Flow (Grip, #0.5)

by Kennedy Ryan

That thought fizzles out when my eyes land on the girl standing right in front of me. Shit. Black skinny jeans cling to long, lean legs that start at Monday and stretch all the way through next week.

“Bristol,” I say her name with confidence because I can already tell that’s the only thing she’ll respond to.

You don’t dream other people’s nightmares.

She reaches for the handle, and her hand rests on top of mine. Both our eyes drop to where her slim fingers contrast with my rougher, larger ones. You know that electric tingle people talk about? That thing that zips up your spine like a tiny shock when your hands first touch? That isn’t this touch. It isn’t electric. It’s something that … simmers. A heat that kind of seethes under my skin for a second and then explodes into a solar flare.

so I stayed home with a nanny who made sure I ate, went to school, and had a “normal” childhood. As normal as your childhood can be when your parents barely remember you exist.

It hurts to feel so connected to someone who obviously doesn’t feel as connected to me.

Darla giggles but still doesn’t ask for his ID. “The new craft coming up.” “Well, that was sad for women everywhere,” I mumble. “Don’t blame Darla.” Grip’s cheeky grin foreshadows whatever outrageous thing he’s about to say. “Blame all this chocolate charm.”

“I can fight a dude who calls me the N-word,” he says. “It’s harder to fight a whole system stacked against me.”

“I wasn’t judging her.” His look and the twist of his lips say otherwise. “Okay, maybe I was judging her a little bit.” I laugh and am glad when he laughs, too. “She’s a pretty girl, and sometimes they get a bad rap.” “They?” Grip lifts his thick brows. “Do you not realize how beautiful you are?”

I FIGURED RHYSON’S sister would be attractive. I mean, they’re twins, and he’s one of those guys girls trip all over themselves for. And I knew she went to an Ivy League college, so of course she’s smart. But Bristol is all kinds of things I could not have anticipated or prepared for. Her curiosity, her authenticity, and her honesty hook something in me and draw me closer.

We both gave each other space to be misunderstood, because we really wanted to understand.

I look at her, cataloging her features one by one and realizing the most fascinating thing about this girl isn’t visible to the naked eye.

I learned early on that people aren’t careful with your emotions. They’re too self-involved to consider how their actions affect others.

I used to be afraid I’d be like my parents, careless. Now, I fear that I care too much about people who don’t give a damn.

My mother probably never even knew one of my teachers’ names in school. I’m the “privileged” one, considering our wealth growing up, but I feel positively deprived as Grip talks about the active role his mother took in his upbringing, in his life.

Grip leans back, considering me from under heavy eyelids. “I don’t care what color a girl is. I like the color of smart, the shade of funny, and sexy is my favorite hue.”

“So what color am I then?” I ask before thinking better of it. He’ll probably just say I’m white, obviously. “What color are you?” he repeats, his eyes never leaving my face. “You, Bristol, are a freaking prism.”

Bristol … she would eat you slowly, savor you in delicate bites until there’s nothing left of you but an empty plate. And then she would lick her fingers.

The seconds stretch into a minute as they stare at each other, taking in the face so like their own, but so completely different. “You look . . .” Rhyson tilts his head, studying his sister with sober eyes. “You’re beautiful, Bris.”

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.

We have this silent pact to let him come to it on his own. He has to after what he endured for years under his parents’ tyrannical management. But Bristol, who hasn’t even seen him in five years, does it. She’s so sure it’s right that she’s betting her Ivy League education on it. She’s planning her future around it. She’s challenging him in a way none of us were willing to do. And that’s my kind of girl. That abandoned passion. That bottomless commitment. You don’t meet people like her often, and when you do, you never forget them.

There are too few perfect moments in this life. Far too few of us get them, but I am privileged to have this one with this man. When he empties his chest of his heart and empties his body of his soul for me under a starry sky on a Ferris wheel. And I know. In this moment, I know that I’m lost to him. It has been a matter of days. It has been a string of moments. It has not been long enough to tell him, but in my heart, I know I am lost.

The inches between our lips disappear. At the first brush of his mouth on mine, I know this kiss will never end. It will live on in my memory for the rest of my life.

At the top of the world, so close we could almost touch the sky and with only the stars watching, I found out what a kiss should be.

Mr. Chocolate Charm himself can’t get up the nerve to ask a girl if she really likes him.

We’re not too far out, but I don’t see or hear the others as I turn to face her. The night cloaks her. There isn’t enough moonlight to see her clearly, but I sense her. I sense her craving because it matches mine.

Her kiss woos me in the water. Her fingers on my skin are poetry. Her lips, prose. The rhythm of her heart against mine, iambic. Every touch, eloquence.

“You come back to me, okay?” he whispers in my ear. “Slow doesn’t mean stop, right?”