Grip
IT’S JUST ONE of those days.
Monica’s singing in my head. I’m relying on nineties R&B to articulate myself. I’m that hungry. My mouth waters when I think of the huge burrito I was this close to shoveling down my throat before I got the call. My stomach adds a rumble sound effect to the hunger.
I visually pick through the dense LAX crowd, carefully checking each baggage claim carrousel. No sign of her. Or at least what I think she might look like.
Rhyson still hasn’t texted me his sister’s picture. If I know my best friend—and I do—he probably doesn’t have a picture of her on his phone. He wouldn’t want to admit that, knowing how important family is to me, so I bet he’s scrambling to find one. They are the weirdest family I’ve ever met, which is saying something since mine is no Norman Rockwell painting. I’ve never actually met any of the Gray family except Rhys and his Uncle Grady. Rhyson’s parents and sister still live in New York, and he hasn’t seen them in years. Not since he emancipated. We don’t “emancipate” where I come from. Nah. We keep shit simple and just never come home. Worked for my dad. He didn’t even wait ’til I was born to leave. Less messy and fewer legal fees. But we didn’t have a fortune to fight over like the Grays did.
My phone rings, and I answer, still scanning the crowd for a girl fitting Rhyson’s vague description.
“Whassup, Rhys.” I clutch the phone and crane my neck to see over what must be a college basketball team. Not one of them is under six five. Even at six two, I can’t see the forest for the trees with trees this tall.
“Trying to finish this track. Bristol there yet?” That note in Rhyson’s voice tells me this conversation only holds half his attention. He’s in the studio, and when he’s there, good luck getting him to think about anything other than music. I get it. I’m the same way.
“I don’t know if she’s here or not. Did you forget to send the picture?”
“Oh, yeah. The picture.” He clears his throat to make way for whatever excuse he’s about to give me. “I thought I had it on my phone. Maybe I accidentally deleted it or something.”
Or something. I let him get away with that. Rhyson’s excuse for sending me to pick his sister up from the airport is legit. There’s this pop star diva who needs a shit ton of tracks remastered at the last minute before her album drops, but I suspect he’s also nervous about his sister’s visit. Maybe this emergency is a convenient way to avoid dealing with her for a little bit. Or inconvenient, if you were me and missed lunch rushing to get to the airport as stand-in chauffeur.
“Well, I don’t know what she looks like.” I push my sunglasses onto the top of my head.
“She looks like me,” he says. “I told you we’re twins. Lemme check the Cloud for a picture.”
Did dude just seriously say ‘check the Cloud’?
“Yeah, Rhys, you check the Cloud. Lemme know what you find.”
“Okay,” he says from the other end, and I can tell he’s back into that track. “I called to tell her you were coming, but I keep getting voice mail. I’ll try again and send a pic.”
Once he hangs up, I concentrate on searching methodically through the crowd. She’d be coming from New York, so I’ve narrowed it down to one carrousel. “She looks like me” isn’t much to go on, but I stop at every tall, dark-haired girl, and check for signs of Rhyson’s DNA. Hell, she could be right in front of—
That thought fizzles out when my eyes land on the girl standing right in front of me.
Shit.
Black skinny jeans cling to long, lean legs that start at Monday and stretch all the way through next week. A white T-shirt peeps through the small opening left by the black leather jacket molding her arms and chest.
And the rack.
The leather lovingly cups the just-right handful of her breasts. Narrow waist and nice ass. She’s not as thick as the chicks I usually pull, but my eyes involuntarily scroll back up her slim curves, seeking the face that goes with this body.
Fuck. This woman is profanely gorgeous.
I never understood the big deal with high cheekbones. I mean, they’re cheekbones, not tits. You can’t motorboat cheekbones, but now I get it. Her face makes me get it. The bones are molded into a slanting curve that saves her face from angularity and elevates it to arresting. Her mouth, a wide, full line, twists to one side as she scans the crowd around her with eyes so light a shade of gray they’re almost silver. Dark, copper-streaked hair frames her face and slips past her shoulders.
The alert from my phone interrupts my ogling. It’s a text from Rhyson.
Rhyson: Here ya go. This pic’s old as hell, but she can’t look much different.
When the photo comes over, it confirms in my nearly agnostic mind what my mother has been trying to tell me for years. There must indeed be a God. How did I ever doubt Him? He has sent me, little old me, a tiny miracle to confirm His existence. It isn’t water into wine, but I’ll take it. I toss my eyes up to the sky and whisper a quick thanks to the Big Guy. Because the girl in the family picture, though almost a decade younger and with braces and frizzier hair, is the gorgeous, willowy woman standing in front of me in baggage claims. One hand on her hip and a frown between her dark eyebrows, she leans to peer down the conveyor that now holds only a few bags.
“Dammit,” she mutters, pulling her hair off her neck and twisting it into a knot on her head. “I don’t need this today.”
“We were on the same flight,” a guy offers from beside her, his eyes crawling up and down her body in a way that even makes me feel violated. “My luggage still hasn’t come either. Maybe we could—”
“Don’t.” The look she gives him should wither his hard-on. “It’s so not happening.”
“I was just thinking if you—”
“I know what you were just thinking.” She turns away from him to search the conveyor belt again. “You’ve been just thinking it since we left New York, and not hiding it. So again, I’ll say . . .”
She turns back to him with a look that would singe the fuzz off your balls.
“Don’t.”
I like her already. The guy is sputtering and still trying, but he has no game. It’s sad really. Guys who have no game.
“Bristol.” I say her name with confidence because I can already tell that’s the only thing she’ll respond to.
Her head jerks around, and those silvery eyes give me a thorough up and down sliding glance. After she’s made it all the way down to my classic Jordans and back to my face, she looks just behind and beyond me, as if she isn’t sure she actually heard her name or that I’m the one who said it.
“Bristol,” I say again, stepping a little closer. “I’m Grip, a friend of your brother’s. Rhyson sent me.”
Her eyes widen then narrow, the frown deepening.
“Is he okay?” she demands. “Did something happen?”
“No, he’s just tied up.” I smile to reassure her, hoping she’ll smile in return. I want to see her smile. To see how those braces worked out for her.
“Tied up?” Those full lips tighten, still showing me no teeth. She shakes her head a little, huffing a quick breath and stepping closer to the conveyor. “Figures. So you’re stuck with me, huh? Sorry.”
“I’m not.” At least not now that I’ve seen her. I wouldn’t have missed this for my burrito.
She gives me the same knowing look she leveled on No-Game guy. Like guys have been looking at her like that for a long time. Like she can smell lust from fifty paces. Like she’s telling me it isn’t happening.
Oh, it’s happening, baby girl.
I’m plotting all the ways I’ll convince her to go out with me and then who knows where that’ll lead when I remember. This is Rhyson’s sister. Shit. The hottest girl I’ve met in ages, and I should probably try not to sleep with her.
Okay. I’m agnostic again. Sorry, Ma.
“I’m waiting for my luggage.” She runs a hand over the back of her neck the way I’ve seen Rhyson do a million times when he’s agitated. I note all the other things about her that remind me of my best friend. Let’s just say Rhyson’s DNA looks a helluva lot better on her. I mean, he’s a good-looking guy, but he’s, well, a guy. If I rolled that way, maybe. But I roll her way, and dayyyyyum.
“Here’s mine,” No-Game pipes up with a smug smile when he pulls his big square suitcase from the line.
Bristol creases a fake smile at him that disintegrates as soon as she looks back to the belt.
“Mine shouldn’t be far behind then,” she says.
“Unless it’s lost,” No-Game sneers but can’t seem to drag his beady eyes from her rack.
“You got your luggage,” I say, looking down at him. “How ’bout you step off?”
His blue eyes hiding behind the round glasses do a quick survey of me. I know what he sees and probably what he thinks. Big black dude, arms splashed with tats, “First Weed. Then Coffee” T-shirt. He’s probably ready to piss himself. He’s like the Diary of a Wimpy Kid all grown up but still wimpy. I could squash him with my eyelashes. It seems we’ve arrived at the same conclusion because No-Game Wimpy Diary guy turns without a word and pulls his suitcase behind him, docile as a lamb.
“Impressive.” Bristol smirks but still doesn’t flash teeth. “Been trying to shake that jerk since La Guardia. I felt like spritzing every time he looked at me.”
“Spritzing?”
She makes a spraying motion toward her face.
“Yeah, like to refresh your . . . never mind.” She rolls her eyes and sighs. “Anyway, he may look harmless, but I bet under all that geek he is a nasty piece of work. Unfortunately, it only takes money, not actual class, to fly first class.”
I’ve never flown first class, so I wouldn’t know. Come to think of it, I’ve only flown once. Ma sent me to Chicago to visit her cousins the summer my cousin Chaz died. That was a bad summer. I don’t know if it was the heat, but The Crips and The Bloods made our hood a jungle that year. They may have been hunting each other, but a lot of innocent blood ran down our streets. Not that they cared. Not that they ever cared. Ma took all the money she’d been saving from braiding hair to get me out of Compton that summer, and I think I flew Ghetto Air. Whatever shitty aircraft that little bit of extra money got me on, that’s what I flew. Not that Chi-Town was less violent, but at least it didn’t hold any memories for me. You don’t dream other people’s nightmares. And in my own bed, I’d wake up every night hearing the shot that killed Chaz just outside my window.
“Finally.” Bristol’s voice brings me back. “Here it is.”
An Eiffel-tower sized Louis Vuitton suitcase ambles down the conveyor belt.
“I thought you were just here for a week?” I lift one brow in her direction.
“I am.”
“You sure? ’Cause I could fit my whole apartment in that big ass suitcase coming at us like a meteor.”
“Very funny.” A teasing grin pulls at the corners of her bright eyes. “Maybe that says more about your apartment than it does about my suitcase.”
The one-room hovel I call home right now appears in my mental window.
“You might be right about that,” I admit with a laugh, grabbing the colossal suitcase when it reaches us and setting it on the floor. “Shit. You pack your whole sorority in here?”
“I’m not in a sorority, but thanks for the stereotype.” She reaches for the handle, and her hand rests on top of mine. Both our eyes drop to where her slim fingers contrast with my rougher, larger ones.
You know that electric tingle people talk about? That thing that zips up your spine like a tiny shock when your hands first touch? That isn’t this touch. It isn’t electric. It’s something that . . . simmers. A heat that kind of seethes under my skin for a second and then explodes into a solar flare. I watch her face to see if she’s feeling anything. If she does, she hides it well. If she’s anything like her brother, hiding things is a habit. Her expression doesn’t change when she tugs the handle until her hand slips from under mine.
“It’s got wheels.” She pulls the suitcase toward her and finally meets my eyes. “My feminist sensibilities tell me to carry it myself.”
“Maybe my manhood won’t let me walk idly by while a delicate lady carries her own suitcase.” I shrug. “I got a rep to protect.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt you have a rep.” Bristol’s brows arch high and her lips twist into a smirk. “Where to?”
I grab the suitcase by the handle, pulling it from her grasp, and start walking. When I look over my shoulder, her narrowed eyes rest on the mammoth suitcase I’ve commandeered. The defiant light in her eye makes me want to commandeer her like I just did this overpriced baggage. This is Rhyson’s sister. I need to keep reminding myself she should be squarely placed in the NO FUCK bin. But, damn, if all bets were off, she’d be feeling me every time she walked for a week.
If things were different.
But they’re not.
So I won’t.
I’m just gonna keep telling myself that.