Grip Trilogy Box Set - Kennedy Ryan Page 0,131

she doesn’t speak to me. Jimmi bounces a glance between the two of us but doesn’t comment on how tight the air is around us. Jimmi knows the score. She knows I’ve always had it bad for Bristol.

“Can you even believe this?” Jimmi’s blue eyes soften, losing some of their usual cynicism. “When we were at the School of the Arts painting backdrops for musicals and dreaming of making it big, we had no idea. You, me, Rhyson, Luke. It’s crazy.”

“Right.” I shake my head. “I still wake up some mornings thinking I’m supposed to be sweeping studio floors and rent’s past due.”

“Same here!” Jimmi’s laugh mixes with the heavy beat of the Future song playing in the club. “I still have my name badge from Mick’s.”

“I would have starved those first few years without all the free food you hooked me up with from that place.”

“Like your mom would ever let you starve.” Jimmi turns to Bris- tol, who has been considering the stage intently ever since I walked over. “That’s where we first met, Bris.”

“Huh?” Bristol turns slightly glazed eyes to Jimmi. “Sorry, what?”

“Bris, what planet are you on tonight?” Jimmi bumps Bristol’s shoulder with hers. “Grip and I were just talking about the good old days. Remember how we met at Mick’s that first day you came for spring break? Grip brought you to lunch.”

“You had on a bikini top and heels and cut-offs.” Bristol scrunches her nose, her throaty laugh rich with affection. “You were such a skank.”

“Yeah, well you were an uptight asshole prude.” Jimmi leans into Bristol, her grin wide. “Who thought she was better than everyone else.”

“I totally was.” Bristol’s mouth opens in a silent laugh. “I totally did.”

“And Grip kept looking at you like he’d discovered chocolate.” Jimmi bends at the waist, laughter shaking her shoulders.

The humor drains from Bristol’s face. The club is so dark I almost miss the anger, the residue of hurt in Bristol’s eyes from our argument.

“No, he didn’t,” Bristol murmurs into her vodka martini.

Yeah, I actually did.

Jimmi grabs Bristol’s drink and gulps down most of it.

“Hmmm. That’s good. I shoulda been drinking that.” She licks her lips and wiggles the nearly empty glass before handing it back to Bristol. “Be a doll and get me one.”

Bristol leans back, catches the bartender’s eye, points to her glass, and then holds up two fingers.

“I was looking for you earlier, Bris,” I say.

“Why?” Over the rim of her martini glass she spears me like the toothpick through the olive in her drink.

“You’re just usually early, and I didn’t see you.”

“Didn’t Sarah take care of you?” She cocks one brow. “I thought that’s what you wanted.”

“Bristol, yeah, but we need to talk about—”

“I could totally do that, Jim,” Bristol cuts over my comment, gesturing with her glass toward the strippers onstage.

“Do what?” I demand, deciding not to pursue the Sarah conversation right now.

“Yeah, do what?” Jimmi asks.

“That upside-down move she’s doing and make my ass clap,” Bristol says, taking a sip of the new drink the bartender just gave her.

“Me, too.” Jimmi sips on hers. “It isn’t as hard as it looks. The one girl in the red . . . what was her name, Bristol?”

“Champagne,” Bristol says. “I’m pretty sure she said her name was Champagne. It was something . . . festive.”

“I think you’re right.” Jimmi tilts her head, her eyes never leaving Champagne as she hangs upside down on the pole, legs straight in the air. “Though they are rather athletic and well-trained, you must admit. I think one day stripping will be an Olympic sport.”

“If strippers were men,” Bristol says with an inordinate amount of conviction. “It already would be.”

“There are male strippers,” I remind her.

Bristol’s withering glance makes me want to guard my testicles. “Don’t you have a performance to get ready for?” She looks past my shoulder. “Where’s your girlfriend? I almost didn’t recognize you without her in your lap.”

“Is she clingy?” Jimmi whisper-shouts as if I’m not standing right there listening. “I hate clingy girls.”

“Clingy like ivy.” Bristol stares into her drink, her mouth sullen. “Like a particularly aggressive strain of rabid ivy.”

“Don’t talk about her that way,” I say. “She doesn’t deserve that, Bristol, and you of all people should know that.”

“Oh, me of all people?” Bristol leans across Jimmi until her nose almost touches mine. “Why me of all people?”

“You know why,” I grit out.

“Why?” Jimmi interjects, round eyes ping ponging between Bristol and me.

“I didn’t make you fuck her,” Bristol snaps.