Page 42 of Crawl
Her mother pivots to me, her smile wider than before. I hold out my hand and she takes it, beaming up at me. But her eyes hover over mine; the freckles always stop people. Eye freckles are common, but few are as dark as mine. It catches her off guard like there’s something off about me. She subtly shakes it away, and I give her my practiced grin.
“You must be Mrs. Basset,” I say.
“Please, call me Kim. And you are?”
“Cash.” Remedy lifts her shoulders, looking at me. That movement tells me she hasn’t actually told her mother that I’m her boss yet. Her mother—Kim—thinks I’m Remedy’s boyfriend.
I’m not sure how to feel about that.
“Cash? That’s an interesting name,” her mother says. She winks at her daughter. “He’s handsome too.”
I chuckle inwardly. I know what she really means. She’s stuck on my eyes and knows she has to say something to distract herself from how strange I look.
A man with shaggy gray hair and bright blue eyes offers his hand to me before Remedy.
“I’m Tom,” he says. We shake hands first,thenhe turns to Remedy, as if I’m more important than his girlfriend’s daughter. The fucking idiot. “Thanks for meeting us tonight.”
Once the hostess guides us to our table, we make small talk through false interactions. No matter how close a family is, these kinds of interactions are always a mask to show how close the unit is to the ideal family. A few of my foster families loved pretending like that when I first arrived, and at first, I thought that family dinners meant quiet, happy evenings. But it’s always a fantasy. A way to make someone comfortable enough so they can beat you for those mistakes, like a foster son who refused to talk.
I doubt Kim touched Remedy like that, but I can’t shake it from my head. I want to kill Kim to prove that Remedy doesn’tneedthis false relationship in her life. But the more her mother babbles about Tom’s amazing attributes, the louder and more aggressive Remedy becomes, as if it pisses her off to even be in the same room as Tom. It’s entertaining, but the night still blurs together.
A voice cuts through the tremors of conversation.
“Cash?” Remedy asks, touching my thigh under the table. I blink. What are we talking about?
“What do you do again, Cash?” her mother asks.
“I’m a developer,” I say.
“Oh! Tom does accounting for Johnson Properties—”
Remedy cuts in: “Cash makes more money than Tom.”
“Remmie, sweetie,” her mother says, a warning tone in her voice. “Be nice.”
Those are the same two words Remedy said to me before I walked Dean out of her rental house a few nights ago. Even her mother knows that Remedy is ready to kill tonight.
But Tom laughs and knocks his fist into my shoulder. “It’s all right, Kimmie. He probably does! Look at that watch.” I placate him by showing it off, not because I care, but because I want Remedy to understand how much I’m doing for her. Ihatethis bullshit. “Buddy, is that blood?” Tom asks, aiming a finger at my watch’s strap. “You okay? You cut yourself shaving or something?”
I narrow in on it. A drop of blood, smaller than a speck of cement, is dried on the alligator leather strap. I rub it off. I don’t even remember wearing this watch during a kill recently. What’s it from?
Remedy smiles at me, and then I remember: it’s my blood, from when we fucked in her kitchen and she scratched the hell out of my back.
“Something like that,” I say to Tom.
Their conversation continues and I stare out at the dark water, but I can’t see anything. The lights from the restaurant are too bright. I don’t know why I’m at this restaurant. Is it for Remedy? To see her mother and boyfriend, so I can murder them too? I keep telling myself that I’m still here, sinking into this bottomless tourist pit just so that I can make Remedy alone like me, so that I can makehertake the fall for my crimes. But I know the truth.
I’m curious about her.
We make it through the dinner, and I even chime in once or twice, mostly to tease Remedy into more rebellious action. She can’t stop taking jabs at Tom, and it’s funny to watch her squirm. But by the end of the evening, her spirit simmers, and I’m relieved that it’s time to part ways. The four of us stand in the entrance lobby, an elaborate plastic crow’s nest jutting up to the side of us.
“Thanks for convincing her to do this,” her mother says, reaching to give me a hug. I stiffen, but follow the gesture. When I finally ran away in my teenage years, I realized that I have to pretend. Have to fit in. Have to play the part of normal.
And normal people give hugs to potential in-laws.
It’s not like I’m marrying her. Butthat’swhat Remedy is pretending.
Why do I put up with this much shit for her?
