“He has the right to know the truth.” Rhyson’s worried eyes hold mine. “To know how you feel.”
“The right?” I scoff. “They’re my feelings, and I choose not to act on them, so what good does it do for him to know?”
“So what? You just watch him fall harder for Qwest? Give him to someone else?” Rhyson’s voice is so full of disappointment and disapproval I almost flinch. “You’re braver than that, Bristol. You’re the most fearless person I know. And you let the threat of something keep you from what you really want?”
“You don’t understand what—”
“I do,” Rhyson cuts in. “It’s the same kind of bullshit that kept Kai from being with me. Allowing her past and the mistakes her parents made to dictate her future. Imagine if she’d just given up? Not taken a chance on me? She had every reason not to.”
He takes both my hands in his, squeezing as he looks at me, through me.
“We wouldn’t be married. She wouldn’t be pregnant.” A bleakness enters his eyes. “The prospect of spending the rest of my life without her would destroy me. Why would you choose that?”
“You think I’m fearless?” The words get hung up on the tears flooding my throat. “I’m not. I’m scared shitless, Rhyson. I care so much about the people I love. I’d do anything for them. If I let myself. . . have Grip, there would be no boundaries. Do you understand what I’m saying? What if I end up like our mother? A strong woman whose man is her Achilles’ heel? A drunken fool who takes whatever scraps he leaves and shares him to have whatever he’ll give her?”
“You would never allow—”
“Neither would she, but she does.” I shake my head. “I’ve seen it. How weak she is for him. She kept it from us for years because she’s ashamed.”
“All I know is the very thought of Kai with anyone else drives me insane,” Rhyson says. “And we may not be typical twins, but I do know we’re alike in that way. Actually having to watch her be with someone else, to see her fall for someone else and know that I allowed that to happen? I would be miserable, and so would you.”
Images of Grip holding Qwest’s hand and of them out in New York laughing and kissing twist around my mind, squeezing like a boa constrictor. My imagination fills in the dark gaps of what they’re like in bed together. Of how she runs her hands over his broad chest, over the whipcord muscles of his arms and legs. How she strokes him, takes him in her mouth, takes him in her body. Of her satisfying him in a way I never will. She knows him now in a way I don’t. They’ve passed secrets between their bodies.
The unrelenting flow of images floods my mind, torturing me. Rhyson thinks I would be miserable?
Oh, God, I already am.
Chapter 16
GRIP
POETRY HAS LONG BEEN a habit and a comfort for me. Ever since I was a kid, I would recite my favorite poems when I was afraid, nervous, excited.
Sad.
The words pull me into a rhythm. Something set and predictable, yet brimming with the potential to break wild and free.
In my favorite poem “Poetry”, Neruda said he wheeled
with the stars and that his heart broke loose on the wind. It seems particularly appropriate tonight because I do feel as if, with my debut album sitting in the number one spot, I’m tumbling through some galaxy I never thought to explore. A dark sky pelted with stars, with promises masquerading as constellations.
I quoted that poem to Bristol at the top of the Ferris wheel all those years ago when we got stuck. She was frightened, but our kiss chased her fears away. She flipped my heart upside down, upending everything I thought I wanted in a girl. That Ferris wheel was maybe a hundred feet off the ground, but with Bristol’s lips so soft, first hesitant then urgent, her fingers twisted around mine like she was just as desperate to hold onto me as I was to hold onto her—I was on top of the world. I didn’t have two pennies to rub together or a pot to piss in, but I was happy.
So fucking happy.
And tonight, I am at the top of the world, more successful than that pauper on the Ferris wheel could have imagined. I can see Bristol on the other side of the club where we’re holding my release celebration, but she may as well be in another hemisphere there’s so much distance between us. I’m a fool because given the choice, I’d take the Ferris wheel with her any day over tonight. That kiss, not this celebration, feels like the best night of my life.
“You do know you have the number one album in the country, right?” Qwest walks toward the edge of the stage where I’m seated. We just finished sound check for tonight’s performance. “You got nothing to look sad about, baby.”
“I’m not sad.” I curve my lips into something close to a smile to prove it. “Just taking a quick breather. It’s a lot to take in.”
“How about you take me in.” She stands between my legs hanging over the lip of the stage. One hand touches my chest through my shirt and moves down while her lips wander over my jaw and down my neck. Her hand searches between my legs. I’m limp as a noodle. It’s embarrassing to have a woman hot enough to melt butter practically molesting you, and your dick doesn’t care.
“Sorry to interrupt.”
Bristol’s voice snaps my head up, our eyes catching in the dim light of the club over Qwest’s shoulder. She’s scraped her hair back tonight so she’s all high cheekbones and matte red lips. I permit myself a glance over the naked shoulders in her strapless black pantsuit. The tight silk coaxes her breasts higher until they spill a little over the cups. A scarlet sash cords her waist, and her bright red heels scream “fuck me.” But it’s Bristol, so they could whisper it, and I’d still hear.
My dick presses against my jeans, poking into Qwest’s hand and putting that knowing grin on her face. She assumes my sudden hard-on is for her, not my manager. I’m a fraud. This thing with Qwest has gone too far, and I’m going to have to do what I never wanted. I’m going to have to hurt her.