter, not bothering to check if she’s finally managed to look at me. “Pull up a seat.”
“I need to go find Will anyway.” Qwest kisses my cheek and steps away. “See you backstage.”
She and Bristol exchange polite smiles on her way to climb the stage steps and disappear in the wings.
Bristol shifts from one foot to the other, touches the silky bare skin at her throat, bites her lip, moves her iPad from the crook of one elbow to the other. I sit in silence, waiting for her to settle and tell me what this is about. Finally, she sets her hip against the edge of the stage beside me.
“I know it’s been a crazy week.” She clears her throat, long lashes lowered and eyes fixed to the floor. “How are you?”
“Good.” I keep my tone brusque. “What’d you need?”
She hesitates, probably still unused to the indifference I’ve displayed since our confrontation at Rhyson’s house. Since the Spotted post.
“So for tonight,” she says, glancing at her iPad. “We have you slated to do three songs.”
“Yeah, we just rehearsed them.”
“About that.” Bristol sets her iPad on the stage. “I know you’re doing ‘Queen’ with Qwest, obviously.”
“Yeah, and ‘Bruise’.”
“For the third song,” Bristol says, tracing the edges of her iPad without looking up. “The Target executive was wondering if you’d perform a song from their Exclusive deluxe version.”
I already know where this is going, but I stay quiet, waiting for her to gather the audacity to ask me to do that song.
“They want ‘Top of the World’,” she says softly, hazarding a glance up at my face.
“I’m not doing that song.” I give an adamant shake of my head. “Not tonight.”
“Of course tonight.” Bristol huffs an exasperated breath. “It’s the perfect fit obviously. Your album is at the top of the charts. The song is called ‘Top—”
“Do I look like I need you to break it down for me, Bristol?” The only thing moving on my face is one brow lifting. I’m barely breathing. “I understand why they want it. I’m just not doing it.”
“We have a track for it. The band—”
“My not doing that song has nothing to do with having a live band or a track, and you know it.” I hold her eyes captive with mine. “You didn’t even want the song on the album in the first place.”
“I know, but it’s so good,” she admits grudgingly. “It’s their favorite of the ones we added. They want people to hear it and know they can only get it there.”
“Too bad.”
“How long are you going to do this?” Bristol asks.
“Do what?” I fold my arms across my chest, a physical barrier over the heart she jerked around like a kite for years.
“You know what.”
“No, I wouldn’t have asked if I knew what.”
This feels good. This is my first real opportunity to growl and snarl at her since the album dropped. She’s been so deliberately ghost, and I resent it. That she made this dumb decision with that dickhead and drove this wedge between us when I want to share all of this success with her. But I can’t stand to look at her for more than two minutes without working myself into a rage.
“You’re letting this thing with Parker color your decision making.”
She dared to actually bring it up. To actually say his damn name to me.
“This ‘thing with Parker’, as you call it, is not the point.” I slip razor blades between each word. “I’m not doing that damn song, and you and those executives can kiss my black ass.”
“Wow.” Irritation narrows her eyes to slits. “That’s real professional.”
“Professional?” I drop a laugh loaded with sarcasm. “And was it professional for you to go MIA the week of my debut release and send your junior flunky to handle me?”
It’s strangely satisfying to see her cheeks flush the color of not-quite-ripe raspberries. I know I’m not being fair. Sarah did a great job, and not once did I have reason to complain. But I can’t complain to Bristol about the thing I want to—the fact that she chose that entitled prick over me—so I’ll complain about things that don’t really matter.
She’s right. Real professional, and I don’t give a damn.
“Hey, what’s going on?” Rhyson asks from a few feet away.
Bristol and I glare at each other while we wait for him to reach us. How it got this bad, I’m not sure. I’m only sure that I’m making it worse. Every time I’m near her I want to pour accelerant all over my anger so it burns us both to ash.
“What are you fighting about?” Rhyson looks between us, his frown deepening the longer he studies our faces.
“I was telling Grip that the Target executives want him to do ‘Top of the World’.” Bristol sighs like I’m a thorn in her side. “But he won’t.”
“Bristol, could you give us a minute?” Rhyson asks.
“What?” Her expression climbs from irritated to outraged. “This is my job, Rhyson. I don’t need you to—”
“If this is your job, then I am your boss.” Rhyson’s tone and face brook no argument. “And I said give me a minute with my artist.”
“With your art . . .” Bristol folds her lips in to stem her words and draws a calming breath that doesn’t seem to be working since she’s still glaring at me. “Have at it, boss man.”
She stalks off, her precipitously high heels clack clacking her indignation with every step she takes across the floor.
“You know you need to do this song, right?” Rhyson hops up beside me.
“No, I’m not . . .”
Reason swallows the rest of my sentence. Of course I know I need to do the song. But the last thing I want to do is get up in front of all these happy faces and sing about the first time I kissed Bristol or how she turns me inside out like a sweater running through the spin cycle.
“I’ll do it.” I run my hands over my face, exhaustion from the demands of the week landing on me like a brick house. “Whatever.”
“This is exactly what I warned you about.” Rhyson points a finger at me.
“I know you better get your finger out of my face.” Involuntarily, my lips lift at one corner, and so do his. He laughs first, a small sound that loosens some of the tension bunching at my neck and shoulders.
“I don’t think this is going to work, Rhys,” I say quietly after the short-lived laugh.
“What won’t work?”
“Bristol, us working together.” I tip my head back to look at the lights overhead with their multi-colored gels. “I don’t want her to manage me anymore.”
“Dammit, Marlon.” Rhyson leans back, arms straight, heels of his hands pressed to the stage and supporting him. “You and Bristol work incredibly well together. Look at what you’ve accomplished.”
“I know. I just . . . I can’t do it. I don’t want to do it.” I look at him frankly. “I’ll just keep antagonizing her until everything blows up, and we’ll ruin even the chance to be friends some day.”
“Is that what you want?” Rhyson asks. “To be her friend?”
“You know what I want.” I tap out the bass line to “Top of the World” on my leg. “Wanted. But I’m finally accepting that won�
�t happen. I only agreed to her managing me in the first place to be closer to her. Kai and I thought it would help my chances.”
“Kai was involved in this shit storm?” He shakes his head. “That’s what she gets for playing matchmaker.”
“Her heart was in the right place.” A bitter breath gushes past my lips. “Mine wasn’t, I guess. You were right all those times you said I should give up on Bristol and let it go.”
“Yeah, well. What do I know?” Rhyson shrugs carelessly, but when he meets my eyes, he seems more careful than a few moments before. “I mean, what if I was wrong about Bristol? I’ve been wrong before. Like that one time in high school I was wrong.”
“We both know you’ve been wrong a lot more than that.” My smile starts but melts before it’s fully formed. “But about this you were right.”
“But, maybe if—”
“What are you saying?” I bunch my eyebrows into a scowl. “It’s settled. I’m not working with her anymore.”
I lace my fingers together behind my neck and heave a defeated breath.
“Dude.” I meet his eyes with complete honesty. “I just can’t.”
Rhyson searches my face for a few seconds before nodding and sliding off the stage.
“So when?” he asks.
“After Dubai.” I glance at my watch to see how late it is and hop off the stage, too. “I need to get ready.”
“What do you want me to tell her?”
“Nothing.” I bite the inside of my jaw, enjoying the slight pain. “I’ll tell her myself.”
“You sure?”
“If we’re ever going to be friends again, then yeah. I need to talk to her about it. Right now, I can’t be her anything. Not with things the way they are. Once I’m over her and have really moved on . . .”
I leave the thought half-done and shrug, heading back to get ready for the show because I have no idea what that will feel like.
Chapter Seventeen
Grip
HIGH SCHOOL. SENIOR year. School of the Arts theatre. Empty except for Rhyson and me. We’d snuck up to the catwalk and, legs kicking over the sides, dreamed out loud. Compared to the success he’d had early in life as a concert pianist, Rhyson’s dreams to write and produce music for other artists seemed modest. Mine, which were to be a voice to our generation, hear my music on the radio, and reach fans all over the world, seemed loftier than the catwalk we sat on that day.