Grip

I NEED TO put the brakes on this.

It’s one thing to be secretly attracted to Rhyson’s sister. It’s another thing altogether to encourage her attraction to me.

And Bristol is attracted to me.

I know when a girl wants a taste. Some girls I look at and immediately know they’re slurpers. They’ll eat the soup and tip the bowl up, slurping greedily ’til the last drop. Bristol … she would eat you slowly, savor you in delicate bites until there’s nothing left of you but an empty plate. And then she would lick her fingers. She’s very sensual. It’s subtle, but I notice these things. The way she lifted her hair off her neck at lunch today to feel the ocean breeze. The way she explored the ridges of the empanada with her tongue before taking a bite, groaning when the flavors flooded her mouth. Her body seeks sensation, presses in to discover what the world offers to stimulate her. I don’t think she knows it about herself, and it’s a shame some man hasn’t taught her, but I can’t be that guy.

Though, I’d make an excellent instructor.

For the second time today, I find myself watching her sleep. I don’t watch chicks sleep, not even after I fuck them. It’s usually more of a … dilemma. More like … well, this is awkward. I really don’t want her to stay, but she fell asleep. My dick put her into a semi-coma, so I should at least let her sleep it off. That kind of thing. Certainly not noticing how her eyelashes make half-moon shadows on her cheeks. Or the satiny texture of her skin. Or the constellation of almost indiscernible freckles splattered across her nose because she was out in the sun today. I certainly wouldn’t be wondering if somehow she might be dreaming about me.

We talked. That’s the problem with this girl. She doesn’t just talk. She probes. She ponders. She wonders. She asks. She carries on a helluva conversation, which from my experience, is a lost art. We talked about our childhoods, high school, our aspirations, and our dreams. My favorite show of all time, The Wire. Her favorite show of all time, West Wing. How neither of us has ever seen How I Met Your Mother, and don’t understand Two and a Half Men. She can’t believe I’ve never seen Swingers. I can’t believe she’s never seen Purple Rain. We talked about things we don’t understand and aren’t sure we ever will. Things we thought we had figured out, only to realize we didn’t know jack shit. It feels fresh like a beginning, but it also feels like we’ve known each other for years.

It’s two o’clock in the morning, and her body’s on East Coast, so of course, she eventually succumbed to exhaustion, but even then, she fought it, drifting off mid-sentence. And dammit if I don’t want to wake her up and ask what she was about to say.

This is bad.

This is really bad.

The garage door opening snaps me out of my own tangled thoughts. I get up from the couch, moving as quietly as I can so I don’t wake her. Rhyson’s coming through the garage door just as I enter the kitchen. Fatigue sketches lines around his mouth. His eyes are dulled by all the day behind him and the non-stop work it involved.

“Dude.” He walks over and daps me up before slumping into one of the high stools at the kitchen island. “Shitty, shitty day. These execs don’t know what they want, and don’t know what they don’t want until you’ve spent hours making it. Anyway, thanks for picking up Bristol and taking care of her today.”

“No problem.” I lean against the wall, noting all the similarities between his face and Bristol’s. I was struck by how alike they are in other ways, too. Rhyson and I also connected right away when we were both new guys. I shouldn’t be surprised to feel a quick and deep connection with his twin sister, but I still am.

“Where is she?” Rhyson gets up to open the refrigerator, staring at its contents for a few seconds before turning to face me.

“In the living room.” I tip my head in that direction. “Knocked out.”

“On that couch? She’ll regret it in the morning. I’ll get her to the guest room.”

He closes the fridge and sits down again. I can’t tell if it’s nerves about seeing his sister after so long, or that frenetic energy we feel after being immersed in our music for so long. You’re exhausted, but you’re on this high and can’t settle right away.

“Yeah, she was pretty tired,” I say. “We had lunch at Mick’s.”

“For real?” Rhyson glances up, a slight quirk to his lips. “How’s Jim?”

“Still feeling you.” I roll my eyes but have to laugh. She’s been into Rhyson since tenth grade, but he’s never given her the time of day.

“Not gonna happen.” He shakes his head for emphasis. “We’re such good friends. Why does she want to spoil it with fucking?”

“I usually like it when girls ‘spoil’ things with fucking.” We both laugh at my half-joke. “But in Jimmi’s case, I know what you mean. Just friends.”

“Right, and that isn’t changing.” Rhyson runs his hands through his already-disheveled hair. “How is she? My sister, I mean?”

“Go see for yourself,” I say. “When was the last time you saw her?”

“Four, five years,” Rhyson mumbles, sliding his glance to the side, not so much, it seems, to avoid my eyes as to avoid something inside himself.

“Man, how’d you go that long without seeing your twin sister?”

“You know how things went down with my parents after I emancipated.” Defensiveness stiffens his voice and his back.

“Your parents, Rhys, not your sister.”

“Same thing.” Rhyson’s shrug is supposed to look careless, but it doesn’t. He cares. “She’s been under their roof all this time. She’s probably just like my mother.”

The girl I spent the day with is nothing like the she-dragon Rhyson described his mother to be.

“Maybe she isn’t,” I say. “Or maybe you never spent enough time with her to know her in the first place.”

“Is that what she told you?” Rhyson narrows his eyes. “If we didn’t spend time together, it wasn’t my fault. She got to go to school and parties and shop and have friends. Be normal. Do whatever the hell she wanted while my parents tracked my every step, dragging me all over the world like a show pony.”

“I just can’t imagine not seeing my family for that long, at least not my sister, if I had one, much less my twin sister.”

“Yeah, but you’ve got your mom and Jade and your aunts. You have a normal family. I’ve got the Borgias.”

“Normal?” A snort of disbelieving air whooshes past my lips. “I’m pretty sure my Uncle Jamal was a real life pimp at some point.”

“Dude, you may be right.” Humor lightens his expression for the first time since he came through the garage door.

“Seriously! You’d get arrested doing half the stuff he tells you to do to girls.”

We laugh, recalling all the slightly disturbing advice my uncle often dispenses about women.

“Okay, so maybe your family isn’t completely normal,” he concedes. “But you have to admit, mine is the freak show that everyone had tickets to.”

Even before I met Rhyson, I’d seen the news about the courtroom battle he endured to emancipate from his parents. The sensationalized details were inescapable, plastered on the front page of every tabloid for weeks.

“I just don’t know what she wants from me,” Rhyson says softly, his eyes unfocused as if he’s asking himself.

“I think she wants her brother back.”

I straighten from the wall and walk over to join him at the counter so I can talk softer in case she wakes up and hears.

“Seems like she’s missed you,” I say in a low tone, looking at him intently. “She seems hurt that you let it go this long and haven’t been really responsive when she reached out before.”

“I just didn’t know where she stood,” Rhyson says. “Battle lines were drawn, and I thought she took my parents’ side. To survive, I had to distance myself from everything associated with them.”

Rhyson looks haunted for a moment, like he’s seen a ghost. I know the ghost is actually himself when he first left home, addicted to prescription drugs and barely able to function.

“Maybe you should just tell her that,” I say. “Maybe that’s the quickest way to a fresh start.”

“Maybe.” Rhyson rolls his shoulders and sighs. “So, what’s she look like?”

Beautiful.

“Um … good.” I say instead, clearing my throat and dropping my eyes to study the swirling pattern in the countertop. “She looks good.”

It’s so quiet that I finally look up to find Rhyson staring a burning hole through my forehead. We know each other too well.

“She’s my sister, Marlon.” A warning lights his eyes. “Don’t mess with her. None of that chocolate charm shit you put on these other unsuspecting girls.”

“I wouldn’t.” I steel my voice against the doubt I have even in myself. I should be able to leave Bristol alone, but after today, I’m not sure that I will. But I’m not admitting that to my best friend until I absolutely have to.

“Not that I have to worry about you since you’re”—he throws up air quotes—“’taken’. Aren’t you and Tessa still a thing?”

I just shrug, too tired to discuss the complication of disentangling myself from Tessa.

“Not for much longer,” I settle for saying and leave it at that.

When we go back into the living room, she’s in the same spot as when I left her. She’s pulled her knees under her and tucked her hands under the cheek laid against the couch. I draped a blanket over her, but it’s slipped some, leaving visible her face, the slim shoulders in her tank top, all the dark and burnished hair falling down her back, tendrils clinging to her neck.

Rhyson gapes like he’s never seen her before. If that picture was anything to go by, I guess she’s changed a lot in five years. He approaches her with slow steps and then squats down by the couch. He stretches his hand toward her hair but then hesitates, dropping it back down to his side. A muscle knots at his jawline, and his lips clamp tight. He blinks rapidly and swallows whatever emotions he doesn’t want her to see when she wakes up.

“Bristol,” he says softly, shaking her shoulder. “Wake up.”

Her eyes open slowly, lashes fluttering over her cheeks for a few seconds. She turns her head to see who woke her, and she doesn’t have the time Rhyson had to prepare. Emotion soaks her eyes, and a wide smile comes to life on her lips.

“Rhyson,” she whispers, none of the irritation and hurt I’ve seen her fight all day evident. “You’re here.”

“Yeah, I’m here.” I wonder if she notices how his laugh catches a little in his throat. “You’re here, too.”

The seconds stretch into a minute as they stare at each other, taking in the face so like their own, but so completely different.

“You look …” Rhyson tilts his head, studying his sister with sober eyes. “You’re beautiful, Bris.”

Tears flood her eyes, one sneaking over her cheek. She swipes it away quickly.

“Stop.” She smiles self-consciously. “I look the same.”

Rhyson shakes his head, brushing her tousled hair back with one hand.

“My little sister grew up.”

“Little sister?” She quirks one dark brow, some of the spark I saw today returning to her eyes. “We’re twins, doofus.”

“I was born first,” he counters, his crooked smile telling me he’s enjoying this.

“And that one minute more in the world gives you so much of an edge?” She fires back.

“Whether you want to admit it or not, you’re my little sister.” The look he gives her already apologizes before his words do. “I’m sorry we missed the last five years.”

“Me, too,” she says, the smile dying from her eyes.

“And for missing today. I wish I could say tomorrow would be much different. I have to be in the studio a lot, but you can come with me.”

“Okay. That sounds fun.” She stretches, yawns, and tosses the blanket off, standing to her feet. “We can talk about it in the morning. I’m off to bed.”

“Me, too.” Rhyson stands, talking through a yawn. “Marlon, it’s so late, you should just crash here tonight.”

Bristol’s eyes shift over his shoulder, widening like she just realized that I was still here. She offers me a smile more reserved than the ones we exchanged while we talked all night. When we made each other laugh.

“Thanks again, Grip, for keeping me company today.”

“No problem.” I take the spot and the blanket on the couch she just vacated, not looking up to meet her eyes. “Any time.”

I feel her eyes on me. After all we discussed today, all we shared, my tone probably seems impersonal. She may not know it now, but she’ll realize soon, that’s for her own good. She’s something rare—smart, classy, gorgeous, funny, opinionated, and under it all, where she tries to hide it, kind. And burrowed beneath all of that, vulnerable. She isn’t the kind of girl you mess over.

I repeat that warning to myself for the next hour as I stare into the darkness of Grady’s living room. No, she isn’t the kind of girl you mess over. A guy needs to be very sure he wants her, and just her, before he makes a move.

Yeah. A guy would have to be very sure.