by Elle Greco
“I know all about that,” I huffed out.
“No, darling, you don’t,” Lydon said. Even though her tone was kind, the words snapped my head up. She came all the way into the apartment and sat next to me on the futon. “Courtney was messed up here.” Lydon tapped her temple. “Poor Chris went into savior mode. But Court needed professional help. She needed a therapist. She needed regulated meds. She refused it all. So Chris thought he could get her there on his own.”
“Shit,” I whispered.
“Indeed,” she said. “He failed. Broke Chris’s heart to split from her, but he had to get Rafe away from her. No matter what he did, she just didn’t want to get well.”
“Is that why—” I couldn’t finish, but Lydon knew what I was asking.
Her face went grim. “I have battled that particular demon, and I know from experience you cannot ask that question. It’ll just break your heart all over again. There’s always a why, always a what-if. But it’s like the world let them down and they just needed to disappear for a while. I wonder if any of them ever realized it would be so final. They definitely didn’t think about the ones they’d leave behind.”
I reached for her hand and gave it a squeeze. When she looked up at me, I saw tears running down her cheeks.
“I had one great love of my life,” she said, her voice soft, wistful. “When I lost him, my son lost his daddy, and I lost my entire world. But I will never regret one minute with Chad. I had a love so fierce, so magical, so passionate…” Her lips tipped up in a sad smile. “Hell, he wrote hit songs all about it.”
“It sounds beautiful,” I said.
“It was beautiful,” she said. “And if you open yourself up to it, maybe you could have that beauty too.”
With that, she walked out of my apartment, closing the door on my shell-shocked expression.
27
My cell phone vibrated against my ribs, waking me up. Groggy, I shifted up on one elbow. My other hand swept along the lumpy mattress, my fingers searching for the phone. The vibrations stopped just as I found it. I rolled onto my back to check the missed call, and it started vibrating again.
It was Nikki.
I swiped at the screen. “Nik, are you okay?”
“I’m okay, but Presley—” She choked on a sob.
My breath went shallow, and I sat up. “Nik? What about Presley?”
“She’s at Cedars,” Nikki said, referring to Cedars-Sinai, the hospital. “There’s been an accident.”
“What kind of accident?” I asked, shoving the blankets aside and scrambling out of bed. I raced around the tiny apartment, picking up my discarded clothes off the floor.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Dion and I are on our way there.”
“Who’s with her?”
She was silent, and I went still.
“Nik,” I said, my voice raised in a warning. “Who is with her?”
“Vince,” she said.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
I pressed a hand to my forehead. “Okay, so she’s not alone.” I pushed aside for the moment the part about her being with Vince in the middle of the night. Silver linings and all that.
“I’ll be there in less than twenty,” I said, searching the floor for my pants. My apartment was an easy trip to Cedars. “Wait. Shit. I don’t have a car. Can you pick me up? No. Never mind. That’ll take too long. I’ll Uber.”
My mind was moving faster than I could process everything.
“You can’t Uber at two in the morning,” Nikki said.
“Why not?”
“By yourself? No way. Too dangerous.”
“It’s more dangerous to walk.”
“Dion’s calling Rafe,” Nikki said.
“What?” I yelled into the phone.
“You’re in between Rafe’s and the hospital. He’ll pick you up.”
I froze, a pair of sweatpants hanging from my arm. “But he doesn’t even need to show up. It’s not like we’re all really family. I mean, it should just be us, right? Just us.”
“Jett, get your shit together and get over whatever the hell is going on between you and Rafe. You can be pissed at him after he gets your ass to the hospital.”
“Nik—” I protested.
“He’ll be there in fifteen. Go straight to the ER.”
Then she hung up on me.
I dropped to the futon and yanked on my joggers with a violent tug. This was just great. I moved around the tiny apartment in a hurry, the panic mode I was in making the search for things like socks and shoes nearly impossible. I was tying my Chuck Taylors when my cell vibrated with a text from Rafe.
He was downstairs.
I grabbed a hair tie and my bag and raced out of my apartment. I took a second to lock the bolt before I dashed down the stairs, sweeping my tangled hair into a messy knot as I went.
Rafe’s Range Rover was idling at the curb. As soon as I swung in, he took off for the hospital. As he raced down La Cienega, he took firm hold of my shaking hand, which somehow managed to lock in the seat belt. He gave it a slight squeeze.
“Whatever it is, whatever’s going down, Presley’s a fighter.” He glanced over at me, so I nodded. “She’s probably bitching out the doctors and nurses right now. Causing one of those epic Presley scenes.”
This got him a slight smile. He brought my hand to his lips and kissed it.
“Vince is with her, you know,” I said, pulling my hand away. The nightclubs were closing down, and rowdy partyers spilled into the streets.
“I figured,” he said.
“Do you think that’s weird?”
“There’s a lot of crap going down with Grimm and the band,” he said, slowing down for a red light. “I don’t know. Shit’s weird all the time lately.”
“Could be nothing, right?”
“Could be. Or they could be having a thing. Does that matter?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “It might?”
“Whatever’s up with her and Vince is between her and Vince,” he said.
“But my mom—”
“Pamela’s a bitch, Beanpole,” he said, turning left on Beverly. “If it wasn’t Presley, real or imagined, it would have been something else. You know that.”
I leaned my head against the window and let the silence settle between us. Rafe wasn’t wrong. It could’ve been me or Nik just as easily as Presley, or someone else entirely.
No longer encumbered by the pedestrian crowds and traffic on La Cienega, Rafe floored the Rover and we sped toward the hospital in silence. He pulled up to the front of the ER, dealt with the valet, then put his arm around me, pulling me firmly into his side. I gave him some of my weight as we ambled through the automatic doors and into the emergency room.
Vince was sitting in a hard plastic chair, raking his fingers through his hair. Under the harsh florescent lights and the stress of the moment, he looked every bit of his fifty years.
I broke away from Rafe and strode to my former stepfather. Words tumbled out of me as I closed the space between us. “Vince, what happened? Where’s Presley? Is she okay?”
He stood and clamped his hands around both of my arms. His bloodshot eyes met mine. “It’s not good.”
I could feel the blood rushing out of my head before my sight blurred, and I crumbled. I was slipping out of Vince’s hands.
I felt Rafe’s sturdy arms around me. He maneuvered me into a chair and shoved my head between my legs.
“Take some deep breaths,” he said, rubbing the back of my neck. “Nice and slow.”
When the wooziness subsided, I straightened back up, my eyes landing on Vince.
He shook his head. “She overdosed.”
“What?” Rafe asked before I could utter a word.
“Jordan—”
“Jordan was fired,” I said. “Devlin kicked Jordan’s ass off the tour.”
Vince’s face turned to thunder. His eyes went to the ceiling as he composed himself. “Grimm brought him back in—”
Instead of Vince’s voice, I heard nothing but the pounding of blood assaulting my ears.
“And you didn’t do anything?” I shrieked. “Grimm brought him back in and you did nothing?”
Rafe looked like he was about to breathe fire. “I thought you said you had this handled,” he said to Vince.
“Handled?” I roared, whirling around to face Rafe. “You knew. You fucking knew?”
“Please, keep it down or you have to leave,” a harried nurse said as she rushed past.
“Jett, I swear, the second I found out, I was working on getting her out,” Vince said, turning to Rafe. “Getting all of us out.”
“Nik said something was going down,” I said, trying to keep my voice tame. “You both fucking knew, and you didn’t get her out?”
“It’s not as easy as all that,” Vince said, lowering his voice.
“It seems easy,” I snapped. “You get her out.”
“You don’t understand, Jett. There are contracts—”
“And?”
“And you can’t just walk away from those.”
“Right,” I said. “You need to die from a fucking overdose to get out of a Grimm contract.”
“Jett,” Rafe said softly.
“Nope,” I said. “I am not tiptoeing around Kyle anymore. Since no one has learned their lesson. Even after Nikki got dosed too.”
“You’re right,” Vince said, meeting my eyes. “I thought I had it handled, but I didn’t. And I am sorry, Jett. I am so sorry.”
Vince hung his head. Tears tumbled down his cheeks, and his shoulders shook. My throat closed as his grief permeated the room.
“Okay,” I said, wiping the wetness from my cheeks. “Tell me what happened.”
“Jordan was pushing uppers on her. To keep her going.”
“Keep her going?” I croaked. My throat felt raw.
“From the Rogue Nation tour, to the Gold Dust album, to working on her solo album and getting ready to hit the road again with Gold Dust…” Vince wrapped his hand around the back of his neck. “Now I know how she was keeping up the relentless pace. I thought she was getting B12 shots at first.”
“Yeah, great, B12 shots,” I spat out.
“Jett,” Rafe murmured, his voice soothing.
“I thought I had it handled,” Vince said. “I didn’t get her out in time. I did not want this for her. For any of you.”
“What do you mean ‘handled’?” I asked.
“That’s why I pulled her off the tour bus,” he said. “Started flying her in and out of the gigs. After Jordan went after Nik, I was worried he would target Presley too. I wanted her off the bus, make it easier on her physically and mentally.”
“And when we got back to LA?” I asked, leaning my forearms on my thighs.
“I had less control over her,” Vince said, his face pale. “Grimm started pushing about an album cover and promo photo shoots. Started talking about her look, her weight.”
“Her weight? What about it?”
“That she needed to lose weight,” he said.
“She didn’t need to lose weight,” I snapped.
“Of course she didn’t,” he said. “Grimm was feeding her all this bullshit, and Pres was buying into it because Pamela broke that girl down, Jett. You know how she was. She tried to break all of you. But you and Nik were too strong for her.”
“Presley’s stronger than both of us,” I argued.
“She was protecting you both from that banshee,” he said, his nostrils flaring. “Pamela fucked her up.”
“Oh my God,” I said, tears welling in my eyes again. “You love her. Presley. You love her.”
“Of course I love her. I love Nik. I love you,” he said.
“But you never really—”
“Showed it?” he asked. “How could I when your mom punished you if I did?”
“So then you and Presley…” I trailed off, embarrassed now for even asking.
Vince’s face looked even more pained. “You believed those lies that Pamela spewed?”
“Dad,” Rafe said, and Vince’s eyes cut to him. “Neither of you denied it.”
“I was trying to keep Presley safe and extract us all from Grimm’s bullshit,” he said. “I didn’t think I’d have to defend myself with my own family.”
“That worked well,” I snapped back, my shame in believing my mother’s lie replaced by fiery anger. “We could have helped her. We could have helped you. But you and Presley thought you had to keep your goddamn secrets.”
“I was protecting her.”
“From who? Her sisters? Her family?”
Vince scrubbed his face with his hands. “She didn’t want you and Nik to know.”
“Why not?” I spat out.
Rafe caught my hand, pulled me up out of the bucket seat, and dragged me into a corner of the ER, where he wrapped his arms around me. He dipped his face to my ear. “Does it really matter why she didn’t want you to know?”
“He had no right keeping this from us,” I said, my eyes hot with tears. I closed them, fighting the urge to break down and cry in Rafe’s arms.
“He did what she asked. Nothing more,” Rafe said.
I pressed my forehead into his chest. “But we could have been there for her.”
“Think about it,” Rafe said. He lifted my chin with two gentle fingers. I forced my eyes open, and his soulful brown ones met mine. “She was probably scared. She was definitely ashamed. Vince wanted her to get better. He did what he thought was right. For her. Can’t fault him for that.”
His calm voice was a balm, and tears slipped through my resolve. “I should have been there for her.”
He pulled me into him, and a kiss feathered the top of my head. “Be there now. Now is when she needs you the most.”
Cocooned in Rafe’s embrace, my cheeks wet with tears, I pressed my head into his chest and nodded.
The whir of the automatic doors sounded, and then Nikki’s voice filled the ER. “Rafe? Jett? Where’s Presley?”
I turned to see Dion following her through the door, but his head swiveled toward the parking lot. “Paps aren’t far behind. We gotta get out of this room.”
As if on cue, security appeared, and along with an ER nurse, they whisked us through a locked door. On the brisk walk down the long hallway, I caught Nikki up on Presley’s situation. By the time we made it to a private waiting room (which included a flat-screen TV, overstuffed couches, and a mini fridge—got to love LA), Nikki’s eyes had gone from wide in shock to narrow in anger.
Dion closed the door behind us and rounded on his dad. “Tell me you’ve put the plan in motion.”
Vince gave him a sharp nod, his lips tight. Nikki and I looked at each other and then at the men.
“You guys got something to share?” Nikki asked, her eyes sweeping over Vince and Rafe before landing on Dion. Menace filled her voice.
Presley was the whiner. I was the thinker. And Nikki… Well, Nik had the temper. And right now, her temper was at a hot simmer.
Dion pushed his hands through his hair. “Not yet, Nik.”
And… now we hit rolling boil.
She stalked toward the three of them, one hand fisted on her hip, the other with a finger jutting out. “Fuck you and your ‘Not yet, Nik’ bullshit. This is my goddamn sister who just O-fucking-D’d on fuck knows what. I am done with ‘not yet.’ Someone needs to explain why Presley is even using drugs to the point where she ends up in the goddamn ER.”
The guys looked between one another.
“Now!” she shrieked.
Even I jumped.
I wrapped my arms around my middle. “I think you three need to tell us what’s going on. We deserve the truth.”
Vince pushed out a loud sigh and then settled on the arm of the couch. “You do, you both do. And this was all going to go down tomorrow anyway—in a boardroom, not in a hospital. But now—” He jerked his chin toward the door.
“Shit’s going down with Grimm,” Dion said.
“Rafe told me that much,” I snapped in response. “Does this situation have something to do with that?”
Rafe’s eyes cut to me. “That jackass Jordan has been supplying Grimm’s artists for years. And with Grimm’s blessing.”
“No shit, we’ve all heard the rumors,” Nikki shot out, not bothering to say that we heard the rumors only, like, yesterday. “Can’t do much with a rumor, Rafe.”
“We have proof that Jordan was the supplier for Grimm artists,” Dion said. “At Grimm’s behest.”
Nikki’s mouth dropped open.
“He fed that shit to my kids,” Vince said, his voice a barely audible whisper. He looked shattered. He lost Kyle to drugs, and now we were waiting to hear if Presley would survive. All because Grimm and his minions were pushers? “I guess it was still too much for her. I had no idea she was taking shit to keep going. Still.”
“But the tour was over months ago,” Nikki said. “Her pace had slowed down. Right?”
“Not when Grimm had her do a photo shoot and the asshole art director told her he wouldn’t work on her solo album cover if she didn’t lose weight,” Vince said.
My chest heaved. Presley was the opposite of me—curvy with ample breasts and full hips. She had no trouble gaining weight, so she was super strict with her diet and exercise. I thought her body was lush, and with my own body nothing but right angles, I was jealous of her curves. But I also knew that a criticism like that would cut Presley deep.
“She kept going with the uppers because they boosted her metabolism,” Nik finished for Vince. “Fuck.”
He gave us a curt nod. “Then she needed something to help her come down.”
“So she did a Judy Garland,” Nik said.
“Sounds like it,” Vince said.
“And Grimm provided it?” she continued.
This time Vince just nodded, then leaned forward, elbows on knees, staring at the carpet. The ticking of the clock on the wall became almost oppressive as we absorbed what Vince had shared. Presley was in the ER, fighting for her life, because Gary Grimm made sure to supply her with shit that kept her producing music like a Clydesdale.