Grip Trilogy Box Set - Kennedy Ryan Page 0,255

impassivity of Dr. Hammond’s face as he pulls out his phone to show me his daughter. I see echoes of his features in her expression, but she must look a lot like her mother.

Soft pigtails brush her shoulders, and her snaggle-toothed smile is adorable. I can’t help but wonder what our kids will look like.

“Man, she’s beautiful.” I hand him his phone, already feeling like I know him better just from seeing her.

“Yeah.” His gruff laugh lands in his glass of rum. “Fortunately, she takes after her mother.”

“How long you guys been divorced?”

“Much longer than we were married.” He grimaces. “Let’s just say I was more ready to be a father than I was to be a husband.”

I nod, leaving that alone unless he wants to elaborate. Surprisingly, he does.

“Just be sure, when and if you take that plunge. Being unfaithful . . .” He leaves that comment on the table, polishing his glasses on the hem of his T-shirt, a habit I’ve noticed. “I guess it’s already pretty hard to stay faithful with all the ass that must get thrown your way.”

“Nope.” I shrug and turn my mouth down at the corners. “It’s just Bris for me. If she wasn’t the one, yeah, it’d be hard, but she is, so it’s not.”

It sounds too simple even to me, but I don’t know a better way to say it.

“No side chicks?” Surprise stretches his expression. “Groupies on the road?”

“Nah.” I shake the bottle of Ting over my mouth, teasing the last of it down my throat. “I couldn’t do that to her. Hell, I don’t even want to.”

If there are laws of attraction, she has rewritten them with a one-girl clause. I’m not blind—I notice when a woman is attractive, but actively want? Think about for more than two seconds? Just Bris.

“She must be something else,” Iz says with a smile. “I need to meet this girl.”

“She wants to come hear you at the Prison as Business forum in a few weeks, if she’s in the city. She travels a lot.”

“That should be interesting.” A frown settles between his thick eyebrows. “You know it’s basically a debate between me and Clem Ford.”

“That bigot.” Distaste for the man in question sours my meal and I put down my fork. “He’s making money hand over fist from prison labor.”

“At least he’s honest about his views,” Iz says. “Most of them lobby for longer sentences but never acknowledge the racism and greed underlying those polices. He’s an unapologetic bigot, and his radio show is his bully pulpit. He doesn’t hesitate to say Black and Brown people should be used this way, and he has an army of followers.”

Familiar frustration and anger seethe in my belly. That kind of systemic racism is blatant, and everyone else benefits—the people who lobby for longer sentences for nonviolent crimes, the businessmen exploiting prison labor for next-to-nothing pay, the bigots who believe those injustices are what we deserve. Everybody’s happy except the millions imprisoned, many unjustly, and the families splintered by it.

Iz’s phone buzzing on the table jars me from the thoughts darkening my mood. The name Callie flashes on his phone screen.

“Hey Cal,” he says, glancing at me and lowering his voice. “Yeah. I’m at Ms. Lilly’s with Grip.”

I gesture to a waitress and order another pink Ting while Iz listens.

“You don’t have to do that.” A frown puckers the straight line of his brows. “Okay. If you’re that close, then thanks.”

He ends the call, running his hand over the back of his neck, agitation clear on his face.

“Everything okay?” I ask.

“Yeah, that was my TA. I left my laptop in the lecture hall, and she lives around here. She’s bringing it by.”

“Oh, that’s sweet.”

“Sweet isn’t how I would describe Callie.” He chuckles. “But, yeah, I guess.”

Callista Garcia is a beautiful girl from what I’ve seen of her in class, petite with golden brown skin and a cap of silky dark hair.

“What is she anyway?” I ask.

He stiffens, his glass pausing halfway to his mouth.

“What do you mean what is she?”

“Like nationality.” I cock one brow and watch him more closely. “Ethnicity. She just has a unique look, and I wondered.”

“I think her mother is Dominican and her father is Asian, maybe Japanese, not sure.”

The woman in question walks through the door, and it’s fascinating to watch Iz’s response to her. His fist clenches on the table, and his lips tighten.

When Callie approaches our table, even her NYU hoodie doesn’t disguise the tight, curvy body underneath. Her