Grip Trilogy Box Set - Kennedy Ryan Page 0,269

own shot now, and I love seeing her take full advantage of it.

The ever-present Raiders cap is on the floor by her feet. Her head, hair sectioned into cornrows, is bent over a notepad. The guy she’s talking to, Skeet, an old friend who needs other people’s lyrics, notices me at the door before Jade does.

“What’s up, superstar?” He crosses over, daps me up, and surveys me thoroughly. I know what he sees. My clothes are casual in that deliberate, understated way you have to pay a lot of money for. We started from the bottom together, but I kept rising, and he keeps slip- ping. I hope Jade’s clever flow can help him.

“What’s good, Skeet?” I ask, wishing I didn’t know him well enough to recognize the calculating light in his eyes.

“You on the come up.” His laugh is a prelude to the question I see coming a mile off. “When you gon’ put me on? Let me spit on a track. I need some of that Top 40, double platinum love.”

“We’ll see.” My smile is super-glued in place, not slipping a millimeter. “I’m not really recording right now, at least not for myself.”

“Oh yeah. I heard you and Qwest in the booth again.” Calculation becomes speculation. “I saw that panel Angie Black put on, by the way. That was messed up, man.”

I shrug, unwilling to give him anything more to work with and tired of talking about it.

“Nothing I haven’t heard before. Won’t be the last time somebody comes at me with ignorant shit like that.”

My eyes find Jade, who sits on the couch across from the sound board, tossing her cap from hand to hand. She knows I’m here to see her, and she’s just waiting for Skeet to figure it out.

“A’ight, bruh,” I say, patting his back. “I need to holla at Jade for a minute. You mind?”

“Nah. We were just going over some notes before the engineers get here for the track we’re recording tonight.” He grabs a bag of weed from the sound board and heads for the door. “I’mma go burn one. Take your time.”

He turns at the door, smiling at Jade.

“And thanks for hooking me up with your cousin,” he says. “Her shit’s the bomb.”

He leaves behind a silence thick with my displeasure and Jade’s curiosity.

“Yo, what’s good, cuz?” She pounds my fist, scooting over so I can sit on the couch beside her. “Thought you were still in New York.”

“I was, but I came to get Bristol. We’re flying back tonight.”

Irritation flashes across her face before she can hide it. I really thought we were gaining ground, but I realize now she believes Bristol is an itch that, once scratched, will be gone. She’s just been biding her time.

“I’m glad to see you working with Skeet.” I slouch into the cushy leather worn to buttery softness during many late-night recording sessions. “He needs the help.”

“Yeah, his stuff was whack.” Jade keeps a straight face for a few seconds before sharing a grin with me. It makes her look younger, carefree, and I glimpse that girl who used to ride bikes with me until the streetlights came on. It’s for that girl that I want to be gentle.

“I need you to try with Bristol, J.” I cut the small talk and get right to it, my voice soft enough to persuade, but firm enough to insist.

“And what’d Miss Run Tell Dat say?” She twists her lips into a grimace. “I knew she couldn’t keep her mouth—”

“She didn’t.” I’m losing patience the more Jade lets her resentment show. “I had to drag it out of her, what was bothering her.”

“And it was me?” Jade touches her chest. “I’m what’s bothering her when I haven’t even talked to her?”

“Not since my going away party, right? She finally told me about the conversation you had in the kitchen.”

“I didn’t tell her anything Angie Black didn’t say in front of the whole world,” Jade snaps. “When you gonna realize Bristol is not for you? You have an opportunity to make a difference, and being with her is ruining it.”

“Ruining it how?”

“How much can Black lives really matter when you fucking a snowflake?” A disparaging puff of air coasts past her lips. “We supposed to respect that? Just get rid of her and find someone like Qwest, that’s all I’m saying.”

That’s all? Jade says it easily, like it should be self-evident, like giving up Bristol shouldn’t break me, when it would. How can she think she knows