Losing Track (Living Heartwood #2)(39)
Jacquie looks up and smiles. “Right. You’ll be required to take a drug test every week before group, and the counselors will also make random home visits. So…just keep that in mind.”
Great. I feel like a freaking cow, but instead of milk, my udders are being milked for urine. Bottled water will be my new BFF. At that thought, my heart pinches. I have no one to share my inside joke’s with. Dar would’ve had a funny comment about this. I can hear her running through the apartment, pretending to ding a cowbell every time the doorbell rings.
“We can go ahead and set up your next appointment for here, too. Pick a day that works best for your weekly schedule. We’ll do once a week for the first two months, then see how it goes from there.” She tilts her head questioningly when I don’t respond with an affirmative right away. “Do you have any questions so far?”
I shake my head. “None. Stay sober and out of trouble and I get off in five months, right?”
She folds her hands atop the desk and hunches her shoulders, her features severe, like she’s about to impart some terrible news. “Melody, have you received any grief counseling?”
At once, my defenses flair. “I got plenty of counseling at Stoney.”
“Yes, but that was a short, twenty-day treatment, primarily focused on giving you the tools needed to battle addiction. With what you’ve been through…” She gives her head a quick shake before her eyes drill into me. “It would be wise to seek help in order to deal with your loss in a healthy way. Most people who are physically dependent on substances find it very difficult to get and stay clean, but having to deal with the death of a close friend makes it nearly impossible. I strongly advise seeing someone, anyone you trust.”
I want to tell this lady that I’ve dealt with a whole hell of a lot more in my short lifetime, and I know all too well how to handle it. But I don’t. Something in her demeanor, her soft eyes, says that she’s not like Doc Sid and the others. She’s my parole officer, this really isn’t her MO, to hook me up with a therapist and shit.
Finally, I shrug a shoulder. “I’ll manage. As long as I don’t have to do another turn at Stoney, locked away from civilization, I’ll be fine.” I stand and push my chair back, leaving regardless of whether our time’s up or not.
She glances down and jots something on the page before she says, “All right. We’ll meet again next Friday, and for the time being, I’ll put in your notes that you’ll continue to see me once a week until you’re released from parole.”
Again, she comes off more like a counselor than a PO—not that I have much experience with either. I’m trusting my people skills here. And she might even be someone who gives a real shit.
I make for the door, and she says, “My card is in your folder. Call if you need anything.”
I’m hoping that I don’t have to take her up on that offer.
“This was not the plan,” I say, shrugging out of Jesse’s jacket and handing it to him.
He takes it and slips it on over his tee. He lent it to me before I hopped onto the back of his new hog, his Harley Forty-Eight he scored a good deal on down in Daytona. I’m so sick with envy I could choke.
“Relax,” he says, motioning me through the door of some run-down house in the middle of a neighborhood that looks worse than the worst of Hazard—and that’s saying something. “I promised you’d get to race on the track, and you’re going to.”
“Then why the hell are we at some crack house?” I glance around the foyer as we enter. The walls are either nicotine-coated yellow, or the last time they were painted was for a porno shoot back in the seventies.
He points to an open sliding glass door on the other side of the small house, to where a heard of people are filing through. “You’ll see. You can make some dough at the track tomorrow, but this will give you a nice start. You’ll earn twice as much in an hour here.”
Tank is tagging my trail, and I look back at him with raised eyebrows. “You approve?”
He laughs. “A good brawl is good for the soul, baby. And the prospect is right.” He punches Jesse lightly on the shoulder. Although he “loves him like a son,” even Tank refers to Jesse as prospect until he’s a full-patch owner. “You’ll make an okay amount to get you going toward your new hog.”
As we work our way toward the glass door, I slip my thumb into my jean pocket, making sure the last of my savings is still there. I’d rather have most of it for the track, where I know for sure I can earn out. With Jesse’s Forty-Eight—a fast as hell bike—I could at least enter and win three races. That would get me to the halfway mark, and I’d still have enough for rent and food, and other necessities I usually don’t think about on the road.
Like toilet paper. Who forgets to buy that? I do. When I’m used to using it in motel rooms, bars, public restrooms, wherever. Well, I found out I had none the hard way this morning.
The noise of the crowd intensifies as we push through to the backyard. Bodies are packed tightly, heads weaving side-to-side as people try to glimpse something in the center of the commotion.
Jesse tugs my hand, and I’m led toward the side, around the crowd, to where a group of bikers are pumping their fists in the air and shouting. They’re old school riders; faded Harley Davidson tats on their forearms, worn leather vests with no MC affiliation. Black bandanas wrapping their graying, long hair. Jesse nods to one and hands him a roll of dollars.