“You were sleeping so good I didn’t want to wake you,” Remedy waited on his cue to tell her exactly what he saw. Whether he was having a moment where he thought she was Cherie or whether he knew he was talking to Remedy.
“That nigga at the club give you all your money?” he asked.
Remedy shook her head. “No.”
It’d been her goal to always keep a level head around him. If she got upset, he was upset. If someone wronged her and he knew about it, fury would follow. So keeping the fact that she was down to her last, out of tips, with a lien on her property and no real income for the foreseeable future was stressing her out, but Ernie couldn’t know that in full.
“You need to take me down there so I can beat that muhfucka’s ass and then tell him a thing or too that’ll ruin his life,” Ernie huffed.
“And what’s that?” Remedy asked.
“His grandmother was a hoe. My hoe. I had that bitch sucking and fucking from here to Cresent Valley, and his momma followed right behind her,” Ernie shared, making Remedy laugh softly.
Erys returned to the table with the waters. Remedy nodded in thanks.
“Rem, I bet he got a salad with cauliflower and gluten-free chicken,” Ernie joked.
“Pops, gluten-free chicken doesn’t exist,” Erys spoke, his logic making him miss the joke.
“And neither should egg whites, gotdamn it,” Ernie grumbled back. “Say listen, that Mack nigga at the club has taken her tips the two nights she’s worked there. What you gon’ do about it, you chicken hawk muhfucka?”
Remedy placed her hand over her mouth to muffle the laughter. “Why didn’t I think of that?”
“That was a good one wasn’t it?” Ernie asked, laughing.
“You two stand up comedians,” Erys’ muttered with a shake of his head.
“I asked you a question,” Ernie stated, quieting his laughter. “What you doing about her money?”
“I’ll be fine. I’ll figure it-”
“It’s handled,” Erys declared, locking eyes with Remedy.
She didn’t like that, she squirmed. “I was going to-”
“It’ll be at the house when we get there,” Erys shared, finalizing the back and forth. “I’ll leave a spare set of keys to my car for you so you can get what you need from the house.”
Remedy looked around their space, anything to avoid those dark, deep set eyes that bore into her with questions she didn’t want to answer and stories she didn’t want to become invested in.
“Order 69!” the man behind the window called.
“Ahh, that was a good year,” Ernie hummed.
Erys swayed his head and stood to grab their order and returned with a tray of food. He handed out their respective orders and was met by a pair of silent stares. “What?”
“Is that it?” Remedy asked, frowning at the chicken breast with a slice of lettuce and tomato.
“Damn, he eats worse than you,” Ernie quipped. “How you got all them muscles and you don’t eat nothing?”
“It’s protein,” Erys replied. “What’s the problem?”
Remedy threw her hands up. “Nothing. I’m minding my business. Our stomachs aren’t connected.”
“Thank God,” Ernie jeered. “We’d be angry and uptight all the time just like him.”
Remedy could feel his eyes on her, taking her in but she wouldn’t oblige him. They ate in silence mostly, Ernie said something every so often but outside of that, Remedy and Erys didn’t exchange anything else.
She didn’t know exactly what point in the ride she’d fallen asleep on Ernie’s shoulder. Somewhere between leaning on him when he got confused about where he was with the city lights fading in the distance. The soft stop of the truck alerted her to pull her eyes open. A stark white garage with two blacked out cars on either side of the truck. One, a Mercedes and the other, aMaybach. There had to be another car for her to drive. Remedy put that out of her mind as she gently woke Ernie up.
