Grip Trilogy Box Set Quotes

“I will worship you,” I remind her, taking her hand and tracing the letters tattooed beneath her wedding band, linking our fingers, showing her the ink beneath mine. “Still?” she asks with a watery smile. “Yeah.” Always. Evermore. Even after. “Still.”
― Kennedy Ryan, Grip Trilogy Box Set

“Thank you, Bris. God, I’ve missed you so much. I love you,” he whispers over my lips, sending his tongue in to taste me. “I can’t stop touching you. I thought I might lose . . .” His voice breaks. He buries his head in my neck, and I feel his tears mingling with the sweat sheening my body. He reaches up, looking at me with wet eyes, and brushes away the tears I didn’t realize were streaming over my cheeks, too. “We made it.” He smiles at me, eyes tender. “I told you we could survive anything together.” He never doubted us. When I wasn’t sure I could make it, when I couldn’t find my way out of the darkness entombing me, he came for me. “Don’t ever tell me not to save you,” I say, tears rolling between my naked breasts and over the gold that binds our hearts together. “You saved me, Grip. You came for me.”
― Kennedy Ryan, Grip Trilogy Box Set

“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.”
― Kennedy Ryan, Grip Trilogy Box Set

“Like a peacock, spread yourself for me. Awe me with your plumage. We’re birds of a feather, you and I. I hear your cry, do you hear mine? A mating call before you fall, your holla never heard. My moaning bird, One by one, I’ll count your feathers. Let me try to make it better. Can I kiss your scars? I want to give you what you’re needing Use my heart to staunch the bleeding And for your broken wing, my arms will be the sling Where you go, I go, even due south Borrow my breath, mouth to mouth Resuscitation A flock to ourselves, a murmuration Just us two in our love nest Hide in my love, take your rest Till you’re ready to fly again Fly into my arms, A safe arrival, a sure survival, a glorious revival Then we’ll leave this nest together Two birds, we’ll soar above the past behind us A path we can’t un-fly A death we can’t un-die But we ain’t at death’s door Nah, it’s time to leave. Our hearts can do the impossible Do you believe? Then fly, my love! Soar! My pretty bird, fly with me and cry no more.”
― Kennedy Ryan, Grip Trilogy Box Set

“You can’t build plans around something that hasn’t happened yet.
Idiot, what do you think dreams are if not plans we make based on things that haven’t happened yet?”
― Kennedy Ryan, Grip Trilogy Box Set

“I’m closing the pad, when a strip of paper torn from the book and slotted between pages catches my eye. When I’m parched, I drink from your love You scatter seeds over my heart, water my soul, quench dry places until my mind is lush and overgrown with thoughts of you.”
― Kennedy Ryan, Grip Trilogy Box Set

“She did therapy. We both did, but therapy doesn’t always eradicate hurt. Sometimes it just helps us carry it better, teaches us how to best bear our burdens.”
― Kennedy Ryan, Grip Trilogy Box Set

“I bend her over and suck the curve of one round cheek into my mouth, working it until I know it’s marked. “Jesus, this ass, Bristol,” I say against the reddened skin. “I love your body so much. I love you so much.”
― Kennedy Ryan, Grip Trilogy Box Set

“Grip, stop!” She gasps. “I can’t take . . . please.” “Whose pussy is it, Bris?” I ask, biting one plump lip and then the other. Silence. Stubborn woman makes this so much damn fun. I apply my mouth with more enthusiasm, and then run my thumb through the wetness before plunging it into her ass to the knuckle. “Ahhhhhh! Shit!” Her scream pierces the quiet. With my thumb working her ass like a job, I reach up to cover her mouth. “Whose pussy, Bris?” I demand, my tongue darting into one hole and my thumb fucking the other. “Y-yours,” she mumbles under my hand, the word breath-starved and choppy. “It’s your pussy.”
― Kennedy Ryan, Grip Trilogy Box Set

“Holy shit,” she says, her deep-throated chuckle rumbling into the curve of my neck and shoulder. “I can’t think straight. Did you suck my brain out when you were down there?”
― Kennedy Ryan, Grip Trilogy Box Set

“Ever since that day I heard Grip’s heartbeat, I’ve been living by proxy, leaning on his heart to beat for mine. Grief handed me a heart of iron, and I rusted it with my tears, a muscle not made of flesh, not pumping blood. Ever since that day I’ve been a lament in limbo, no longer in the dark but not fully in the light, but here, now, Grip’s touch drags me into the light.”
― Kennedy Ryan, Grip Trilogy Box Set

“My body is a haunted house. Those who lived here are dead and gone, and my soul is riddled with ghosts. Phantoms travel the halls, walk the rooms, raising the hairs on my body, but when I look, there’s no one there.”
― Kennedy Ryan, Grip Trilogy Box Set

“THE DARKNESS IS HEAVY. It’s tangible, like a weighted blanket trapping me beneath my stale sheets. It’s a living darkness, thick with blood, wet with tears. Deep, so very deep. It’s a ravine, and I’m at the very bottom. It’s toxic, and I breathe great lungfuls of it, like a miner in a cave with no light, no air.”
― Kennedy Ryan, Grip Trilogy Box Set

“Shit’s about to get real,” I say. “And the only thing I can promise you is that I will love you for the rest of my life, and I truly believe we can survive anything together. Do you believe that?” I’ll never forget this moment when, through the abject fear and despair and exhaustion saturating her eyes, I glimpse her trust in me. It’s the greatest gift I’ve ever received.”
― Kennedy Ryan, Grip Trilogy Box Set

“I check the time on the piece-of-shit watch I can’t bring myself to get rid of. When I took it to the watch repair shop, they looked at me like the screws in the watch might not be the only ones loose. Bristol won it at a carnival over a decade ago, for God’s sake. We never even paid for it, but I paid the shop to make it work again.”
― Kennedy Ryan, Grip Trilogy Box Set

“When I make love to Bristol knowing that someday soon, she’ll have my child, the vow I spoke to her a year ago today echoes through my mind just as surely as it’s inked into my flesh. Always. Evermore. Even after. Still.”
― Kennedy Ryan, Grip Trilogy Box Set

“I love the scream that rips from her throat as she gushes into my mouth, and I don’t even try to stifle the sound. Anyone who comes back here is getting an eyeful and an education. She starts sliding down the wall, her legs giving out, but I bracket her slim waist with my hands. “Not yet, baby.” I trap her against the wall with one hand and fumble to get my pants undone with the other. Her eyes are cloudy and sated, but when I jerk her legs up and around my back, she blinks and lust filters back into her stare. I thrust up, deep and hard and sudden, making her breath hitch.”
― Kennedy Ryan, Grip Trilogy Box Set

“What kind of tattoo are you getting?” “You mean what kind of tattoo are we getting?” She reaches into her purse and hands me a sketch. “This one.” It’s a pair of hands, one masculine and one feminine. Banding each ring finger is Matty’s trademark calligraphy of the word still. The letters wrap around each finger, sketched to look like delicate vine. “You like it?” Bristol asks, her voice soft, uncertain. After the wedding, she requested that I give her my vows, my poem “STILL,” in writing. I know she added it to a box where she keeps our memories—the leather book of Neruda poetry, the tarnished whistle from the carnival, and now the vows I wrote for her. I know “STILL” holds significance, but I never saw this coming.”
― Kennedy Ryan, Grip Trilogy Box Set

“The words we spoke to one another are what joined us. Our words, our wills bind us, and even with so many looking on, clapping, cheering that we are now husband and wife, I can’t make myself look away from him, and he can’t tear his eyes away from me. We are caught in this most exquisite intimacy, and neither of us wants out. We want to revel in it, to revel in each other, for the rest of our days.”
― Kennedy Ryan, Grip Trilogy Box Set

“But I know how much you love it when I write about you,” he teases, squeezing my fingers. “So this is my heart given to you in the words I wrote.” His smile fades until his mouth rests in a sober line. “My heart given to you completely,” he adds so softy, I’m not sure the congregation hears before he launches into what he has prepared. “It’s called ‘Still.’” You ask me today if I love you, if I take you as my own to have and to hold, and my heart replies yes. Always, evermore, even after. Still. Not just today before a crowd, but when we are alone, you and I, through years, through pain, My heart will answer again and again, still. Ask me in a million seconds, ask me in a billion years, Do you love me? And I will say still. Ask me when we toil, when we rest, when we fuss and fight. With the taste of anger burning my lips, I will say still. Ask me when your belly is full like the moon, and our love has stretched your body with my child, leaving your skin, once flawless, now silvered, traced, scarred, I will worship you. My eyes will never stray. My heart will never wander, gladly leashed to you all my days. I am fixed on you. Our love is a great river, the Amazon, the Nile, the river Euphrates, and my heart is a violent churning in my chest, swimming upstream, defying every odd, accepting any dare To reach you. To rush you, to hold you, to keep you. You ask me if I love you? God, yes. My lover, you are the single star in a universe void before you came. And when the years have passed, and we have watched a thousand sunsets, and we are bent, our bodies crooked with age ask me again. In the twilight, in the shadow of the life we have shared, ask me if I love you, and my heart will answer before my lips can part. My love, my life, my heart never left your hands. Always, evermore, even after. Still.”
― Kennedy Ryan, Grip Trilogy Box Set

“Maybe no one else has ever had a groom like Grip. I always think of his as the face of a king, one sketched with an artist’s skilled hands. A careful thumb smudged the sooty brows over dark eyes that see so much and can give so little away.”
― Kennedy Ryan, Grip Trilogy Box Set

“I haven’t changed my mind about why most Black men who choose white women do it, but I’ve changed my mind about you and Bristol. I don’t believe a white woman can ever really understand the struggle of a Black man in America, but I was married to a Black woman who understood the struggle but never understood me.” I’ll have to ask him for the full story one day. From what I’ve ascertained, there were transgressions on both sides, and definitely regret on his. “Bristol may not understand the struggle,” he continues, “but she understands you. She loves you unconditionally—I’ve seen it— and in a world as hard as ours, unconditional love goes a long way.”
― Kennedy Ryan, Grip Trilogy Box Set

“None of it bears any fruit, and it could feel hopeless, except when I look out, I see the same emotion that’s commanding me has command of the audience, compelling them to their feet and streaking their faces with tears, too. White, Black, Brown, all of them—a mosaic of the emotions warring inside of me. Though I could be cynical, though I could doubt that it means anything, that they mean it, in this moment, even with the hurt and the anger and the frustration, I make room in my heart for faith that one day, no matter how long it takes, we’ll get it right.”
― Kennedy Ryan, Grip Trilogy Box Set

“It’s fitting that my first Grammy would be for ‘Queen’ since I wouldn’t be here if it hadn’t been for all the incredible women who kept pushing me forward.” I find Bristol sitting where I left her, pride and love shining in the eyes that never leave my face. I can already see the Coming to America GIFs that will be everywhere if I call her my queen, so I force myself to stop short of that. She would be fine if I didn’t say a word about her. Hell, she’d probably prefer it after all the media shit-storms we’ve been through, but there’s no way this moment even happens without her. “It’s for you, Bris,” I say softly, even though my words are amplified throughout Staples and in millions of homes. “You’re the best thing in my life. None of this would mean anything without you.”
― Kennedy Ryan, Grip Trilogy Box Set

“It’s a book. Iz would give me a book. I trace the aged leather, the letters pressed into the weathered cover. Montage of a Dream Deferred by Langston Hughes. I flip open the front cover, and my blood stands still in my veins when I note the date—1951—and the famous poet’s autograph. A signed first edition. I turn to the spot slotted by an index card, a crisp contrast to the worn, fragile pages. The poem is “Harlem,” and the familiar refrain asking what happens to a dream deferred stings tears in my eyes. I can’t ever read this poem without remembering the day my cousin died in the front yard. There are some moments in life that will always haunt us, no matter how many joys follow, and that day is one of those. I’ll never forget reciting this poem in my bedroom closet to keep Jade calm while one of her brothers shot the other. Iz couldn’t know its personal significance to me, but as I read the card, I understand why he chose it. GRIP, Our brothers live so long with dreams deferred, they forget how to imagine another life. For many of them, all they know is frustration, then rage, and for too many, the violence of finally exploding. You symbolize hope, and I know you take that responsibility seriously. I hope you know I believe that, and that nothing I’ve said led you to think otherwise. Bristol’s right—our biases are our weaknesses. Few are as patient as she is to give people time to become wiser. Thank her for me, for giving me time and for encouraging you to work with me. Together, I think we will restore the dreams of many. Merry Christmas, Iz”
― Kennedy Ryan, Grip Trilogy Box Set

“She introduced herself as ‘Grip’s Bristol,’” he says, his grin deepening to a full-on smile. Damn right she’s Grip’s Bristol.”
― Kennedy Ryan, Grip Trilogy Box Set

“I guess that’s at least one thing you two agree on.” “Who the hell do you think you are comparing me to that backwards cretin?” Iz demands, indignation pinching his strong features. “I got a front row seat to your brand of selective progressivism,” I fire back. “And at the end of the day, you both judge people you don’t know anything about by the color of their skin.”
― Kennedy Ryan, Grip Trilogy Box Set

“I would just always wonder if I could ever really know a white woman, if she could ever really know me.” He shakes his head. “Enough to trust her with my life? With my children?” “And did your wife really know you? I bet she didn’t think you would cheat on her, but you did, and from what I can tell, you’re both Black.” A heavy silence follows my words, and as we sit in it, Iz slowly raises his eyes. “I didn’t cheat on her.” He twists the grim line of his mouth around the words. “She cheated on me.” Damn. Now I feel like a real asshole. “I’m sorry about that. I assumed . . .” I leave not-well-enough alone and press on. “I do know I don’t ever have to worry about that and neither does Bristol. It’s nothing to do with our race. I would never do that to her, and I know she would never do that to me. Have you never been captivated by someone so much that the rest of your life without them seems . . . empty?”
― Kennedy Ryan, Grip Trilogy Box Set

“You know better than anyone how hard it can be for us.” I shake my head. “I have to ask myself when I come home, do I want someone who completely understands the struggle? Or someone who completely understands me? Someone I can’t wait to come home to, someone who makes me laugh on the hardest days of my life? Every single decision isn’t filtered through my race. Love isn’t.”
― Kennedy Ryan, Grip Trilogy Box Set

“Holy shit. I can’t do Bristol tears under any circumstances, even joyous occasions. “Babe, don’t cry.” I swipe a thumb over her cheekbone and cup her chin. “You’re gonna give me a complex.”
― Kennedy Ryan, Grip Trilogy Box Set