The Redo by Max Monroe
Genres: Fantasy Novels
Book Preface
Fourteen Years Later…
Saturday, July 20th
Remy
I step through the exit doors of JFK airport, and sweat starts to dot my brow before I can even wave down a taxi.
Late July is notorious for being hot as fuck in New York, and the constant influx of traffic and tourists doesn’t help the matter. We all might as well be ants under a magnifying glass while the neighborhood bully, Scumbucket Billy, tries to incinerate us.
With one sharp whistle from my lips and a wave of my right hand, I make eye contact with a cabbie with a beard, a backward cap, and a goatee that would’ve been the epitome of fashion in the early nineties.
He comes to a skidding stop at the curb, and I don’t waste any time shuffling through the crowd of people and suitcases on the sidewalk and hopping inside the back seat. I toss my leather backpack, the only luggage I brought with me to LA, into the spot beside me.
“Where to?”
“Greenwich Village,” I answer and then elucidate by giving him the address to my brother Ty’s apartment building.
He nods, taps the meter on the dashboard, and hits the gas without a second thought. In true New York cabbie style, we’re careening into the airport traffic in balls-to-the-wall, offensive-driver fashion. He swerves between cars, ignores the honks of other drivers, and I pull my phone out of my pocket to check for any missed notifications while I was on my flight back from the West Coast.
Most people would probably be too focused on whether they were about to get killed by a taxi driver, but when you’ve been a New Yorker your whole life, erratic driving doesn’t make you blink an eye.
Besides texts from an anxious—and annoying—Ty, I find an unexpected message in my inbox.
C: Love is in the air.
I smirk to myself and type out a response.
Me: And so is a 12% return on your investment this quarter. PS: You know the rules, Cleo. No love bullshit.
That’s right. I invest money for a fucking psychic. For fourteen years and counting, to be exact.
Frankly, I don’t know what it is about the woman, but I’ve grown to find her strangely likable over the years. Like an eccentric, wacky aunt I can’t get away from.
In my defense, though, from the very start, I set the ground rules of our weird pseudofriendship, or whatever you want to call it. It only revolved around one task—predictions about my love life are off the table. She might be batting a thousand so far with her prophecies for my brothers, but that doesn’t mean I want to buy into all that nonsense. These days, occasional dates and one-night stands when I’m feeling froggy are about as close as I get to a relationship. It’s easier that way. Less risk. Less complications. Less fucking nonsense. Exactly the way I prefer it.
My siblings, though? They’ve thrown caution to the love-filled wind. That’s right, all three of my brothers and my baby sister are officially off the market.
First Winnie, second Jude, then Flynn, and now, Ty is the last bastard to bite the dust. I know this because I have a diamond ring in my backpack to prove it—the engagement ring he begged me to pick up while I was in LA meeting with a few clients.
C: PS: You’re my favorite Winslow brother.
Me: That’s not a hard thing to achieve with brothers like mine.
Being the oldest of three boys and one girl, I’ve grown accustomed to being the most responsible out of our wild brood. Plus, all my brothers are assholes.
Well, besides Flynn.
But Jude and Ty? Definitely assholes. Lovable assholes, but assholes all the same.
C: One day, I’d like to see you all together again. It would make my day.
Me: Pretty sure you just saw Ty not that long ago. And Jude, too.
Those idiots ended up seeking out the mysterious Miss Cleo when they realized they’d fallen on their fucking asses in love, just like she predicted on the night of my bachelor party nearly a decade and a half ago.
Of course, they didn’t tell me shit about it. Even after all these years, they still tiptoe around the subject that is the Remy and Charlotte wedding-that-never-happened like it’s cracked glass.
In their minds, it’s the period of time that is never to be talked about.
Sure, for the first couple years after Charlotte left me high and dry, I wanted it that way.
But now? It’s become a secret, amusing pastime of mine to watch them skirt around their words whenever topics like love and marriage are brought up when I’m around.
If only they knew the truth—that I’ve been in contact with the infamous Miss Cleo for that same decade and a half. Shit, they’d lose their minds if they found out I’ve been handling her investments ever since I sought her out, one year after my failed wedding.
My phone pings with a new text, and while my cabbie runs a red light, I look down at the screen.
C: Be sure to give Ty my congratulations.
Hence her initial but cryptic love-is-in-the-air text. I guess she was following the rules after all.
And I can’t not laugh at the idea of me following through with her insane request. Ty might be a fit, forty-year-old man, but if I even mentioned the name Miss Cleo to him, he’d be at risk for a damn stroke.
Me: Since I’d much rather attend my brother’s wedding than his funeral, I’ll keep that information to myself. And…can’t you send it to him telepathically or some shit? I mean, you ARE the psychic.
C: Oh, Remington, you always do amuse me.
Once I’m about ten minutes away from Ty’s building, I switch out of my text convo with Cleo and pull up the one with my anxious-as-hell brother.
At least twenty texts sit unanswered from him. All of them variations of “Where the fuck are you?”
Me: I’m on my way.
His response back is instant, like he’s just sitting there with his phone in his hands.
Ty: You got the goods?
Me: No, Ty. I’m just coming over to have afternoon tea.
Ty: At least tell me this, you bastard, are said goods being carefully handled and protected during transport?
Me: Yes.
Ty: By yes, do you mean that you are guaranteeing that you are not going to lose, drop, or ruin the very expensive goods on your way here?
Me: For fuck’s sake, Ty. Relax. I’ll be there soon.
It’s safe to say, I’ll be glad when this engagement ring is out of my possession and the last Winslow brother who wants to get married says “I do.”
Then I can finally put all this love shit in the rearview mirror.
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