Grip Trilogy Box Set - Kennedy Ryan Page 0,14

stretched. As if someone, this man, took the edges of my thoughts and pulled them in new directions, to new proportions.

“Now that I get,” I finally say softly. “You’re right. Those things are more important, and that’s powerful.”

I look up and grin to lighten the moment.

“But don’t think you’ve changed my mind about the N-word. That still doesn’t make sense to me.”

He leans forward with a wide smile, his eyes alive and dark and bright all at once. And I wonder if this is the most stimulating conversation he’s had in a long time. It is for me.

“Is there anything that you don’t completely know how it works or why it works, but you know the rules that govern it?” he asks.

“Um, Twitter?” I laugh, glad when he responds with a smile. “Then the N-word is your Twitter.”

He sits back in his seat, long legs stretched under the table, arms spread on the back of the booth, and a smile in his eyes for me.

“You may have me halfway to understanding that,” I say. “But you will not get me to be okay with the misogyny that is such a part of hip-hop culture.”

“I don’t disrespect women in my lyrics,” he says immediately. “My mom would kill me.”

“Well, maybe I’ll listen to some of your stuff.”

“I feel honored that you would deign to listen to my music.”

I toss a napkin across the table at him, and it bounces harmlessly off his face. He throws it back at me and laughs.

“I mean, for real,” he says. “What kind of self-respecting, white millennial doesn’t listen to hip-hop?”

He laughs when I roll my eyes at him.

“Are you one of those people who thinks hip-hop belongs to Black people?” I ask.

“Of course it does.” He smooths the humor from his expression. “We made it. It’s ours in the same way jazz and the blues and R&B are ours. We innovated, making sound where there was no sound before. The very roots of hip-hop are in West Africa from centuries ago. But we share our shit all the time, so you’re welcome.”

I lift a brow at his ethno-arrogance, but he throws his head back laughing at me, maybe at himself.

“Art, specifically music, is a living thing,” he says. “It isn’t just absorbed by the people who hear it, but it absorbs them. So, we shared hip-hop with the world, and it isn’t just ours anymore. The Beastie Boys heard it. Eminem heard it. Whoever heard it fell in love with it, added to it, and became a part of it.”

“And that’s a good thing?”

“Mostly. If that hadn’t happened, if we hadn’t shared it and someone other than us loved it, it’d still be niche. Underground. Now it’s global, but that wouldn’t have happened if it hadn’t gone main- stream. Mainstream means more opportunities, so I’m all for white, Asian, Hispanic. We need everybody buying hip-hop, because ultimately, it’s about that green.”

He rubs imaginary dollars between his fingers before going on.

“I think some fear that when hip-hop goes mainstream, it’s mixed with other influences. It’s diluted, and I get that, but we have to evolve. That isn’t selling out. That’s survival.”

The way he talks about music and art fascinates me. Rhyson’s talent, his genius, always isolated him from me. I’ve been around musicians all my life, but with no talent of my own, I was always on the outside and couldn’t figure out how to get in. Grip just shared that with me. He let me in.

Before I can dig anymore, Jimmi takes the stage for her performance. And when I say she takes the stage, she takes it. She owns it. She overpowers the small space, and you know she’s something special.

“Wow.” I spoon into the fudge brownie and ice cream I ordered during Jimmi’s set. “She can back those tits up, huh?”

“She definitely can,” Grip says. “And speaking of double standards, I think you have one criticizing hip-hop for its misogyny and then hating on another woman just because she has a great rack. Is it any worse when men judge women’s worth by their looks than when women do it?”

He’s serious. At first, I think he’s joking, but then I realize his eyes hold a subtle rebuke. He’s protective of Jimmi. Maybe they’re together? The thought sours the ice cream in my mouth, and it shouldn’t. I’ve known this guy for all of a couple hours. And he isn’t my type. And I’m leaving in a week.

“I wasn’t judging her.”

His look and the