Page 420 of The Winslow Brothers

I pause and run a hand through my dark hair. “Fine. But if you’re going to be vague, so am I. When it comes to your investments, you’ll just have to watch and wait for the results.”

“Oh, Remington, my dear.” Cleo just smiles that stupid, all-knowing smile of hers. “I look forward to the friendship that will blossom between us.”

Friendship? I’m sorry…what?

I can’t exactly picture grabbing a beer with this woman on the weekends, let alone sitting around and gabbing while she makes scrambled eggs out of my brain.

“I’ll get the check,” she says again before my mind can quiet enough to come up with a coherent response, and she heads toward her secret back room. “And consider today’s reading on the house.”

And then, she’s gone, through the dark curtains and out of sight, leaving me sitting there, a fully executed check on the table in front of me as if by magic, wondering,what in the hell just happened, and why do I get the feeling it’s not over?

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 lifeare 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 brothersandmy 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—theengagementring 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.

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