Grip Trilogy Box Set - Kennedy Ryan Page 0,129

That he alone is her dream. The note of possession, the inextricably linked futures, speak to me, especially with Parker’s possessive claims still ringing in my ears. I would never belong to him, but how would it feel to love someone so deeply you relinquish yourself that way? To embrace the responsibility of them belonging to you. And to know whatever the future holds, you face it together. Whatever you accomplish, you celebrate together. When there is pain, you endure it together. I’m not sure I’ll ever know.

Grip’s scrawled note written to the side in black Sharpie cuts my heart.

Bristol, never forget our ocean. Remember our last night together. Your dream was inside my dream. Please believe that I would never hurt you. Give me a chance to explain. I need that second chance.

I can’t read anymore. Not that I need to. I’ve read each poem, each note countless times since he mailed this book to me. By then I understood the curse I carried in my blood. Loving too deeply, too fiercely, too wholly. A love like that for the wrong man would ruin you.

I’m about to replace the book of poems when something silver in the drawer caches my eye. It’s a cheap whistle, tarnished by age. I pull it out by the discolored string from which it dangles. I don’t have to blow it to hear its piercing shrill. It’s as sharp and clear in my head as the smell of funnel cake and the cool night air on my face at the top of a Ferris wheel.

I fall back into my bed, placing the whistle and the book of poems on the pillow beside me. They’re like artifacts from another age that was marked with the promise of love. Marred with the agony of loss. It wasn’t eons ago. It wasn’t a light year away. It was eight years, and now the man who scrawled in these margins and presented this whistle to me like a piece of his heart, is cutting me out completely. This is all I have left of that night, of those days. Of the man who begged me to never forget.

Chapter 20

GRIP

MY BODY HAS no idea which damn time zone it’s in. I couldn’t sleep last night, but it wasn’t the jet lag. I kept thinking about the interaction with Bristol on the tarmac. Something’s off with Charles Parker. When Bristol jerked away from him, I knew it. I think I’ve known, but that one moment confirmed the suspicion I hadn’t allowed to fully form until yesterday. I tried to dismiss it as a lover’s quarrel, but I still found myself standing in front of them on the tarmac, prepared to punch Parker if he grabbed her like that again, even with that meathead security guard standing there.

I check my playlist one last time. Typically when celebrities deejay, there’s little pressure to be any good. They don’t have to actually know what they’re doing. All they have to do is pick great songs and press play. But I used to live by the spin. Deejaying in between the songs I would write for other artists kept a roof over my head and ramen noodles in the pantry.

“We ready?” Hector asks from the floor.

I save the playlist I have loaded on the laptop set up for tonight before hopping down off the stage to join him.

“Yep, let’s get it.”

“You laced tonight, bruh.” Hector points to my feet. “I heard your shoe game was beast. Which ones are those?”

“The Space Jam Blackouts.” I grin and bow at the waist. “I broke out the classics for your grand opening.”

“I feel honored.” He laughs and looks around the stage. “Where’s Qwest? She here?”

“Yeah, she’s already in our dressing room and we’ve sound checked.”

I look around the mostly empty club for anyone from my team. Sarah is at a table, her curious eyes glued to the scantily clad strippers onstage rehearsing their routines.

“Hey, let me introduce you to Sarah from the label.” I start across the room with Hector falling into step beside me. “If you need anything tonight, she’ll be your contact.”

“Not Bristol?” Mischief sparks in Hector’s eyes. “Does Qwest know you’re sprung for your manager?”

“Shut up, man.” I shoot him an annoyed glance that just makes him chuckle.

I’m more annoyed that he brought up my dilemma with Qwest than I am that he peeped my feelings for Bristol. I’m getting through this performance, and then I’m ending things with Qwest tonight. I have to.