Chapter 16 #2
Her eyes shifted between him and his Maybach briefly.
Before she could utter a response, he pulled on the door handle and opened the door for her to step out.
She did just that and followed him to his car, where he was kind enough to hold the door for her again.
Her rounded ass sank into the plush and luxurious leather of his seats as she marveled at the sleek design of the whip.
She was no stranger to nice shit, but this was her first time in a Maybach.
She refrained from dropping her jaw since she didn’t want to inflate his ego.
As he made his way around the car, she seized the opportunity to gawk at him.
He was dressed down today, which she knew wasn’t the usual for him since every time she saw him, he was designer down with the iced-out jewelry to match.
Even in his crisp white tee and casual Denim Tears shorts, he carried the same finesse and pull he had when he put that shit on.
Once he got in beside her, he revved the engine to life to cut on the air so they wouldn’t pass out in the blazing Miami heat. Her blunt was already lit, so she passed it over to him so he could take a few pulls.
“This shit cool,” he complimented her weed as he examined the nicely rolled blunt. “Who you cop from?”
Tension left her body as she leaned back in her seat and motioned her shoulders in a shrug. “I know a guy.”
“Who? Your nigga?” He laughed as he passed it back to her.
“I ain’t say that.” Even though she didn’t say it, that was exactly who she got it from. Tone kept her right with as much weed as she needed, but considering Kross had just struck a deal with her to run a few birds through her shop, she knew good and well that nigga ain’t need a hook up for weed.
“I bet you didn’t,” he said, continuing to chuckle with a shake of his head.
They ended up finishing her blunt before he pulled out some weed and began rolling one of his own.
She watched as he moved his tongue and lips with precision to pearl the grabba leaf and the roughly grinded nugs of weed he put into it.
Absentmindedly, she licked her lips as she felt a sensation of heat rush over her body.
There was no question that he knew how to eat pussy good, and Remedy hated herself for fantasizing about it.
Clearing her throat and shifting around in her seat a bit, she quickly searched for something else to divert her attention to before she irrationally dropped some pussy right into his lap.
“Who you come here to visit? If you don’t mind me asking.”
Kross glanced up from the wood he was rolling up and set his brown orbs onto her. A meek smile formed on his lips, allowing her to see his gold grills. “My lady. She died a few months back.”
Despite the smile on his face, Remedy could still hear the somber tone that drenched his words. She could tell he had been deeply impacted by the loss of his girlfriend.
“Sorry for your loss. Was that your little boy I saw you here with a few weeks ago?”
At the mention of his son, his meek smile widened, and there was a beam of light that struck his usually dull and empty eyes. “Yeah, that’s my baby boy, Aniyis.”
She couldn’t help but to coo at the sound of Aniyis’ name. It was so unique and cute, and from what she could remember, he was just as cute as his name. He sparked the blunt and took two pulls of it before handing it off to her.
“You got kids?”
The question caused her lungs to overfill with the pull she inhaled and made her double over in a fit of coughs. “No. What the fuck?” She shook her head. “I can’t imagine being somebody’s mom right now.”
This amused Kross because he used to think the same shit before Cassie got pregnant with Aniyis. His baby boy was his biggest blessing now. “I feel you on that.”
She passed the blunt back to him and watched him inhale and exhale smoothly. “How come I never seen you around the city?”
Kross leaned back in his seat and toyed with his phone resting on his lap. “I just got out from a seven-year bid.”
“Oh, so you one of them institutionalized niggas?”
“You can say that.” He shrugged his broad shoulders before shifting the conversation elsewhere. “How you holding up without Deno?”
Now the one in the hot seat, Remedy shifted around in her seat uncomfortably.
For the life of her, she couldn’t understand why she had the urge to just reveal all her business to him.
Did he just come off as that trusting, or was she just in desperate need of venting with no one to talk to?
Whatever it was, she suppressed it and replied, “I’m doing the best I can with what I got.
I wish his ass left me a playbook for all the shit he left me responsible for, but it is what it is. ”
A light chuckle drifted out of him as he glanced out the window toward the cemetery.
“Shit, I feel that too. My lady was really the glue to all this shit. Now I’m left picking up the pieces when really, I don’t have a fucking clue what I’m doing.
” He shook his head as his mind wandered off to thoughts of Cassie.
“I don’t know how it feels to lose a significant other, but I do know how it feels to lose a parent. As long as you show up for your son every possible way you can, he’ll heal from the loss eventually,” she encouraged him with a light smile.
His gaze shifted back over to her, and she began to feel small as he peered into her.
Absentmindedly, she tucked some of her hair behind her ear as she fixed her attention onto her charm bracelet she was wearing.
His eyes were intense, and she feared that if she looked into them for too long, she would lose herself within them.
Moving her hair allowed Kross to catch sight of a fresh scratch she had along her jawline.
She did her best to cover it up with makeup to hide the redness, but the outline of the scratch itself was still pretty visible.
It came as the result of another brawl she had with Tone.
Her week to find suitable housing for Ava and Melo had long passed, and Tone was now blatantly making it clear that he wanted them gone.
Before, he would make all his snide comments to just Remedy, but now, he was straight up telling them to get the fuck out right to their faces.
It hurt her soul to bear witness to how Tone spoke to her family, especially her mother who was mentally ill, so of course, she checked his ass about it.
That resulted in them going back and forth for hours until Tone lost his cool and slapped the fuck out of her.
As much as he liked to stir up arguments with her, he couldn’t keep up with her lethal-ass mouth, so he resulted to getting physical in hopes of overpowering her.
Half the time, she didn’t have it in her to fight back, but this time, she did.
She pulled on each and every one of his dreads and even waved a knife around, but still, she ended up being the one balled up in the corner with way more bruises in the end.
She was so over the toxicity and the constant abuse.
Striking this deal with Kross was her last hope, but she hadn’t heard shit from him since they shook hands and sealed the deal.
She didn’t want to seem too pressed about it because it would’ve been evident that she needed the money, and she feared that Kross would use that as leverage over her.
She already had Tone’s ass holding money over her head.
She didn’t need another nigga doing the same.
She was anxiously waiting for her first pay out from Kross.
The first thing she planned on doing was getting Ava and Melo situated, then eventually stacking up enough money to free herself from Tone’s insufferable ass.
Kross reached over and grabbed ahold of her face, angling it so he could get a better view of the scratch.
It was like second nature for her to try to fight him off and conceal the abuse that was inflicted on her, but he restrained her and pushed her hands away.
His finger gently stroked over the scratch that went from the bottom of her earlobe, across her cheek.
Just the light touch caused her to flinch and wince in pain due to the cut being so fresh.
“C’mon, shawty. Ain’t no nigga supposed to be putting they hands on you like that.
” He shook his head with a disgusted look plastering his handsome face.
This was his fourth occurrence of catching her freshly bruised or scratched up.
He was big on minding his fucking business, but there was just certain shit he couldn’t stand for.
“Kross, I done told you it’s nothing and you should just mind your business,” she snapped once she was finally able to push his hands away. Deflecting had become an unknown talent of hers, and he was beginning to peep that.
“Granted, it ain’t my business, but I ain’t never been the type of nigga to not speak up when I peep something.
You never gave me the vibe that you let niggas put they hands on you, so whatever power this nigga got over you, you need to dead that shit quick before he take you out,” he warned her as he took another pull from the blunt.
Remedy chewed on the inner portion of her cheek, feeling a sense of shame wash over her.
She knew he wasn’t judging her, but him speaking so freely on the matter made her feel like her weakness was exploited, and she could no longer stand in the strength she had been standing in since she crossed paths with him.
“It’s nothing,” she insisted, hoping this would draw an end to the conversation.
In turn, Kross shrugged his shoulders as he passed her the blunt. “All you gotta do is pop that nigga. No nigga who’s putting his hands on a female deserve to live anyways.”
His blunt remark earned another series of coughs from Remedy as she shot him a crazed look. “What the fuck? I can’t kill him! I don’t even know how to shoot a gun.”
“I can teach you,” he replied with a nonchalant smack of his lips.
Quickly, Remedy shook her head, declining his offer. “Nigga, you’re crazy.”
“Nah, I’m just a problem solver. I don’t let shit linger ‘cause if you let it manifest long enough, it’ll overpower you. I can’t wanna save you more than you wanna save yourself, so you do you.”
As she handed him the blunt, she pursed her lips as a silence struck her.
He could tell the course of the conversation had her deep in thought and potentially rubbed her the wrong way.
He didn’t mean to come off as overbearing or even abrasive.
He was just a straightforward type of guy.
For the remainder of the smoke session, they passed the blunt back and forth in silence until it eventually died.
Kross was kind enough to walk her back to her car and hold the door open for her to get in.
“Expect your paper by the end of this week,” was the last thing he told her before he tapped the roof of her car the headed back to his.
He didn’t even realize how much he was saving her.