Grip Trilogy Box Set

“Is this my anniversary present?” I lean back in the bucket seat of Bristol’s convertible. “Because I read that year one is paper. Is this paper?”

“Um . . . in a way.” The mischief in Bristol’s voice tells me nothing except that she enjoys having the upper hand—for once.

We come to a stop, and my senses automatically go on higher alert. I sniff the air, wondering if we’re going to a restaurant.

“You told me your mom says you have extra senses from growing up in Compton,” Bristol says, a smugness in her voice that I fully plan to fuck out of her when we get home. “How are all those extra senses serving you right about now?”

I sniff again, pulling in deeper draws of air.

“I sense that you’re wet and you want me to fuck you,” I say with a straight face. “How am I doing so far?”

The silence that follows my outrageous comment has my shoulders shaking because even though I was just joking, I know I’m totally right.

“Bastard,” Bristol mutters before I hear the driver’s door open and slam closed.

My head jerks around when my door swings open, and I do smell her. The unique clean scent that is Bristol’s invades my nostrils, and I want to sniff her like a stalker as she leads me by the arm along what I think is a sidewalk. Don’t ask me how I know, but when you grow up with so little grass and nothing but asphalt, your feet know sidewalk when they meet it. A bell dings over a door, and I’m pretty sure . . .

“I smell Mexican.”

The blindfold is wrenched from my eyes, and I come face to face with Mateo.

“You’re half right,” he says with a grin. “The other half is black, on my mama’s side. Blaxican!”

I glance around the tattoo shop where I’ve always gotten my ink. Bristol is already seated, a satisfied smirk on her face and an empanada halfway to her mouth.

“Mateo told me his dad has a taco shop around the corner,” Bristol says around a mouthful. “And I thought this would be a perfect meal for our anniversary.”

“When you said you’d handle our first anniversary dinner,” I say, sitting down in the chair beside her, “I kind of envisioned something a little more upscale.”

I shoot my friend a remorseless glance. “No offense, Matty.”

“I got you, ese.” He leans against the counter that holds the cash register. “But your wife knows what she wants.”

Wife.

Bristol has been my wife for a year. It feels like yesterday and it feels like forever, like we’re just getting started, and like we know each other more deeply than I ever thought possible. I want to slow the hours down because it’s going too fast. One day I’ll wake up and be at the end of this journey, like Mrs. O’Malley, and even after a lifetime with Bristol, I’ll bargain with God for one more day.

“I had an idea for an anniversary gift to each other.” Bristol wipes the corners of her mouth with a paper napkin. “Something that will last all our lives.”

“I’m guessing it’s a tattoo,” I say, looking around Matty’s tattoo parlor.

“You’re very astute without the blindfold. I’m almost done eating so I can go first.”

I frown because she has one beautiful tattoo on her shoulder of the Neruda line that galvanized our connection years ago, and I need to sign off on anything else. I mean, I have tattoos all over, but I’m a lot more careful with Bristol’s body than I am with my own.

“What kind of tattoo are you getting?”

“You mean what kind of tattoo are we getting?” She reaches into her purse and hands me a sketch. “This one.”

It’s a pair of hands, one masculine and one feminine. Banding each ring finger is Matty’s trademark calligraphy of the word still. The letters wrap around each finger, sketched to look like delicate vine.

“You like it?” Bristol asks, her voice soft, uncertain.

After the wedding, she requested that I give her my vows, my poem “STILL,” in writing. I know she added it to a box where she keeps our memories—the leather book of Neruda poetry, the tarnished whistle from the carnival, and now the vows I wrote for her. I know

“STILL” holds significance, but I never saw this coming.

“You want to tattoo this on our fingers?” I ask, just to make sure I’m clear. “The word still?”