Bristol

I’VE READ THE same line several times. My laptop could be upside down and I probably wouldn’t notice. I’m sitting here on the couch with my computer propped on my knees, not making any headway on the essay for my internship application. I could blame fatigue considering I haven’t really stopped since I left New York this morning. And my body clock may still be on East Coast. And I am getting hungry again. I could use those excuses for my lack of focus, but there’s only one real reason if I’m honest.

Grip.

He’s an unexpected fascination, a tantalizing riddle I keep turning over in my head. I keep hoping he’ll make sense eventually, but then I’m somehow glad he doesn’t add up or behave the way I think he should.

If he were in the same room, I’d still be surreptitiously gawking, stealing glances at one of the most beautiful men I’ve ever seen, but he’s in Grady’s music room working on his own stuff. He went there almost immediately after we arrived, and I haven’t heard a peep from him since. I guess he is as obsessed with music as my brother. Yet another reason not to venture too deeply into the attraction I feel for him.

“Not that he’s here,” I mumble. “He isn’t much company.”

I’m the one who said he doesn’t have to keep me company, and now I’m complaining because he isn’t. Maybe I imagined the charged moment at his apartment in the doorway. He touched my cheek. It was barely a brush of his fingers over my face, but it ignited … something. Emotion? Desire? I’m not sure, but I haven’t felt it before. Based on what I’ve seen of the player and his “chocolate charm,” I shouldn’t be feeling anything at all if I know what’s good for me.

I learned early on that people aren’t careful with your emotions. They’re too self-involved to consider how their actions affect others. I saw it when my parents forced Rhyson to tour, even though it was ripping our family apart. I’ve seen it in Rhyson’s own disregard for our relationship and how easy it was for him to walk away, forgetting he had a twin sister on the other side of the country. I’ve seen it in my parents’ sham of a marriage. They’re partners, but I’m not sure they genuinely care for one another at all. Certainly there isn’t any love. I protect my heart because no one else will.

Sometimes I wish I didn’t have a heart at all because, despite knowing what I know, I keep putting it out there to my family. Here I am, visiting Rhyson and willing to move after graduation if he’ll have me. I used to be afraid I’d be like my parents, careless. Now, I fear that I care too much about people who don’t give a damn.

“Machiavelli?” Grip’s voice, as deep and rich as espresso, caresses the nape of my neck from behind, making me jump. “Interesting choice.”

I look from the sharply hewn lines of his face to the flashing cursor behind Machiavelli’s name on my screen.

“Sorry.” He walks around to sit beside me on the couch. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”

I set my laptop on the coffee table and scoot a few inches away, tucking myself into the corner of the couch. I wasn’t doing a good job focusing when he was in the other room. With the breadth of his shoulders, the stretch of his muscular legs, and the towering energy he brought with him, I give up. I’ll work on it tomorrow. A thrill passes through me at the prospect of another conversation with him. I’m not one of those giddy girls who gets all breathless when a guy comes around. And yet, with those caramel-colored eyes resting on my face, I’m short of breath.

“Isn’t this spring break?” Grip crooks a grin at me and leans into the opposite corner of the couch. “Seems like even Ivy League should get some time off.”

“Oh, I’m taking some time off for sure.” I tuck my legs under me. Since I exchanged my jeans for some old cut offs, I have to pretend not to notice him looking a little too long at my bare legs. The last thing I need is to get the idea that he likes me.

“So, you write essays about Machiavelli to relax?”

“Not exactly.” I laugh and scoop my hair up into a topknot. “I’m applying for an internship. The application is due next week, and I need to finish the essay.”

“What’s the essay on?”

“I have to write about an icon of power from history.”

“And you chose Machiavelli?” He chuckles, considering me from beneath the long curl of his lashes. “Remind me not to get on your bad side.”

“You know much about him?”

He pulls his T-shirt up from the hem, and my heart pops an artery or something because it shouldn’t be working this hard while at rest. I swallow hard at the layer of muscle wrapped around his ribs. One pectoral muscle peeks from under the shirt, tipped with the dark disc of his nipple. My mouth literally waters, and I can’t think beyond pulling it between my lips and suckling him. Hard.

“Do you see it?” he asks.

“Huh?” I reluctantly drag my eyes from the ladder of velvet-covered muscle and sinew to the expectant look on his face. “See what?”

“The tattoo.” He runs a finger over the ink scrawled across his ribs.

Makavelli.

“I hate to break it to you,” I say with a smirk. “But someone stuck you with a permanent typo.”

He laughs, dropping the shirt, which is really a shame because I was just learning to breathe with all that masculine beauty on display.

“Bristol, stop playing. You know it’s on purpose, right?”

“Oh, sure, it is, Grip.” I roll my eyes. “Nice try.”

“Are you serious?” He looks at me like I’m from outer space. “You know that’s how Tupac referred to himself on his posthumous album, right? That he misspelled it on purpose?”

I clear my throat and scratch at an imaginary itch on the back of my neck.

“Um … yes?”

His warm laughter at my expense washes over me, and it’s worth being the butt of the joke, because I get to see his face animated. He’s even more handsome when he laughs.

“You’re funny.” He laughs again, more softly this time. “I didn’t expect that.”

“Why not?” I frown. “Did Rhyson make me sound like I wasn’t any fun?”

“He hasn’t said much at all actually.”

I figured I wasn’t paramount in his mind, but it hurts to hear how little Rhyson has told his friends about me. Even when I resented my parents lavishing all their attention and love on my brother, I was proud of him. I told anyone who would listen about how talented he was. How he traveled all over the world. I wanted everyone to know. Again, my heart is a scale out of balance, with my end taking all the weight.

“I didn’t mean it that way,” Grip says after a moment of my silence. “I can tell you and Rhyson have a lot to work out.”

“If he ever comes home, I’m sure we will.” I search for something to shift the attention again. “So, you’re a Tupac fan?”

“That would be an understatement. Fanatic is more like it.”

“Even I know the Biggie–Tupac debate,” I say with a slight smile. “I guess I don’t have to ask where you fall.”

“Oh, Pac, all day, every day.” Grip’s passion for the subject lights his eyes. “I mean, I give Biggie his props, but Pac was a poet, and truly had something to say. He was unflinchingly honest in his commentary on social justice and the state of his community. He was brilliant.”

“You don’t talk like most rappers I know.” I smile because I hear how bad it sounds, but I somehow feel like I can say it to him even ineloquently.

“And we’ve already established that you know so many rappers.” He crosses his arms over his chest, the cut of his muscles flexing with the movement. “Some of your best friends are rappers. You’re so down.”

His dark eyes glint with humor.

“Don’t make fun of me.” I fake pout.

“But it’s so much fun.” He fake pouts back.

“I meant it as a compliment.”

“Yes, but by comparison it would be an insult to other rappers, right?” He’s half teasing, half challenging.

“I don’t enjoy this logic thing you’re doing. It’s making me seem narrow-minded.”

“If the mind fits,” he comes back with a smirk.

“I should be irritated with you for calling me out.” I try to keep my face stern.

“And I should be disgusted by your preconceived notions.” He glances up from under his long lashes, his mouth relaxed, not quite smiling. “But I’m not.”

“And why is that?” I ask softly, my breath held hostage by the look in his eyes under hooded lids. I want to look away. I should, but he should first, and he doesn’t. So we’re both trapped in a moment, unsure of how to do the thing we should do. When I feel like my nerves will snap from the heated tension, he clears his throat.

“Um, I thought you might be getting hungry again.” He stands without answering my question, running both hands over the closely cut wave of his hair. “Wanna order something? Pizza? Thai?”

“Anybody do good empanadas around here?”

“You kidding me?” He pulls out his phone and smiles. “This is LA. If there’s anything we have, it’s good Mexican.”

We order and are eating in Grady’s kitchen within the hour. I sip the beer he grabbed from Grady’s refrigerator.

“This is good.”

“So you like Mexican,” he says.

“Empanadas especially.” I eye the last one in the Styrofoam tray on the marble island centered in Grady’s kitchen.

“The way you’re looking at that empanada is very Lord of the Flies. Like I might have to fight you for it. Like it’s the conch.”

“So are you Piggy in this analogy?” I pour false indignation into my voice and prop my fists on my hips.

“I ain’t Jack.”

I snatch the last empanada before he has a chance to, and he throws his head back laughing, shoulders shaking.

“To be so skinny, you put it away,” he says once he’s finished laughing at me.

“Skinny?” I glance at my legs in the cut offs. “I’m not skinny.”

“Okay, do you prefer slim?”

“I guess you’re all ‘I like big butts and I cannot lie.’”

“You know, that’s the only hip-hop reference you’ve gotten right all day, and it’s from like ninety-two.”

“That’s not fair.” I clear away the cartons and paper from our delivery meal. “If I ask you about songs I like, you probably wouldn’t know them, either.”

“Wrong. I would shut you down.” He takes his phone out of his pocket and puts it on the counter. “Check my playlists.”

I look at him for an extra few seconds, and he tips his head in invitation toward the phone.

“Go for it.”

I sigh but grab his phone and scroll through his songs.

Coldplay, Alanis Morisette, Jay Z, Usher, Justin Timberlake, Lil’ Wayne, U2, Talib Kweli, Jill Scott.

“Carrie Underwood?” I glance up from his phone to meet his wide grin.

“First of all, the girl’s fine as hell. Second of all, who doesn’t like ‘Jesus, Take the Wheel’?”

“Oh, my God! You’re ridiculous.”

“We’ve talked a lot about my musical tastes today, but not about yours. I showed you mine, now show me yours.”

I will not think about him showing me his. I wonder, not for the first time today, if I packed my good vibrators.

“Let’s just say my playlist would be a lot less varied,” I offer, dissembling all thoughts of the muscular physique hidden beneath his clothes.

“White bread, huh?” His knowing smile should irritate me, but I find myself answering with one of my own.

“And what would you call yours?”

“Multi-grain.”

I shake my head, dispose of the trash, and head back into the living room. I sit on the couch but don’t make a move to pick up my laptop. When I look up, there’s uncertainty on his face.

“Are you gonna work or …” His question dangles in the air waiting for me to catch it.

“No, someone told me even Ivy League should relax on spring break.”

He laughs and takes his spot in the opposite corner of the couch.

“Rhyson should be home soon,” he says.

I’d almost forgotten to be irritated with my brother. Grip does a great job distracting me.

“It’ll be good to see him again.” I sit cross-legged on the couch and palm my knees. “I’m glad he found you guys out here. He needed somebody in his life.”

“We’re as close as brothers,” Grip says softly. “I probably wouldn’t have made it through those first few years of high school without him. That school was like a foreign country.”

“Was it so different from your old one?”

“Uh, night and day. Growing up in Compton is no joke.” The quick-to-smile curve of his lips settles into a sober line. “The School of the Arts required a completely different set of survival skills. I’ve learned to navigate any world I find myself in. Be whatever I need to be for every situation.”

“You adapted?”

“Had to. Constantly.” Grip chuckles just a little. “It was tough, but it taught me to be comfortable, even in environments where there’s no one else like me. I got whiplash trying to be one thing at school and another thing at home with my friends and family.”

He shrugs.

“So I just decided to be myself. To adapt, yeah, but never lose who I am.”

“That’s cool,” I say. “It took me longer to figure that out. Sometimes I think I still am.”

We both tuck our private thoughts into the silence that follows my confession.

“Well being myself comes and goes.” Grip gives me a smile that takes some of the heaviness out of the room. “We’re always tempted to be something else when it’s easier. My mom was determined for me to go to that school, but she always challenged me to stay true to who I was.”

“It’s just the two of you?”

“Yeah, always has been.” He leans forward, elbows on knees as he speaks. “She is the single most influential force in my life. She demanded so much from me. Wanted more for me than most guys from my neighborhood end up having.”

“Sounds like you guys are really close.”

“We are. When my teacher realized I could write, she pushed for the scholarship. If it were left to me, I never would have tried. I didn’t want to leave my friends and go to a school across town with a bunch of rich, uppity kids. That was how I thought of it then.”

He glances up from the floor, his eyes crinkling at the corners.

“My mom dragged me up to that school for the entry exams and sat there while I took every test.”

My mother probably never even knew one of my teachers’ names in school. I’m the “privileged” one, considering our wealth growing up, but I feel positively deprived as Grip talks about the active role his mother took in his upbringing, in his life.

“She used to give me a supplemental book list every school year. Books she said the schools wouldn’t teach. She said don’t wait for nobody to give you nothing. Even your education you have to take. If the one they offer you isn’t enough, make your own.”

“Is that how you’re so well-read? Or at least seem to be.” I raise my brows at him. “Or maybe that’s just how you pick up the smart girls?”

“Are you a smart girl, Bristol?” His voice fondles my name.

“You can’t turn off the flirt, can you?” I ask to distract myself from the fact that it’s working.

“Was I flirting?” He lifts one brow. “I wasn’t trying to. I wasn’t gonna bother because I assumed you weren’t into the brothers.”

A puff of air gets trapped in my throat as I try to draw a deep breath. I cough, aware of his eyes on me the whole time.

“That isn’t how I decide who I’m ‘into’, as you call it,” I say once I’ve cleared my airway.

“You telling me you’ve dated a black guy before?” Surprise colors the look he gives me. Surprise and something else. Something warmer.

I wish I could surprise him, but I can’t.

“No, I’ve never dated a black guy.” An imp prompts my next comment. “What am I missing?”

The warmth overtakes the surprise in his eyes, spiking to a simmer that heats the gold in his brown eyes molten.

“Oh, you don’t want to know.” Grip’s voice goes a shade darker. “It might spoil you for all the others.”

“You think so?” A sensual tension sifts into the air between us.

“They say once you go black.” He stretches out his smile. “You won’t go back.”

A laugh pops out of my mouth before I can check it.

“And that’s your experience? Have you been disappointed by the rest of the female rainbow?”

My pulse slows while I wait for him to respond, like if my heart hammers I might miss an inflection in his voice. He puts me on high alert.

“Oh, no. By no means.” Grip leans back, considering me from under heavy eyelids. “I don’t care what color a girl is. I like the color of smart, the shade of funny, and sexy is my favorite hue.”

“If that isn’t a line, then I don’t know what it is,” I scoff, but his words tie a band around my chest that makes it harder to breathe.

“I’m not wasting my lines on you. You’re the kind of girl who wouldn’t respond to bullshit anyway.”

He assesses me shrewdly, and for a moment, I feel like he’s pushed up under my shell, insinuated himself under my skin to see the very bones no one has ever been privy to.

“So what color am I then?” I ask before thinking better of it. He’ll probably just say I’m white, obviously.

“What color are you?” he repeats, his eyes never leaving my face. “You, Bristol, are a freaking prism.”