Remi had to focus.
He couldn’t let himself get distracted by her offer or the way she sounded without the filter of his hazy dreams.
Or the way his body had been urging him to give up and give in when she pressed herself against him.How his hands had twitched with the need to hold her, squeeze the flesh of her ass and grind her hips down on his.
No, he wasn’t getting distracted by any of that.It was all just some kind of demon manipulation.
The way he felt about Skye was all manufactured to get him to give up his soul, but he didn’t need her offer.Tilted Haze would blow up without a supernatural intervention.
He dialed the first venue and got to work.
A few hours later, he lined up a couple of options, but they’d need to completely overhaul their entire schedule.All the remaining shows were scattered too far apart.
None of it was going to fit together.
Remi was reordering a group of shows when his phone rang.He answered it without looking at the caller ID, thinking it was one of the promoters he’d left messages for.
“Hello?”
“Wow.He actually picks up the phone,” his mother’s deadpan voice said.
He swore under his breath and forced a smile onto his face.“Hi, Mom.Nice to hear from you too.”
Remi and his mother didn’t get along.He felt like he could never get anything right or make her happy, and when he stopped trying, it only further eroded their relationship.
Emerson was her golden child.He could do no wrong, so when Remi had fucked up—and he always did—Emerson would side with their mother.He’d always been quick to remind Remi of all the ways he was a screw-up.
“I’ve called you several times, Remington,” she said.“You haven’t returned any of my voicemails.”
Remi bit back a sigh.“I’m sorry about that.What’s up?”
“What’s up?”she mocked.“What’s up?Does something need to be up for me to hear from my son?Is that anyway to speak to the mother who raised you and worked her ass off so you had food on the table?”
Remi squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his tongue into his bottom lip.“I meant, what’s up like how are you, what’s going on with you, what’s new.”
“Well then, just say that, Remington, honestly.”She sighed, and somehow, she’d put twenty-five years of disappointment into that single sound.“What’s upis that Darrell said the new police station is doing a fundraiser to raise money for an expansion.They are selling bricks that can be memorialized, and we think it’d be a good idea to get one for Emerson.”
“Okay,” Remi said, forcing cheer at the awful idea.He had zero interest in expanding the police station, and he shuddered at the thought it’d be done in his brother’s name, but he knew better than to voice any opinion that went against his mother’s latest boyfriend’s great idea.
“It would be a nice thing, Remington,” his mother said, hearing through his fake upbeat tone.“To remember your brother.He was such a good boy.”
“Right.Yes.Thatisnice,” he agreed, digging his fingernails into his palm.
“So since you think it’d be nice, you should send me the five-hundred-dollar donation so I can get the brick.”
“I don’t have five hundred—”
“It’s for your brother!”she interrupted.“So what?You’ll have to go without beer and pot for a few weeks?It’s the least you can do.Honestly, with the way you treated him growing up, you should buy him ten bricks!”
“Mom,” Remi said, “I really don’t have any money.Like any.I…I lost my job today and—”
“You lost your job?Again?Remington, when are you going to grow up?Your brother is gone, and you’re wasting your life.Do you know how that makes me feel?To be the mother of a dead child and a deadbeat.”
She sniffed.“But what should I expect?You’re just like your father.You can’t even afford to buy a brick to memorialize your brother.You really shouldn’t be so selfish, Remi.My therapist said it was important to find healthy ways to remember Emerson.This would help me process the grief of losing my boy.”
Remi sucked on his lip ring as the familiar sinking feeling in his gut threatened to harden him to his mother’s pleas.He wanted to snap at her, but he bit his tongue.
After Emerson died, Remi told himself that he’d treat his mother better.
