Chapter Eight
“There are a bunch of people at the door claiming to be journalists, but they aren’t on the list,” a young woman with a clipboard said. Remi recognized her as one of the runners at the Whisky a Go Go, but he’d already forgotten her name with the amount of shit he was dealing with.
“Fuck,” he said, dropping the microphone stand he’d been setting up on the stage. It was his stage manager’s job, but he was missing—again.
Remi pulled his phone out of his back pocket and scrolled through his millions of unread emails, trying to find the one that the label had sent to him, which should have also been sent to the Whisky.
After what felt like a century, he found it and gave his phone to the woman. She started writing the names on her clipboard.
“Just take my phone,” Remi said. “It’ll be quicker, and I don’t want to piss off the journalists any more than I already have.”
She nodded and took the phone. “Looks like they misspelled our manager’s name in the email address. That’s why we didn’t get it.”
Remi nodded, unsurprised. It was only the billionth tiny thing that had gone wrong in the last few weeks.
The girl sprinted off with his phone, and he idly wondered if he’d ever see it again.
With his luck, he wouldn’t.
Remi ran his hands through his hair and tugged at the roots as his frustration grew.
The last two months had been a whirlwind.
His band signed a record deal and recorded an album faster than he thought possible.
He was getting laid every night. He’d done so many designer drugs he was convinced a drug dog would be able to sniff them out in his blood.
He was a motherfucking rock star.
He was living his dream.
And it was a fucking nightmare.
It started off as a couple of misunderstandings, a few organization issues, growing pains.
Their producer called them three weeks ago to rerecord a few of their songs.
The files had gotten corrupted while they were finalizing the album.
Not a huge deal. Remi and his bandmates had been practicing nonstop in preparation for their first tour.
They went to the studio and knocked it out in a few days. Crisis averted.
But it only got worse from there.
Remi and West were booked to do a few interviews, and they’d been headed to one when he’d gotten a call from a disgruntled man who told him he was two hours late.
Remi apologized and said he was on his way, pissed at himself for getting the time wrong.
He respected the press. He wasn’t one of those guys who’d miss an interview or forget to put a journalist’s name on the guest list. Well, at least, he thought he wasn’t.
When they finally got to the interview, Remi started apologizing profusely to the host for being late, but the host had only furrowed his brow and assured him he was on time.
A sickening dread landed heavy in his gut.
Remi redialed the phone number of the angry interviewer and found out that the label had double-booked them.
They were somehow supposed to be in two places at once.
He left West with the original host and called a cab to go across town to knock out the other interview before they got a reputation for being flakes.
Remi might have only barely graduated high school, but he’d been studying how the music industry worked since he convinced West to start a band with him in the ninth grade.
Tilted Haze wasn’t going to be a one- or two- or three-hit wonder.
If they wanted to last in this business, they needed to have a good reputation.
It wasn’t the 1980s—doing blow off strippers’ tits and shirking his responsibilities wouldn’t cut it.
The tits and the blow came after he finished his band management duties.
Because, oh, right—that was the other thing—Remi was now managing every aspect of the band since last week they found out their new manager had been stealing from them.
Already.
The full signing bonus hadn’t even hit their bank accounts yet!
A couple of technical hiccups here and there, getting their wires crossed on scheduling, accidents happening—his bandmates chalked it all up to bad luck. But Remi knew the truth.
He’d sold his soul and got scammed.
Tilted Haze had a record deal, three singles streaming in the millions, and they were embarking on their cross-country stadium tour in a week. But Remi was barely hanging on.
Hope success turns out exactly as you imagined it to be, Skye had said to him before the metaphorical ink had even dried on his deal.
Remi had gotten everything he asked for, but he was probably going to keel over from a heart attack if he had to deal with one more disaster.
He should have known better, but he’d just been so desperate to save his band.
Bullshit. You wanted to be rich and famous so you could prove to everyone you aren’t the worthless piece of shit we all know you are. Remi took a deep breath and tried to shake his twin brother’s voice out of his head.
He would not crack. He would not admit defeat.
He was going to finish situating the stage, and then he’d sneak out for a smoke break—even though he really shouldn’t smoke before a show—and when he came back, he’d step onto the stage and do the only thing that he was meant to do in this world: sing and perform, and everything would be right with the world again.
“Remi!”
“What?” he asked, throwing his hands up in frustration as he turned to Ollie, who strode up the stairs to the stage.
“We have a problem with the sound guy,” Ollie said.
“What are you talking about? Sound check went fine?”
“He somehow deleted the settings. He told me he could wing it, but then asked if we had settings from a prior show that he could use as a guide.”
There was only a fabric curtain separating him from the crowd on the other side, but Remi couldn’t help himself—he yelled his irritation to the ceiling.
With hands clenched into fists, he stomped past Ollie and down the stairs—only to smack right into her.
The woman who infiltrated his dreams. The demoness who got him into this mess. His beautiful nightmare.
“Remi,” she purred with a flirty smirk and a tilt of her head. “How are you?”
“How am I?” he seethed, walking up to her until they were toe-to-toe. “How am I?”
He backed her against a wall. “I’m not so good, Skye.
But I think you know that. I think you’ve been watching the disaster streak that has been my life and laughing your pretty little ass off at my misfortune, haven’t you?
What is this? Are you here to rub it in my face?
Or are you here to make another deal? A two-for-one maybe, ask my bandmates to sell their souls to fix the fucked-up deal that I made? ”
Skye narrowed her eyes. She stepped a high-heeled boot between his legs and somehow glared down her nose at him, despite being shorter. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but if I were you, I’d be real fucking careful with how you talked to me because I can make your life a living hell.”
“Too late,” Remi said with his arms outstretched. “It already is!”
Her glare turned into confusion, but Remi didn’t buy anything this conniving little vixen did or said.
His anger overflowed into panting breaths, his chest heaving. From her leg’s position planted between his feet, their hips pressed together, and his body got its wires crossed as the heat of his anger shifted into a zing of lust.
He clenched his jaw to fight against it. She was doing this. She had to be. There was no way Remi would be getting turned on by her presence if she wasn’t using her mystical, magical demoness powers to do it. He hated that his eyes fell to her plump lips. Hated that—
“Uh, Remi?” Ollie said.
He’d forgotten Ollie was there, but luckily, he was far enough away that he hadn’t heard anything they’d said.
Skye stepped sideways, out of contact with Remi’s body. She walked to Ollie, hand outstretched. “Hi, I’m Skye. A friend of Remi’s. It’s nice to meet you, Ollie.”
Ollie nodded in greeting, raising his hand to shake hers.
“Don’t!” Remi said, running over and slapping Skye’s hand out of the air. “Don’t shake her hand.”
Skye rolled her eyes and leaned into her hip. She tilted her head and raised her eyebrows in a ‘really?’ look. “I don’t have some contagious disease, Remi. Nothing will happen to him if he shakes my hand.”
“If you think I’d believe a word you say—”
“Remi!” Liam shouted, sprinting over to them. West was right behind him. “Did you hear about the sound guy? Are we fucked or…?”
West grabbed Liam’s arm, no doubt noticing the hostility hanging thick in the room.
Skye glared at Remi for another beat, and then she turned and pointed her sexy grin at them.
“Hi, Liam, West. My name’s Skye. I’m a friend of—well, actually, I’m Remi’s friend, but he thinks of me as an enemy apparently, but that’s neither here nor there.
What seems to be the problem with the sound guy? ”
“Oh hell no,” Remi said, shouldering his way in front of Liam, who was about to open his big mouth. “We don’t want the kind of help you are offering.”
Skye tilted her chin down. “Remi, there are no strings attached. I’ve been coming to the Whisky since before I could walk.
I know the managers. I know the sound system.
I could probably point out every single scuff mark and dried gum wad in this place with my eyes closed.
You need help. I’m here to help.” Her eyes slid to Liam. “What’s the problem?”
Liam—the big idiot—said, “The sound guy lost our settings during sound check.”
Skye nodded and strode out of the backstage area. Everyone followed on her heels.
Remi tried to grab her arm, but she slipped out of his grip. “If you think you’re going to get their souls for this—” he said under his breath.
Skye ignored him.