Bristol

ALL THOSE CAUTIONARY tales about stranger danger apparently didn’t take because I’m currently cruising down the I-5 with a man I met only minutes ago, who may have the face and body of a lower level deity but has not provided any real proof that he actually knows my brother. Yet, how else would he have known my name? And he did have that hideous throwback picture on his phone. I’m fairly certain he’s no Ted Bundy, but I could have at least asked to speak with Rhyson to confirm. I slide a surreptitious glance his way, studying the hands on the steering wheel. Those hands are grace and capability, rough and smooth. Doesn’t mean they wouldn’t wring my neck …

“So, how did you say you know my brother again?” I ask, deliberately nonchalant.

“I was wondering when you’d get around to asking some questions.” His expression loosens into a grin. “You keep looking at me like I might pull over at the next rest stop and stuff you in the trunk.”

“Who … what … me? Noooo.”

His breaks away from the traffic long enough to give me a knowing look, accompanied by a smirk.

“Okay, maybe a little.” A nervous laugh slips out. “I actually was thinking I should have asked for some proof or ID or something. Not just hopped in the car with a perfect stranger.”

“Perfect?” Cockiness curves his lips. “I get that a lot.”

“You’re so full of yourself, aren’t you?” I laugh.

“Oh, I shouldn’t be?” Even in profile, his grin is a little dazzling. “No, you’re right. I could have offered more than ‘I’m Grip. Let’s eat.’”

He tips his head toward the phone in my lap.

“Why don’t you call Rhys so you can breathe a little easier?”

I should have thought of that. What’s wrong with me? Maybe subconsciously there’s some part of me that’s hesitant to call, dreading those first awkward moments when Rhyson and I have no idea what to say to each other. When it becomes terribly apparent I no longer know my twin brother and he no longer knows me.

If he ever really did.

“It’s ringing,” I tell Grip, phone pressed to my ear.

“Bristol?” My brother’s deep voice rumbles from the other end. Even arranging this trip we talked very little, coordinating most of it by email and text. Hearing his voice, knowing I’ll see him, affects me more deeply than I thought it would. He has no idea how much I’ve missed him. Emotion blisters my throat. Even though we haven’t talked much the last few years, he sounds the way he always did when I would slip into his rehearsal room while he was playing. Exhausted and distracted.

“Yeah. It’s me.” I draw a deep breath and dive in. “So, you couldn’t break away long enough to meet your long lost sister at the airport, huh?”

“Lost sister?” Rhyson emits a disbelieving puff of air. “You? Lost? Never.”

He really has no idea. No one does.

“I would have been there,” Rhyson continues. “I made sure I’d be done with this by the time you landed, but this artist and her label are riding me hard about re-mastering—”

“Yeah, I heard,” I cut in. “It’s fine. I’ll see you when you’re done. You will be done soon, right?”

“Uh … soon? Sure. Relatively soon.”

That could mean anything from tonight to next year when Rhyson’s immersed in music. At least, that used to be the case, but I doubt much has changed.

“Then I guess I’ll see you when I see you.” I try to keep the disappointment and irritation out of my voice, but Rhyson’s sigh on the other end lets me know I fail.

“Bristol, I’m sorry. I’ll see you at Grady’s tonight, okay? And I promise we’ll catch up tomorrow.”

“So you’ll be done tomorrow?” My heart lifts the tiniest bit. I don’t want to sound needy, but he’s the whole reason I’m here. Against my parents’ advice, against my better judgment, I’m seeking him out. I’ve crossed the damn country to try. If I don’t try, who will in what’s left of our family?

“Not sure if everything will be wrapped today or not,” he says. “I’ll send them the tracks, but they may have more tweaks. We’ll see.”

“Sure.” I clip the word. “We’ll see.”

“In the meantime, you’re okay?” Rhyson sounds half in the conversation, like the music is already siren calling him.

I flick a glance Grip’s way. His expression is completely relaxed and impassive, and his eyes are set on the road like I’m not even there, but he doesn’t fool me. There’s this constant alertness that crackles around him, as if he’s been trained to be on guard but is wily enough to let you believe he isn’t. I think he’s always completely aware of everything around him, and this conversation between Rhyson and me is no exception.

“Yeah, we’re on our way to eat.” I fiddle with the strap on my bag. “Since apparently Grady isn’t home either.”

“Yeah.” Guilt drags Rhyson’s one-word reply out. “That was completely unexpected. He—”

“Grip explained,” I insert before he rehashes the story I’ve already heard. “The conference. I know. Things happen.”

It’s quiet for a moment. At first I think I’ve already lost him to whatever song he’s working on.

“Bris.”

Rhyson says my name the way he used to in those rare moments when we were just brother and sister, when we would play I Declare War on rainy days. When he wasn’t closeted away rehearsing for a concert or a tour. When he was just Rhys and I was his sister, and he called me “Bris.”

“I know it looks bad,” he continues. “I know it took a lot for you to come out here like this to see us, to see me. It must feel like we don’t care or we don’t want you here, but we do.”

Another pause.

“I do,” he says. “Just let me get through this project, and we can talk, okay? I’ll be home tonight.”

“When are you getting your own place?” I ask the first question that comes to mind because I’m not sure how else to respond to his unexpected candor. “I’m surprised you’re still under Grady’s roof.”

“Yeah, well after I came back from Full Sail, I just crashed at home and haven’t seen a reason to leave yet. Grady gives me a pretty wide berth. And hey, it’s free.”

Home.

The ease with which he speaks of Grady’s place here in LA as home tells me all I need to know. Rhyson doesn’t need anything “free.” He earned more money before he was fifteen than most will in a lifetime. He just loved it here so much, loved Grady so much, he came back after graduating from the storied production school in Florida.

I try not to resent my uncle for “taking” Rhyson from us. My parents, Mother especially, pour a steady stream of bitterness down my throat about Grady “interfering” with Rhyson. To hear Rhys tell it, which I did in court, Grady saved him. I didn’t know what to believe at the time, and I don’t much care. I love my parents, though even I recognize they’re insane, and I love my brother. I shouldn’t have to choose between them, which is why I’m here.

“Well, I guess I’ll see you at Grady’s place … your place … tonight,” I finally say.

“Great. Can I speak to Marlon?”

“Marlon?” I frown, wondering if I really should have been more cautious before getting in the car. “Um … someone named Grip picked me up.”

Rhyson chuckles, and I notice Grip’s mouth hitch to the side, even though he doesn’t turn his head.

“Marlon is his real name. You think his mom named him Grip?”

“How would I know what his mom named him?” I laugh and meet Grip’s eyes briefly, finding them smiling back at me. “Here ya go.”

I proffer my phone.

“For you, Marlon.”

He stops my heart for a beat with a stretch of white teeth and full lips.

Wow. That’s just not fair.

“’Sup, Rhys.” He nods, his smile melting a little every few seconds and a small pull of his brows making me wonder what Rhyson’s saying. “All right. Yeah. We’ll grab something to eat. I got you.”

He offers one more grunt and a mumbled “peace” before handing the phone back to me.

“Hey,” I say once I have the phone back.

“Yeah. Hey,” Rhyson says. “I actually did have dinner planned for us. You still like Mexican?”

“I love Mexican.” I’m pleasantly surprised that he remembers.

“Well, maybe we’ll get to try this place before you go back, but with the emergency on this project …” He sighs heavily. “Anyway Marlon will take you to eat and then bring you to Grady’s and stay with you ’til I get home.”

“He doesn’t need to do that.” I hate feeling like a burden to anyone, and right now, I feel like the egg baby project Grip has to keep alive. “I’ll be fine on my own.”

“Marlon doesn’t mind,” Rhyson assures me. “He has stuff to do for Grady anyway. He helps with one of his music classes.”

I just bet he does. Lies. I glance at Grip’s profile, a study in impassivity.

“Gotta go,” Rhyson says. “See you later if you’re still awake when I get home. I’m sure you’re exhausted.”

“Yeah. More hungry than anything.”

“Marlon will take care of you.” A voice in the background interrupts Rhyson. “Hey, I need to go. See you tonight.”

“Okay. Tonight.” I hold the phone to my ear for a few seconds after he’s gone just because I don’t want to talk.

I finally drop the phone to my lap, processing the longest conversation I’ve had with my twin brother in five years. I have no idea what’s going through Grip’s mind. It’s too quiet, so I break the silence with the lightest question I can think of.

“Marlon, huh?” I ask with a smile.

“Only Rhyson calls me by my real name.” He keeps his eyes ahead on the road, grimacing good-naturedly. “And my mom.”

“And Grip, where’d that come from?”

“I was in a talent show or showcase or some shit when I was a kid.” He laughs, shaking his head at the memory. “I had to recite a poem and was so nervous, I kept holding onto the mic even after I was done. Just wouldn’t let go. Maybe it was like my safety blanket. Who knows? One of the kids started calling me ‘Grip’ after the show, and it stuck.”

“So even then you were craving the spotlight,” I tease.

“I guess so.” His smile fades after a few seconds. He looks briefly away from the road and at me. “I don’t mind, ya know. Staying, I mean. There’s things I can do in the rehearsal room at Grady’s house.”

I don’t bother arguing, because I seriously doubt I’ll change his mind now that Rhyson has asked him. I just nod and pretend to check the email on my phone.

“We’re here.” Grip pulls into a parking space and cuts the engine.

I look up from my phone, surprised to see the length of pier stretching from the shore out over the Pacific Ocean.

“Where’s here?”

“Mick’s. Jimmy, one of our good friends, works here. Food’s good.”

“Well that’s all I care about.”

As we’re walking up the boardwalk toward a sign that reads “Mick’s” I feel overdressed. In my sleek leather jacket and ankle boots, both black, I’m so very New York. Everyone’s milling around in bikinis, tank tops, board shorts, and flip-flops. Once we’re seated at a window booth with an ocean view, I slip the jacket off. I sense more than see Grip’s eyes linger on my arms and shoulders bared by the sleeveless shirt under my jacket. I force myself to keep my arms at my side and not cross them over my chest. I block his line of vision with the huge menu and feel as if I can breathe a little easier with it between the heat of his eyes and my skin.

“So what’s good?” I ask.

“I get the same thing every time. Burger and fries.”

I scrunch my nose, not seeing anything I want, but half-starved enough to settle. Before I can say as much, a set of perky breasts in a green bikini appear beside our table. My eyes do the slow crawl from the girl’s hot pink toenails in her wedge heels, over the skimpy cut-off denim shorts and the bikini top, which barely bridles her breasts. Bright blue eyes and blonde hair complete the California package. If all the girls look like this, and a quick glance around Mick’s dining room tells me a lot of them do, I may reconsider my secret plan to move here when I graduate.

“Hey, dude.” Perky tits leans over to drop a quick kiss on Grip’s jaw.

“Jim, what’s good, girl?” He slaps her ass, aiming a playful smile up at her. “Been missing you.”

Rewind. Jimmy’s a girl? Her name tag reads “Jimmi.” The “i” would be cuter if I wasn’t so hungry.

“I know.” Jimmi blows at the blonde bangs brushing her eyebrows. “Between shifts here and gigging all over town, there’s been no time to hang.”

“Yeah, Rhys and I were just saying the same thing,” Grip says. “We need to get everybody together.”

“My uncle’s beach house!” The blue eyes light up. “He’s out of the country and said I could crash there some.”

“We need to do that for real.”

“We could play Scrabble again,” she says. “Remember how much fun we had?”

“You sure you want to play Scrabble?” Grip lifts a skeptical brow.

“Why wouldn’t I?” She looks confused, or maybe that’s always her look. She’s very blonde, even if it may be from a bottle, so I can’t tell.

“You’re not really good at it,” he says with a grin.

“Why would you say that?” Jimmi’s hands go to her hips.

“’Cause you thought guffaw was a character from Lord of the Rings.”

“Ugh,” Jimmi half groans, half laughs. “You weren’t supposed to tell anybody that.”

Oh, my God, guffaw.

Laughter bubbles up in my throat. I try to push it down, but it’s no use. It springs from my mouth as a, well … guffaw. Jimmi looks a little embarrassed but manages a self-deprecating smile. Grip’s laugh matches mine.

“Jim, this is Rhyson’s twin sister Bristol. Bristol, this is Jimmi. She went to high school with Rhys and me.”

“Great.” Jimmi gives me a wry look. “Now, she’ll think I’m an airhead.”

I don’t deny it and just smile and hold out my hand.

“Nice to meet you, Jimmi,” I say. “I promise not to tell.”

“Well, thanks for that.” Jimmi squints an eye and tilts her head, considering me. “Did he say twin sister? I knew Rhyson had a sister, but I had no idea you guys were twins. I see the resemblance.”

I’m surprised she’s even heard that much about me.

“I live in New York.” I attempt a natural smile. “We haven’t seen much of each other lately.”

Jimmi’s smile shrinks, her eyes dropping to the floor.

“Oh, yeah.” She nods, avoiding my eyes. “He doesn’t get back to New York much, does he?”

“No, not much.” I agree quietly since it’s obvious she, like everyone else, knows how splintered our family is.

“So where is the maestro?” Jimmi directs the question to Grip.

“Last minute remastering with that project he was working on,” Grip says.

“Ah.” Jimmi nods, a tentative smile on her lips. “I haven’t seen him in weeks. I miss him.”

“Okay, Jim, you know the deal.” Grip’s look seems to hold a careful warning.

“I know. I know. You don’t have to worry about me.” Jimmi waves a dismissive hand in the air and turns back to me. “Did you see anything you want?”

If I’m not mistaken, the anything she wants is my brother, but I just got here, so what do I know? I deliberately shift my eyes to the menu.

“What’s good?”

“Let’s see.” Jimmi leans over my shoulder to consider the menu like she hasn’t seen it before. One of her breasts nearly pokes my eye out. I lean back in my seat to avoid a nipple.

“Careful where you aim those things,” I say before I catch my wild tongue. I’m great at keeping my thoughts to myself when it counts, but when it doesn’t, I don’t bother.

Startled blue eyes collide with mine, and I’m not sure if she expects an apology or what, but I just look pointedly from her torpedo tits back up to her face. For a beat, I think I’ve really offended her, but then she laughs until she has to bend over, giving the customers behind her an eyeful, I’m sure. Grip grins, his eyes affectionate on blonde and breasty.

“Oh, we’re gonna be friends.” Jimmi wipes the tears at the corner of her eyes. “Watch where I aim … that’s priceless. Okay. You like seafood?”

“Um, yeah.” I blink a few times at the speedy shift of gears. “I love it.”

“You like scallops?” She drops her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Off-menu item.”

“I would kill for scallops.” My mouth is already watering, and my empty stomach is already thanking her.

“Your server will be over in a sec, but I’ll tell her to hook you up.” She winks at me before turning back to Grip. “I’m singing in a little bit. They’re finally letting me on stage.”

She gestures to a small space set up for live music.

“Nice.” Grip’s smile reflects genuine pleasure. “’Bout time.”

“Don’t leave before I’m done.” She squeezes his shoulder. “I may have a gig for you.”

“For real?” He glances down at his beeping phone, a frown wrinkling his forehead before he returns his attention to Jimmi. “My money isn’t nearly long enough. I’ll do anything but strip.”

Jimmi gives him a head tilt and a come-on-now twist of her lips.

“Okay, you got me. For the right price, I probably would strip.” A devilish smile crinkles his eyes at the corners. “But not my first choice.”

“It’s deejaying at Brew. Maybe tomorrow night.” Jimmi crosses her arms over the menus pressed to her chest. “Could be a regular gig, for awhile at least.”

“Cool.” Grip’s glance strays back to his phone, his tone distracted.

“Everything okay?” Jimmi eyes the phone in his hand.

“Yeah.” Grip lifts his eyes, splitting a look between the two of us. “Sure. Let’s chop it up after your set.”

“Okay. How long you here, Bristol?”

“Just a few days. I leave Friday.”

“Good!” Jimmi beams. “We’ll get to spend some time together.”

“I’d like that.” Now that I’ve gotten past the breasts stuffed into the bikini practically assaulting me, I mean what I say. She seems cool. “Good luck on stage.”

We’ve bonded a little over scallops and tits, so my smile for Jimmi comes more naturally.

“Thanks!” She squeals and wiggles her fingers in a wave. “Gotta go get ready.”

“So you and Jimmi went to high school with Rhyson?” I ask, watching Jimmi teeter off on her wedge heels.

“I’m sorry. I thought you knew that.” Grip shakes his head. “I really did just kind of grab you and toss you in the car.”

“It’s fine. I appreciate your help.” I peel the paper from the straw Jimmi left on the table, focusing on that instead of looking at Grip. “I actually know very little about my brother’s life since he left.”

“What do you want to know?” Grip relaxes, stretching one arm along the back of the booth.

“Lots I guess.” I shrug, keeping my voice casual. “I’ll let Rhyson tell me his stuff, but what about you? If you were at the School of the Arts, you must be … a musician? Dancer? What?”

“I’m Darla, your server,” a petite girl says before Grip can respond. “How you guys doing today?”

“Fine, Darla.” Grip flashes her a smile, not even trying to be sexy, but Darla melts a little right where she stands. I practically see the puddle. The lashes around her pretty, brown eyes start batting, and I might be too nauseated to eat my scallops.

“I’m fine, too, Darla.” I wave a hand since she seems to have forgotten I’m here. “And actually really hungry. Jimmi mentioned scallops. How are they prepared?”

“Scallops?” Darla’s brows pinch. “We don’t have scallops on the menu.”

“No, she said they were an off-menu item.” I hold onto my patience even though my stomach is starting to feed on itself as we speak.

“No, we don’t—”

“Darla.” Grip grabs her hand, stroking his thumb over her palm. “Maybe you could double check on the scallops because it seemed like Jimmi knew about them.”

After Darla visibly shudders, her smile widens and she leans a little toward Grip.

“I am new,” she admits shyly. “I could check on it for you.”

“I appreciate that.” I give her a gentle reminder that they were actually for me, not the man she’s salivating over.

Darla’s smile slips just a little as she uses the hand Grip isn’t holding to retrieve the pad from her back pocket. Obviously reluctant, she drops Grip’s hand to pull the pencil from behind her ear.

“And to drink?” She sounds like she’ll have to trek to Siberia to fetch whatever I order.

“Water’s fine.” I look at the tight circle her irritation has made of her mouth. “Bottled please.”

I wouldn’t put it past her to spit in it.

“I always get the Mick’s Mighty,” Grip pipes up. “And fries. Let’s just stick with that. And that new craft beer you guys got in.”

“A beer?” Darla squints and grins. “Are you twenty-one?

“I don’t know.” Grip doesn’t look away, seeming to relish how mesmerized our girl Darla is. “Am I?”

Darla eyes him closely … or rather even closer, her eyes wandering over the width of shoulders and slipping to crotch level where his legs spread just a little as he leans back. Darla bites her bottom lip before running her tongue across it. This is just sad. Exactly the kind of behavior that could set the women’s movement back decades. In Rochester, New York, Susan B. Anthony is turning over in her grave as Darla licks her lip.

“Um, were you still going to check on the scallops?” I give her a pointed look. I mean seriously. How does she know Grip and I aren’t a couple? I’d be insulted if he were mine. Hell, I’m insulted, and he isn’t.

Darla shifts hard eyes back to me, heaving a longsuffering sigh and straightening.

“Yeah. I’ll go check on the scallops.” Her face softens when she looks back to Grip. “And I’ll get your order in.”

“The beer?” His smile and those eyes wrapped in all that charisma really should be illegal.

“Okay.” Darla giggles but still doesn’t ask for ID. “The new craft coming up.”

“Well, that was sad for women everywhere,” I mumble.

“Don’t blame Darla.” Grip’s cheeky grin foreshadows whatever outrageous thing he’s about to say. “Blame all this Chocolate Charm.”

My laugh comes out as a snort.

“I’m guessing that’s a self-proclaimed moniker.”

“I see you’re immune to it, but you do catch more bees with honey.” Grip offers this sage, if unoriginal, advice. “Or in my case, with chocolate.”

“Where’d you read that? The Player’s Guide to Catching Bees?”

“No, I learned it the way I learn most things.” His eyes dim the tiniest bit. “The hard way.”

I’m not sure what to say, so I don’t say anything for a few seconds, and neither does he. It should be awkward, but it isn’t. Our eyes lock in the comfortable silence.

“So before Darla buzzed through,” I pause for effect, waiting for his quickly becoming familiar grin. “You were telling me about the School of the Arts. You’re a musician?”

“I write and rap.”

“As in you’re a rapper?”

“Wow, they said you were quick,” he answers with a grin.

“Oh, sarcasm. My second language.” I find myself smiling even though it’s been a crappy day with too many complications and not enough food. “So you rap. Like hoes, bitches, and bling?”

“At least you’re open minded about it,” he deadpans.

“Okay. I admit I don’t listen to much hip-hop. So convince me there’s more to it.”

“And it’s my responsibility to convince you … why?” he asks with a grin.

“Don’t you want a new fan?” I’m smiling back again.

“I just doubt it’s your type of music.”

“We’ve known each other all of an hour, and already you’re assigning me ‘types’. Well, I’m glad you have an open mind about me,” I say, echoing his smart-ass comment.

I halfway expect him to volley another reply at me, but he just smiles. I didn’t anticipate conversation this stimulating. His body, yes. Conversation, no.

“So are you any good?” I ask. “At rapping, I mean.”

“Would you know if I were good?” he counters, a skeptical look on his face.

“Probably not.” My laugh comes easier than most things have today. “But I might know if you were bad.”

“I’m not bad.” He chuckles. “I think my flow’s pretty decent.”

“Sorry,” I interject. “For the rap remedial in the audience, define flow.”

“Define it?” He looks at me as if I asked him to saddle a unicorn. “Wow. You ever assume you know something so well, that it’s so basic, you can’t think of how to explain it?”

“Let me guess. That’s how it is with flow.”

“Well, now that you asked me to define it, yeah.”

“Just speak really slowly and use stick figures if you need to.”

Rich laughter warms his eyes. “Okay. Here goes.”

He leans forward, resting those coppery-colored, muscle-corded arms on the table, distracting me. I think I really may need stick figures if he keeps looking this good.

“A rapper’s flow is like …” He chews his full bottom lip, jiggling it back and forth, as if the action might loosen his thoughts. “It’s like the rhythmic current of the song. Think of it as a relationship between the music and the rapper’s phrasing or rhythmic vocabulary, so to speak. You make choices about how many phrases you place in a measure. Maybe you want an urgent feeling, so you squeeze a lot of phrasing into a measure. Maybe you want a laid back feel, and you leave space; you hesitate. Come in later than the listener expects.”

“Okay. That makes sense.”

“And the choices a rapper makes, how well the current of that music and his phrasing, his rhythmic vocabulary, work together, that’s his flow. Cats like Nas, Biggie, Pac—they’re in this rarefied category where their flow is so sick, so complex, but it seems easy. That’s when you know a flow is exceptional. When it seems effortless.”

“Now I get that.” I give him a straight face, but teasing eyes. “I can see how you won your rap scholarship.”

“Rap scholarship! It sounds so weird when you say it.” He sits back in his seat, a smile crooking his lips. “I actually went for writing. Rapping was kind of Rhyson’s idea.”

“Rhyson?” Shock propels a quick breath out of me. “What does he know about rap?”

“I’m guessing more than you do.” His smile lingers for a second before falling away. “I wrote poetry. That’s how I got in. Rhyson was looking for a way to translate his classical piano sound to a more modern audience, so I helped him. And he convinced me that all these poems I had could be raps. The rest is history.”

“So you have an album or something?”

“Not yet. Working on a mix tape.” He clamps a straw between his teeth. “Also working on paying my rent.”

“Thus the Deejaying?”

“Deejaying, sweeping floors for studio time, writing for other artists, doing stuff with Grady.” A careless shrug of his shoulders. “Whatever comes, I do.”

“You write for other artists?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t get it. Rappers don’t write their own stuff? I thought it was so personal and rooted in where you’re from and all that.”

“To not know much about hip-hop, you have definite ideas about it,” he teases.

“You’ll find I have definite ideas about everything.” I chuckle because it’s true. “Even things I know nothing about.”

“Ah, so that’s a family trait.”

He’s so right. Rhyson and I are both obstinate know-it-alls.

“Apparently.” I nod for him to continue. “You were saying.”

“So hip-hop’s like any other genre. There are some guys who write everything themselves, and it’s like what you’re describing. But a club’s a club’s a club. Love is love. Anybody can write it. So sometimes guys like me, who are kind of writers first, we help.”

“Would I know any of the songs you’ve worked on?

“Probably not.” He grins. “Not because they’re not on the radio, but because I doubt you listen to those stations.”

“You’re making a lot of assumptions about someone you just met. Maybe I know all of them. Try me.”

He rattles off four songs.

I know none of them. Dammit.

I’ll have to eat crow, which if Darla doesn’t get my scallops, I might gladly do.

When Darla returns and confirms that they can provide my scallops, I place my order. The hurried meal I ate this morning is a distant memory, so I dive in as soon as the food arrives, working my way methodically through every morsel on my plate. I eat the scallops so fast you’d think I sprinkled them with fairy dust to make them disappear.

“Remind me to keep you fed.” Grip takes another bite of his burger.

“Very funny.” I glance up sheepishly from my empty plate. “How’s their dessert?”

We share a slow smile, and I can’t remember when I’ve felt this way with another person. Laughing at each other’s jokes, comfortable with each other’s silences, calling each other out on our crap.

“Grip.” A tall man with dark brown skin and eyes to match stops at our table. “I thought that was you.”

“What’s good, Skeet?” Grip stands, and they grasp hands, exchanging pats to the back. “Haven’t seen you in months. Congrats on the new album.”

“Man, thanks.” Skeet’s eyes flick to me. “Who’s the little shawty?”

The little shawty? Does he mean me?

Grip catches my eye, apparently finding it funny.

“This is Bristol,” he answers with a laugh. “Rhyson’s sister.”

“Rhyson, Rhyson. Who’s …” Skeet frowns for a second before he remembers. “Oh. That white dude who plays the piano?”

Not exactly how I would describe one of the greatest living classical pianists, but we can go with that.

“Yeah, that’s him.” Grip’s smile appreciates the irony of Skeet’s description. “Bristol’s visiting for the week.”

“Nice.” Skeet smiles politely before turning his attention back to Grip. “What’d you think of the album?”

Grip screws his face up, a rueful turn to his mouth.

“That bad?” Skeet demands.

“It was a’ight,” Grip concedes. “Honestly, I just know you have something better in you than that.”

“Well, damn, Grip,” Skeet mumbles. “Why don’t you tell me what you really think?”

“Oh, okay. Well, that shit was whack,” Grip says.

“Um, I was being sarcastic,” Skeet says. “But since we being honest …”

“We’ve known each other too long to be anything but honest. It just felt kind of tired.” Grip sits, gestures for Skeet to join us. “Who’d you work with?”

“You know that guy Paul?” Skeet sits and steals one of Grip’s fries. “They call him Low.”

“That dude?” Grip sips his beer and grimaces. “Figures.”

“Well you ain’t been around,” Skeet says defensively. “I didn’t know if you was still down or whatever.”

“Am I still down?” Irritation pinches Grip’s face into a frown. “I’m the same dude I’ve always been. I’m working with anybody who can pay, so don’t use that as an excuse.”

“Right, right, but you know how some of these niggas go off and get all new on you.”

My eyes stretch before I have time to disguise my surprise when he uses the N-word so freely in front of me. I squirm in my seat, sip my water, and try to look invisible. That is one of the worst words in the English language, and I would never use it. I’ve never said it, and I never will. It’s hard for me to understand how people of color use it for themselves even casually.

“Well, I ain’t new.” Grip pulls out his phone. “Let’s get some dates down to hit the studio. See if we can write some stuff for your next one.”

While they set up studio time, I happily consider the dessert menu. I was totally serious. It feels like I haven’t eaten in days, and I have room for more.

“Sorry about that,” Grips says once Skeet is gone. “But the struggle is real. Don’t work, don’t eat, so I work whenever the opportunity presents itself.”

“Do you really think his album is weak, or did you just say that to drum up business for yourself?”

“Oh, no. The shit’s weak as hell.” Grip’s deep laugh rolls over me and coaxes a smile to my lips. “I don’t lie, especially about music. It’s the most important thing in my life. It’s my gift, so to me it’s almost sacred.”

“Now I understand how you and Rhyson became so close,” I say wryly. “Music always came first with him. Or at least it used to be. I don’t pretend to know him anymore. Not that we’ve ever been that close.”

It’s quiet for a moment while I pretend to read the dessert menu.

“You love your brother,” Grips says softly, drawing my eyes up to his face. “I know guys like us aren’t easy to put up with. We lose ourselves in our music. We neglect everything else in our lives, but don’t give up on him. Cut him some slack. He’s working his ass off.”

“I guess I’m not doing a good job of hiding how hard this is, huh?” I manage a smile.

“Well, I’m also really perceptive.”

“Not to mention incredibly modest,” I reply.

Laughter comes easily to us again, and something about the way he’s considering me across the table makes me think it surprises him as much as it surprises me.

“I am perceptive, though.” Grip takes one of the last bites of his burger. “Like your face when Skeet—”

“Dropped the N-word in front of me like it was nothing?” I cut in, knowing exactly where he’s going. “Yeah, like what’s up with that? I don’t understand anyone being okay with that word.”

Grip looks at me for a moment before shuttering his eyes, shrugging and picking up one of his last fries.

“Probably because to him it is nothing. I mean, if he says it. If we say it.”

“But I couldn’t say it, right?” I clarify unnecessarily.

He holds a French fry suspended mid-way to his mouth.

“Do you want to say it?” He considers me carefully.

“God, no.” My gasp is worthy of a Victorian novel. “Of course not.”

“You can tell me.” He leans forward, his eyes teasing me conspiratorially. “Not even when you’re singing along to the hippity hop and they say it?”

“We’ve already established that I don’t listen to the hippity hop very much,” I say wryly.

This is such a sensitive topic, one I’d hesitate to approach with people I know well, much less someone I just met. In conversations like these, before we say our words, they’re ammunition. After we’ve said them, they’re smoking bullets. There seems to be no middle ground and too little common ground for dialogue to be productive. We just tiptoe around things, afraid we’ll offend or look ignorant, be misunderstood. Honesty is a risk few are willing to take. For some reason, it’s a risk I decide to take with Grip.

“I just mean, isn’t that a double standard?” I pause to sift through my thoughts and get this question right. “It’s such an incendiary word with such an awful history. I completely understand why black people wouldn’t be okay with it at all.”

“Well, then you’re halfway there.”

I shoot him a look from under my lashes, trying to gauge before I go any further if he thinks I’m some weird, entitled white girl asking dumb questions. He’s just waiting, though, eyes intent and clear of mockery or judgment.

“So why … why should anyone use it? Why put it in songs? Why does Skeet feel okay calling another black man that?”

“First of all, I’m not one of those people who assumes because I’m black, I somehow represent every black person’s perspective,” Grip says. “So, I’ll just tell you how I and the people I’m around most think about it.”

He pauses and then laughs a little.

“I guess we don’t think about it. It’s such a natural part of how we interact with each other.” He gives me a wry smile. “Some of us feel like we take the power away from it when we use it.”

“Taking the power?” I shake my head, fascinated, but confused. “What does that mean?”

“Like we get to determine how it’s used.”

He pauses, and I can almost see him weighing the words before they leave his mouth.

“You have to account for intent. It was originally meant to degrade and dehumanize, as a weapon against us, but we reappropriate it as ours and get to use it as we see fit.”

“I don’t know that I really get that or agree,” I admit, hesitant because I’ve been misunderstood before in these conversations. I’m too curious. I always want to understand, and don’t always know when to stop asking.

“Because of our unique history in this country, that word will never be safe for anyone to use to us,” he says quietly. “But with all that black people endured, being able to take that slur back and decide how we want to use it feels like the least we should be allowed. And it’s the very definition of entitlement for others to want to use it because we can.”

“That I get.” I hesitate, wanting to respect his opinion, his honesty even though I don’t agree with parts of what he’s said. “I guess to me, we have enough that divides us and makes us misunderstand each other. Do we really need one more thing we can’t agree on?”

Grip’s eyes don’t waver from my face, but it’s as if he’s not as much looking at me, as absorbing what I just said. Processing it.

“That’s actually a great point,” he says after a few seconds. “I hadn’t thought of it like that, and it’s good that you ask that question. You’re not asking the wrong question. Is it the most important question, though? To me, some guy calls me the N-word, we’ll probably fight. I’ll kick his ass, and we’re done. It’s over.”

He slants me a cocky grin, and my lips refuse not to smile back.

“But I want to hear the same dismay and curiosity,” he continues, his smile leveling out. “About the issues that are actually eroding our communities. Let’s ask why black men are six percent of the general population and nearly forty percent of the prison population. Let’s get some outrage over people of color getting longer sentences for the same crimes other people commit. And over disproportionate unemployment and poverty.”

His handsome face settles into a plane of sharp angles, bold lines and indignation.

“I can fight a dude who calls me the N-word,” he says. “It’s harder to fight a whole system stacked against me.”

The passion and conviction coming off him in waves cannon across the table and land on my chest, ratcheting up my heartbeat.

“It’s not bad that you ask why we call each other that, Bristol.” The sharp lines of his face soften. “There’s just bigger issues that actually affect our lives, our futures, our children, and that’s what we want to talk about.”

Nothing in his eyes makes me feel guilty for asking, and I think that he wants me to understand as much as I want to.

“When other people are as outraged and as curious about those problems as black people are,” he says. “Then maybe we can solve them together.”

It’s quiet for a few moments as we absorb each other’s perspectives. My mind feels stretched. As if someone, this man, took the edges of my thoughts and pulled them in new directions, to new proportions.

“Now that, I get,” I finally say softly. “You’re right. Those things are more important, and that’s powerful.”

I look up and grin to lighten the moment.

“But don’t think you’ve changed my mind about the N-word. That still doesn’t make sense to me.”

He leans forward with a wide smile, his eyes alive and dark and bright all at once. And I wonder if this is the most stimulating conversation he’s had in a long time. It is for me.

“Is there anything that you don’t completely know how it works or why it works, but you know the rules that govern it?”

“Um, Twitter?” I laugh, glad when he responds with a smile.

“Then the N-word is your Twitter.”

He sits back in his seat, long legs stretched under the table, arms spread on the back of the booth and a smile in his eyes for me.

“You may have me halfway to understanding that,” I say. “But you will not get me to be okay with the misogyny that is such a part of hip-hop culture.”

“I don’t disrespect women in my lyrics,” he says immediately. “My mom would kill me.”

“Well, maybe I’ll listen to some of your stuff.”

“I feel honored that you would deign to listen to my music.”

I toss a napkin across the table at him, and it bounces harmlessly off his face. He throws it back at me and laughs.

“I mean, for real,” he says. “What kind of self-respecting, white millennial doesn’t listen to hip-hop?”

He laughs when I roll my eyes at him.

“Are you one of those people who thinks hip-hop belongs to black people?” I ask.

“Of course it does.” He smooths the humor from his expression. “We made it. It’s ours in the same way jazz and the blues and R&B are ours. We innovated, making sound where there was no sound before. The very roots of hip-hop are in West Africa from centuries ago. But we share our shit all the time, so you’re welcome.”

I lift a brow at his ethno-arrogance, but he throws his head back laughing at me, maybe at himself.

“Art, specifically music, is a living thing,” he says. “It isn’t just absorbed by the people who hear it, but it absorbs them. So, we shared hip-hop with the world, and it isn’t just ours anymore. The Beastie Boys heard it. Eminem heard it. Whoever heard it fell in love with it, added to it, and became a part of it.”

“And that’s a good thing?”

“Mostly. If that hadn’t happened, if we hadn’t shared it and someone other than us loved it, it’d still be niche. Underground. Now it’s global, but that wouldn’t have happened if it hadn’t gone mainstream. Mainstream means more opportunities, so I’m all for white, Asian, Hispanic. We need everybody buying hip-hop, because ultimately, it’s about that green.”

He rubs imaginary dollars between his fingers before going on.

“I think some fear that when hip-hop goes mainstream, it’s mixed with other influences. It’s diluted, and I get that, but we have to evolve. That isn’t selling out. That’s survival.”

The way he talks about music and art fascinates me. Rhyson’s talent, his genius, always isolated him from me. I’ve been around musicians all my life, but with no talent of my own, I was always on the outside and couldn’t figure out how to get in. Grip just shared that with me. He let me in.

Before I can dig anymore, Jimmi takes the stage for her performance. And when I say she takes the stage, she takes it. She owns it. She overpowers the small space, and you know she’s something special.

“Wow.” I spoon into the fudge brownie and ice cream I ordered during Jimmi’s set. “She can back those tits up, huh?”

“She definitely can,” Grip says. “And speaking of double standards, I think you have one criticizing hip-hop for its misogyny and then hating on another woman just because she has a great rack. Is it any worse when men judge women’s worth by their looks than when women do it?”

He’s serious. At first, I think he’s joking, but then I realize his eyes hold a subtle rebuke. He’s protective of Jimmi. Maybe they’re together? The thought sours the ice cream in my mouth, and it shouldn’t. I’ve known this guy for all of a couple hours. And he isn’t my type. And I’m leaving in a week.

“I wasn’t judging her.”

His look and the twist of his lips say otherwise.

“Okay, maybe I was judging her a little bit.” I laugh and am glad when he laughs, too. “She’s a pretty girl, and sometimes they get a bad rap.”

“They?” Grip lifts his thick brows. “Do you not realize how beautiful you are?”

I have no idea how to respond. I’m attractive. I know that. Guys have been hitting on me since middle school.

“Whatever.” I shrug. “I just don’t define myself by my looks. There’s a lot more to me than that.”

“I believe you,” Grip says. “I’m just saying there’s a lot more to Jimmi, too, so maybe you guys have a lot in common. And maybe you should withhold judgment until you know her better. If not altogether.”

I’m quiet while I finish my brownie and think about what he said. He has a point. One I hadn’t considered. I had to leave my Ivy League college to get the most thought-provoking, stimulating conversation I’ve had in ages. Maybe ever. And with a rapper. Jimmi isn’t the only one there’s more to than meets the eye.