Page 49 of Social Sinners

Chapter Sixteen

The first week Mom’s house was on the market, it received multiple offers. With the closing date nearing, we were touring condos with the realtor who’d found homes for all Social Sinners band members. Mom wanted to be near us, and Jay and I wanted that as well. Mom had never been on her own, and over the few weeks she’d been living here, we’d become very protective of her.

There was a gated community nearby in Edmonds with a couple of open units in it. We ended up settling on the one that of course, needed the most work because it had the best bones and Brett could easily manipulate what was there and build Mom her dream place, which she more than deserved. She’d given up her entire adult life to take care of her family, now it was time for us to take care of her.

The unit was the perfect size for her, and once the city approved the architectural plans, Brett said it would only take him six weeks to complete the renovations. What I liked best about this one was that it wasn’t on the ground floor and the balcony overlooked the sound, so mom had a fantastic view of the water. The garage itself was gated, and there was security twenty-four seven. She’d literally go from parking her car to the elevator up to her floor without having to deal with the general population.

Sal called a band meeting later that day at his house, so we headed over after we dropped mom off at home. When we walked inside, it was easy to see all hell had broken loose. The five of us spotted four guys standing in the living room staring at Sal throwing Easton’s mother’s things over the upstairs mezzanine railing. Haphazardly packed suitcases were being tossed down the staircase while they screamed obscenities back and forth. Easton and I went upstairs to where Sal currently was to find out what was going on.

“Dad!” Easton yelled, trying to catch Sal’s attention as he was throwing together some rather choice statements about his wife.

“What!” he yelled but stopped when he turned and found us standing there. “Oh, son, sorry.”

“What the hell is going on?” Easton asked as we scanned the war zone of women’s clothing scattered across the master bedroom floor and out into the hallway.

“I was having a band meeting with the new band I’d just signed, Embrace the Fear. One of the guys left the office to use the restroom in the hallway. A few minutes later he was screamingstopandwhat the fuck lady. The other three members and I ran out of the office and found him standing in the middle of the bathroom with his pants around his ankles and his hands up in the air. Your mother was down on her knees, holding his dick in her hand.”

“Jesus,” Easton muttered at the same time I said, “Whoa.”

“Exactly. I told her to get the fuck up and get the fuck out. Chase, the guy in question immediately started apologizing. I told him to pull up his pants and had the band go wait in the living room. After that, things escalated rapidly between your mother and me. I’ve had enough, and I want her out. Those kids are barely legal, and she’s forcing herself on one of them. If I didn’t want to avoid a scandal, I’d beg him to press charges. As it is, I now need to do damage control. Can you two stay up here and make sure she gets all her shit while I deal with them?” It was rare Sal ever asked us for anything, so it was easy to agree to help him out, not that we’d tell him no anyway.

Easton started gathering his mom’s stuff and placing it into the suitcases he found. We could hear his parents screaming downstairs. “Has it always been like this?” I asked him.

“Off and on. Neither one of them is an angel, but I have to admit this is a new low for my mom,” he told me as he continued packing. The two of us filled the suitcases in no time, but she still had enough left in her closet to stage a small boutique shop. After placing them by the front door, we met the guys outside by the pool.

“Yo,” Stoli said as we walked up, “is World War Three over?”

“We didn’t see either of them when we came out,” I told him, now wondering if they’d killed each other in the interim.

“Sorry about that,” Easton told the group, beyond embarrassed. “You guys must be with Embrace the Fear. I’m Easton, Sal’s son, and the manager for Social Sinners. I’m sure you already met Joey, Stoli, and Mickey. This is Diamond, their drummer.” We shook hands, but they didn’t say anything other than their names. I learned they were Rhone, David, Seltzer, and Chase, who was the man at the heart of the Masterson explosion. They were nervous as fuck and couldn’t be a day over eighteen and somehow managed to converge as a group onto a single lounge chair.

“This is really embarrassing, I can assure you this has never happened before,” Easton apologized profusely.

“Your dad’s gonna kill me, I probably just cost us our contract but man, she attacked me,” Chase told us.

“Trust me, Sal knows that. He told Easton and I that exact thing upstairs,” I tried to reassure him.

“We’ve been with Sal and Easton for ten years and never once experienced anything like this,” Stoli added. “If Sal wanted to cancel your contract, he would’ve already given you the boot instead of asking us to take you guys outside.”

Easton turned, burying his face in my neck. My arms wound around him, and I brushed my lips across his forehead. “It’ll be all right, babe. Your dad called us here for a reason, and I’m sure this wasn’t it.” When I looked out, all four sets of eyes on the lounge chair we’re staring at us. I cocked a brow, daring them to say something but hoped like hell they weren’t homophobes. That wouldn’t work out well for them.

We took a seat at the table with the guys waiting for Sal to come out which happened about twenty minutes later. “Sorry about that, boys. She’s gone, and the movers will be here shortly to remove her things. I called you here today for a reason. Joey, Stoli, Mickey, and Diamond, Maiden Voyage wants to do a European dual headlining tour with you guys next year.”

As one, we whooped, hollered, and whistled. I, for one, was getting a bit stir crazy and was more than ready to get out on the road and play our new songs. Plus, touring with Maiden was a pleasure. They were cool as fuck and never caused any problems. Man, the way they banded together for us after the bus crash will never be forgotten. They were an extension of the Social Sinners family.

“Wait, there’s more,” Sal added, “Social Sinners has been invited to play at the Billboard Awards show in October which will be live so Diamond, keep the F-bombs tozero. This is perfect timing since the performance is the night your new CD releases which will allow you the perfect opportunity to play something new. All I ask is that you keep it, clean boys.”

“I promise I fucking will,” I purposely said, Stoli groaned but Sal smiled while Easton shook his head.

“Now back to the tour. In case you didn’t know, Double Duty broke up. They decided shortly after the accident that life on the road wasn’t for them, so they returned to the general population. With that being said, Embrace the Fear will be joining you guys for this tour.”

The guys from ETF stared at each other before they too broke into cheers. “Boys,” Sal said, trying to calm them down, “I won’t be with you for the entire tour, but I will be checking on you. Easton will be in charge, and I canguaranteethe guys from Social Sinners will not take any shit from you. Especially this one,” he gestured toward me as I struck myI dare you to fuck with mepose. “not to mention the fact that if you had any doubts in your mind, he’s very protective of Easton.”

They nodded, staring at us with their eyes opened so wide they reminded me of hamsters. It’s fun instilling fear in others in order to keep them in line. Sorry, not sorry.

“All right guys talk amongst yourselves and get to know each other. Ask questions, don’t be afraid. I have to go deal with some personal stuff.” When Sal went back inside to direct the movers, the guys and I started to debate over which song to sing at the award show. We landed onThe Curtains of My Heartsince we needed to keep it clean and we wanted something off the new CD to premier. It was a song that Mickey had written. We had two months to get our shit together before the live performance, which I knew meant lots of time spent at band practice. The only positive was we each now had a studio in our basements so we wouldn’t have to drive into Seattle for band practice any longer.

We chatted with the guys from ETF for about an hour before we disbanded and headed out. Beyond stoked for the tour and the show. We extended an open invitation for them to jam with us at our houses and exchanged numbers with them as well. Might as well get to know them and their music.

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