Chapter 27 #2
“Yeah, I noticed he didn’t seem like himself when I woke him up this morning. He kept grumbling about someone coming in his house to take his shit. I didn’t know that meant so I just redirected him,” the aide shared. “He was telling me about a strawberry cake.”
“I’ll make it for him. I’ll be home in a few hours. If you need me or if he gets erratic, call me. I’ll come home,” Remedy shared, grabbing her phone, and keys.
“Here. I got a text early this morning from Mr. Moore. He said to make sure you eat,” she shared, handing Remedy a container packed with a bacon, egg, and cheese on a warm croissant and fruit.
A smile crossed her face. “Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it,” the woman buzzed, watching Remedy leave with what was left of her sanity.
She drove to the warehouse, worked diligently on the next shoot and came home. No Erys and no answers for Ernie. Every second without him felt like the darkness was creeping back in. Her fear starting to strangle the crop that assurance and affirmation planted.
Mouth: just tell me you’re okay…that’s all I need.
Mouth: please…
No reply. She sat through dinner with Ernie distracting him with everything else other than what he wanted to know. Two days of this and by day two of no answers, her mind was starting to create scenarios of its own.
“Can I see the cream look against the brown staging? That was the last look of the night,” Remedy called out.
She was trying to keep herself from going home and facing the silence she had the night before. The aide agreed to stay longer and tire Ernie out so she could get some sleep. Ernie was the least of Remedy’s worries. She knew how to manage their world, she just didn’t want to.
The shoot wrapped, the models were gone, the photographer was packing up and Remedy was at the production table with the branding specialist and art director. Vibrance went to print in four days and they were diligently working on the final mock up before sending it off to production and media.
It was an hour and a half that wasn’t spent studying her phone for a response or call.
With everything they needed, Remedy was left walking out of the building toward her car.
Erys’ all black fit against the pearl white put her at pause.
There was something in his hand that she couldn’t make out until she got closer.
Fresh clothes, clean face, clean shoes and now an attitude, because if he had time to shower and change, he had time to tell her he was okay. She looked him over again.
“So wherever you been, you couldn’t let me know you were okay?” she snipped. “A thumbs up, a fuck you. Anything could’ve been better than nothing.”
“I was handling business, Rem-”
“This isn’t the military. You aren’t on a top secret mission that forces you away for weeks and months at a time. You are not alone anymore, Erys, and you can’t move like that,” she fired back. “I’ve been worried out of my mind about you. Ernie has been…beside himself.”
He breathed and nodded. “Do you want every detail?”
“Are you being funny right now?” she snapped. “I told you about that neglecting shit. I told you.”
The dramatics and the attitude all heightened by him. Remedy felt like she was unraveling and couldn’t find the grip to hold herself together. It was maddening.
“I heard you,” he shot back. “I know.”
“But you did it anyway.”
“I handled business,” he stated.
“I know. All I ask-”
He cut her off. “So you and my pops could be fine. Untouched. Do you get that? That I will lose my fucking mind if something happens to you?”
“Erys, I-”
“I’m talking.”
Remedy’s mouth snapped shut, her eyes still intense under furrowed brows. She rolled her lips together and sighed.
Erys rubbed his brow with his free hand, still holding a container in the other.
“Remedy, you don’t see what you’re doing to me?
Huh? You unravel me. Everything I thought I was, I’m not.
Every horrible thing about me, I’m having to change not just because of you, but because I want to be a better person for you.
So when we have kids and they talk about me, they’re fucking proud.
In a matter of some weeks, you’ve undone everything.
I love you and I’m going to always do what I need to do to ensure above all else that you’re safe. ”
“What’d you say?” Remedy questioned.
“I’m going to always do what I need to do to ensure above all else you’re safe,” he repeated, a silly smile melting away the sternness on his face.
“Mm mm, before that.”
“In a matter of some weeks, you’ve undone everything,” Erys repeated, his smile growing.
“After,” Remedy directed.
“I love you.”
She bit a grin. “Say it again, please.”
“I love you. Without question, without worry, without bounds. I love you,” he declared, closing the space between them. He hooked her chin, craned his neck and kissed her with passion. “I’m sorry I didn’t let you know I was good. I understand it’s more than me now too.”
“Good, next time I’m going to track you down.” Remedy playfully pinched the inside of his arm.
“Ow, girl,” he winced with laughter. “I missed your mean ass.”
“I hope it kept you up all night. Had me sleeping in the room with Ernie because he was mad at me you weren’t home. Well Cherie, but at this point, it’s the same damn thing,” Remedy shared.
Erys handed her the box in his hand. “Hopefully that’ll make up for it.”
She screwed her face slightly. “I don’t know how you can top the car.”
Erys watched as she opened the box and found a baby turtle tucked away in its shell on a bed of grass.
“While I was neglecting your spoiled ass, I saw him in the middle of the road. Considering you’ve been calling me Franklin, I figured when I’m gone, if you have a mini version, you can cuss him out. ”
Remedy gently stroked the shell with her finger and cooed “Hey, Bud.”
“I’ve been callin’ him Lil’ Nigga,” Erys shared, watching her gush over the turtle. “His ass snapped at me twice.”
Slowly, the turtle poked his head out of the shell and nuzzled his face against the tip of Remedy’s finger. “I mean he wasn’t wrong. I’d want to snap on you too if you snatched me out of my environment and took me some place strange. Oh wait…you did.”
“You came willingly.”
“I came for Ernie.”
Erys laughed. “You knew how it was going to end. Smothered.”
“I was plotting on choking you out in your sleep and running off with Ernie. But smothering isn’t too bad. Loving it and you isn’t horrible either,” Remedy admitted, looking up at him.
“Let me hear that again,” Erys said with a grin.
“I love you too, Erys. Been trying to hold that in for days. Feels good to let it out. Now that that’s on the table, I want to know what you did to him.”
Erys stepped back and opened her passenger door. “I got the aide staying overnight. Me, you and the St. Harlem.”
“Pet store first, Bud needs an enclosure,” Remedy bargained.
Erys tapped her ass as she climbed into her car. “Come on, act like you know me. I come with a plan and I come prepared. You can do all of that after you smother my face. Two days away from you got me in withdrawals.”
“I like that. Let’s go for three. I want you climbing the walls behind me.”
Erys nipped her bottom lip and squeezed her thigh. “I’m clearing bodies and taking over gangs for you. That tops climbing the walls.”
“Hurry up and get in here. I need to be fed. Twice.”