Chapter 20 #2
Remi shrugged. “I have to be, don’t I? I burned that bridge personally. But I have to go on regardless. I can’t do that until I start fixing the mess I made of things, and of me, too. This opportunity Dad has for me, I think might be just what I need to start healing.”
“No better way to heal than helping other people,” Avaleigh said.
~~~
A few days later Remi sat in his car, parked on the shoulder of the highway just before the turnoff for the neighborhood Brandt and the rest of his clan had established.
It was well past the three days he’d been given to get off their property, and the last thing he wanted to do when trying to apologize for his behavior was to offend Brandt again.
It didn’t matter that his own house was still technically on Brandt’s property.
It was understood that it now belonged to the clan because he’d, like an ass, chosen to walk away.
Remi tried for the third or fourth time to reach out to Brandt telepathically, to request permission to be on clan land, but he’d been blocked.
There was no one there to make a connection with.
So, instead, he picked up his brand new cell phone he’d just bought earlier that morning, and dialed Brandt’s number from memory.
Remi’s brain worked like that, once he heard a number, or a sequence of numbers, it was there forever.
He listened to the rings for a few seconds, before Brandt finally answered.
“Yeah?” Brandt demanded, not being familiar with the number Remi was calling from.
“Hey, Brandt. It’s Remi. I was wondering if you might happen to have a few minutes to talk to me. I’m outside the road leading into the neighborhood, but I didn’t want to offend you by coming onto it without your permission.”
There was a momentary pause before Brandt finally replied. “You alone?”
“Yes, absolutely. Completely alone. And I’m not here to cause any trouble.”
“Tempest is close to delivering. If you’re here for any kind of drama, it’s not gonna happen today. Put it on hold and I’ll catch up with you later,” Brandt said.
“Nothing like that,” Remi said.
“Alright, you have permission to be on the property. Today,” Brandt said.
“Thank you,” Remi answered. “I’ll be there in a minute or two.”
Remi waited until Brandt ended the call, then ended it on his phone, pulled forward and took a right onto the property.
His stomach was threatening to empty itself, and his hands were less than steady.
This was not something he looked forward to doing, and he knew it was only the first of many times he’d feel like this.
He drove down the main road through the property, and glanced just barely down the cross street his own house was down, then quickly to the left where Havoc’s and Hellen’s were, but kept going until he ended up in what could be described as a rudimentary cul de sac, with Brandt’s home to the left and a slender road that was little more than a path leading to the right and eventually to Barron’s house.
Remi pulled up in front of Brandt’s home, and took a deep breath to settle himself.
“A grown ass male cleans up the messes he makes,” he reminded himself aloud.
With that spoken reminder, he got out of his car and started toward the steps leading up to Brandt and Tempest’s raised, wrap around porch.
As he made his way up, he wasn’t surprised at all when Brandt didn’t come out to meet him.
He knew full well that Brandt would treat him like an outsider.
That’s what he was. He’d made that choice while wildly out of control, but still, he’d made that choice.
When he reached the top of the steps, finally standing on the porch, he looked out over the river taking a second to take a deep easy breath before turning to the front door. He knocked twice, then stepped back from the door and waited.
The door swung open and Brandt, his face unreadable, stood there facing him, his arms crossed over his chest as he waited for Remi to speak his piece.
“I’m sorry for the interruption, but there was no other way to get in contact with you.”
“I understand,” Brandt said.
“I won’t take up too much of your time. I’m here to apologize.
I owe you and everybody else an apology for my behavior, for my lack of control and for my disrespect.
I will be eternally ashamed of the way I treated you and everyone else in our clan.
There are no excuses for my actions. I was weak.
I was jealous. I was petty. I can’t make it go away, and I can’t make things like they used to be.
But I’m here to tell you that I deeply regret everything I caused, and I own my own actions.
I do not ask for forgiveness, I ask for you to hear me, and to allow me to make amends in anyway, at any time you might choose, to balance the behavior I’ve exhibited. ”
Brandt stood there, his posture still the same, but something had softened in his face.
“What are your plans?” Brandt asked.
“I’ve asked my parents for the use of my old room for a little while until I can get my own place, and start to rebuild me.
I’ll be overseeing the homeless shelter my Dad is spearheading at the back of the industrial park.
A lot of the people we hope will take advantage of it, don’t have anyone to come hunt them down and make sure they’re okay, like my parents did me.
I think it’ll make a big difference. I don’t expect anyone to have much faith in me, but hopefully they’ll see my actions and know that I’m sincere. You being included in the ‘they’.”
“What happened?” Brandt asked.
“I was an asshole,” Remi said.
Brandt laughed. “No, I mean to bring you here today.”
“Cristie. Bailey called her, she drove down here and found me in exactly the spot we’re putting the shelter and gave me a look at yourself and what you have become talk. It was a wakeup call. And I’m not afraid to admit that coming from anybody else, I probably wouldn’t have heard the message.”
“Where is she now?” Brandt asked, glancing down at Remi’s car.
“Home. She said she was glad that she’d achieved what she came for, and she was happy to go home knowing that I’d be here, working to be the man she knows I am.”
Brandt’s brows raised in surprise. “That’s… rough.”
“I didn’t expect any more than that. At least she cared enough to come try to help. And look, I’m not here to ask for favors or anything of the sort. I’m here to apologize, genuinely, and tell you how bad I feel for the situation I created.”
“Why don’t you come in, let’s talk some,” Brandt said, stepping to the side to give Remi access.
“Tempest?”
“She’s resting for now. She won’t mind you being here. She’s been worried. We both have.”
“Okay,” Remi said, following Brandt into his house.
“You hungry?” Brandt asked.
“No, please, no. My mother has been feeding me for two days straight. I’m gonna be fat,” Remi said.
Brandt laughed. He looked at Remi, then covered the few feet between them and hugged him roughly. “Hardest damn thing I ever had to do, Remi. Fucking hurt, man.”
Remi nodded. “Yeah, I know. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I was just so fucking blind and so lost, resentful and petty. I was…” Remi sighed, then shrugged, “fucked up and feeling sorry for myself. And then I was just broken. I’m trying to rebuild me, though. It’s like starting over from square one.”
“You still got your house here.”
Remi shook his head. “You keep it. I feel like I have to go a different way somehow.”
“You’re part of this clan, Remi. The whole point in me giving you an ultimatum was to try to snap you out of whatever it was you were going through. I never thought you’d actually leave.”
“I can see that now. I could see it at the time, but it just pissed me off even more that you were so magnanimous when I was being such a prick.”
Brandt shook his head. “So, now what?”
“Went to town this morning. Closed my old bank account, opened another. My parents fronted me a little money until I get my first check. I got a new phone. Got a job at the new homeless shelter. Never done anything like it, but I feel like I need it at the moment. Going to get a little place of my own, find a balance inside me and figure out what’s next. ”
“You’ll always have a place here.”
Remi smiled. “Thank you, Brandt. I’m sorry I disrespected you. I’m sorry I disappointed you.”
“Brandt?” Tempest called sleepily from the bedroom.
“I’m going to get out of here and let you take care of your mate. Tell her everything I said. Tell her I said I’m so sorry and I hope she can find it in herself to give me a chance to make amends.”
“I will. You come back here. You call me. You do whatever you need to. We are your family,” Brandt said.
Remi hugged Brandt, and they pounded each other on the back like males do. “Thank you. I’ll be in touch,” Remi promised, then he let himself out of the door and was gone before Brandt made it to the bedroom.
~~~
The bell above the door jangled, and Bailey finished placing the turnovers she’d made in the display cabinet.
“Welcome! I’ll be right with you,” she said.
Placing the empty baking sheet on a different counter top behind herself, she finally turned back to smile at the new customer.
The moment she saw who her customer was, her smile dropped.
In fact, her entire countenance changed.
“Remi,” she said softly.
“Hi, Bailey.”
“What can I get for you?” she asked uncertainly.
He shook his head. “Nothing, thank you, though. I came to talk to you real quick.”
She took a good look at him and realized he was clean, he was sober, in fact, he looked better than he had in a while. “Okay.”
“I owe you a huge debt of gratitude.”
As per her usual self, she brushed it off. “Don’t be silly. You don’t owe me anything.”
Remi smiled but was unconvinced as he slowly walked up to the counter.
“You broke up with me to free me from having to make that decision and carrying that guilt in the hopes that I would find my way to Cristie. That was the most selfless, most loving thing anyone has ever done for me. I was too much of an ass to realize it at the time, but I realize it now. It had to be very difficult, and I’ll be forever grateful for that gift. ”
“Honestly, as much as it hurt, and as hard as it was, at the same time it was the easiest thing for me.”
He looked confused for a second until she explained.
“When you love someone, you want them to be happy, even if it’s someone else that makes them happy. Their happiness is more important than yours. So, you don’t have to thank me, and you certainly don’t owe me anything.”
He smiled at her, that soft smile that she always associated with Remi before he’d gone off the deep end. “And you called Cristie, when no on else did. You knew that she’d be the one to get to me, even through all the haze and the alcohol and the self pity, you knew I’d hear her.”
Bailey smiled at him. “What we had was great, and for her to be able to turn your head, what the two of you could have had must have been spectacular. I just thought of the way you couldn’t look away from her, couldn’t even hear anyone else’s voice if she was in the room, and I knew.
If anyone was going to get through to you, it was her. ”
“You were right. You took away any possibility for me to feel guilty for finding my way to Cristie, and you called her in to save me when no one else could do it. Like I said, I owe you a debt of gratitude. I always will.”
“You know what I demand in payment?” she asked, propping her hand on her hip.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“Be happy. Just be happy. No matter what that looks like. Be healthy, be happy.”
“Shaun is a very, very lucky male,” Remi said, nodding to himself.
“He knows. I remind him of it often,” Bailey said with a laugh.
“I hope he loves you enough to want you to be happy no matter who or what it is that makes you happy,” Remi said.
Bailey’s face lit up when she thought of Shaun. “He does. He’s… everything. He’s my mate.”
Remi grinned at her. “I’m so glad you’re happy, Bailey.
You deserve the best of everything. I’m sorry I was so hateful at the end.
I’m sorry I was so selfish the entire time.
I shouldn’t have pulled you into the world we live in.
I loved you, I really did. But I knew I was forcing things.
You weren’t my mate, I just wanted it so badly. ”
She reached across the counter and laid her hand on his forearm. “If you hadn’t brought me into your world, I might not have met my mate. You did the right thing. And you don’t have to apologize for anything. You were hurting. I’m just glad the Remi I know is back.”
“I’m working on it. I was carrying some baggage I didn’t even know I was carrying. And things have changed but I’m building me from scratch again. I think it’s going to be okay. I’ll make me better this time.”
“You were pretty special before. Can’t wait to see all you achieve this time.”
“You’re one of my best friends. I hope that’s okay with you. I love you, and I’m so very happy for you and Shaun. I’m glad you have him, and I’m even glad he has you.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’m proud to be your friend.”
The bell on the door jangled, breaking them out of their conversation.
Remi glanced behind himself, inclined his head at the couple entering the shoppe, before he turned back to Bailey. “I’ll see you later, okay?” he said, backing toward the door.
“You better,” she called out as he waved and stepped outside.