A little wild. A lot unexpected. Completely unlikely, but definitely not polite.
I use the key Rhyson gave me and hope there isn’t an alarm. I walk deeper into the house, still a little wired but unsure what to do. The door leading to the kitchen opens, and Rhyson steps into the living room.
“Hey,” I say softly, watching for signs of lingering anger.
“Hey.” His eyes fix on my face, and I’m guessing he’s gauging me, too. “You too tired to talk?”
I sit on the couch and gesture for him to join me. He sits, elbows to his knees and eyes on the floor.
“I’m sorry for how out of control things got at the studio,” he says, his voice quiet, subdued. “I . . . I don’t feel like we know each other anymore.”
A humorless laugh escapes my lips.
“And I’m not sure we ever did.” I smile a little sadly when our eyes connect around that truth in the lamplight.
“You’re probably right.”
He sighs, raking his long sensitive fingers through wild hair. He has an artist’s hands. Well kempt but competent and capable of creating.
“Do you remember when they insured your hands?” I ask.
“Yeah.” He doesn’t say anything more, but draws his brows draw into a frown.
“I overheard Mother discussing the policy. We were eleven.” I bite my lip and smile. “I remember asking her why they insured your hands. She said you insure things that are too valuable to lose forever. She said your gift was irreplaceable and that made you incredibly valuable. They had to protect you.”
“That sounds about right,” Rhyson says bitterly. “Protect their investment.”
I don’t acknowledge his interpretation of it because he never saw it from my side.
“I was so jealous of you that day.” I shake my head, feeling that helplessness and the frustration of having nothing to offer flood me again. “I had nothing to insure. I had nothing that valuable to our parents. They had shown me a million times, but that day she put it in words.”
“Jealous?” Rhyson’s incredulity twists his handsome face. “You were jealous of me? You had everything, Bristol. You had friends. You got to go to school with kids our age. You had a normal life. That was all I wanted.”
“You had them,” I counter. “The three of you would go off for weeks at a time, and I had nannies and therapists. You had our parents.”
“I had them?” Rhyson demands in rhetorical disbelief. “Yeah, I had them riding my ass to rehearse eight hours a day, reminding me that I might be a kid, but adults paid good money to come see me play. I had nothing.”
“You loved piano,” I insist, needing to know that things are as I remember them, because if they aren’t, what has been real?
“I loved piano, yes, but that just came to me. I don’t even remember not knowing how to play. Piano I was born with. The career? The road and the concerts and the tours? That they made me do.”
Condemnation colors his eyes.
“The addiction—I let that happen,” he says.
“You were too young,” I counter softly. “Too young to take the pills, and our parents should have stopped you, not enabled you. I see that now.”
He scoots closer, looking at me earnestly.
“Bris, I had to get away from them.” He shakes his head, and his eyes are bleak. “To survive. I needed to get better, and to do that, I had to put as much distance between them and myself as possible.”
“But that meant me, too.” Tears prick my eyes.
“Yeah, I’m sorry about that.” He drops his head into his hands. “But you stayed. You were there. I didn’t know whose side you were on.”
“There wasn’t a side, Rhyson.” My words come vehemently. “You were all my family. They weren’t perfect, far from it, but they were the only parents I had. I wanted them to love me. You were the only brother I had. The only family I had, and it was ripped apart. You didn’t seem to want to repair it.”
“Not with them, no,” he admits. “Not yet. Maybe not ever.”
“And me?” My heart flutters in my chest as I wait.
“When you would call, I thought it was them having you check up on me or trying to get in so they could get me back to make money for them. Even when you called and told me you wanted to come here for spring break, I thought there was an ulterior motive.”
He laughs, eyeing me with no small amount of doubt.
“And when you started talking today about moving here and managing my career—”
“I probably should have handled that better.” It’s the truth. “I know it seems crazy to you, but you’re a star, Rhyson. Like once-in-a-lifetime genius star. I don’t want to capitalize on it. I just want to see it happen, and for some reason, it isn’t.”
“I don’t know if I can do that shit again, Bris. It takes so much, and I only got through it with the drugs. I don’t want to create a situation where I need those again. If there was one thing I learned when I kicked the habit, it was that I have an addictive personality. Music is the only thing I need to be addicted to.”
“I’m not trying to create a situation where you need the drugs,” I say. “I just want to be your sister again.”
“And my manager?” Skepticism lifts one of his brows. “You want to be that, too?”
“I still have two years left at Columbia. We could start with me just being your sister.” A wide smile stretches across my face at the prospect. “And then see what happens.”
Grip
I HATE CARNIVALS.
My cousin Jade used to drag me to these things and make me stay until the smell of funnel cake wasn’t even sweet anymore. We’d ride the Ferris wheel and run through the fun house. We’d play every game we could afford and some we managed to swindle our way into. Ring toss. Big Six Wheel. Ring the Bell. Skeeball. Jade’s so competitive, I’d have to let her win the basket toss most of the time. Not so much she’d get suspicious, but enough that she didn’t pout the whole damn time.
Something shifted between Jade and me along the way. I know it started with a secret shame we share, and over time, that deteriorated our closeness some. When I won the scholarship, leaving her in our local public school, things only worsened. We’re still close, but it isn’t what it was before. Maybe it’s just a part of growing up.
All that to say, I hate carnivals.
And Jimmi’s “brill” idea (her whack word, not mine) to show Bristol some fun before she leaves is this carnival. It could be worse. Rhyson could be stuck in the studio again, and I could be entertaining Bristol by myself. And that could get touchy . . . since I want to fuck her.
I mean, yes, talk to her ’til the sun comes up, laugh about the stand-up comedians we both like, exchange playlists, debate hot-button politics, explore all the ways we are different and just alike . . . but also I want to fuck her.
And never more so than last night in the alley. That sensuality I wasn’t sure Bristol understood about herself gyrated on the dance floor. The way her eyes dropped closed when she took her first sip of Grey Goose, licking the drops from her lips and savoring their taste. The way she rolled her hips, even sitting on her stool, her body seeking out the primal beat of the music. She says she can’t dance, but it wasn’t skill that had her out on the floor. It was her body pinned up, searching for release. And she thought she would find it with that Zeta Delta Dick frat boy who had been scoping her all night. I could barely focus from song to song as I watched her. Watched him watching her. I knew I couldn’t give her the release she wanted, but he certainly wasn’t going to.
It feels like this has been building between us for months, but it’s only been days. I had decided to squelch it, but when I heard her master plan about moving to LA and managing Rhyson, something turned over inside my head. A possibility? A maybe? Doing what she’s doing, staking her college career, planning her future based on helping her brother’s dreams come true, it’s crazy.
And so completely right.
I’ve known since the beginning that Rhyson will have to play again. We use the word genius like it’s nothing. I mean, seriously. Apple genius? But he is legit genius. Like playing Beethoven at three years old genius. And for him to neglect his gift, in whatever form it takes—classical, modern, pop, rock—is a travesty. Everyone around him knows it. Jimmi, our friend Luke, Grady. I know it, but none of us have called him on it. We have this silent pact to let him come to it on his own. He has to after what he endured for years under his parents’ tyrannical management. But Bristol, who hasn’t even seen him in five years, does it. She’s so sure it’s right that she’s betting her Ivy League education on it. She’s planning her future around it. She’s challenging him in a way none of us were willing to do.