Page 12 of To Love and Protect
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 atshit 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, . . . anundergroundboxer, . . . 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, shedidn’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. Whatyouknow ’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.
