“We’ll be on time. Stripper promise,” Desi joked.
“The two minutes you got on the pole, tripped, and rolled off? Yeah, promise.”
16
The food for Ernie’s seventy-seventh birthday party was prepped and stowed away in the fridge. The kitchen was clean, dinner was already on the stove keeping warm and every dime she spent today was deposited back into the account Erys gave her access to with a text message to confirm. Any other woman in her position or looking from the outside in would be screaming at her about her disposition. Remedy knew better than she knew anything else that a man with that much money, this much access he could give and he could take away.
The chime of the security system alerted her to the Moore men returning. Like she was programmed to fulfill a duty, she unglued herself from the spot in front of the window and moved toward the garage door. She plastered a faux smile that warred against the weight on her shoulders.
“Rem! I had a time. Cart girls in short skirts, betting every muhfuckas ass on the course. Some stuck up nigga who had a lot of shit to say is out of a whole band, you know why?” Ernie asked as he tiredly strode past her.
“Because you’re Sweet Lick Ernie?” Remedy retorted.
“You muhfuckin’ right I am,” Ernie spoke, his cane thrown over his shoulder as he pimp walked up the stairs.
“Ernie, you know you like to stumble,” Remedy huffed, ignoring that Erys was walking in and following Ernie up the stairs. “Did you drink something?”
“Nah, your boyfriend still got a little bit of a dick up the ass and wouldn’t let me have no good shit. He was givin’ me some bitch shit,” Ernie complained, strolling into his room and plopping down in his arm chair.
“Mocktails?” Remedy asked, squatting in front of him to take his shoes off.
“Yeah, that. Bitch shit,” Ernie grumbled with a yawn. “You made dinner?”
“I did. May’s baked chicken. You ate?”
“I figured if he was going to give me some bitch shit to drink, I was going to have me a nigga steak,” Ernie shared making Remedy laugh. “Make him put it away, I’ll eat it.”
“I know you will. Don’t worry too much about it. Let’s get in the shower so you can sleep good,” Remedy spoke as she stood and reached for his hand. “Any idea what you’re wearing tomorrow?”
“Not yet but I’ll figure it out in the morning. You got my hoes?” Ernie questioned.
Remedy nodded.
“You the best bottom bitch a nigga could ask for, Cherie,” Ernie grumbled, shuffling into the bathroom behind her.
After finishing their nightly routine, she curled up in his arm chair and waited until he was sound asleep before kissing his forehead and tip toeing out of his room. As if Ernie were a toddler, she left his door ajar before wandering back down the stairs.
Erys was in the kitchen, a plate in each hand and void of his golf clothes. A white t-shirt stretched over his muscular chest, fresh haircut and freshly-manicured goatee, gray sweatpants hanging low on his hips. Her eyes lingered over him. Bittersweet recalls of the night before.
“Come eat,” he softly directed.
“I’m not hungry,” she stated. Her mind was too bogged down with everything to think about eating. This was how she’d gotten this small.
“I know you’re hungry because there was no food charge on the card and there’s no way you could cook this meal and not want to eat. So come on,” Erys commented and started out toward the patio.
Remedy followed him, finding a bottle of wine on the table he’d set while she was upstairs with Ernie. “You’re not as undomesticated as I thought you were.”
“Yeah and your mean ass can cook. I just knew the man was lying,” Erys teased. “I like your hair.”
Remedy barely smiled. “I’d like to keep it like this.”
“I can’t promise that. I can promise to keep it done,” Erys said, sitting down across from her. Remedy tried to hide the dis-ease in her spirit but he caught it. “You good?”
She chose the safest answer. The safest way to keep her from having to open and expose herself to him. “I’ve been thinking that what happened last night shouldn’t happen again. I don’t need access to your money… that never turns out well.”
Erys delayed eating his food to tune into what she was saying. “Tell me how it turns out. I’m new at this.”
Remedy looked past him, across the lake to the set up lights that haunted her. She barely blinked, a set of tears falling from her eyes she didn’t even realize had formed. Just anguishing memories of everything she endured for the name of love.
