Free Infamous by Sherrilyn Kenyon

date? Really, Nick? You can’t even remember to dial a phone or take trash to the curb or lower a toilet seat or pick your underwear up from the floor, and you think you can handle operating a car in New Orleans’ traffic? I don’t think so. You’ve got a long way to go to become the man you think you are. You hear me?”
    He really, really hated those last three words that she said every other sentence whenever she yelled at him. He clenched his teeth to keep from arguing.
    “Now I have to go and get back to work. I don’t know where you are, but you have fifteen minutes to walk through the doors here. If you’re further away than that, you’re grounded for a month. You hear me?”
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    “Clock’s ticking, buster. You better run for it.” She hung up on him.
    Sighing, Nick looked at Kody, then Caleb.
    “We heard,” Mark said. “Pretty sure the folks in Slidell heard, too. You better get on.”
    “I’m going.” He held his phone out to Mark.
    “I got everything I need. I’ll call you once I get it all tracked.”
    “All right. Thanks.”
    “You want us to come with you?” Kody asked.
    Yeah, that was all he needed. There was no telling what insanity his mom would come up with if she knew he’d been with Kody when he should have been at work. “No, she already thinks I’m goofing off instead of working. If she sees you guys, she’ll really be hot. I’ll catch y’all later.”
    Nick grabbed his backpack from the floor, shrugged it over his sore shoulder, and ran up the street toward Ursulines as fast as he could. Luckily Bubba’s store wasn’t all that far from Sanctuary. But he didn’t want to push it. The sooner he got there, the happier his mom would be.
    He didn’t slow down until he reached the doors of the three-story red brick building that housed one of the most famed bar and grills in New Orleans. There was a huge bear of a man at the door to greet all newcomers. Most wouldn’t think anything about it, but Nick knew whoever was on door duty was there to assess the threat level of any preternatural clientele entering the building. And for reasons no one would explain, the doorman always had them cue Sweet Home Alabama on the jukebox whenever Acheron showed up. There was much about Sanctuary Nick still had to learn.
    With long blond hair and beefy arms, the doorman was fierce and intimidating. Until he recognized Nick and gave him a wide, cocky grin.
    Nick let out a relieved breath. Oh good, it was Dev. One of four identical quadruplets, Dev was always easygoing and fun to be around. While Dev’s brothers, Cherif and Quinn, were nice enough, Remi was the one who scared him. If Nick had to face his mom in this mood, he was glad Dev was on duty. He was the one being who might keep his mom from killing him.
    “Hey, Dev.”
    Dev clicked his tongue. “Nicky, Nicky, Nicky … I don’t envy you, mon fils . Your mama gonna take a bite of your hide and mount it to the wall.”
    If the knot in his stomach drew any tighter, he’d have diamonds in the toilet later. “Yeah, I don’t envy me either. Want to trade?”
    Dev laughed. “You’d think that, but no. Believe me, you don’t want to see my maman when she’s angry. You, Maman likes. Me, not so much most days. Trust me, she has a bear of a temper.”
    Nick snorted at Dev’s play on words. Dev was poking fun at the fact that he and his family were shapeshifters whose alternate form was that of a bear.
    Shaking his head at Dev, he went inside. It took a minute for his eyes to adjust to the dark interior.
    Dev’s sister Aimee was at the bar, picking up drinks.
    “Now where were you, mister?”
    He jumped at his mom’s angry tone in his ear. How had she snuck up on him? Dang, he could rent her out as a ninja.
    “At school. I had detention.” Go ahead, Nick. Throw gas on that fire.…
    “For what?” she growled.
    “Being late.”
    She narrowed her blue eyes at him. “And why were you late?”
    “Stone slammed