Grip Trilogy Box Set

“Yeah, that’s kind of its own thing, so to speak,” Sarah says carefully. “I think that’s why some of the comments are so vicious.”

“Oh, my God.” I pull up Qwest’s Twitter account.

@YesItzQwest "When he get on, he’ll leave your ass for a white girl." Kanye ain't never lied. Bruhs, don't forget the sisters who put u on. #QueenWithNoKing

The humiliation, the hurt, and dismay I experienced at Ms. James’ dinner table Sunday has magnified, globalized. It isn’t one, two, three women side-eyeing me because I’m with Grip. It’s an entire socialsphere. I don’t want to be pitted against them. Grip and I aren’t what these comments suggest we are. I’m not some trophy to him. And he didn’t choose me because I’m a symbol of unattainable success. I want to chase down every comment, recall every retweet, share and like. To tell them he quotes poetry to me. I know his favorite foods. I know he’d rather have Classic Jordans than a gaudy watch. We talk about real things, and even when I don’t understand everything, he’s patient with me because he loves me. I know him. I knew him first. I had him first. I loved him first. He’s mine.

I want them all to know.

Sarah and I both jump when the office door swings open. Rhyson’s hair stands all over his head like he’s been plowing his fingers through it.

“Bris, have you seen—”

“Yeah.” I collapse into the chair behind my desk. “Sarah just showed me.”

“How are we dealing with the calls?” He sits on the edge of the desk, eyeing me with a mixture of caution and sympathy.

“Calls?” I split attention between my brother and my assistant. “Already?”

“I hadn’t gotten to that quite yet.” Sarah winces. “The front desk is flooded. Press, bloggers, news outlets asking for comments on the incident and the . . . status of you and Grip.”

“It’s all a misunderstanding,” I tell them.

In synch, both of them stretch their eyebrows as high as they’ll go. I get it. There’s no mistaking that Grip and I are more than friends in that footage.

“By misunderstanding, I mean that Grip had ended things with Qwest by the time that footage was taken.”

“But they performed at Pirouette together Friday night, and were by all accounts, still together at that point, right?” Rhyson asks.

“They broke up right after the show.” I look at them helplessly. “We didn’t want to hurt her. We wanted to give her some time to process everything and release a statement later. We were being careful.”

“You call this careful?” Rhyson’s sigh is powered by frustration. “How do we handle it? Where’s Grip?”

“Oh his way back from Chicago,” Sarah says. “He caught an earlier flight.”

That’s welcome news to me. Maybe my heart will stop hurting once he walks through that door.

“He needs to address this,” Rhyson says. “‘Queen’ is such a huge part of his brand now, and like it or not, Black women took that as theirs. As an affirmation, and him cheating on Qwest with you—”

“He did not cheat on her.” My voice cracks like a whip. “Are you not hearing me? He broke it off with her before we started . . . seeing each other.”

“I get it. I know your history,” Rhyson sighs. “But from the outside it looks like he cheated.”

“Qwest certainly seems to think so,” Sarah offers, her voice weak.

“This is just one tweet. There’s a series of them and Instagram posts. And there are a few FaceTime Live posts from fans calling Grip a sellout and expressing their disappointment.”

“This will start affecting sales, Bris.” Rhyson shakes his head.

“Sales?” A humorless laugh comes out with my gasp. “You’re thinking about sales?”

“Okay. Let’s just start with you knowing me well enough to assume you and Grip are the most important parts of this for me, okay?” Rhyson’s brow pleats and his mouth flatlines. “Now that we have that established, of course not just sales, but it is our job to protect the interests of the people who’ve invested in this label. The people who make their living from this label. They rise and fall with us, and right now we have one album out. Grip's. So yeah. I have to think about sales.”

“I know, I just . . .” I’ve lost my bearings. There are so many important things competing in my head. I want to strategize about sales. I want to figure out how to correct this PR fiasco. I want to figure out who the hell did this to us. I want to protect Grip. He’s worked too hard and for too long for this to derail his success.

“Yes. You’re right, of course.” I press my head into the supple leather of my seat. “Let me think about this for a second.”

But any strategizing I would do goes right out of my head when Grip walks into my office. The worry in his eyes wrenches my heart. I’m jeopardizing his success. He has to be questioning whether or not this is worth the trouble. Whether I’m worth the trouble.