Chapter 3

I spent at least an hour in the police station before I was finally booked and allowed to have a phone call. The only person I knew I could call was Joey; he had my lawyer's number so he was able to call him on my behalf, and he needed to know where I was anyway, since he was probably expecting me to show up on his doorstep any time.

They threw me inside a holding cell with a large cement block for a seat. Luckily it was still early morning and they hadn't booked a lot of people yet, so I was only stuck inside with one other guy. He didn't look at all like he belonged here either.

I must have sat on that cement block for another hour, staring at a single letter in some scratched-in graffiti on the wall, before another cop came to the cell door.

“You have a visitor, and your lawyer is on his way down. Let's go,” he said as he unlocked the cell.

“Am I going to get bailed out soon?”

“You'll have to speak to your lawyer about that one.”

He escorted me without cuffs down to a silent interrogation room and left almost immediately, leaving me alone in the room. I laid my head down on the table and waited at least five minutes. Exhaustion had hit me again and my body temperature was rising. The metal was cool on my skin and I could feel myself getting ready to slip off to sleep when I heard the door open.

The same cop who had brought me in led Joey into the room and nodded his head before he closed the door, leaving the two of us alone. Joey stood for a second looking at me.

“Well, this is weird.”

I stared at him with blank eyes as he looked back at me.

“I'm sorry, man. That's all I could think of to say. I mean...what the hell happened? I just talked to you a couple of hours ago.”

“I don't know, Joey,” I said with a sigh as he sat down across from me. “They found drugs. I didn't even fucking know she was doing drugs!” I slammed my palm down on the table, finally feeling my anger coming out.

“Calm down,” he said. “Getting angry probably won't help you any.”

“I guess you're right.”

“I had a feeling Bray was doing something from the way she was acting. That's not Brayden; at least not normal Brayden.”

“How the hell didn't I know, Joe?” I asked. “I lived with her, I had a child with her, I slept with her every night in the same bed, or at least on the nights she was home – she was going out and spending hours at a time away from us, coming home and acting strange. How could I not know?”

“Well, you loved her. When you love people you don't always see when something is a little off.”

“I still love her Joey,” I admitted. “I hate her but I love her. Way more than I should.”

“Sometimes love isn't enough, Lance,” he said with a shrug of his shoulders.

He paused, and seeing the change in my facial expressions he changed the subject.

“It's already on TMZ,” he said. “You're the big story.”

“Great. Because this couldn't get any worse, right?”

“Your mom called. She saw it.”

“I was wrong again,” I said. “That's fantastic.”

“She's flipped out, she's going crazy because they mentioned drugs. I don't know how they found out, the crafty son of a bitches. Anyway, she was going on and on about how she didn't even see it, how could she not know, how long has this been going on. I told her the story about Bray and how everything must have been hers, but I don't know if she believes me.”

“My father is going to fucking kill me...”

“Lance, you're 32 years old, you have a daughter, and you just got arrested for drug possession,” he said. “I think your father should be the least of your worries right now.”

I sighed. He was right, I was a grown man now. I wasn't that nineteen-year-old kid in the police station for a little weed anymore. This time, it was a little more serious.

“All I can say is, you're lucky I had Bailey, not you.”

I felt like a little kid getting scolded for stealing a candy bar or something; in some instances, Joey tended to get fatherly on me, since he was older than me.

“I'm curious, though – why didn't you have her? I mean, why didn't you take her with you when you left?”

“She is her mother, Joey.” I knew all too well what Joey was insinuating; he had never liked Bray much. He felt something was 'off' with her from the beginning. “You tried to warn me,” I said quietly. “You tried to tell me and I was too damn stupid to listen to you.”

Things went silent and uncomfortable again. Things between Joey and myself were hardly ever silent.

“This is probably the last thing I should tell you,” he finally said, “but when I went to pick up Bailey, Bray had a...visitor.”

“A visitor?”

“A friend, if you know what I mean.”

Within seconds, I could feel all the rage I had left over from last night and this morning come to the surface.

“Who?”

Joey averted my eyes and stayed silent.

“Who, Joey?”

“Her friend,” he said after a pause. “Jay, Jason, whatever his name is.”

“Jason, the model from her agency?”

“Lance.” He raised his eyebrows. “That guy is no model. He looks like he just stepped off the streets yesterday. If that guy is a model, I'll eat my own shirt. She played you again.”

Thinking about it without a smoke screen, I knew he was right. Jason was a chain smoker, constantly with a cigarette in his mouth. I couldn't count the times that he had come over to visit Bray and I'd had to chase him outside before he lit a cigarette in my house. The guy had dreadlocks that reached almost all the way down his back, and wore ripped jeans, not as a fashion statement but as a necessity. He didn't like me much, and I had assumed it was because I wasn't exactly the type of people he usually hung around. Now I wondered if that was the only reason, and how long it had been going on.

“Well, regardless, it's over,” I said, mostly in response to my own questions. “I'm done with her.”

“I think that's the wisest decision you've made yet.”

I looked up at the voice in the doorway and saw my lawyer closing the door, dressed in his business suit and clutching his briefcase as usual.

“Hello, Joey,” he said. “How's your new baby doing? And your wife?”

“All good, Rich, except for the lack of sleep, that is.”

“That's good.” He looked over at me and stopped. “I'd ask you how you were doing Lance, but I assume I already know the answer to that.”

“Yeah,” I said bitterly.

“You have yourself quite the conundrum here.” He sat down in the chair exactly opposite of me, right next to Joey. “You didn't have enough on you for them to throw on intent to sell, so that's a good thing. Unfortunately, that's about the only good news I have for you.”

I glanced at Joey, who was looking at my lawyer with the same expression that I felt – panic.

“I'm going to get bail though, right?” I said.

“If you were in here for beating the crap out of your crazy girlfriend, I'd say yeah, probably – for this, well, it will all depend.” When he saw even more panic in my eyes, he stood up out of his seat. “These aren't your mother's drug laws. Times have changed, my friend. We have this thing called the War on Drugs now.”

Richard had been my attorney a long time, and he had become a good friend of mine. I had rarely had to use him for anything serious like this, though, and I wasn't sure what exactly I was up against.

“Being caught with drugs is enough to get you time. Possession is a very open window. Possession doesn't mean consumption. The definition of possession in the law is the actual holding or occupancy of an item on your person, either with or without rights of ownership. The person holding the item in question is the one they charge with the crime. If they had caught Bray with the drugs, I'd be standing here talking to her. If Joey had borrowed your car because his was broken down and they had pulled him over, I'd be talking to him.”

“What does that mean, though?” I said. “Can't they test me? I'll come out negative and they'll know it's not me.”

“That means nothing. Possession does not mean consumption. People who are doing drugs pass piss tests all the time, unfortunately. Passing one only means you can't be charged for being under the influence, not that you weren't still in possession of it.”

“They weren't mine,” I stressed.

“Well unfortunately, your girlfriend isn't falling all over herself to cop to them, either.”

I sighed. “But I'm going to get out of here, right?”

“They weren't his, Rich,” Joey said. “Sure, it looks bad, I'll give you that. But there has to be something you can do.”

“Boys,” Rich said. “I have to level with you, because I like you both. They're going to give you a judge who has been extremely vocal about his frustrations with celebrities and crime. You can blame Lindsay 'Fuck-Up' Lohan for a lot of it. The public is getting tired of seeing celebrities that their children look up to and glamourize getting caught doing these kinds of things and getting off with not much more than a slap on the wrist for it. It doesn't help that you were in a popular boy band around the time that Lindsay's star rose as well. Fair or not, the public is going to recognize this and file you away as another child star gone bad, like her.”

“What are you saying?” I asked him, getting angry.

“I'm saying that you have the option to go to arraignment and plead not guilty, but that means you're going to go to trial. Then you're at the mercy of a court judge, and a jury who is probably going to be full of parents like that. You could get away with a slap on the wrist, who knows. But with the previous arrest on your record, which will be admissible in your trial, I don't think I would want to take the chance if I were you.”

“Are you telling him he should plead guilty?” Joey asked, shocked.

“Rich,” I said, “that's crazy! I am not a drug addict. The only time I've touched anything was that one time with Justin, and yeah, it was stupid, but it was experimentation. That was a long time ago. How can you say I should plead guilty when I'm not?”

“I'm thinking about your daughter,” he said, sitting down across from me again. “Lance, you're not understanding that if you go to trial and get convicted, you're looking at five, maybe even ten years. And I'm almost certain you'll get convicted,” he stressed. “I told you, these aren't your mother's drug laws anymore. I don't think you want to be away from your daughter for ten damn years.”

It hit me that this was more serious than I had even imagined. I looked over at Joey, who looked like he was feeling exactly the way I was. The mood in the room had completely turned sour.

“No,” I said. “I don't.”

“This is drugs, not murder. They don't do fingerprints or DNA on drugs. Possession really is nine-tenths of the law, and this is why innocent people go to prison every day. If you agree to plead, I can get you a deal. I've already talked to the DA, and the only thing I read from her is that she's a shark who is looking to make an example out of you because kids will pay attention to you.”

“I have no other options, do I?” I said after a long silence.

“If you do, I don't see them.”

The two of us looked at each other, waiting for the other to say something. I couldn't say anything. I wanted to cry, honestly.

“I can have you home in a year, two tops. You have to trust me, Lance.”

I broke eye contact with Rich and looked at Joey, who said nothing but only slightly nodded his head. Even he knew it was the right thing to do, deep inside. What Rich said made sense. The public held celebrities up to such a high standard that one mistake, even a small one, was a huge deal. Even I had to admit that sometimes it was out of control, but it sure wasn't fair right now.

I knew I was innocent. Even my lawyer knew I was innocent. I had no options; if I was blue collar, a normal person, I could have been going home today with probation or community service. Even rehab would be better than going to prison. And I didn't understand my celebrity position, because those normal people often got off with only a slap on the wrist, too. I'd heard news stories before of repeat offenders who had convictions in the double-digits and were still only getting small sentences, some of them even probation.

Why was I the exception to the rule? Why was I the one celebrity they chose to make an example out of? Somebody needed to do it, yes, but why did it have to be me? I had one silly mark on my record. Some celebrities had dozens.

Unfortunately for me, my innocence wouldn't matter. My lawyer had made that quite clear to me.

“I'll do it,” I said, barely above a whisper.

Rich looked at me with sympathetic eyes for a few seconds, then looked away.

“Arraignment is in an hour. They want to get you processed quickly so there's not much of a media rush. I'll have everything ready by then.”

He quietly started gathering up his briefcase.

“What will happen to Bailey?” I asked him somberly.

“What do you mean?”

“Brayden is the one on drugs,” I said. “I may be going down for this, but there's no way in hell I'm going to let Bailey go down, too. I want her out of that house.”

“Brayden will have custody of her, unless you can prove that she's an unfit mother. Since the closest blood relative you have is in Mississippi and Brayden's mother lives in California, you could petition the courts to have temporary custody handed over to Joey and Kelly.”

“How do I do that?”

“Well, first you'll have to prove Brayden is unfit to care for her, and get child services to remove her from her care. That will be the hardest part, most times they favor the mother, even when it should be the other way around. Once you get around that battle, you'll have to relinquish your parental rights and petition the courts to transfer third-party custody to Kelly and Joey. You'll have to prove that keeping Bailey in New York with a third-party is in her best interest, better than being sent off to another state. That will be a battle in itself, because the courts don't like to send children to non-blood relatives when there are blood relatives able to care for the child. I think if Joey and I work together though, we can get it done.”

He and Joey exchanged a glance.

“Whatever it takes,” Joey said. “I don't want Bailey in that house either.”

“If I relinquish my parental rights,” I said with a sigh, because the thought scared me more than going to prison. “Will I be able to get them back?”

“Your main concern right now should be getting her out,” he said, and it scared me that he didn't answer my question outright. “I'm not going to tell you no, but I'm not willing to say yes either. In the eyes of the court, you may end up being as unfit as Brayden.”

I looked him in the eyes again, clearly showing him how upset I was right now, and shook my head in disbelief.

“I told you,” he said. “You have to trust me. I will do whatever it is within my power to get you out as quickly as possible and get your daughter back to you. If I have to hand-fucking-deliver all the papers myself, that is what I will do.”

I should have said something, but I couldn't speak. I couldn't even look at either of them. All I could think about was where I was going from here.

“I'll leave you two alone for a bit. I'll see you in an hour, Lance.”

Rich picked up his briefcase and stood up, shaking Joey's hand and patting him on the shoulder before he walked out the door. After he left, Joey stared at me, wanting me to say something, but I couldn't.

“Do whatever it takes to get custody of her, Joey,” I said after a long silence. “I want her out of that house and away from Bray.”

“She'll be coming to pick her back up tonight,” he said. “I can't keep her, she was already talking about reporting me for kidnapping when I came to pick her up. For all I know, she already did. But I'm going to want to kill her when she comes by.”

“That won't help me. I'm in here; I need you out there. Somebody has to be there for Bailey, because I can't be.”

“I'll do whatever it takes. Hell, I will kidnap her if that's what it takes. And I'm here for you, too. You know I'll do anything for you.”

Things went silent again in the room for a while, and now I could barely contain tears. It was hard to tell yourself that “real” men didn't cry when you were looking at this.

“Lance,” he said, and I looked up at him. “I'm sorry. We'll get through this, okay? I'll keep Rich on speed dial. I'll call the rest of the guys after arraignment and I'll let them know what's going on. It's not only me on your side, you have all of us. We'll all do whatever it takes to get you through this and get you out.”

“Thanks,” I whispered, and I felt the tears start coming out. I felt the anger and disappointment, and I felt a little bit of fear slip through, too. I wasn't what I considered a “tough” guy; there were people who were probably tough enough for prison but I wouldn't consider myself one of them. It wasn't the people I was afraid of; mostly it was being sedentary and alone. Twenty-three hours a day, alone in a small room, and I didn't think I could handle that.

I brought the heels of my palms up to both my eyes, pretending I was rubbing my eyes, but I knew Joey knew I was crying. I didn't care if he knew, he wouldn't think any less of me for it. If I felt no love or compassion from anybody else right now, I felt it from him.

A few moments later, the cop returned to escort me back. He let me briefly say goodbye to Joey, and he returned me to a different holding cell this time. I was alone in this one, but this time I didn't count myself thankful. I wanted to be around people, regardless of what kind of people they were. I wanted to be social while I still had a chance.