Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
“Girl, you’re dead ass, ain’t you?” Isla watched as Remedie zipped her suitcase.
When she straightened up, Remedie tried to give Isla a reassuring look, but it felt like she looked constipated instead. The truth was, she wasn’t sure she should do this. She knew nothing about Nico, but here she was about to move into his house.
“Five thousand dollars a week, Isla? I think I would be dumb to not take the job,” Remedie argued weakly.
Isla shrugged. “I guess don’t nobody like a dumb bitch.”
A small smile graced Remedie’s face. “Very true.”
They stood in silence for a moment, right in the middle of the living room, before Isla spoke again. “Just be safe, friend. I don’t want you to go from one bad situation to another.”
Remedie had thought heavily about that all morning, but she had come to a peaceful resolution, which she had no issue sharing with Isla. “It’s not the same. Nico is offering me a job, something I don’t have because of Zayden. This is strictly professional.”
Isla eyed her as if she wanted to correct everything Remedie just said, but she simply huffed out a breath and nodded. “Send me his address and keep me updated on everything.”
Remedie laughed. “You act like I’m going off to war or something. I’ll still be able to see you and FaceTime, you know?”
“Yeah, make sure you do all that. That man is fine as hell, but that don’t mean I trust him with my bestie.”
Remedie didn’t have anything to say to that, because she knew she would sound crazy if she said what was on her heart.
She felt like she could trust Nico for some reason.
Still, her instincts had led her wrong before.
Zayden was proof enough of that, so she knew she needed to keep this about business and chase a check, not a nigga.
Together, they walked toward the front door.
Remedie had already been there for a couple of hours, and she wanted to get back to Nico’s house and get settled before she took inventory of his kitchen and hit the grocery store.
A smile blessed her face at the excitement of being back in the kitchen and getting paid to do what she loved on a higher level than selling plates out of her home.
Becoming a personal chef to a celebrity had always been intriguing to her.
Nico may not have been a celebrity for real, but he was a hood celebrity, and his pockets were apparently long, so she would take it.
“I’ll call you when I get settled,” Remedie promised as she hugged Isla.
“Do that.” Isla nodded.
By the time Remedie got to her car, she felt calmness wash over her. This was the break she needed since losing her job, and something deep within her told her she was on the right path.
On the ride back to Nico’s side of town, she blasted Jhene Aiko and sang off-key and like she’d just gotten her heart broken, which really, she had.
The heartbreak had been happening slowly over the past year, but a big part of her was glad it finally all came to a head.
As soon as she stood up for herself and walked away from all of Zayden’s toxicity, this job landed directly in her lap.
Five thousand dollars a week would change her life forever.
Her car concert slowly turned into daydreams of what she would do with the money.
She thought of getting her own place again, but then she realized she didn’t really need one if she had to live with Nico.
It didn’t go over her head that she didn’t really need to live with him.
She knew plenty of personal chefs that didn’t live with their bosses.
In fact, she was sure most of them didn’t.
Somehow, though, she knew Nico wouldn’t take no for an answer on that front, and honestly, it got her off Isla’s couch. A win was a win.
When she pulled back up to Nico’s house, she noticed him outside. His shirt was off, and he looked like he was talking on the phone. One of Remedie’s eyebrows rose as she watched him after she parked.
“He’s doing this shit on purpose,” she mumbled in amusement.
He wasn’t doing anything in particular outside, and she could tell he purposely acted like he didn’t see her pull up.
Remedie knew a thirst trap when she saw one, and she wasn’t even ashamed to admit that she had definitely been caught and trapped.
She took a few seconds to watch him. The sun beat down on his melanin skin as he paced while talking on the phone.
She wondered what significance his many tattoos held and dreamed of laying up in bed and asking him about each and every one.
Then there was the obvious print in his gym shorts.
Her eyes grew in size, but she quickly snapped out of it and turned the car off.
The last thing she wanted was to get caught staring at Nico’s dick.
She knew she would never hear the end of it.
As soon as she stepped out of the car, Nico’s gaze snapped toward her.
“Gramps, let me call you back. My personal chef just pulled up.” The way he said personal chef, coupled with the grin on his face, made the title feel naughty in the best way. Remedie knew she needed to snap out of it. She was there to do a job. Nothing more. “Hey, cookie.”
Remedie cocked her head as she closed her door. “Cookie?”
“You my cook now. Cookie just . . .” He stared up at the clear blue sky as if he was searching for the right words. “Feels right.”
“So, we have nicknames now?” she asked. The corners of her lips tried desperately to tug up.
“Yeah. I’ve come up with a list you can call me. Daddy is at the top.” His grin turned into a wide smile. All thirty-two of his pearly white teeth showed.
The smile she had been fighting split her face as she shook her head. “You’re ridiculous.”
Nico shrugged playfully, and Remedie’s eyes fought not to travel down his torso again.
“Where your bags at?”
“It’s in the trunk.”
Nico grabbed her keys out of her hand and popped the trunk.
A second later, his head poked out from behind it.
His brows were pulled in when he spoke. “Cookie, maybe I wasn’t clear.
You livin’ with me now. You’re gonna need more than this.
You ain’t a prisoner or nothin’, so if you need to go home and grab stuff during the week, that’s cool, but I feel like you need more than one bag to . . .”
His sentence trailed off. He must have noticed her red cheeks and the embarrassment written all over her face. She looked down at her shoes and spoke. “That’s all I have.”
“What you mean? And look at me when you talkin’, woman. Ain’t nothin’ on the ground for you anyway. You don’t look at shit that’s below you . . . unless it’s me while you ridin’ me, but we can get to that later.”
Remedie’s eyes bucked out of her head as she looked at him. “You really don’t quit, do you?”
“I’m supposed to?” She didn’t know what to say to that.
The truth was that she found him highly entertaining.
She never knew what was going to come out of his mouth, and she found that exciting.
When he realized she wasn’t going to respond, he spoke again.
“What you mean you don’t have more than one bag? ”
A breath eased out of her lungs. “Zayden, my ex, refused to leave my home, so I left. Because it was a tense situation, I just packed one bag and haven’t been back since.”
Nico stared at her for several seconds without blinking. “It’s yo’ spot?” Remedie nodded. “His name ain’t on the lease?” he clarified.
“Nope. He lost his job a long time ago and then moved in with me and has refused to leave.”
Nico nodded and walked toward his truck that was parked beside her car. He opened the passenger side door and waited. When she didn’t move, he inclined his head toward the car. “Get in.”
“What? Where are we going?”
“To get your shit.”
Her eyes grew wide. She didn’t think that was a good idea.
It was true that she wanted her things. Better yet, she wanted Zayden out of her house, but Nico seemed to have a few screws loose.
Now knowing that he was a boxer, . . . an underground boxer, .
. . things could get really bad for Zayden really quick.
Then she wondered if she really cared. Zayden hadn’t been good to her in a very long time.
He definitely deserved some humbling, but she didn’t want to see them fight.
Better yet, she didn’t want to see Zayden get beat up.
She highly doubted he could fight for real.
A war went on within her for a few seconds. Nico must have noticed her struggling because he grabbed her hand and tugged her forward gently. “Ain’t shit gon’ happen to yo’ bum ass nigga. I’ll be on my best behavior.”
He said the words with nothing but sincerity, but there was a humorous glint in his eye that told her otherwise.
She held her pinky out. “Promise? I just want to get my things and leave.”
Nico looked down at her pinky and rolled his eyes up to the sky. “Promise, cookie. Can we go now? I ain’t tryna be out all day.”
She eyed his bare chest. “You don’t want to put some clothes on first?”
“Nope.” He cheesed down at her, and she shook her head. This man was truly a trip.
She finally got in the car. When they pulled out of the driveway, she gave him her address before Nico surprised her and turned on a mixtape from Ellwood’s top record label, Upper Echelon. It featured rappers from Ellway Projects that Remedie loved.
She side-eyed him. “What you know ’bout this?”
He looked at her in surprise. “Nah, cookie. What you know ’bout this?”
Remedie’s response was flawlessly rapping the first verse of the song that played through the speakers. Nico egged her on the entire time, and from there, the car ride was filled with them rapping and arguing about who their favorite artists were.
“Real talk, though, Echelon back in the day is unbeatable,” Remedie reasoned. She had completely forgotten what their mission was and hadn’t even realized that they were close to her house.