Chapter Twelve
Remi didn’t have a whole lot of leverage to use against a demoness from Hell. He couldn’t get her fired from her job or get her best friend to quit their band or cancel her tour or make her mother call her and remind her how shitty she was as a person.
So he switched out her prissy-ass shampoo and conditioner for dollar store shit, stole her fancy-ass clothes, beat her shoes against the pavement until the heel was weakened, and made sure the air conditioning was on full blast anytime they were on the tour bus.
Yes, it was juvenile, but it was all he had time for, given he was still working overtime as quasi-band manager to make sure Skye wasn’t sabotaging the tour.
He was double-checking all the accounts, calling venue managers, keeping up on social media, and trying to ward off disaster before it happened.
He didn’t want to do anything that would accidentally fuck things up for the band like smashing her laptop or tablet. He couldn’t get the bus driver to leave her behind. And he’d never do anything that would physically harm her. He might be a jackass, but he wasn’t a monster.
He’d hoped his little high school pranks would slow her down from stirring up more trouble or, even better, make her leave for good, but they just backfired because the rest of the band stepped up and tried to make her feel better.
Until, that was, Remi figured out what Skye actually cared about, what actually got under her skin. She had a short temper and was unbelievably possessive of his band. And she got jealous when he fucked around.
He’d been so focused on messing with Skye and keeping the tour from imploding that he didn’t realize she was poisoning the people he wanted to sleep with against him.
It’d been a little weird when they refused to sign the non-disclosure agreement, but Remi just counted himself lucky.
He’d obviously picked someone that only wanted to fuck him to film it or tell the world or something.
But when it kept happening, and his bandmates had no issues finding people to fuck, he realized something was up.
On the night before the band got sick, it was confirmed by one of the women that Liam had brought back to the bus.
She’d overheard Skye telling Remi’s people that he had STIs.
He thought it was just another way she was fucking with him, but then she’d made that snarky comment about him sleeping around, and it dawned on him.
She was jealous.
Jealous and short-tempered.
And that, he could use. If he pissed her off enough, maybe she’d finally leave the tour for good.
Tilted Haze miraculously recovered from their flu in time to play their show, and then they had two days off until the next one.
While the rest of the band had been resting, Remi had been concocting a plan. Liam and Ollie were still in the hotel, so before they hit the road for the next city, Remi grabbed West and pulled him onto the bus.
West was his best friend. They’d been through everything together. West’s aunt practically raised them both. She was the only adult in Remi’s life who genuinely cared about him. They were more like brothers than anything else.
And West was gay.
So, like, he was going to be the easiest one to convince that Skye was fucking with them since his dick wasn’t going to get all involved.
“Dude, where’s the fire?” West asked as Remi dragged him onto the tour bus.
“I know you think I’m crazy and have a grudge against Skye,” Remi started.
West heaved a sigh. “This again, Remi?”
“Listen,” he said. “Just hear me out. I’m going to get her to admit to the shit she’s doing.”
West took a deep inhale and shook his head as he exhaled.
“Please, West.”
He sighed and then shrugged one shoulder placatingly. “Alright. Fine. What do you want me to do?”
Remi smiled and lifted up the seat cushion from the booth at the table. He gestured toward the open storage space underneath.
West blinked at him. “You want me to hide in there?”
“Yeah.”
West groaned. “Why can’t I just hide in the bathroom or the back of the bus?”
“Because you might not hear everything,” Remi said. “You need to be right here.”
West stared at him for a long minute. Remi gave him the same pleading face he always did when he wanted anything from West. “Come on, man. Please.”
West rolled his neck. “Argh. Fine. Jesus. The things I do for you.”
Remi clapped him on the shoulder as he stepped into the empty space. “You’ll see. She’s evil.”
“Yeah, okay,” he said, unconvinced. He bent down and scrunched himself up, lying on his side. “You’re going to give me nightmares about being trapped down here.”
“You can just pop off the top,” Remi said. “You’ll be fine. Just stay there. I’m going to get her.”
West grumbled but didn’t move as Remi positioned the cushion back on the seat. He ran off the bus to find Skye. Lucky for him, she was already coming this way.
Suspicion lit her eyes as they narrowed in on him. “What are you up to?”
“Nothing,” Remi said. “Just looking for you.”
“For what?” Skye asked as she pushed past him and hiked up the stairs and onto the bus. She went to the table and grabbed her laptop. She was about to sit down on the seat West was hiding under, so Remi grabbed her arm and yanked her to the living room.
“What the fuck, Remi?”
“Just admit what you did to me.” He had to get her riled up. She would go off on him and then admit everything.
“What?” She screwed up her face. “I’ve told you a million times I did not make the guys sick. And I didn’t break the stage lights or fuck up the credit card machines either. I fixed everything, and the show went on.”
She grabbed her laptop and tucked it under her arm, standing in front of the kitchen counter. Remi moved to the side so he didn’t block her voice from West’s hiding place.
“So you say,” Remi said. “But you did fuck with me before, so why wouldn’t I think that you’d do it again?”
Skye rubbed a hand over her forehead. “I have shit to do, Remi. I don’t have time for this.”
She started to turn away, but he grabbed her wrist. “Just admit it, Skye! Admit that you got our shows canceled before we got our record deal. Admit that you’ve had it out for me for months.”
Skye narrowed her eyes. Remi held his breath as she looked over one shoulder and then the other.
Her voice was a hissed whisper but still loud enough for West to hear as she said, “I only got those shows canceled because you were being a stubborn prick that night outside Mike’s.
I got you this tour and your record deal.
Tilted Haze is famous because of me. You’d be begging for your retail job back if it weren’t for me, so fuck off. ”
“The job you got me fired from, you mean.”
“You’re pathetic, Remi.” The word slapped him in the face, and he hated that he couldn’t hide his wince.
Malice dripped from her lips as she smiled at his pain.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to ensure your tour runs smoothly.
I’ll be in the venue office until we leave, in case you want to yell at me some more.
” She sneered at him before turning and walking off the tour bus. The door rattled as she left.
She’s right. You’re fucking pathetic.
Remi shook his head, trying to dislodge his brother’s voice. The cushion of the seat clattered to the floor as West shoved it off. He jumped up and flung out his hands.
“Fuck that,” West said with a disgusted shiver. “I’m never hiding in there again. I’m pretty sure a spider was crawling on me.”
“Did you hear her though?” Remi asked. “She admitted it. She got our summer tour canceled.”
West kept rubbing his hands all over his body, trying to wipe off the invisible cobwebs or something. “Yeah, that was a little weird. When did you say you first met her?”
Remi sucked on his lip ring. He hadn’t told any of them about their first meeting. “She went to a show at Mike’s. I met her in the alley while smoking a cig.”
West rubbed his mouth in thought. “What did she mean about getting us the record deal and the tour?”
Remi cringed. His mind raced as he thought about how to explain this without telling West the whole story. “She, uh, she saw us that night and said she knew people in the industry who could hook us up.”
West’s shoulders dropped, and he shook his head. “Why have you both been keeping that from us?”
Remi’s jaw worked. “Because I was embarrassed, okay? About what I had to do to get her to give us the record deal.”
West huffed a breath. “What? Did you whore yourself out or something?” he joked.
Remi didn’t answer.
West’s lips parted. He blinked repeatedly. “Oh, Remi—”
“It’s not what you think,” Remi said. “It’s not—I can’t—I don’t want to talk about the specifics. Our band got what we deserved. We deserve this tour and our record deal. Our music deserves recognition.”
“I know that,” West said. “But you made it seem like Densen just called you out of the blue. There’s obviously more to it—”
“He did!” Remi ran a hand through his hair. “Fuck, Skye just—she just facilitated it, okay? Densen probably doesn’t even know her name.”
“And you hate her for it?” West asked. “Why?”
Remi pursed his lips.
West leaned against the kitchen counter.
“I want to understand, Remi. You have to know that I’m always on your side, but right now, from where I’m standing, Skye helped facilitate our record deal, and she’s running our tour, while you’re trying to fuck with her every step of the way. None of that makes any goddamn sense.”
“She’s sabotaging me, West. Us. She’s sabotaging us.”
“No.” West crossed his arms over his chest. “I think you are sabotaging us, Rem. I think you don’t think we deserve this tour and record deal. I think you don’t believe we earned this, and subconsciously you’re trying to fuck it up.”
Remi’s mouth opened and closed. He shook his head. “I—I’m not—”
“And worse than that, you’re lying to us about how you know her and how we got the deal. I hear you that she was shady to you in the beginning, but you’re being shady too, Remi.”
“West—”