Grip Trilogy Box Set - Kennedy Ryan Page 0,271

“The community bail fund program.”

Surprise widens his eyes behind his glasses, and he tosses his red pen onto the chaos of his desk.

“Man, I wanted your opinion, not your money.”

“Well you got both. Where are your beta cities?” I ask. “You say you’ll launch it in five major cities—which ones are you considering?”

“LA is definitely on the list.” His deep chuckle fills the small office. “If that’s your next question.”

“Now I really want in.” I take a deep breath. “But I want a seat at the table, not just somewhere to throw my money.”

“What does that mean exactly?” Iz takes off his glasses and polishes them on the hem of his Morehouse College T-shirt.

“With your organization, is there any room on the board of directors for a ridiculously rich budding philanthropist who needs to learn the ropes?” The question comes easily, but I’m holding my breath. I want this—as much as I wanted my first record deal, as much as I wanted studio time so badly I swept the floors for it. The only thing I’ve ever wanted more than this was Bristol. I got her, and I’m getting this, too.

“For a man with your resources,” he says, leaning back in his chair and steepling his fingers at his chest. “That could be arranged.”

“For real?” I don’t want to sound eager, but the chance to pour my energy into something that will have immediate impact on the community where I grew up? Hell yeah, I’m eager.

“For real.” Iz nods. “And when I say your resources, I’m not just talking about your money, Grip. You’re a smart guy—principled, articulate. You have a level of influence, a platform no amount of money could buy.”

Iz’s words affirm me in a way I don’t think I ever have been, in a way I don’t think I knew I needed. It feels different than the things my mother told me growing up. He may not be old enough to be my father, and I may not have known him very long, but there’s no one else I respect more. That was one of the few things Angie Black and I did agree on.

“By the way,” I say, turning the subject partially to avoid the emotions his encouragement elicited. “Not sure if you caught that panel I was on last week, but Angie Black was singing your praises.”

He picks his pen back up to resume grading papers, his forehead crinkling into a frown.

“Yeah, I saw it.” It feels like the words are being pulled from his mouth with pliers. “As much as we’d talked about your girl, I never thought to ask if she was a sister. I just assumed.”

“And I never thought to mention it because it doesn’t matter.” I suck my teeth then grit them. “I can’t believe Angie turned what should have been a thoughtful, productive dialogue into a circus, and she had the nerve to question my commitment to these causes because my girlfriend is white. How ridiculous is that?”

He’s especially preoccupied with the papers in front of him. He doesn’t acknowledge my statement with even a grunt, and suddenly I need him to.

“Right, Iz?” I press. “The idea that my effectiveness is compromised somehow because Bristol is white—it’s bullshit, right?”

He doesn’t lift his eyes from the page in front of him. “Well, you do like to make it hard for yourself, don’t you?”

Tension stretches across my back like a wire hanger. “What does that mean?”

“It’s just an awkward time to be talking black and sleeping white.” He shrugs the linebacker shoulders rebelling against his tweed sports jacket with patches on the elbows. “To be dating someone outside your community when you’re emerging as such a voice for it.”

The smartest man I know just said some dumb shit.

“You see those two things as somehow incongruous?” My question is laced with dread as I brace myself for the man I saw as a hero to show his feet of clay.

“I just think a lot of successful brothers do what you’re doing.” He finally meets my eyes, tossing the pen down again. “You probably don’t even realize that you’ve been societally conditioned to see the white woman as the ideal. On some level, winning the white man’s prize is a symbol that you are now equal to him. You acquire her as an extension of your success.”

“Acquire her?” I throw my voice across the desk like a blade, honed and precise.

“It’s natural really,” he continues matter-of-factly. “It’s the ultimate act of defiance against those