Grip Trilogy Box Set

“I was, but I came to get Bristol. We’re flying back tonight.”

Irritation flashes across her face before she can hide it. I really thought we were gaining ground, but I realize now she believes Bristol is an itch that, once scratched, will be gone. She’s just been biding her time.

“I’m glad to see you working with Skeet.” I slouch into the cushy leather worn to buttery softness during many late-night recording sessions. “He needs the help.”

“Yeah, his stuff was whack.” Jade keeps a straight face for a few seconds before sharing a grin with me. It makes her look younger, carefree, and I glimpse that girl who used to ride bikes with me until the streetlights came on. It’s for that girl that I want to be gentle.

“I need you to try with Bristol, J.” I cut the small talk and get right to it, my voice soft enough to persuade, but firm enough to insist.

/> “And what’d Miss Run Tell Dat say?” She twists her lips into a grimace. “I knew she couldn’t keep her mouth—”

“She didn’t.” I’m losing patience the more Jade lets her resentment show. “I had to drag it out of her, what was bothering her.”

“And it was me?” Jade touches her chest. “I’m what’s bothering her when I haven’t even talked to her?”

“Not since my going away party, right? She finally told me about the conversation you had in the kitchen.”

“I didn’t tell her anything Angie Black didn’t say in front of the whole world,” Jade snaps. “When you gonna realize Bristol is not for you? You have an opportunity to make a difference, and being with her is ruining it.”

“Ruining it how?”

“How much can Black lives really matter when you fucking a snowflake?” A disparaging puff of air coasts past her lips. “We supposed to respect that? Just get rid of her and find someone like Qwest, that’s all I’m saying.”

That’s all? Jade says it easily, like it should be self-evident, like giving up Bristol shouldn’t break me, when it would. How can she think she knows me and not realize that losing Bristol would crush me?

“You still think she’s a trophy or a phase I’ll grow out of, don’t you?” I lean forward to study her face in case it tells me something different than her words do.

She just looks at me, the damn right so clear on her face, she doesn’t bother voicing it. I reach into the pocket of my leather jacket.

“Does this look like a phase to you?” I open my palm, exposing the large square canary yellow diamond I picked up before I went to the set of Luke’s show. Jade glares at the ring like the lights bouncing off the facets taunt her.

“You really doing this?” she grits out. “Wait’ll Aunt Mittie sees that.”

“Oh, she saw it.” I slip the ring back into the safety of my pocket. “When she helped me pick it out. Now all she talks about is swirl grandbabies.”

“You’re gonna have kids with her?” Disgust wrinkles the smooth surface of Jade’s face.

Now she’s pissing me the hell off.

“Yeah, I’m gonna have kids with her,” I snap. “As many as she’ll give me. And fuck you for making it sound like some kind of violation. I found somebody I love and want to spend the rest of my life with.”

“Oh, everybody says forever in the beginning.”

“We’ve been through this before, Jade. It is forever with us.”

Jade rolls her eyes and shoves the Raiders cap over her cornrows, resignation wrestling with protest in her expression.

“Listen to me.” I take both her hands in mine and look at her until she looks back at me. “I will choose her over you.”

Her lashes drop and blink several times, a frown drawing her brows together.

“And if you can’t get over this bigoted shit, you won’t be in our lives.”

Her eyes fly to my face, widen and then narrow.

“I love you, Jade. You know that, but you need to understand something: anyone who wants to hurt Bristol has to go through me to get to her.”

I pause meaningfully before finishing.