Well, when you put it that way . . .
"I didn't . . ." I falter because it's true; he did that. As much as Ms. James has sacrificed for him and as much as he loves her, he told her that, for me. "Not Qwest specifically."
"Baby, I'mma need you to get specific, because not one day since we got together have I ever given you reason to be jealous of any damn body, and yet you tried to play me-"
"I did not try to play you."
"You tried to play me," he persists, "like I was born yesterday morning and would accept some shit excuse for you staying here when you were supposed to be with me."
He levels a hard look at me that somehow still manages to convey his love.
"Now tell me why."
How do I put into words this awkward thing when nothing is ever awkward between us? But this is. This fear that crept insidiously into my head after my conversation with Jade and blossomed while I watched that panel-it's awkward.
"I'm not jealous of Qwest specifically." I'm embarrassed to even say this, but I have to. "When I watched that panel, I listened to Angie, and even to Qwest, to the other people onstage. I listened to you, and you were so passionate and knowledgeable and . . . I'm not-not about those things. What if some morning you wake up and my curiosity feels like ignorance? And you've lost patience with the things I don't know that someone else would. What if one day you decide you want someone who's . . ."
My voice peters out because to even say it feels wrong, but it's what I've been wrestling with since my last conversation with Jade, even though I haven't acknowledged it to myself.
"What if I decide I want someone who's what?" Grip tips my chin up again to search my eyes. "Someone who's black?"
I don't nod, but he knows. What if he decides someday that the one thing he really wants, really needs is the one thing I can never be?
"Bris, I get it. The more active and vocal I am about these issues, the more some people want to focus on me being with someone who isn't black, but listen." He slides his hand to cup my neck, his thumb caressing my jaw. "I won't ever want someone who isn't you."
I know that, or I knew it before I was on one coast and he was on the other and everyone had something to say about us and all the warning seeds Jade dropped in my ears started taking root.
"I'm sorry I freaked out." I draw a deep breath. "I kept thinking about you guys working together on her album, having your music in common, and then both being activists . . . all I could hear were the things Qwest was saying, the things Angie was saying, the things Jade said, and I-"
"Jade?" Grip's question slices into my explanation. He narrows his eyes, searching my face for answers I didn't mean to ever give him. "What does Jade have to do with this?"
Shit.
"Um . . ." I offer a nervous laugh while I search for a way to put him off Jade's scent. "Nothing. It doesn't have anything to do with Jade. I just meant-"
"Bris, you know better than to lie to me. What did she say to you?"
"Nothing."
"Bullshit. Tell me."
I press my eyes closed against his questions.
"I don't want to come between you and Jade now that you've cleared the air."
"You won't. Me and Jade, we're good. We'll be good. Just tell me what she said."
He dips his head and searches my eyes for anything I might hold back.
"Tell me everything."
I lick my lips, trapping the bottom one between my teeth before I start. Grip's family isn't like mine, fractured and dysfunctional. His family, especially his mother and Jade, mean everything to him. The last thing I want to do is cause more trouble than his relationship with me already has.
"When we were at your mom's house-"
"Wait," he cuts in. "You haven't been to my mom's since the going away party. This conversation was that long ago?"
"Yeah," I say carefully. "Then."
Grip crosses his arms over his chest and studies me closely, displeasure clear in the twist of his lips before he speaks.
"So, you've been thinking like this for a while and never talked to me about it?"
"It wasn't like that, I promise. It was . . . just some of the things Jade said got to me, and when I watched the panel, it all came back."
"What did she say?" He speaks the words smoothly, but there's a dent between his eyebrows.
"Just that one day you'd get tired of me not understanding your blackness."
"Understanding my . . . what?"
"You know, not knowing the movies or the songs or getting the jokes or knowing the things that are such a part of the community that means so much to you."
"Hmmm. What else?"
"She said I was a fantasy, a high you'd come down from, and then you would want something real, a woman like Qwest, to cure your jungle fever."
A startled laugh erupts from Grip.
"She actually said jungle fever? Who says that? Damn, that's some 90s Spike Lee shit. I'm embarrassed for her."
"It's not funny."
"Babe, it kind of is." The short-lived humor fades from his expression. "Actually, what's not funny is that you bought into it and let it come between us. You're it for me, Bris. You know that."
"I do know that. I'm sorry I was an idiot."
He softens his voice. "I'm sure it won't be the last time." His hands coast down my arms, heating my skin along the way before he takes my hands between his.
Anger stirs anew when I consider the stunt Angie Black pulled.
"I still say Angie shouldn't get away with this completely. Can't I-"
"She didn't." Grip's full lips thin into a severe line. "I blasted her ass when we got off the phone."
"You did?" I hope he gave it to her good, though I would have enjoyed peeling her skin off myself.
"I did, and I talked to her producer about it. He was apologetic and said he hadn't known she planned to go there. They're suspending her for two weeks." He squeezes my hands. "It wasn't that I didn't think she needed somebody's foot up her ass, I just didn't want it to be yours."
He was protecting me. I feel worse and better at the same time.
I lean up, whispering my regret to him. "I'm sorry."
"Baby, it's okay. Just don't do that shit again." He grins and pushes the hair back from my face. "Let's go home."
"Are we making it permanent now?" The half-joking question slips past my lips on a fractured breath and a broken laugh. "Is New York home?"
Grip brushes his thumb over my mouth, dipping his finger into the bow of my top lip, pressing against the bottom until he's touching my teeth and tongue. His eyes rest hot and heavy and possessive on my mouth before he captures my eyes with his, making sure he has my attention.
"I'm your home, Bristol."
He's so certain. He never wavers in his love for me, in his certainty that we belong together no matter what anyone ever says. I'm ashamed again that I let Jade's words, Angie's criticisms, and Qwest just being Qwest make me doubt even a little bit.
"And you're mine," he adds.
"You better believe it," I agree with a smile. "But speaking of our current home, aren't you supposed to be in New York? In class?"
"I skipped."
I know how much he loves Dr. Hammond's class and what this time means to him. That he would miss that class speaks volumes.
"You skipped class?" I ask, my mouth hanging open.
He's told me a hundred-a thousand times how much he loves me, but that girl who moped around a deserted mansion while her family traveled the world without her, the one who crouched beyond her brother's rehearsal room listening to the magic of his music, looking for a way in, she still treasures being the most important thing to someone as incredible as Grip.
"You came for me." I cup his jaw, my voice and my heart softening the longer we're together.
Grip cups my face, too, his rough palm a welcome abrasion, his eyes intent.
"I'll always come for you. You should know that by now." He bends to press our foreheads together, his words misting my lips. "I have no pride when it comes to you, to this. I'll chase you anywhere."
I don't have words for how secure and completely adored that makes me feel, so I don't speak. I shift my head, my lips clinging to his, just for a moment. I deepen the heated contact of our mouths until our tongues move in tandem, tangling, wrestling, tasting.
"Don't run from me again." He breathes the words into my mouth and his fingers clench in my hair. Though just a whisper, they arrest me, an imperative that grabs me by the heart.
16
Grip
There's a certain sense of rightness seeing Jade in the studio, not the way she used to come, her eyes lit with a hidden jealousy for my success, a nurtured resentment that the shot I got-the scholarship to a performing arts school-could have been hers. She has her own shot now, and I love seeing her take full advantage of it.