Grip Trilogy Box Set

When Callie approaches our table, even her NYU hoodie doesn’t disguise the tight, curvy body underneath. Her short hair is rumpled like she’s been running her fingers through it, and she looks tired with shadows under her eyes. Her lashes frame dark eyes that shine with intelligence and curiosity.

“Hey Iz,” she says when she reaches our table and hands him the sleeve with his laptop. “Here ya go.”

There’s an ease to her, like she doesn’t realize she does remark- able things. When Iz introduced her on the first day of class, he said she graduated with honors from Yale. She’s a freaking Rhodes Scholar and is at NYU on some prestigious fellowship. The woman is brilliant, but you’d never know those things just looking at her. She looks like any other student schlepping around campus.

“I pulled some stats on Clem Ford’s business ventures and where they intersect with the prisons he’s invested in, along with some of his more incendiary comments.” She nods to the laptop case. “Slipped the printouts in there for you to look at when you get the chance.”

“You didn’t have to do that, Cal.” Iz frowns and looks uncomfortable for just a moment. “You’re my TA. I don’t expect you to do anything outside of class, and this debate is technically outside the purview.”

“I don’t get technical when I’m passionate about someone.” Her eyes drop to her fingers toying with the strap of her backpack. “I mean . . . about helping someone, about doing something I care about.”

“I know what you meant.” Iz scratches that spot on the back of his neck again. The implications of the tension I’m witnessing between them are still crystallizing in my mind when Callie gives me her attention and requires mine.

“Hey Grip.” Something shifts on her face, in her posture, and she looks even less like the scholar I know her to be and more like a thou- sand other girls who have stuttered when talking to me since I started performing. “I haven’t gotten to tell you, wanted to give you space in class, but I loved your album.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Iz mutters, rolling his eyes.

We both ignore him, and I do what I always do when a fan says something like this: give her my sincerest smile and a few seconds of my time.

“Thanks, Callie.”

“‘Bruise’ was my favorite.” She peels back the sleeve of her sweat- shirt to bare her wrist. “It inspired this.”

Scripted over the fragile skin of her wrist is the most famous lyric I’ve ever written: We all bruise.

“Wow.” I’m dumbfounded. Fans have done some outrageous things to prove how much they love me and my music, but there’s something about this brilliant young woman memorializing my words on her skin that moves me especially. “I don’t know what to say, Callie. I’m incredibly humbled by this, for real.”

“You graduated summa cum laude,” Iz says. “You were a Rhodes Scholar with honors. Fucking Yale. The administration plucked you from three hundred applicants to be my teacher’s assistant this semester and you want, what? Some rapper’s autograph?”

He bends a look of unnecessary apology toward me. “No offense, Grip.”

“None taken.” I laugh. “I am some rapper. I’m a lot richer than you, though. That’s a small consolation.”

“Asshole.” He chuckles and shakes his head at the smartass comeback.

Fortunately, neither of us takes ourselves too seriously, which is probably why we get along so well.

“I can be all those things,” Callie asserts, elevating one eyebrow.

“And still be a fan, still love music, still appreciate a man who stands for something, who distinguishes himself from the rest of the herd and their bullshit. It’s why I wanted to work with you.” She pauses just long enough for her words to sink in before going on. “Was I wrong, Iz?”

The amusement withers on his face, and the current passing between the two of them makes me feel superfluous, like I’m in the way of something that started before I got here, something that has happened before.

“Thanks for bringing my laptop,” Iz says evenly, not addressing her question.

She lopsides him a grin that says, That’s what I thought, turns on her heel, and starts toward the door.

“See you gentlemen in class,” she tosses over her shoulder.

A hundred of my unspoken questions pucker the silence she leaves behind.

“Soooooo . . . have you two—”

“Don’t.” He aims a warning over the rims of his glasses.

I raise my palms up as defense against the intensity of that look. “There was just a vibe, sexual tension or—”

“There’s no sexual anything.” His words slice into the space of the booth separating us. “She’s one step removed from being my student, and I don’t fuck my students.”