He’s so certain. He never wavers in his love for me, in his certainty that we belong together no matter what anyone ever says. I’m ashamed again that I let Jade’s words, Angie’s criticisms, and Qwest just being Qwest make me doubt even a little bit.
“And you’re mine,” he adds.
“You better believe it,” I agree with a smile. “But speaking of our current home, aren’t you supposed to be in New York? In class?”
“I skipped.”
I know how much he loves Dr. Hammond’s class and what this time means to him. That he would miss that class speaks volumes.
“You skipped class?” I ask, my mouth hanging open.
He’s told me a hundred—a thousand times how much he loves me, but that girl who moped around a deserted mansion while her family traveled the world without her, the one who crouched beyond her brother’s rehearsal room listening to the magic of his music, looking for a way in, she still treasures being the most important thing to someone as incredible as Grip.
“You came for me.” I cup his jaw, my voice and my heart softening the longer we’re together.
Grip cups my face, too, his rough palm a welcome abrasion, his eyes intent.
“I’ll always come for you. You should know that by now.” He bends to press our foreheads together, his words misting my lips. “I have no pride when it comes to you, to this. I’ll chase you anywhere.”
I don’t have words for how secure and completely adored that makes me feel, so I don’t speak. I shift my head, my lips clinging to his, just for a moment. I deepen the heated contact of our mouths until our tongues move in tandem, tangling, wrestling, tasting.
“Don’t run from me again.” He breathes the words into my mouth and his fingers clench in my hair. Though just a whisper, they arrest me, an imperative that grabs me by the heart.
Chapter 16
Grip
THERE’S a certain sense of rightness seeing Jade in the studio, not the way she used to come, her eyes lit with a hidden jealousy for my success, a nurtured resentment that the shot I got—the scholarship to a performing arts school—could have been hers. She has her 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.”