by Kennedy Ryan
Real pain etches itself onto her face, and regret pinches in my chest.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have questioned your motives.” I blow out a frustrated breath and drag my hand over my jaw. “That was just some sideways shit I didn’t see coming, and this was not the time or the place for her to pull that.”
Qwest nods, something close to sympathy filling her dark eyes. Finally, we sigh in sync, each of us letting go of our anger at the same time.
“I swear I didn’t know,” Qwest says, her voice softer. “What Angie did out there, it wasn’t cool, and I’m sorry she went out like that.”
I tilt my head back to study the ceiling for a second before looking back to Qwest.
“And I’m sorry if I took any of this out on you.” I lean against the wall, bending my knee and propping my foot there. “I’m just tired of this. What does me wanting to spend the rest of my life with Bristol have to do with me wanting things to improve? Wanting better for our community?”
Surprise and then something that resembles hurt flits through Qwest’s eyes before she drops them to the cheap corridor carpet.
“The rest of your life?” She forces a laugh. “So it’s like that?”
Dammit. I’m so Bristol’s, sometimes I forget I was ever anyone else’s. In this moment, I definitely forgot Qwest ever felt she had any claim on me.
“I’m sorry.” I scrub the back of my neck. “I didn’t think—”
“That I still had feelings for you?” Her mocking smile is turned inside out. “You’re a hard man to get over.”
A sheet of ice falls over Qwest’s face.
“But I have,” she says. “I’ll admit, seeing you again . . .”
She rolls a lusty look from my head to my Jordans.
“You could still get it.” She tips her head up to meet my eyes, a question there, one I hope she doesn’t voice.
“Qwest, come on,” I say, clearing my throat of awkwardness. “You know I’m with somebody else.”
“I bet she don’t give it to you like I did,” she says, all sass and bravado.
Actually, she does, but I choose not to make things worse by saying so. I just watch her, keeping my face indifferent.
“Let’s not do this.” I push off the wall, intending to step around her, but she pushes me back, leaving her hand in the center of my chest. It feels wrong to have someone else touch me, but I tamp down my unease and leave it there for now. I still feel guilty about the way I dragged her into the complex web of my relationship with Bristol. I hate that I hurt her before, and I want to handle her more carefully than I did in the past. I’ll leave her hand there and leave our eyes connected until she says what she needs to say.
“If I had long, silky hair,” Qwest says, bitterness tingeing her voice, “and gray eyes and a pretty golden tan, would you want me then?”
Damn.
“It has nothing to do with that, with those things, Qwest.” I place my hand over hers, hoping the contact offers her some comfort. “Am I attracted to Bris? Of course, but I’ve been attracted to a lot of women.”
“You were attracted to me.” Boldness presses through the uncertainty on her face.
“I was,” I agree. “But I’ve only ever loved one woman, and that’s Bristol.”
I pause, meting out my next words with care.
“And she’s the only woman I plan to be in love with. So yeah, I’m spending the rest of my life with her, and I can’t know what would have happened if she looked different, if she were blond, if she was black. For me, it’s a moot point, because I’m in love with the version of her that I have. That’s all that matters.”
Qwest flinches, like my words were a slap in her face. She pulls back, and with the tiny weight of her palm lifted, I breathe easier. She steps away and clears her throat, the uncertain woman asking questions gone. The assertive badass I’m used to seeing, the one who has all the answers, stands in front of me again.
“Love who you want, Grip.” Her voice, her eyes, everything about her is resigned now. “Just be in the studio when my team needs you. I may not have any hold over your heart, but I still got your ass under contract for my album.”
I manage a laugh, hoping to get us back on the footing we’ve had over the last few weeks I’ve been working on her project while in New York.
“I’ll be there.”
My phone vibrates in my pocket, and I take it out to see Bristol’s name.
“Well, I guess I should let you handle that,” Qwest says, eyeing the screen.
Her typical swagger is at odds with the lingering hurt I see in her eyes as she turns to walk away.
“Bris, I—”
“Why is she touching you?”
Bristol’s voice is that dangerous, about-to-go-HAM quiet.
“Um, babe, what?” I’m disoriented. “Why is who touching me?”
“Qwest. She was all over you.”
“The hell she was. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, maybe you should check Instagram. That’s where you and I and Qwest are all tagged in a picture that shows her touching you.”
With her still on the line, I pull my phone away from my ear and go to my little-used Instagram account.
“Well, damn.”
Some intern, production assistant, gofer-ass punk skulking around here in the halls must have snapped a picture of Qwest with her hand on my chest and posted it just that fast. The moment that felt wrong when it was happening looks even worse out of context on Instagram. What was me trying to protect Qwest’s feelings and not hurt her any more than I already have looks intimate, like a secret, and the caption only adds fuel.
Maybe @TheRealGrip is taking @MsAngieBlack’s advice to heart and going back to black. Who is really #GripzQueen? #TheBlackerTheBerry #TheSweeterTheJuice #OnceYouGoBlack #YouWontGoBack #WokeCheck #PlayingInTheSnow
Neither Bristol nor Qwest are referenced specifically, but both are tagged.
Fuck my life.
“Bris.” Now my voice is dangerously soft. I’m good and damn tired of people in my damn business every time I turn around, poking their noses in my shit where it doesn’t belong, messing with me and my girl. “You know this isn’t real.”
“It looks real,” she whispers. “It feels real.”
“Bristol Gray, if you tell me you believe this, I’m fucking you into next week when I see you.”
Typically, she would say, Is that a promise? or offer some smartass comment, but the other end stays silent.
“Bris, come on.” I bang my fist into the wall. “You know this isn’t true. If she were a guy, I would kick Angie’s ass.”
“Well she’s a girl,” Bristol says, her voice hardening. “And I do plan to kick her ass where it will hurt most.”
“What do you mean?”
“Meaning I’m calling her producer. That shit was way beyond the scope of what we agreed to, and I want her head on a platter.”
“That isn’t the way to handle it.”
“The hell it isn’t.” Bristol’s indignation and resentment nearly choke her words. “She thinks she can come for me—for us like that with no consequences? She’s about to learn differently.”
I squeeze the bridge of my nose, bracing myself for a fight I really don’t want right now.
“Bris, you’re not doing that.”
Her voice drops. “What did you say?”
Aw hell.
“I said you’re not doing that. That’s what she wants.”
“Then she’ll be very happy to find herself out of a job because if she wants a fight, I’m her girl, and she should know better than to bring a fucking tweet to a gun fight.”
“You don’t want beef with this chick. It’ll only turn the tide against you.”
“Why? Because I’m white? Because everyone’s looking for a reason to turn against me anyway since I’m with you? Like the tide wasn’t already against me.”
“We’re in the twenty-first century, and nobody should s
till hold these views, but it’s just a few, Bris. They are just the vocal ones. I know it’s hard. It’s hard for me, too.”
“I’m so sorry I’m making life hard for you, Grip.”
“Stop it.” Anger flares in my words. “We’re not doing this. Us fighting won’t make things any better.”
“No, what will make things better is teaching Angie Black that I’m not the bitch to mess with. She’s firing shots? I’m firing back.”
“You’re not,” I say, barely holding on to my calm. “Not representing me, you’re not.”
An ominous silence swells from the other end, reaching across the country to suffocate me.
“What did you say?” she finally asks.
“Look, it’s my career,” I force myself to reply. “And I determine what will or won’t be done on my behalf, and I say no.”
“I see,” she says, suppressed fury embedded in her response.
As soon as the words left my mouth, I wanted to take them back. I know this will only push Bristol away, will only make her angrier, but I will not have her embroiled in some beef with one of the most influential figures in the socialsphere. They want to come for me? Let them, but I’m not having them hurting Bristol. I should have just said that; it would have gotten a better response than this.
“Bristol, look, I–”
“I should go,” she cuts in. “Kai’s almost done with her segment, and Aria’s here with me. She just woke up.”
I sigh, resigned to not making this right until she comes home.
“Okay. Can I pick you up from the airport tomorrow? What time does your flight land?”
“I don’t think I’m coming.” Her voice is cool and distant. “Things are still hectic for Kai. Luke’s reality show starts production this weekend, and I’m thinking I should stay here for that. I’ll come . . . I don’t know, next week.”
This is bullshit. I know it, and so does she. Does she not feel how this distance is killing me? Not just the three thousand miles separating us, but the chasm opened up by this asinine fight.
“Are you sure that’s why you’re not coming home?” I ask, letting my frustration leak through the words.
A baby’s cry cuts off her response. Aria.
“I have to go,” Bristol says hastily. I hear her shhhh-ing our goddaughter.
“Bristol, wait.”
The line dies, and there is nothing but silence on the other end, a gaping hush swallowing all the things I wish I’d said instead of all the wrong shit I spoke. I consider calling her right back, but I don’t want to distract her when she’s taking care of Aria for Kai. Besides, I need to get to the studio in Harlem for a session. I glance at my watch to see how much time I have to get there. I stare at the piece-of-shit watch I never take off, only to find that it has died. After almost a decade, this watch that has never failed me decides to die today. I’ll never forget the night Bristol gave me this watch, the night of our first kiss, trading hurts and hearts a hundred feet in the air, stuck on a Ferris wheel. The watch may have finally stopped working, but we still work. We’ll always work. In a world of pieces that never seem to fit, we do. We work. We make sense when nothing else does, and I have to remind her of that.
15
Bristol
I messed up.
As soon as I told Grip I was staying in LA for work instead of returning to New York, I knew it was the wrong thing to do. The voice in my head calling me a fool is so loud and insistent, I can barely focus on anything else. Sitting here on the set of Luke’s new reality show, I’m not really needed. I mean, it’s good for me to be here, sure. Luke appreciates it, but he doesn’t need me. Grip, however, does need me. Even across the country, I feel his need, the desperation to make things right. I need him, too. I feel it, too. It hounds me. After yesterday’s disaster, another public dragging, the only place I want to be is in his arms, reassured that we’re okay and, no matter how many stupid fights we have, will always be okay. Where am I instead? Here suffering indigestion from bad craft services food.
“That sound good, Bris?”
My unfocused gaze locks in on Luke, who watches me, both brows lifted in query.
“Uh, sure.” I shake my head to pull myself back in. “Wait, I didn’t actually hear what you said. What are they asking you to do?”
For the next few minutes, he details a segment the producers have set up showing him in the recording booth of the studio where we’re shooting.
“Yeah, that sounds great.” I glance at my phone, checking for missed calls or texts from Grip. Nothing. We don’t fight often, but when we do it’s a conflagration, burning everything to the ground, and right now I’m charred. Grip is usually the first to apologize. He’s a better person than I am, the bigger person, but not this time. I’m making the first move, and it’s on the next plane out of LA.
“I need to go to New York,” I say abruptly, cutting in on whatever Luke was telling me.
Luke’s startled expression morphs into understanding.
“Is this about that Angie Black thing yesterday?”
Oh, that’s right—Luke knows. Everyone knows, because my life is an open book—and not the fairy tale kind, more like a Stephen King novel.
Misery maybe?
“Yeah.” I gather my iPad and bag. “I was supposed to be there by now, but . . .”
I let him fill in the blank with my cowardice and avoidant behavior.
“You do realize most people don’t feel that way, right?” Luke asks with a kindness not typically found in this industry. “The things Angie said . . . I know there are some who agree, but most don’t. Look at all the support you guys got afterward.”
I was pleasantly surprised by all the flak Angie received, lots of it from black women wanting us to know they didn’t agree with Angie. It came from groups Grip has donated to, from cops he’s worked with who defended him. It was actually pretty amazing. There were, of course, those vocal in their support of Angie’s position, but it was heartening to see the support for us, too.
That still doesn’t fix the fact that I messed up.
“This is some high-profile shit, Bris,” Luke says. “But you can take it.”
“Taking it is easier said than done when ‘it’ is blasted all over every social media platform and your relationship is reduced to tacky hashtags by people who want to see it fail.”
To my absolute dismay, my voice shakes and I’m blinking back tears. I hate being reduced to this weak, teary girl. This time it’s not what they did to me. It’s how badly I’ve handled things.
“Hey.” Luke takes both my hands in his and dips his head to catch my eyes. “I was there the week you and Grip first met. I saw him love you for years, and I saw you try your best not to love him back. It’s never been more obvious to me that two people belong together. This is a bump in the road, and not even a bump of your own making. Somebody else’s biases shouldn’t be causing problems between you.”
Right now, Luke isn’t my client; he’s the friend I’ve known for more than a decade, since before the money and the fame, and he’s right. Urgency to make things right quickens my breath and smolders in my blood.
“You’re a wise man.” I pull my phone back out of my bag, my mind and fingers already racing ahead while I start searching for a flight. “I’ll have Sarah on set tomorrow, but I need to get to New York tonight.”
“Maybe.” Luke aims his megawatt smile over my shoulder. “Or maybe New York will come to you.”
Before I can fully process what he’s saying or turn to see what’s over my shoulder, a warm, familiar weight settles at my hip. That clean skin-deep scent I’ve come to associate with one person envelops me. I look up and over my shoulder to find Grip scanning my face with sober eyes.
“Hey.” That’s all he says, like he’s supposed to be here on the set of a reality TV show instead of in class, instead of in New York. His fingers tighten at the curve of my waist, though, belying the calm greeting. The tension rolls off his body and onto m
ine. I absorb it, feel it tightening the line of my mouth and clenching my hand around the strap of my bag.
“Dude.” Luke reaches for Grip’s free hand, doing that man clench handshake thing. “What’s up? Good to see you.”
“You too.” Grip’s mouth relaxes into a smile for our longtime friend. “You think you big time now, huh? Now you got your own show and all.”
Luke laughs, his bright blue eyes lighting up and crinkling at the corners.
“I’ve always been big time.” He offers an immodest shrug of his shoulders. “The rest of the world’s just catching up, thanks in large part to your girl here.”
“Yeah, she’s something else.” Grip’s smile dims a little, but he doesn’t look my way. “Well, congrats.”
Before any of us can say more, the director’s assistant interrupts, her harried expression and flyaway hair conveying the kind of day it’s been.
“Luke, Steven’s looking for you.” She sets her stress aside long enough to ping-pong admiring glances between Grip and Luke. I can’t blame her. Facing one another, they’re a study of beautiful contrasts, Grip’s darkness and raw sexuality a perfect foil for Luke’s blond hair and surfer-boy-next-door good looks.
“You said Steven needs me?” Luke prompts.
“Um, yeah.” She blinks the stars from her eyes and frowns. “He wants to talk through a few things for this next sequence.”
As much as I loathe the thought of leaving Grip even for a few minutes, I force myself to turn to him, prepared to ask him to wait for me, but again, it’s Luke to the rescue.
“Hey, I got this, Bris.” His kind eyes smile back at me. “I’m sure Grip didn’t come all this way to see me.”
My eyes lock with Grip’s, and I already see the reprimand behind his impassivity.
“Okay,” I say. “I won’t leave, though, until you’re done. Come find me. I want to make sure you feel good about everything.”
“That works,” Luke says, turning back to the production assistant. “Take me to your leader.”
