“There is not enough coffee in the world for this week.” Callie looks up from the corner of Iz’s desk she has commandeered for her stack of papers.

“I told you to focus on finals—grading mine and taking your own.” Iz studies her over the rims of his glasses. “Grip and I have this proposal under control.”

“Well, don’t you have finals, too?” Callie asks me.

“I do.” I flash her a grin. “But this is the only class I’m taking this semester. Next semester, I go back online and home to LA.”

Callie tosses her pen down, sitting back in her chair and crossing her legs.

“Wait. Did you move to New York just for Iz’s class?” she asks.

Iz and I have negotiated a tentative détente, but it’s still galling that I moved across the country to learn from a guy who thinks I shouldn’t be with Bristol. It’s narrow-minded, and it makes me feel stupid for coming here, but . . . the guy is a genius, and this proposal we’re working on is something I could only dream of being a part of before I met him.

“You could say that,” I mumble, looking back to the pages I’ve been marking up. “So, are we set on the college campus tour?”

“Uh, yeah.” Iz sounds about as uncomfortable with Callie’s question as I am. “You need to run this schedule by your team or whatever?”

“By Bristol,” I say deliberately, looking up to meet his eyes. “She manages everything, but this far out, we should be able to accommodate these dates.”

“And just to be clear,” Callie says, propping an elbow on the desk and leaning forward, “you’re going to college campuses all over the country talking about this community bail fund?”

“And the community justice defense initiative,” Iz adds. “For those who have been wrongfully accused or convicted and can’t afford quality legal representation.”

“And Grip will perform at each stop?” Callie asks.

“Yeah, a few songs, not a full concert,” I clarify. “And I’ll talk about the program. We want to mobilize the next generation around these issues, raise awareness, recruit volunteers.”

“This will slay.” Callie grins and swings her eager look to Iz. “Where do I sign up?”

“Say . . . huh?” Panic fills Iz’s eyes for a moment. You wouldn’t expect a woman who barely clears five feet to scare the living shit out of a guy as big and imposing as Iz, but I get the impression he always wants to beg me not to leave him alone with her. I suspect it’s so he won’t screw her into the nearest wall, but these are merely my speculations since he won’t talk to me about it.

Not that we’ve talked about much outside of the program lately.

“I want in.” Callie sets her mouth in a stubborn line. “I’d be volunteering like anyone else since I won’t be your TA after this semester.”

The stare they hold picks up where some conversation I haven’t been privy to left off.

“We’ll see,” Iz mutters, turning his attention back to the proposal.

“Yeah, we will.” Callie gathers her backpack and stands. “I need to get to class myself.”

When I glance up to tell her goodbye, that same odd expression she wore the first time she went fangirl on me is back on her face.

“Not to make this weird, but . . .” she says in that voice people use right before they make things weird. “I’ve acted like a normal person all day and think I deserve a commendation for not bringing this up earlier.”

I stifle my grin because I already know where she’s going.

“Yes?” I lift both brows sky high and wait.

“Oh my God,” she gushes, unlike any other Rhodes Scholar you would ever meet. “Is it true? Are you engaged?”

So much for stifling grins, because the shit-eating-est grin of all time overpowers my face. Bristol was with Kai for a late-night talk show performance, and some of the production team backstage spotted her ring. A few posts and several tweets later, everyone knew—or thought they did, since we haven’t confirmed anything and really have no plans to. Bristol may promote for a living, but she doesn’t like that lens turned on our private life, not even a little bit, and I can’t blame her. It’s a pain in the ass. We’ll have to eventually, but it’s only been a couple of weeks, and we’re right here at Christmas. Maybe after the New Year we’ll draft something to announce, or maybe we won’t confirm at all. In the meantime, it’s no one’s business that I’m the happiest son of a bitch on the planet.

“Well, are you?” Callie presses, her indomitable spirit infectious.

“If you can keep your mouth shut,” I tell her, shit-eating grin still firmly in place, “then, yes, I am.”

“Eeeeeep!” Callie sits back down and drops her backpack like she’s got all day to hear the details. “Tell me everything.”

“Don’t you have a class in two minutes, Callie?” Iz asks pointedly, flicking his eyes toward his office door. “See you tomorrow.”

Callie holds his glance for a moment longer before retrieving her backpack and heading toward the door.

“Congratulations,” she says over her shoulder. “An engagement and Grammy nominations all in one month. You win December.”

I haven’t even processed the Grammy nominations. The day after I asked Bristol to marry me, I found out about the three nominations. I’m proudest of “Bruise” being up for song of the year.

“Thanks, Cal.” I give her a grateful smile.

“Bristol’s a lucky woman,” she says softly, sincerely.

“I’m a lucky man.”

“Well, I want to hear all the details when Professor Killjoy isn’t around,” she says with a pointed glance at Iz before she leaves. “Good luck on your one exam.”

“That girl,” Iz mumbles, staring at the space she just vacated like she might have left an outline in the air.

There’s no doubt in my mind that Iz jerks off to thoughts of Callie defending her dissertation naked. A few weeks ago, I would have given him shit about it, but things changed after that fateful conversation. Now I pretty much stick to the things we do agree on. Otherwise, I have nothing to say to him.

“She’s something else,” Iz says.

“Yeah, she is, but remember—you don’t fuck your students,” I can’t resist saying.

Iz squints his irritation at me.

“I meant Bristol.”

I pause in stuffing the proposal into my saddlebag.

“Even though she’s white, you mean?” I douse the words with sarcasm.

“Look, you know I have nothing against white people.”

“Except when they date black people, right?”

“It’s just not my preference.” Exasperation cracks his calm façade. “I get to have my preferences.”

“You think I give a damn what color you prefer? Date Smurfette, go blue for all I care. It’s you somehow actually buying into the bullshit logic that me being with Bris is a disservice to our community that bothers me.”

“All right. You want the real?” He sits back and crosses thickly muscled arms over his broad chest. “I don’t think they can ever really understand us or be trusted. I’m not sure you can be white in this country and not somehow be infected by its racial history, by the collective superiority and privilege ingrained in them from birth.”

“I’m not spending my life with a collective history.” I brush my hand impatiently over the layer of hair I keep so low it’s barely there. “I’m in love with one woman, who happens to be white and has never given me reason not to trust her, at least not the way you mean.”

“And what if she slipped up and called somebody a nigger one day?” he demands. “How would you feel then?”

I remember Bristol’s dismay the day we met when Skeet used that word. It was the first of many conversations we’ve had about the things most people avoid. Even the night we got engaged, we were still having those conversations, and we’ll probably have them for the rest of our lives.

“Bristol would never use that word. If anything, she can’t believe we use it to each other. If it were up to her, it would be eradicated and no one could ever use it again.”

“Never say never. Do you expect her to truly understand the struggle of a black man in America?”

“That’s a fair question,” I reply, glad Bristol and I already discussed this. “I don’t know that I do expect her to understand everything about the struggle. I know she’ll always sympathize, but maybe there will be things she doesn’t completely get.”

“And you can live with that?” Doubt settles on his face.

“You know better than anyone how hard it can be for us.” I shake my head. “I have to ask myself when I come home, do I want someone who completely understands the struggle? Or someone who completely understands me? Someone I can’t wait to come home to, someone who makes me laugh on the hardest days of my life? Every single decision isn’t filtered through my race. Love isn’t.”

Iz doesn’t look away from me the whole time I’m talking, and I feel like maybe some of what I say lands. He finally clears his throat and shrugs.

“I would just always wonder if I could ever really know a white woman, if she could ever really know me.” He shakes his head. “Enough to trust her with my life? With my children?”

“And did your wife really know you? I bet she didn’t think you would cheat on her, but you did, and from what I can tell, you’re both black.”

A heavy silence follows my words, and as we sit in it, Iz slowly raises his eyes.

“I didn’t cheat on her.” He twists the grim line of his mouth around the words. “She cheated on me.”

Damn. Now I feel like a real asshole.

“I’m sorry about that. I assumed . . .” I leave not-well-enough alone and press on. “I do know I don’t ever have to worry about that and neither does Bristol. It’s nothing to do with our race. I would never do that to her, and I know she would never do that to me. Have you never been captivated by someone so much that the rest of your life without them seems . . . empty? Not even your ex?”

For a moment, Iz’s eyes stray to the door Callie recently walked through, and then he clears his throat.

“No, it wasn’t like that with us.” His tone remains even, but his lips twitch. “But it sounds a lot like being pussy-whipped.”

Hearing that word takes me back to the debate with Clem Ford. I shift in my seat a little.

“I, um, I didn’t get to thank you for helping Bris talk me down the other night.”

“You mean when you almost ripped Clem Ford’s throat out?” Iz asks with a mockery of calm. “Sure. Any time. At least I know you have your own money and won’t need our bail fund. What the hell were you thinking?”

“He disrespected Bristol.” Anger surges through my veins again at the memory.

“Well I hope she’s worth going to prison for because you ever pull some shit like that again, that’s exactly where you’ll end up. You’re lucky he didn’t press charges.”

“Oh, he has no desire to see me in jail yet.” My bark of a laugh is certain and cynical. “He’s just getting started with me and wouldn’t want to end the game this soon.”

I grab my saddlebag and motorcycle helmet, determined not to be late for my appointment with Bristol and Charm to finally figure out this book deal.

“Bristol helped me realize that I represent everything he thinks should be impossible. Based on his metrics, I shouldn’t exist, much less get to choose someone from his race to spend my life with.” I stand and level a disgusted look at him. “I guess that’s at least one thing you two agree on.”

“Who the hell do you think you are comparing me to that backwards cretin?” Iz demands, indignation pinching his strong features.

“I got a front row seat to your brand of selective progressivism,” I fire back. “And at the end of the day, you both judge people you don’t know anything about by the color of their skin.”

“If I’m such a bigot,” Iz snaps, anger darkening his eyes and hardening his jaw, “then why the hell are you still working with me?”

“Because the woman I love is wiser than both of us,” I throw back at him. “She cares enough about people who don’t even look like her to set aside the gross offense of your discrimination because she believes we can help them more working together than apart.”

A silence falls after my bellowed words, a silence teeming with the complexity of our admiration for each other, with our resentment, our shared convictions, our differences. I watch the anger melt from his face in phases, loosening feature by feature until all that’s left is a milder expression and uncertainty.

“She used my own words on me, you know,” he says, a wry grin tipping the edge of his stern mouth.

“What?” I shift my bag on my shoulder, needing to go but wanting to hear what he has to say. I keep hoping he’ll say something to demonstrate his perspective is changing.

“Your girl, Bristol. She had me sign her copy of Virus in a section on inherent bias.”

We share a grin because sometimes all you can do is laugh at the things Bristol does.

“She introduced herself as ‘Grip’s Bristol,’” he says, his grin deepening to a full-on smile.

Damn right she’s Grip’s Bristol.

“Oh yeah?”

“And she said if I hurt you again, I’d have to deal with her.” His smile dies off, and he looks down at the mess of papers littering his desk. “I didn’t mean to hurt—”

“You didn’t hurt me.”

It’s a lie. He did hurt me, but I haven’t given any man the satisfaction of truly hurting me since my dad walked away without looking back. I won’t let Iz know he held that place in my life until he said those things about Bristol.

“You’re just a smart guy with great ideas,” I continue, stiffening the words around any emotion left over. “I thought you were something that you’re not. My bad, not yours.”

If I didn’t know Iz better, didn’t know he doesn’t give a damn about anyone’s opinion, I’d think that’s guilt in his eyes. Whatever it is, he blinks and it’s gone.

“Yeah, well, okay. Good.” He takes his glasses off to polish them on the edge of his Howard University sweatshirt. “Well I’m still glad you’ll continue with my organization now that the semester is over. I’m ready to get out of the classroom and back to the real grind.”

“Of course. The cause is bigger than you and me.”

“Right.” He twists his lips around, frowns, and releases a sigh. “Look, tomorrow’s the exam, and I assume you’re leaving the city after.”

“Yeah, though we’re actually keeping our place here for another six-month lease. Bris has some Broadway stuff popping off for one of her clients, and we love the city, love our place. We’ll be back and forth.”

“You still want that spot on the board of directors?” he asks as if he doesn’t care, but somehow I know he does.

“Yeah, sure.” I shrug like I don’t care, but I want on that board like nobody’s business. “If you think it could work.”

“My assistant will send you details about our next meeting and papers you need to sign.” He hesitates before going on. “I know it’s . . . well, I’m sorry I was a . . . uh, disappointment to you, Grip.”

I study the regret marking his face and his words. I don’t say anything that would counter because he did disappoint me, and I refuse to make it easier for him.

“But I’m . . . well I’m honored that you moved here to study with me,” he mutters. “Shocked actually. It’s been really cool getting to know you this semester, and I look forward to, uh . . . well . . . what I’m trying to say is . . . fuck it.”

He reaches into his desk drawer and pulls something out, something badly wrapped in plain paper.

“Merry Christmas.” He practically spits the goodwill at me and extends the gift.

I just stare at it, and after a full five seconds, I accept it.

“I didn’t get you anything,” I mumble, tugging on the tatty ribbon.

“It’s not much, believe me. Uh, you can open it later.” He sits at his desk and pushes his glasses up his nose. “I’m getting ready for finals, if you could just close the door behind you.”

Iz is a PhD, and he must hold at least a master’s in dismissing people. I nod, suppressing the grin that tries to break past my restraint.

“A’ight,” I say casually over my shoulder. “Merry Christmas.”

I walk down the hall away from his office and down the stairs. In the stairwell, I drop my saddlebag and sit on the step, turning the gift over in my hands for a few moments before pulling the ribbon.

It’s a book.

Iz would give me a book.

I trace the aged leather, the letters pressed into the weathered cover.

Montage of a Dream Deferred by Langston Hughes.

I flip open the front cover, and my blood stands still in my veins when I note the date—1951—and the famous poet’s autograph.

A signed first edition.

I turn to the spot slotted by an index card, a crisp contrast to the worn, fragile pages. The poem is “Harlem,” and the familiar refrain asking what happens to a dream deferred stings tears in my eyes.

I can’t ever read this poem without remembering the day my cousin died in the front yard. There are some moments in life that will always haunt us, no matter how many joys follow, and that day is one of those. I’ll never forget reciting this poem in my bedroom closet to keep Jade calm while one of her brothers shot the other.

Iz couldn’t know its personal significance to me, but as I read the card, I understand why he chose it.

Grip,

Our brothers live so long with dreams deferred, they forget how to imagine another life. For many of them, all they know is frustration, then rage, and for too many, the violence of finally exploding. You symbolize hope, and I know you take that responsibility seriously. I hope you know I believe that, and that nothing I’ve said led you to think otherwise. Bristol’s right—our biases are our weaknesses. Few are as patient as she is to give people time to become wiser. Thank her for me, for giving me time and for encouraging you to work with me. Together, I think we will restore the dreams of many.

Merry Christmas,

Iz