“You’re right, Ms. James. I don’t know how it’s been for you, for your family. Our challenges may be different, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t known struggle. I may have grown up with plenty of money, but I know what it’s like not to have.”
My mother’s coldness, my father’s infidelities, my brother’s distance all mock me, reminding me that no one in my family ever wanted me as badly as I wanted them.
I look at Grip’s mother frankly, openly, a small smile pulling at my lips.
“I was so nervous coming here today,” I tell her, my voice barely clearing a whisper. “I wanted you to like me. I didn’t want to say or do the wrong thing to offend you, but now I understand that it isn’t about anything I say or do. You’re offended by who I am, by the things I can’t change about myself. As I listened to you, I heard a pain that, you’re right, I’ve never experienced. And for a moment, I said maybe they’re right. Maybe Grip does need to be with someone like Qwest, but that was only for a moment.”
I lift my chin, will it not to wobble, and will my words not to shake.
“Grip told me he wanted you to meet the real Bristol. Well, the real Bristol doesn’t give up on the people she loves.” I shrug, biting the inside of my jaw and blink rapidly, but a tear still escapes down my cheek even though I swipe at it impatiently. “I don’t know how to. I can’t stop loving your son. You wonder if I’ll leave him. I won’t, and if he leaves me he knows I’ll probably chase him.”
I allow myself to glance at Grip, but his familiar grin is not there. His eyes are sober, and I can’t gauge his thoughts.
“And Qwest may understand where Grip is from, where he’s been, better than I do. I can work on that. I will work on that.” I look back to Ms. James. “But I know where he’s going, and wherever he’s going, I’m going with him. So, you and I should get used to each other because I’ll be around.”
I call on the impeccable manners of Miss Pierce’s Finishing School.
“Thank you again for a lovely dinner, Ms. James,” I say. “If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll wait in the car.”
I brush past Grip, who’s probably going to skin me alive for talking to his mother that way. I rush down the short hall decorated with pictures of Grip from infanthood through high school, through the living room, down the cracked pavement, and to the car. When I yank the door handle, I realize my grand exit can only be so grand with the doors locked.
I’m not sure if Grip will be another five minutes or twenty, but I’m determined not to go back in there, even though I fidget when a few neighbors stare at me leaning against
the passenger door. He emerges almost immediately, swift strides eating up the space between the black- barred door to the Range Rover. His face is grim as he clicks the remote to open the car. I scramble to get in and away from any prying eyes. Grip climbs behind the wheel, draws and releases a deep breath, and pulls away from the curb without looking my way once. The quiet is killing me slowly, like Chinese water torture, but with drops of silence.
“Grip, I—”
“Don’t.” His voice comes husky and heavy. “Not yet.”
I swallow my hurt. People say they want the real you, but when you give it to them, they reject you. I should know that by now. I’ve encountered it all my life, but I hoped it would be different with the man I loved. And I do love Grip. He can be angry with me. He can give me the silent treatment. He can try to shut me out, but there’s no way he’s getting rid of me. He thinks he loves me? He hasn’t met a love like mine. My love is Pandora’s box. Grip snapped my hinges and pried me open. He let this love out. My love has a wild streak. Good luck trying to tame it.
I didn’t pay attention on the way here, but I do recognize we’re not getting on the 5. Just two minutes from his mother’s, Grip pulls behind a building that seems completely abandoned.
He’s quiet, eyeing his hands on the wheel. I brace myself for his anger, his displeasure. I don’t know what I expect to see when he finally glances over at me, but it isn’t the look on his face. A look that says he loves me. A look that says he’s proud of me. He says so much with just a look, but I want the words. And after a few moments he gives them to me.
“That was amazing,” he says softly. “You’re amazing. There’s nobody else I’d choose.”
Relief and gratification burst in my chest and push out on a long breath.
“You’re not . . .” I swallow the lump that’s refused to leave my throat since I heard the truth of what they thought about us, about me. “You’re not mad?”
“At you?” He rests his elbows on the steering wheel and drops his head into his hands. “If anything, I’m mad at myself. I was so eager for you and my mom to . . .”
He trails off, shaking his head and grabbing my hand, linking our fingers on the middle console.
“I messed up.” His eyes offer an apology. “I put you and my mother in an awkward situation. I should have handled it differently.”
“It’s okay. Hopefully in time . . .” A fragile laugh slips from me. “Like I said, I’m not going anywhere.”
Grip’s tender smile reaches across the small space separating us, and he kisses my fingers meshed with his. The brush of his lips drops feathers in my belly. I pull in a breath to suppress the shivers even that soft touch sets off across my skin.
Grip’s smile fades, and the air thickens between us, making it harder to breathe. He leans across the console, takes my chin between two fingers, and kisses me, softly at first. As soon as I open, inviting him into me, his mouth demands my surrender. With a needy moan, I open my heart wider, taking as much of him in as I can. The kiss becomes compulsive, something I couldn’t stop if I tried. My lips, my hands, seeking and hungry. His response, possessive, ravenous.
Grip hauls me over the middle console, squeezing me between his chest and the steering wheel, fitting my thighs on either side of him, shoving my dress up around my waist to expose my lacy panties. His hand wrings in my hair, pulls my head back, holds me still.
“I love you.” His eyes probe mine so long I’m sure he plucks my thoughts from my mind, the emotions from my heart. “What you did back there, what you said . . .”
He presses his lips to mine, groaning against my mouth, his tongue diving in over and over until my head is spinning. I hold onto him, my arms clamped about his neck. He digs into my hips, urging me over him in a rolling rhythm, in the groove he sets. I assume the pace, riding the hot beam of flesh and steel behind his zipper. He lifts me to capture my breast through the thin cotton. He doesn’t nibble at me like a delicacy. He gobbles at my nipple, pinching with his lips, nipping with his teeth. He shoves the collar aside with his chin, suck- ling me, singeing me through the sheer layer of my bra for long seconds before pulling my arms out of the dress, leaving it a strip of bunched material encircling my waist. He jerks the bra straps down to cage my elbows and finally takes my naked breast into his mouth.