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.”