Flow (Grip, #0.5)

by Kennedy Ryan

“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 mean, for real,” he says. “What kind of self-respecting, white millennial doesn’t listen to hip-hop?” He laughs when I roll my eyes at him.

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

“The way you’re looking at that empanada is very Lord of the Flies. Like I might have to fight you for it. Like it’s the conch.”

I will not think about him showing me his. I wonder, not for the first time today, if I packed my good vibrators.

I like the color of smart, the shade of funny, and sexy is my favorite hue.”

Musicians, sometimes the art takes so much from us and we don’t know how to save enough for the people around us. We pour so much into it, it’s isolating, especially for Rhyson. He was a kid. Dealing with more shit than most adults ever have to. The kind of pressure that had him popping pills just to survive it.”

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.

This kiss has a cadence, his head moving to the left and then right, on beat, a syncopation, a simultaneity of lips and tongues. His mouth slants over mine, hot and zealous, and I link my fingers behind his head, clinging, afraid this will end. Afraid to lose the enormity of this moment. 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.

By silent agreement, we let go when we saw the others. I don’t want this examined, mocked, made light, and for now, we want to keep it to ourselves.