Last Second Chance

Chapter Twenty-Two

“Well I’ll be damned.”

Van had known his manager was coming to see him. He only had just over forty-five days left in rehab and it was time to start signing paperwork and discussing the deal with Epitaph. What he hadn’t expected was for his friend Drake Ellis, his band’s drummer, to come along with him.

“To what do I owe this unexpected honor?”

Drake shook his hand and clapped him hard on the back. “Fuck, man. Look at you. All not dead and shit. Last time I saw you, you were a corpse, dude.”

“And yet you never sent flowers. Cheap fucker.”

Drake ran a colorfully inked-up hand through his mohawk. “Yeah well. I only send flowers to the chicks who give the best head. Sorry, man. You didn’t make the cut.”

Van placed a hand over his chest. “That hurts. You cut me deep, Ellis. You heartless bastard.”

Sid cleared his throat to interrupt the bullshit. “You two can save your emotional reunion for when Van gets out of here. Right now we need to go over the stipulations from Epitaph.”

Van led them to a back table in the private section of the Atrium. “Okay, let’s hear it.”

Sid eyed both of them to make sure he had their full attention before he began. “So first things first. All members will attend all signing and record or tour promo events and will remain sober and not destroy anything.” He shot a pointed look at Van. Van shrugged. Man had a valid point.

There was more. A lot more. Stuff about drug testing, the label assuming a limited liability for anything Van fucked up or destroyed. There was even mention of a curfew while on tour.

A month ago, if anyone had tried to pull shit like this over on him, he would’ve laughed in their face and told them to kiss his ass. But with the taste of Stella Jo Chandler still on his lips, he couldn’t find much cause to get pissed about much of anything. They could’ve told him he had to donate a kidney and join the Teddy Bear of the Month club and the grin on his face would’ve remained as he signed.

She had looked so damn good all tied up and exposed to him. He hadn’t taken an actual picture like he’d teased her, but he certainly had a solid mental one that was going to keep him company for as long as he lived if he could help it.

“Van?” Sid cleared his throat. “Ransom, you with us?”

“Tune in, dude. This is the heavy shit.” Drake’s voice broke through and Van looked back and forth between the men, who were looking at him like he’d started humming show tunes.

“My bad. What?”

“You high right now?” Drake asked with wide eyes. “Or did they give up on the rehab part and give you a lobotomy?”

He shrugged. “It’s been a good day. That’s all.” Good didn’t even begin to describe it. If he were being honest, the past twenty-four hours had been the best of his life.

“Uh huh.” Drake side-eyed him skeptically, but Sid looked genuinely disturbed.

“I can’t be happy? What the fuck?”

Sid sighed and shoved some papers forward. “Of course you can. But if you could come down from cloud nine for a minute, you need to initial each of these X’s. This is the clause about not fucking up, Van. So read each one, please, before you sign.”

Van rubbed his neck and took the pen from his manager. The two of them all in his face had effectively faded the vivid memory of Stella screaming and begging. Well, mostly. He tucked it in the back of his mind where he could get to it later.

He looked down at the papers dotted with red X’s. It was all pretty much the same shit. No drugs, no hookers, no trashing hotel rooms or tour buses.

But the clause at the bottom was new.

Any breach of the contract could be proven, and Hostage for Ransom would have two options. Either be dropped from the label entirely or the member who’d fucked up would be kicked out and replaced.

Whoa. That was a dick move that no one had ever so much as suggested before. And he knew the shit was directed right at him. He could practically feel the target on his fucking forehead.

“So I screw up and my ass gets replaced? In my own band?” His voice was calm as he looked up at Sid and Drake.

Sid met his stare. Drake just drummed his fingers on the table and looked around.

So that’s how it was.

“We discussed this,” his manager began. “You’ve had more chances than anyone, Van. Enough is enough. No sense in taking down the whole band.”

He let out a harsh laugh. “My whole band, you mean. The one I started. The one named for me, because it’s my fucking band.”

“Van—”

“Ease up,” Drake broke in. “We’ll all get your face tatted on our asses if that’s what you want. This is why I came along on this visit. To tell you that the band already talked about this. You go, we all go.”

He let out a breath, but the tension in his chest didn’t leave. Not completely, anyways.

Van looked over at Sid for confirmation. Drake wasn’t a liar, but Van didn’t trust anyone really. Sid had been the only one to really come through when he’d needed him.

Sid nodded, and Van finished signing and initialing. He slid the papers back across the table.

“That it then? Meeting over?”

He felt claustrophobic as fuck in private corner of the Atrium that Dr. Ramirez had let them use. And he was aching to see Stella again. He needed to hear those sweet moans, his name on her lips. Even if all they did was talk and give each other hell down at the barn. He’d take what he could get.

“That’s it for now. I’ll check in with you in a few weeks. Behave yourself,” Sid said as he stood.

“I’ll be out in a minute, Sid.” Drake made no move to get up, so Van remained seated.

Once the manager had stepped out of sight, Drake’s wild blue stare met Van’s.

“Hey, man, seriously. All that pretentious shit with the label… You know none of us give a fuck about all that. You do what you do. We do what we do.”

Van leaned back in his chair. “Meaning?”

Drake lifted a shoulder. “Meaning this is all bullshit and we all know it. Epitaph jerking your chain like this is fucked up. You shouldn’t be stuck here.”

Van was silent for a moment. A few weeks ago he would’ve agreed. He’d bitched Sid out the entire flight from LA to Dallas. Taken shots in the back of the SUV that drove him here from the airport. Tried to talk his way out of it all the way to the front door.

But then…he’d bumped into her on his way in. And strangely, he hadn’t felt stuck at the Second Chance Ranch for a single second after that.

“It’s not so bad,” was all he admitted to his drummer. The truth was, if he thought about it—really thought about it—if he weren’t here, he might actually have been dead by now. And they could joke about tatted-up asses all they wanted. The dirt would still be fresh on his grave and his band probably would replace him before his permanent headstone was up. Not that they wouldn’t be sad or some shit, but money was money. And even though it was music and it was personal to all of them, bands didn’t go around turning down major labels just because their lead singer had fucked himself all up.

“Yeah, I got something for you. Help you make it through for the next few weeks ’til you’re the fuck out of here.”

Before Van could ask what he was talking about, Drake pulled a small bag from his pocket. Red and blue pills filled it.

“What’s this?”

“A favor. It’s from Vanessa. Said she tried to get in but couldn’t.”

Van clenched his fist and eyed the bag on the table between them. Fucking Vanessa. Drake probably was actually fucking her. Not that Van cared.

When Val had left him, everything had gotten all fucked up and he’d no longer cared about much of anything. Not that it had been picture perfect before, but without Val, he’d lost his sense of gravity. Nothing had held him here. Nothing had mattered. So he’d gotten wasted every chance he got.

But now, freedom stared him in the face. A chance to float through the rest of this prison sentence in bliss, smiling and nodding. He wouldn’t feel the pain of the sessions with Dr. McLendon. The rabid claws of his memories would find no purchase when he was high.

Last week in a group therapy session, a woman named Brenda Buchanan had broken down, bawled her eyes out because her young daughter had endured so much because of her addictions. She’d said that the girl was a woman now, but she’d practically had to raise herself, and he’d thought of Val. Van had struggled to swallow as the woman’s pain had flowed over right onto him.

It had sucked.

Taking these pills, the ones he knew would check him right the hell out of here mentally at least, would also mean risking the one woman he wanted to have a clear head around.

He kept his hands clenched to keep from grabbing the plastic baggie.

“Naw, man. I’m good. No sense giving Epitaph some shit to cut me loose for before I even get out of here.”

The shock was clear on Drake’s face. “You sure? Or are you fucking with me?”

Drake had probably never seen Van turn down a single thing. Not women or drugs. He wasn’t the type to deny himself anything he wanted. Since he’d been in SCR, he’d turned down both.

And he hadn’t jungle fucked Stella like his dick had wanted to when she’d been tied up and helpless. He’d slowed down and given her what she needed instead of what he’d wanted.

A realization set in, surrounding him and separating him from his drummer.

He was different. He felt different. Somewhere between the hospital where Sid had told him he was going to rehab and this moment with Drake, he’d changed.

“Yeah, I’m fucking with you.” Van reached out and tucked the baggie in his waistband beneath his shirt. If he didn’t get rid of them, Drake would just take them. And while he couldn’t control what anyone else did, he could at least get rid of the junkyard shit Vanessa had probably bought from one of her tweaked-out junkie friends.

Drake laughed as he stood. “You had me for a minute there.”

Van forced a chuckle and they both stood. “Take care, man. See you in a few weeks.”

Van didn’t go straight back to his residence once his visitors were gone. He went to the restroom and flushed the pills. A slight twinge of pain as they swirled down the toilet forced him to realize that what Dr. McLendon had said was true.

He was an addict. And temptation wasn’t ever going away completely. But he had a choice. He always had a choice.

It felt good to make the right one for once in his life.