Well, damn. No wonder I’m horny.
“So what do you think of him?” Jimmi asks. I obviously missed something.
“Huh? Sorry.” I set my hurt feelings and needy libido aside long enough to focus on Jimmi’s pretty face. “Who? What do I think of who?”
“Grip.” Jimmi sneaks me a curious glance. “All girls have thoughts about Grip when they first meet him.”
“Um . . .he’s nice?” I set my drink down and turn my stool to face the wall of bottles behind the bar. “He’s my brother’s best friend. That about sums it up.”
“Oh, the two of them together.” Jimmi fans herself. “They’ve been double trouble since high school.”
She touches my arm, her eyes contrite.
“I’m sorry. That’s your brother I’m talking about. Awkward.” She gives my hand a reassuring pat. “Rhyson’s nowhere near as bad as Grip, though.”
“As bad?” I swirl the contents of my glass without looking at her. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, Grip goes through girls like it’s nothing.” Jimmi lets out a husky laugh. “They’re disposable.”
“I can imagine,” I answer weakly. She’s only echoing what Rhyson already told me. The guy I talked to for hours yesterday doesn’t match the one they’re describing, but they know him better than I do. “But I heard he makes it worth their while.” Jimmi wiggles her eyebrows suggestively. “One of my girls got with him. She says he’s hung like you wouldn’t believe.”
Not what my vagina needs to hear right now. I cross my legs and squirm in my seat, seeking some friction, some release. The alcohol is kicking in, and it only fires the need in me. I imagine all those inches stretching me and … I need to rub up against something.
“Are you not into Black guys?” Jimmi scrunches her nose. “I mean, I have some friends who aren’t. I don’t care. I’d screw a hole in the wall if it could make me come.”
“Wow. That’s a . . .colorful way to say it. No, I’ve never dated a Black guy, but I guess I just never had the opportunity.” I shrug. “I don’t really care.”
Especially if he looked like Grip. I’d take green Grip. Pink Grip. Red Grip. If Grip were a bag of Skittles, I’d eat every one.
“Oh.” Jimmi claps excitedly. “Grip’s gonna perform.”
“He is?” I perk up, spinning around on my stool. Sure enough, he’s on stage with a mic. Under the lights, he seems even taller, even broader.
“What’s good?” Grip spreads his smile around the club. “I don’t get to do this as much as I’d like, but they’re gonna let me spit a few bars for you tonight.”
The cheering and whistles and catcalls explode from the audience.
“I see my reputation precedes me.” Grip chuckles and nods to the drummer in the corner. “Lil’ somethin’ for you.”
I wasn’t lying when I told Grip I don’t listen to rap much. I don’t hate it. I’ve just always been indifferent. I can’t make out half of what they’re saying, and once I know, it’s all bitches and hos and slurs. I wince through half of it and roll my eyes through the rest. It’s just not my favorite music. But Grip is a different breed. I understand every word he says, and I’m hanging on every one. Literally waiting for the next syllable. The images he paints are so vivid that, if I closed my eyes, they’d be spray painted on the back of my eyelids. I’d be drowning in color, floating in sound. The richness of his voice floods the room, and I realize he has us all rapt. We’re eating his words, a feeding frenzy of imagination. He’s a storyteller and a poet.
I feel the same as I did listening to Rhyson growing up. Like the sun and the moon were in my house. Like I was a part of Rhyson’s great galaxy, and he was the star. Grip is a star. Sweeping floors and doing all the things he does to survive are all just dues he’s paying. He’s lightning in a beautiful bottle, just waiting to strike. A pending storm. He’s hypnotizing. Intoxicating. I’m as buzzed off him as I am
off my Grey Goose.
“He’s good, right?” Jimmi grins at me knowingly. “I felt the same way the first time I heard him. It’s his writing. His stuff is so much deeper than most of what’s out there. He’s really saying something.”
“Yeah.” I clear my throat and try to appear less mesmerized. “He’s really good. Wow.”
“Don’t look now, but we aren’t the only ones who think so.” She nudges me with her elbow and inclines her head toward a group of girls clustering around Grip. “Did you ride with Grip?”
“Uh, yeah.” I can’t force my eyes away from where he sits on the edge of the stage, girls buzzing around him. He did say you catch more bees with honey.
Or, in his case, chocolate.
“I may be taking you home,” she says with a slight smile. “Those are what I like to call ‘ground floor groupies’. They see his potential same as we do, and some of them want in on the action before the rest of the world gets a taste of him.”
My muscles lock up as I watch several girls stroke his arms and press against his side. That he doesn’t see through it makes me sick, souring my high after his performance.