Grip Quotes
"Talking about food is highly preferable to discussing my family drama, which goes back too far and down too deep."
"We’ve bonded a little over scallops and tits, so my smile for Jimmi comes more naturally."
"That’s when you know a flow is exceptional. When it seems effortless."
"I don’t get it. Rappers don’t write their own stuff? I thought it was so personal and rooted in where you’re from and all that."
"You’ll find I have definite ideas about everything. Even things I know nothing about."
"I eat the scallops so fast you’d think I sprinkled them with fairy dust to make them disappear."
"Laughing at each other’s jokes, comfortable with each other’s silences, calling each other out on our crap."
"Don’t give up on him. Cut him some slack. He’s working his ass off."
"Well being myself comes and goes. We’re always tempted to be something else when it’s easier."
"Humor lightens his expression for the first time since he came through the garage door."
"Okay, so maybe your family isn’t completely normal."
"Battle lines were drawn, and I thought she took my parents’ side. To survive, I had to distance myself from everything associated with them."
"Maybe that’s the quickest way to a fresh start."
"She’s something rare—smart, classy, gorgeous, funny, opinionated, and under it all, where she tries to hide it, kind."
"A guy needs to be very sure he wants her, and just her, before he makes a move."
"You insure things that are too valuable to lose forever."
"You were all my family. They weren’t perfect, far from it, but they were the only parents I had. I wanted them to love me. You were the only brother I had. The only family I had, and it was ripped apart."
"Music is the only thing I need to be addicted to."
"The way she rolled her hips, even sitting on her stool, her body seeking out the primal beat of the music."
"Doing what she’s doing, staking her college career, planning her future based on helping her brother's dreams come true, it's crazy. And so completely right."
"You don’t meet people like her often, and when you do, you never forget them."
"Who else was going to raise me with my parents trailing Rhyson on the road most of the year?"
"It wasn’t skill that had her out on the floor. It was her body pinned up, searching for release."
"We only get one life, but it’s filled with second chances."
"Everyone around him knows it. But we have this silent pact to let him come to it on his own."
"He'll have to leave me, because I love him, and I don't know how to stop."
"You know Aunt Mittie would have a fit if you start shit with some white bitch."
"Our grandfathers had to run, run, run. My generation's out of breath. We ain't running no more."
"Just make sure I'm somewhere else if she ever does come by the studio."
"It makes me want to set the world on fire. To think of you with them."
"We connect every day. So I don't know what you mean."
"You shouldn't have invited me to stay if you wanted leftovers."
"You need to be thinking less about me and more about you."
"That's your second one, though, right? I guess you barely notice the difference when you inhale them."
"My head is like a vault. Poems, lyrics, all of it gets locked in my head."
"You handle Meryl. I’ll take care of the booty call."
"It’s an awful lot of booty for one person to manage."
"I’d back her into a corner and taste her again right now if it wouldn’t horrify Rhyson."
"She’s a powerful figure, the cocky feminism and hard flow of her lyrics juxtaposed with the soft curves of her body."
"I love that after all these years you still think your money impresses me. It’s charming, really."
"You, my man, are on your way to quite a tip."
"I’ve always wanted you, and having you for a few months wasn’t nearly enough. Give me another shot."
"I didn’t want to be that. I certainly didn’t want to be with that."
"You’re consenting adults. Whatever you decide to do is up to you."
"Men don’t normally sleep at my house, and if I hadn’t been plastered out of my mind, you wouldn’t be here this morning."
"I will not be kept. That may be the road your mother chose, but it isn’t the one mine did."
"With you at my side, we’ll rule the world. Can’t you see that?"
"Do you have any idea what we could be together? Hell, what we already are? It’s rare and real."
"I feel even sicker when I think of my last conversation with Grip. I may have done irreparable damage to our friendship."
"His crude words keep playing over and over in my head."
"That was a misunderstanding. You chose to believe I was moving to LA to manipulate my brother for you, when actually, I moved here to help him pursue his dream. Not yours."
"It's rare and real and you just keep spitting on it."
"Well, all is not lost. Rhyson has Kai now, and their first baby is on the way."
"You'd better. Mother watches my face, her bright eyes as hard as diamonds."
"Be very careful, Bristol. This thing with Marlon and his new girlfriend is the best thing that could happen."
"And that record label thing is my job. One I'm very good at, by the way."
"Well I guess you made do since you had no real talent to speak of."
"He was patently obvious he had feelings for you."
"You can't wait for somebody else to give you anything."
"It doesn't work like that. I wish it did. I thought it could."
"We do have other artists, and I've been giving so much to Grip, there's lots to catch up on."
"That's what I thought, but things have been weird lately."
"If things weren't tense between the two of you, you'd be with Marlon today."
"You take everything to another level. You're the hardest working, most committed person I know. Your passion for my work has been evident since the day we met. Tonight wouldn't be tonight without you."
"There's no telling where I'd be if it weren't for you and every sacrifice you made so I could be here today."
"I'm the girl who cares too much. When you and our parents walked away from each other, who fought for our family? Who actually cared that we weren't a family?"
"I've seen it. How weak she is for him. She kept it from us for years because she's ashamed."
"I couldn't complain to Bristol about the thing I want to—the fact that she chose that entitled prick over me—so I'll complain about things that don't really matter."
"I only agreed to her managing me in the first place to be closer to her. Kai and I thought it would help my chances."
"That dream I sketched in the air with Rhyson, suspended above a theatre, to be a voice for my generation, that just happened."
"I can't stand to look at her for more than two minutes without working myself into a rage."
"You're the compass in every room. I always seem to know exactly where she is."
"It’s like pins under my skin. Needles under my scalp."
"Sometimes I don’t think I care as long as she’s close. I just want to feel her, even if it burns me alive."
"You don’t decide how this ends, Bristol. I do."
"Love and hate and fear and respect are all bedfellows."
"I’ve read each poem, each note countless times since he mailed this book to me."
"Even this set up, you managing me, was an attempt to be closer to you."
"I’m not a doll in the window. You don’t just decide you want me and expect me to fall in line."
"Whatever you accomplish, you celebrate together. When there is pain, you endure it together."
"I still wake up some mornings thinking I’m supposed to be sweeping studio floors and rent’s past due."
"If strippers were men, it already would be [an Olympic sport]."
"I wasn’t sure how to take his impassive expression."
"She’s a hair from naked, and all the guys clustered around the base of the stage are salivating for that last hair to fall out."
"I would never cheat on you. As long as it’s taken me to get you, you think I would jeopardize that with some piece of ass that doesn’t mean anything to me?"
"I want you so much it scares me. The way I feel about you terrifies me."
"It wasn’t fair letting her think there was a chance when I couldn’t get over you."
"The threat of Grip breaking me weighs less than the possibility of never having him."
"I knew there was something undeniable between us."
"I’ve thought about this moment almost every day since we met. Not just the sex. But the first day I met you, I wondered what kind of man it would take to win you. I wondered if I could be a man like that."
"You were jealous? And scared that you would fall for her. I know that sounds stupid since I pushed you together, but the reality of you wanting someone else..."
"What are you doing, Bristol? Are you sure about this?"
"And I realized that I’m like that. That’s what I did with my parents, with Rhyson. I took whatever they had to give, scraps, and even when they hurt me, like a broken spigot, I couldn’t turn it off."
"We are not having sex. I moan, wetness pooling between my legs and my hips circling beneath him, seeking friction. "I can barely walk."
"The thing you think is your greatest weakness, is your greatest strength. That capacity to love, everyone doesn’t have it. That grit to fight for the people who mean the most to you, it’s priceless."
"I want you to enjoy everything we do as much as I do."
"Bris, I’ve never wanted anyone the way I want you."
"I surge to my feet, reaching for anger. Anything to distract me from the shame and regret weaving together like a chain link fence around my self-respect."
"Bris, what’s up with all the drinking lately?"
"Denying myself the one thing I really wanted."