Full Circle (Rockin' Country #3) (21 page)

Her mouth hung open as she turned to face him. That’s when she noticed just how wrong something was. His eyes were hard, his stance impenetrable. “Please tell me what’s wrong with you. Did I do something?”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Stop pushing me away.” She grabbed hold of his arm, opening his chest up and grabbing him around the waist.

He turned out of her embrace. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You won’t let me touch you, you won’t even talk to me. For the past week you’ve been nothing but a world-class asshole. Tell me what happened,” she pleaded. If he didn’t tell her, she couldn’t make it right, she couldn’t help him. “Let me help you.”

All of a sudden, he turned into the Jared she’d first met. “There is no help for me. I like to pretend every once in a while, but we all know that when things get serious, I go back to what I know.”

She couldn’t take this up and down, this back and forth, anymore. “What happened to you?”

He smiled, but it wasn’t pretty, and for the first time, she realized he held a bottle of Jack in his hand. “Nothing happened to me. I am who I’ve always been. I got a visit from a friend who reminded me I’m just a punk kid who wasn’t planned and his parents never loved.”

Shell flashed back to times of Garrett telling her Jared had no relationship to speak of with his parents. “Did you see your parents?”

He shook his head, unscrewed the cap on the bottle, and downed about half of it in one gulp. “Who cares? there’s nothing in my life that matters.”

She grabbed at him, trying to keep him from walking away from her, but he managed to get through the crowd, and she lost sight of him. A sickening feeling took root in her stomach, and she knew without a doubt she needed Garrett’s help. If anyone could pull Jared back from the brink of self-devastation, it was his best friend. At least that was what she was banking on.

*  *  *

Halloween

G
arrett had just sent Hannah to bed because she was falling asleep trying to marathon scary movies with him when his cell phone rang. It wasn’t unusual for Shell to call him, but tonight she was supposed to be with Jared.

“Hey, Hannah’s asleep if you were trying to get hold of her.”

“No,” she yelled. “I need you.”

His stomach dropped. “Shell, calm down and tell me what’s wrong.”

“It’s Jared,” she said near tears. “Something happened, and he’s going to do things he shouldn’t. He’s going to throw everything away.” She tried to take deep breaths, but she felt as if she was hyperventilating.

“Where are you?”

She gave him the address of the club they’d gone to.

“I’ll be there in twenty minutes. Find him if you can. If you can’t, wait for me. He’s not in a good place when he gets like this.” He angrily swiped his finger across the screen of the phone, disconnecting the call.

Angry didn’t even begin to cover it. Furious, livid, heartbroken—those were some of the emotions that he was feeling. He quickly called his mom to come stay with Hannah while he explained as much as he could. He also begged her to have his dad meet him at the address Shell had given him. If he were out for a long time, he didn’t want her to wake up and find him gone. Knowing that his mom was on her way, he ran out to the garage, got into his SUV, and took off for the club.

On the way there, he replayed the last year in his mind. For over a year, Jared had been clean, he’d been sober, he’d had a purpose. Something had pushed him over the edge, caused him to spit in the face of a woman who’d loved him without judgment. They had all been lulled into a sense of false security. Being on the road was easier; there was no chance Jared would run into people who reminded him of bad habits. Being at home was hard. Bad decisions, for all of them, were on every corner of their old stomping grounds.

He guessed it had been easy to become complacent, to think that Jared had kicked this once and for all because he had Shell and it was the longest he’d ever gone clean, but Jared was nothing if not unpredictable. Garrett didn’t even remember parking his SUV, but he must have, because the next thing he was cognizant of was running through the club looking for Shell.

“Garrett,” he heard a voice call to him. He stopped in his tracks and turned to his right, noticing Shell.

“Where is he?”

“He’s upstairs.” She was upset and having a hard time getting the words out. “I told him I’d called you, and he got pissed. Told me to mind my own business and this was why he didn’t do love.”

Fuck. He hated this. Love was always Jared’s MO. “Has he talked to his parents lately?”

She shook her head, wiping the tears away with angry swipes. “I have no idea, but he mentioned earlier his parents never loved him. He doesn’t talk about them, Garrett. I’ve never met them.”

“There’s a reason for that. They’re low-life fucks who didn’t deserve him as a son, and they fucked him up six ways to Sunday. If they get any inkling he’s happy, they show up and blow it straight to shit. I always wonder when it’s gonna be enough, when he’s going to be the type of person to tell them to fuck off. I guess we haven’t made it there yet.” Garrett was irritated and doing his best not to take it out on her.

“Can you at least go make sure he’s okay? He won’t let me anywhere near him. Every time I try to get close, he physically pushes me away.”

That definitely sounded exactly like what his friend would do.

*     *     *

“I wish we had gotten him.”

The words were the greeting that met Garrett from his dad. “What do you mean?”

“Your mom and I,” he told his son. “We tried to get custody of him, but we didn’t make enough money, and we couldn’t force his parents to sign over parental rights.”

That crushed him. How many times had Jared come to school, a new bruise in a different spot than the day before, his belly growling because he was so hungry, and his clothes dirty? How many people had seen how neglected he was and never offered to help? It pissed Garrett off, and it made him want to kill someone for the injustice done to his friend. This bullshit had helped mold him into the walking mess he was right at this moment.

“I wish I could kill every fucking person who turned a blind eye to him. They acted like he didn’t matter. Do any of them realize what he deals with today? Do they realize what we deal with?”

“No,” Kevin whispered. “It still doesn’t affect them one way or the other, so they just don’t care.”

They had made their way up the stairs to the top floor of the club. Garrett knew from prior dealings who would be in this room, and he didn’t relish what would possibly go down. Before Garrett knocked on the door, his dad gave voice to the thoughts he had.

“I hope we can get in there before he does something he can’t take back.”

That was Garrett’s greatest fear. What if one time he went too far? What if one time he took too much? There was only so much that a person could take, a body could handle. At some point, it gave out. And if he couldn’t raise his child knowing his best friend would be there to help him show his son how to do all the things they’d done together as children, he couldn’t handle it. There was so much more at stake now than there had ever been.

Squaring his shoulders, Garrett pounded on the door. “Murph, if Jared’s in there, you better send his ass out. If not, I’m coming the fuck in.”

Kevin watched as Garrett tapped the door again. “Very serious here, dude. You do not want to mess with me right now. Send his ass out, or I’m coming in and I will fuck shit up.”

This time Garrett stepped back, letting his threat sink in. Almost in slow motion, the door opened and Jared was pushed through. Garrett grabbed him tightly around the waist and hauled him down to the landing of the stairs.

“Is he okay?” Shell asked. She had followed them and watched this play out; now her heart beat wildly as she saw her boyfriend ghost white and lifeless on the stairs of a club.

Garrett growled and flagged down a bouncer he knew from his own club days. The bouncer took one look at them and hustled them into a door none of them had seen. They entered a room that had a shower on the side.

“Turn that shower on,” Garrett barked as he manhandled Jared’s shirt off of him and pushed him into the shower, smacking his face to try to get a sign of life.

“Is he okay?” Shell asked, her voice small and scared against the backdrop of activity taking place around her. This was her worst nightmare.

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen him like this before, and I’m not sure what he took.”

On the other end of the room, Kevin was calling 911, coordinating with the bouncer to get the paramedics here.

“C’mon, buddy,” Garrett yelled as he pushed Jared’s head under the spray of the shower. “Get more alert for me, goddammit. I’m having a son; I can’t do this without my best friend,” he begged, slapping his cheek again.

To the side, Shell stood in tears. The room was strangely silent, except for Kevin’s soft voice as he got the paramedics in route. Her stomach clenched as she grew more and more scared. He wasn’t showing any signs of life. What would she do if he didn’t make it through this?

“Fuck. Jared, you are not doing this to me,” Garrett yelled as he reached around and grabbed Jared’s jaw. Using two fingers, he pried open the other man’s lips and stuck his fingers down his throat. “Get it out.” He beat against Jared’s back as he started gagging.

Shell watched as Jared began retching and gagging and sent up a prayer of thanks that there was proof he was alive.

“Get that shit out of you.” Garrett beat on him again, helping him get the toxins out of his body.

There was a knock at the door, and paramedics came in, asking tons of questions.

“Does anyone know what he took?”

“He was drinking,” Shell told them, hugging her arms across her stomach. This was not at all how she’d anticipated this night turning out.

Kevin watched her from across the room, and when he was able, he went to her, hugging her tightly. Shell almost collapsed against him, letting the emotions run through her body. Those had been the scariest moments of her life.

“Knowing his history,” Garrett sighed as he wiped himself off with a towel, “I’d say it’s a mixture of pills, heroin, and alcohol.”

They got him strapped to the board and started fluids and medications. Before they left, one of the paramedics looked at Garrett. “If you hadn’t made him puke, we’d more than likely be strapping him to this gurney in a body bag right now. You saved your friend’s life.”

Wide-eyed, Garrett nodded. Hollow praise for one of the worse nights of his life.

*  *  *

November

“H
ow’s Shell?” Garrett asked.

Hannah had just come through the door of their Nashville home, having had lunch with her best friend. They’d been in Nashville for two weeks, tying up some loose ends. Because of what had happened with Jared, they’d cancelled the last two weeks of the tour, and he was now in rehab, taking it very seriously. The next morning, they would fly to California to spend the holidays before coming back to Nashville to await the birth of their baby.