high?”
I have a selective fear of heights. Put me in a little bucket in the air on a ride that could plunge me to my death, I’m chop suey. But sitting safely on the roof, I should be fine. I do not, however, need him reminding me of our night on that Ferris wheel. Not tonight when I’m already feeling weak.
“No, the roof isn’t too high,” I answer. “It’s too far away. I’m tired.”
“Well, food’s going up and so will you if you want some,” he says, disappearing through the door.
Sigh.
I grab a beer for him and a bottle of Pinot Gris for me. If I were alone, I wouldn’t bother with the glass I pull from the rack. It has been a straight-from-the-bottle day . . . week . . . month. But I’ll save that for the privacy of my own home. And it’ll probably be vodka, my self-numb-er of choice.
Damn these shoes. I’ve got a thing for heels. Even wearing the romper, I’m still sporting three-inch Jimmy Choos. By the time I make my way up the winding stairs to the roof, I want to toss the shoes off the building despite how much they cost.
The second I step through the door to the roof, I forget about my shoes, my empty stomach. I even forget the empanadas for a moment. We’re just high enough to see the city’s skyline in the distance, set ablaze by the horizon’s last hurrah before sunset. There’s no fear, and the view takes my breath. For just a second, the sheer scope of the sky makes all the problems that followed me home from the office seem small in comparison.
“This is gorgeous,” I whisper, taking the last few steps to the center of the roof.
“Yeah, I can’t take credit for the view or this set up. The decorator did it.” Grip eyes his rooftop retreat with a pleased smile. “I don’t get up here as much as I’d like, but every once in a while to eat or write.”
I can see how it would be the perfect place to write. Padded benches tuck into the far corner, and slate-colored cushions rest against the brick wall. Four low, square tables stand in the center with candles of various sizes and shapes strategically dotted on them.
Grip sets the bags on one of the tables, and walks to the wall to turn a few knobs. Soft music fills the air around me, and strands of fairy tale lights now glimmer over our heads. It’s all very romantic.
“You know this is just two friends eating dinner, right?” I flop onto the padded bench and put down our drinks.
“I do know that.” The innocent expression is the only thing that doesn’t look right on Grip’s face. “But if you need to remind yourself, I understand.”
I make sure he sees me rolling my eyes before tearing open the bags of precious fried dough.
Correction. Baked.
“You said these were fried,” I complain around a bite of empanada.
“My bad.” He stretches his brows up and takes a leisurely sip of his beer. “That’s your second one, though, right? I guess you barely notice the difference when you inhale them.”
“Very funny.” I actually do laugh and polish off another one.
“Well, so much for leftovers.” He leans back against the cushion beside me until mere inches separate our shoulders.
“You shouldn’t have invited me to stay if you wanted leftovers.”
“I think your company’s a fair trade.” Our eyes connect across the small slice of charged space separating us.
I sit up from my slouch, inserting a few much-needed inches between us.
“You mentioned needing to talk about the email I sent.” My business-like tone clashes with the soft music and lighting, which is exactly what I need it to do.
“Yeah.” He considers me for an extra moment, as if he may not allow me to steer our conversation into safer territory. “You mentioned that next Wednesday at three you have a sit down scheduled with that reporter from Legit.”
“I checked the shared calendar, and that block of time was free. Was I wrong?”
“It’s my fault.” He shoots me an apologetic look. “I forget to add personal stuff there sometimes. I’m talking to some students in my old neighborhood that day. Could we reschedule?”
Between my request to cancel tomorrow’s interview for Qwest’s would-be booty call, and nixing next Wednesday’s sit down, Meryl won’t be too happy with me.
“What if she tags along?” I sit up straighter, twisting to peer down at him. “She could see you talking to the students and then you guys could chat a few minutes maybe right there on the grounds. Get some local color shots.”
“Local color?” A husky laugh passes over his lips. “There’s four colors in Compton. Black, brown, red, and blue. In the wrong place at the wrong time, on the wrong street, any of those could get you killed. I don’t know. And I don’t want the talk exploited. Like headline shit. That isn’t why I’m doing it.”
“I know that. Of course it isn’t. I’ll make sure it isn’t like that.”
He glances up at me, wordlessly reading between lines.
“You’d be coming, too?” His voice is soft, but the look in his eyes is loud and clear. His eyes tell me he likes having me near. It makes my stomach bottom out like we’re back up on that Ferris wheel, and if I’m not careful, I’ll fall.
“Why not?” I give what I hope is a casual shrug, though it feels as stiff as my neck.
“You just haven’t been around much lately.” His eyes never leave my face, and I hope I drop my expressionless mask in place fast enough to keep him out.
“We connect every day.” I look him straight in the face like it isn’t hard to do. “So I don’t know what you mean.”
“We text, email, FaceTime, but we haven’t seen each other much.”
I rub at the knots in my neck, wishing a masseuse would magically appear.
“Are you tight?” His voice and eyes seem to simmer, both hot and steady.
The double entendre of that question is not lost on me. As little sex as I’ve had the last year . . . years, I’m probably as tight as a peephole, but he’ll never know.
“It’s just been a long few weeks.”
“I know something that could relax you.”
He bends over me, pressing me back into cushions.
“Grip, what are you—”
“Relax,” he interrupts with a laugh, stretching a few inches more to unscrew a jar sitting on the concrete pedestal beside my seat. He settles back into his space, freeing up my lungs to breathe again.
“My Uncle Jamal used to say if you can’t have a good hoe.” He holds up a joint. “Have good dro.”
“Have I mentioned that your uncle is a misogynist who subscribes to antiquated and archetypal notions of womanhood?”
“Yeah, more than once, but I’m pretty sure he was a pimp, so that makes sense.”
What the what?
He says it as if he just told me his uncle was a fireman.
“You mean like ‘big pimpin’, Jay-Z’ kind of pimp?”
“No, like, ‘bitch, go get my money on the corner’ kind of pimp.” A frown pleats Grip’s expression. “By the time he came out west, no, but I think back in Chicago he may have been a pimp.”
I’m having trouble processing this. I’ve met Grip’s Uncle Jamal a few times, and he never struck me . . . maybe that is an unfortunate way to think of it considering he may have struck the women who worked for him . . . but he never struck me as a pimp.
“He’s actually my great-uncle,” Grip says. “My grandmother’s brother. When she left Chicago to move out here in the seventies, he followed.”
Grip shakes his head, blowing out a heavy sigh.
“The generation before him thought Chicago was the answer to Jim Crow, so they left the South. And then they thought the answer to poverty and crime was California and left Chicago,” Grip says. “Always running. Stokely Carmichael said, ‘Our grandfathers had to run, run, run. My generation’s out of breath. We ain’t running no more.’”
We have Grip’s mother to thank for all the varied people he can quote.
“So your mother moved here for better opportunities?”