by Kennedy Ryan
She turns her body to face me, but leaves her cheek against the cushion.
“And I’m just concerned. I didn’t mean to lecture you.” She holds my eyes with hers, takes my hand, and weaves our fingers together. “You know I would never presume to tell you anything about being black in America.”
“That was a stupid thing for me to say,” I interrupt. “I was angry and frustrated. I’m sorry.”
“Maybe I was being . . . I don’t know, presumptuous.” She fixes her eyes on our fingers twisted together. “I just wanted us to both see what he was doing and not fall for it next time.”
Bristol grimaces delicately.
“And I’m afraid there will be a next time. There’s something about you that offends him. Actually, I think it’s everything about you. When there are guys like you running around, how is he supposed to sell his false superiority bullshit? Men who are smarter than he is, rich like he is, more accomplished. Famous. Well respected. He wants to think you’re an aberration, but he’s scared there’s more where you came from.”
Her assessment is spot-on. Now I have to wade into what is sure to be one of the toughest conversations we’ve ever had.
“When I first started at the performing arts school,” I say, studying our hands caressing, mine darker and rougher than hers, “I’d never really had a white friend. Your brother was the first.”
She watches me, not making a sound, so still I wonder if she’s breathing.
“There were pretty much no white people in my neighborhood,” I continue. “Not at my school, not in the stores where we shopped. The only white people I ever saw on a consistent basis, who were in my life, were cops, and I’d been conditioned to fear them.
I take a gulp of wine.
“That’s how separate we felt. I’d go as far as to say sometimes we felt forgotten.” I pause to laugh. “When I showed up at my new high school, I’d never seen an episode of Friends, and who the hell cared about that show? The kids’ jokes weren’t funny, but I was the only one not laughing, and when I tried to be funny, they didn’t get it. None of it made sense to me. It was foreign, like a parallel universe where up was down.”
I glance up to find her eyes fixed on me in complete concentration.
“If Rhyson and I hadn’t become close, I probably would have quit. He’d never seen Friends, either. He knew less than I did in a lot of ways because he’d been on the road busting ass like a grown man, playing piano since he was eleven years old.”
I shrug, trying to remember why I thought I should tell her this.
“I just . . . Tonight, you asked if it was a black thing and you wouldn’t understand.” I sigh, unsure how to approach this, but needing to say it all without a filter, the way our other conversations have always been. We’ve never done eggshells, and tonight sure as hell isn’t the time to start. “Is that how you feel when you’re at my mom’s or . . . wherever with me? With my friends?”
“Sometimes.” Her voice is soft, but her eyes remain undaunted. “Like everybody understands something I don’t. Like at any given moment, I’ll make a fool of myself and not even know it. It’s a very vulnerable feeling—that you don’t even know what you don’t know. I think that’s why I let Jade’s words get to me. You know me, I’m not the girl who gives a fuck, but around Jade, in situations like that, I find myself trying so hard—not trying to be black, just . . . trying, because I want to understand.”
“I’m sorry if I make you feel excluded sometimes. I don’t mean to.” I tilt my head to peer into her eyes. “Some things are specific to my cultural experience, and I don’t know if you’ll ever fully grasp them all. Real talk, I don’t care if you don’t. Ethnicity is just one part of who I am, a very important part, yeah, but just one, just like it’s only one part of who you are. There are things about your job, your past, your experiences that I won’t completely get, either, but I want to know about them because they make you who you are.”
“You’re right.” She looks at me, the open love and need in her eyes burning a path to my heart. “There will be things I can empathize with, but won’t ever know firsthand. Please don’t ever feel there’s anything you can’t say or that we can’t share. I want a love with no walls. This world uses whatever it can—race, politics, religion—to divide us. We can have differences, but promise me they won’t be walls that divide us.”
“I can promise you that.” I capture her hand because I can’t not touch her when the air throbs with our honesty.
“We’re doing something hard, Grip,” she says, her expression earnest. “In a culture, in a climate that would push people like us apart, we choose to be together. We fight to be together.”
“Yeah.” It’s all I can manage because the passion on her face, resonating from her body, steals my words, quickens my heartbeat.
“And I will have uncomfortable conversations with you. I’ll confess embarrassing things so you understand me. Whatever it takes. Listening to Dr. Hammond tonight helped me understand that even if I find bias in myself, if I’m ignorant in some way, it doesn’t mean I don’t love you. It means I don’t know.”
She reaches up, her hands trembling around my face, her eyes deep and dark and frank.
“And I want to know. I need to know because I love you. You’re my end game, Grip. Any hurdle we face, we’ll overcome it together. Nothing will stop us.”
There’s no other way to respond to that except to touch her; to physically express how her words have exploded inside of me. I lean to drop a kiss on her lips, meaning for it to be quick, but she’s so sweet, so addictive, I can’t let go . . . can’t pull back . . . can’t stop. My fingers drift into her hair and my thumb presses on her chin, opening her up to go deeper, seeking the passion that gave me those words. She shudders when I lick the roof of her mouth.
“Grip, God,” she whispers into me. “It’s always so good.”
My lips dust over her jaw and behind her ear, the delicious scent of her hair making me dizzy, making me want her more. She tips her head back to give me access to the smooth skin of her neck.
“Oh my God!”
If she’s saying that now, wait till I get this sweater off.
“Grip.” She taps my shoulder. “Hey, stop for a second. Look up. I think you’re finally catching Mother Nature in the act.”
I drag my attention from the curve of her neck to glance up through the greenhouse glass tiles. Huge snowflakes drop from the sky, a starless black hole that stretches beyond my imagination. At thirty years old, I’m seeing my first snowfall. I doubt it will even stick or that there will be much accumulation, but the point is seeing it happen, seeing what feels like a miracle in progress. Most people have experienced this, felt this wonder when they were just kids. Having it this late in my life makes it sweeter, makes me appreciate the miracle of nature that it is.
And I know exactly how I should mark my miracle.
“Close your eyes, Bris.”
She swings a look around to me that asks what I’m up to.
“What do you—”
“Would you just do what I ask for once without all the—”
“I will kick you in the balls if you say without the sass.” Bristol crosses her arms over her chest. “I’m not a fourteen-year-old girl and you are not my father. I don’t need paternalism from you, Grip.”
“Okay, can you further the feminist cause later and just close your damn eyes?”
“I will.” Bristol grins widely. “But only because it’s your first snowfall.”
“Why you gotta make everything hard?”
“If that’s a hint that you want to have make-up sex,” she says, finally obediently closing her eyes. “I won’t give you sass on that.”
I slide off the couch and onto the floor in front of her, reach into the interior pocket of my jacket.
“All right.” Standing on my knees, I face her, wedged between her legs. “You can open your eyes.”
She does, and they immediately widen beyond what I think is humanly
possible.
“How about engagement sex?” I hold the delicate platinum band between my thumb and index finger. “I’ve heard it’s even better than make-up sex.”
Her jaw drops a few more centimeters with every second that passes. Bristol, who always has something to say, is struck dumb, and I’m about to tease her about it when fat tears slip over her cheeks.
Holy shit. I can’t do Bristol tears under any circumstances, even joyous occasions.
“Babe, don’t cry.” I swipe a thumb over her cheekbone and cup her chin. “You’re gonna give me a complex.”
“How can I not . . . you just . . .”
She gives up, shaking her head and dropping her lashes into the wetness gathered under her eyes. Her forehead falls to rest against mine, and we just sit there for a few seconds. Her hand slides around my neck and she kisses my jaw, sniffing and blinking rapidly against my face. I turn my head to look at her and she stares back at me, her silvery eyes as clear as crystal, as certain as the sunrise.
“You just gonna leave a brother hanging like this?” I ask, my voice husky with emotion.
Her chuckle breezes over my lips, and she sits up straight with a red-tipped nose and damp cheeks.
“I heard you say something about engagement sex,” Bristol says. “But I haven’t heard an actual proposal.”
My smile wavers and then drops. I can’t lighten this moment any more. It has more weight than anything I’ve ever done, and it deserves more than I’ve ever given anything.
“Bristol, I’ve loved you so long, my heart doesn’t remember life before you. For the last decade, you’ve been the first thing I think about and the last thought in my head.” I proffer the ring. “Would you do me the honor of forever? Will you marry me?”
She swallows and fresh tears fill her eyes, but she blinks and bites her lip as if she’s trying to keep it together.
“I aspire to be many things,” she finally says, “but there is nothing I will ever do that will make me prouder than being your wife.”
When she puts it that way, knowing her ambitions and her drive, to hear her esteem our relationship above all else as we start our life together humbles me. If I wasn’t already on my knees, that would have brought me to them. I take her hand and slip the ring on her finger.
22
Grip
“There is not enough coffee in the world for this week.” Callie looks up from the corner of Iz’s desk she has commandeered for her stack of papers.
“I told you to focus on finals—grading mine and taking your own.” Iz studies her over the rims of his glasses. “Grip and I have this proposal under control.”
“Well, don’t you have finals, too?” Callie asks me.
“I do.” I flash her a grin. “But this is the only class I’m taking this semester. Next semester, I go back online and home to LA.”
Callie tosses her pen down, sitting back in her chair and crossing her legs.
“Wait. Did you move to New York just for Iz’s class?” she asks.
Iz and I have negotiated a tentative détente, but it’s still galling that I moved across the country to learn from a guy who thinks I shouldn’t be with Bristol. It’s narrow-minded, and it makes me feel stupid for coming here, but . . . the guy is a genius, and this proposal we’re working on is something I could only dream of being a part of before I met him.
“You could say that,” I mumble, looking back to the pages I’ve been marking up. “So, are we set on the college campus tour?”
“Uh, yeah.” Iz sounds about as uncomfortable with Callie’s question as I am. “You need to run this schedule by your team or whatever?”
“By Bristol,” I say deliberately, looking up to meet his eyes. “She manages everything, but this far out, we should be able to accommodate these dates.”
“And just to be clear,” Callie says, propping an elbow on the desk and leaning forward, “you’re going to college campuses all over the country talking about this community bail fund?”
“And the community justice defense initiative,” Iz adds. “For those who have been wrongfully accused or convicted and can’t afford quality legal representation.”
“And Grip will perform at each stop?” Callie asks.
“Yeah, a few songs, not a full concert,” I clarify. “And I’ll talk about the program. We want to mobilize the next generation around these issues, raise awareness, recruit volunteers.”
“This will slay.” Callie grins and swings her eager look to Iz. “Where do I sign up?”
“Say . . . huh?” Panic fills Iz’s eyes for a moment. You wouldn’t expect a woman who barely clears five feet to scare the living shit out of a guy as big and imposing as Iz, but I get the impression he always wants to beg me not to leave him alone with her. I suspect it’s so he won’t screw her into the nearest wall, but these are merely my speculations since he won’t talk to me about it.
Not that we’ve talked about much outside of the program lately.
“I want in.” Callie sets her mouth in a stubborn line. “I’d be volunteering like anyone else since I won’t be your TA after this semester.”
The stare they hold picks up where some conversation I haven’t been privy to left off.
“We’ll see,” Iz mutters, turning his attention back to the proposal.
“Yeah, we will.” Callie gathers her backpack and stands. “I need to get to class myself.”
When I glance up to tell her goodbye, that same odd expression she wore the first time she went fangirl on me is back on her face.
“Not to make this weird, but . . .” she says in that voice people use right before they make things weird. “I’ve acted like a normal person all day and think I deserve a commendation for not bringing this up earlier.”
I stifle my grin because I already know where she’s going.
“Yes?” I lift both brows sky high and wait.
“Oh my God,” she gushes, unlike any other Rhodes Scholar you would ever meet. “Is it true? Are you engaged?”
So much for stifling grins, because the shit-eating-est grin of all time overpowers my face. Bristol was with Kai for a late-night talk show performance, and some of the production team backstage spotted her ring. A few posts and several tweets later, everyone knew—or thought they did, since we haven’t confirmed anything and really have no plans to. Bristol may promote for a living, but she doesn’t like that lens turned on our private life, not even a little bit, and I can’t blame her. It’s a pain in the ass. We’ll have to eventually, but it’s only been a couple of weeks, and we’re right here at Christmas. Maybe after the New Year we’ll draft something to announce, or maybe we won’t confirm at all. In the meantime, it’s no one’s business that I’m the happiest son of a bitch on the planet.
“Well, are you?” Callie presses, her indomitable spirit infectious.
“If you can keep your mouth shut,” I tell her, shit-eating grin still firmly in place, “then, yes, I am.”
“Eeeeeep!” Callie sits back down and drops her backpack like she’s got all day to hear the details. “Tell me everything.”
“Don’t you have a class in two minutes, Callie?” Iz asks pointedly, flicking his eyes toward his office door. “See you tomorrow.”
Callie holds his glance for a moment longer before retrieving her backpack and heading toward the door.
“Congratulations,” she says over her shoulder. “An engagement and Grammy nominations all in one month. You win December.”
I haven’t even processed the Grammy nominations. The day after I asked Bristol to marry me, I found out about the three nominations. I’m proudest of “Bruise” being up for song of the year.
“Thanks, Cal.” I give her a grateful smile.
“Bristol’s a lucky woman,” she says softly, sincerely.
“I’m a lucky man.”
“Well, I want to hear all the details when Professor Killjoy isn’t around,” she says with a pointed glance at Iz before she leaves. “Good luck on
your one exam.”
“That girl,” Iz mumbles, staring at the space she just vacated like she might have left an outline in the air.
There’s no doubt in my mind that Iz jerks off to thoughts of Callie defending her dissertation naked. A few weeks ago, I would have given him shit about it, but things changed after that fateful conversation. Now I pretty much stick to the things we do agree on. Otherwise, I have nothing to say to him.
“She’s something else,” Iz says.
“Yeah, she is, but remember—you don’t fuck your students,” I can’t resist saying.
Iz squints his irritation at me.
“I meant Bristol.”
I pause in stuffing the proposal into my saddlebag.
“Even though she’s white, you mean?” I douse the words with sarcasm.
“Look, you know I have nothing against white people.”
“Except when they date black people, right?”
“It’s just not my preference.” Exasperation cracks his calm façade. “I get to have my preferences.”
“You think I give a damn what color you prefer? Date Smurfette, go blue for all I care. It’s you somehow actually buying into the bullshit logic that me being with Bris is a disservice to our community that bothers me.”
“All right. You want the real?” He sits back and crosses thickly muscled arms over his broad chest. “I don’t think they can ever really understand us or be trusted. I’m not sure you can be white in this country and not somehow be infected by its racial history, by the collective superiority and privilege ingrained in them from birth.”
“I’m not spending my life with a collective history.” I brush my hand impatiently over the layer of hair I keep so low it’s barely there. “I’m in love with one woman, who happens to be white and has never given me reason not to trust her, at least not the way you mean.”
“And what if she slipped up and called somebody a nigger one day?” he demands. “How would you feel then?”
I remember Bristol’s dismay the day we met when Skeet used that word. It was the first of many conversations we’ve had about the things most people avoid. Even the night we got engaged, we were still having those conversations, and we’ll probably have them for the rest of our lives.
