Fully Automatic (Bullet) (41 page)

Chapter Forty-nine

WHEN HE WASN’T driving Fully Automatic forward, he spent the next few months trying to fuck Valerie out of his brain.  He’d had more mindless sex in the last three months than he’d ever had before.  He was still discreet about it; he couldn’t help but be.  Unlike Nick who “didn’t give a fuck
where
(or who) he fucked,” Brad didn’t need it plastered on a billboard.

He
did
, however, hope it would do the trick.

After
those few months, though, he started feeling hollow, and it bothered him that he’d gone on a path of self-destruction.  Sure, he knew it could have been much worse, but he would have derived just as much satisfaction from jerking off in the shower.  And some of the women actually made it more difficult, because they didn’t want a one-time thing.  He didn’t either, but none of them fit the bill.

None of them would ever fit the bill, and when he realized that, he decided to stop.

It wasn’t fixing a goddamn thing.

He knew, too, that
in the back of his mind, he was expecting the next big Valerie-Ethan breakup.  Only it never came.  This time, there was no arguing, no screaming and yelling matches, no loud, obnoxious fights.  And, for the first time ever, he saw Ethan trying to be sober.  He was going to classes and staying clean.

As much as Brad wanted to deny it, he knew Valerie was responsible.

It was hard making the transition back to friends only with Valerie.  He knew he had to find a way to do it, but it was difficult.  The woman didn’t realize how much she’d broken his heart.

By November, his fire had died back to the slow burn it had always been.  There was no w
ay to cool it off any further.

One day, he got a text from Jet asking when he had time to talk.  He texted back
Now
, and it was minutes later that Jet was calling him.

“What’s up, man?  How you doing?”  In a way, he felt like Jet was a better friend
today than ever before, because they now had something else in common.  But at least Jet hadn’t been dumped so Val could run back to Ethan.

Jesus
…he had to stop doing that to himself.

Jet said, “Great.  We just finished recording our first album.  It’s in post right now, and in a month or so, our first single is going to hit the airwaves.”

“That’s great, man.  I can’t think of another band who deserves it more.”  Aside from Fully Automatic, of course, but he wasn’t going to piss on Jet’s good news.  Brad wondered why he was calling, but knew he’d get around to it in good time.  Jet was a lot of things, including cocky, but he wasn’t the kind of guy to flaunt shit in other people’s faces.  Brad knew he wasn’t calling just to brag.

“Thanks, Brad.  That means a lot coming from you.”  Brad heard him take a deep breath.  “That’s why I’m calling.  I’m sure you know I don’t have a lot of pull, but if you guys are game, I’m going to see if you can play one or two shows with us when we’re around your area.  Kind of like the opening act to the opening act?”  Jet chuckled.

Brad smiled.  “Yeah, we’d definitely be up for that shit.  We play all the time anyway.”

“Don’t I know.  You drive your band into the ground.”

“You really think so?”

“No…but you have to be the hungriest guy I know.  If you don’t make it, there’s something wrong with the world.”

Brad laughed.  “Believe me—there’s
lots
wrong with the world.”  God, he was gonna be a downer.  He had to shut his mouth.  “Seriously, thanks for thinking of us, even if it doesn’t pan out.”

“I’m also plugging you with the powers that be, if you catch my drift.  You guys need to be heard from coast to coast.  I’m serious.  And if these guys listen to reason, you will be.”

“Thanks for that.  Sincerely.”

“Least I can do.  You made me step up my game.”  Brad laughed again, this time long and loud.  Jet was one of the best guitar players he knew, and while it was flattering that the man said Brad challenged him, he highly doubted it.  “I’m dead serious.  I was just fuckin’ around, playing our shows but getting pretty lackadaisical.  Then here comes this kid, fresh outta school, playing the guitar like he was born with it in his hands.  I watched you.  Your goal was never to be the fastest or the loudest.  Your goal was precision—you never miss a beat; you
never hit a wrong note, even when you’re improvising.  You’re good, man, and you made me shoot for that kind of accuracy onstage.  You’re impressive as hell, and I shouldn’t be the only one noticing that.”

The air had evaporated from his lungs.
  He had always liked and respected Jet before, but apparently it went two ways.  “Thanks.”  He repeated exactly what Jet had said moments earlier.  “That means a lot coming from
you
.”

And, for the first time in a long time, hope was going to fuel the hunger Jet had mentioned.

* * *

Brad wasn’t ready for another tattoo, but he wanted an excuse to see Karen.  He was tired of hollow non-relationships.  He wanted to give real dating a try again.  It had been far too long
, and he was beginning to think he’d forgotten how.  Hell, yeah, his heart still ached, but Val had made her choice for all eternity.  It was time for Brad to move on.

So
he headed into his favorite tattoo shop one Saturday afternoon.  Karen was working.  She was with someone, and the girl at the counter told him another fifteen or twenty minutes.  So he walked around, looking first at the body jewelry under the glass counter and then finally sitting down and staring at the television in their sitting area.

When Karen was done with her customer, she sat next to Brad on the couch.  “My favorite customer.  What’s up, Brad Payne?”

He smiled.  Karen’s dark hair was pulled into a high ponytail, showing off a delicate neck tattoo under her right ear.  Her personality was rough around the edges, a little too tough and cold, but looks-wise, she was hotter than hell.  She was heavily tattooed and pierced and wore a lot of heavy makeup.  Hell, she was more Ethan’s type than Brad’s.  But the woman had obviously been interested in him for a long time, and he needed to get back up on that horse.

“I’m thinking about getting another tattoo.”

“Yeah?  What’d you have in mind?”

He shook his head.  “Not sure.  I want something on my left shoulder blade.  You know, to kind of balance things out back there.  I was thinking maybe you could surprise me.”

“How much money we talkin’?”

He smiled.  “Let’s see what you come up with.  Then you can tell me.”

“Pretty big?”

“Yeah.”

“Bad ass?”

“Of course.”

She smiled at him and nodded.  “Give me a week.”

He smiled back and then took a deep breath.  “I wanted to ask you another question.”

“What’s that?”

“You seeing anybody?”

She cocked her head a little and her smile widened.  “Nobody important.”

“Wanna go out sometime?”

“I’d love to.”  Yeah, he hadn’t misread her.  So he asked her for her number and promised to call her within the week.

And not a moment too soon, because Ethan and Valerie started planning their wedding.

* * *

One thing Brad could say about Karen—she managed
a lot of the time to keep his mind off the impending wedding.  Ethan had already made Brad agree to be his best man.  He didn’t know that he was the right guy for the job.  Yeah, Ethan was his brother and he loved him.  The problem was he also loved the bride.

But he agreed, and that was that.  The entire Fully Automatic crew would be at the altar on that fateful day.  Valerie chose a date in July, because she didn’t want it to interfere with any shows.

The wedding itself
wasn’t
going to interfere with shows—Brad made sure of that.  No, but the fact that there was a wedge between him and Val did.  He didn’t know that things would ever feel
normal
between them again, but, more than that, they had to change things onstage again.  Oh, Val continued wearing her skimpy little outfits, but there was no flirting between them anymore.  No way was Brad even going to try it, and he was glad Val wasn’t attempting it either.  It would have felt awkward and weird…and, no matter how he felt about the whole thing, it would have seemed like they were slapping Ethan in the face.  Brad might have thought their marriage was the stupidest, most misguided act in the history of the world, but he respected the idea that she and Ethan were engaged.

Most days, he blamed himself.  It was so fucking stupid, and he should have known.  Valerie always,
always
ran back to Ethan.  Every fucking time.  Sometimes it was almost immediate; this last time, he’d actually believed it would never happen again.  What a dumb ass he’d been.

By the time the wedding rolled around, he and Karen were only seeing each other casually.  He was glad, because he wasn’t ready to bring a woman to the wedding.

It was hard, but he asked the bride for a dance at the reception afterward.  Val looked so fulfilled, so beautiful, that he couldn’t deny her happiness any longer.  He wanted her to know things were okay between them.

Val looked almost ready to cry when he asked, and that was when he knew he’d done the right thing.  He really had been missing her friendship.  He knew, though, that that friendship would never be the same.  She was now a married woman and her loyalty would lie, from this point forward, with her husband…exactly
where it should.  Brad knew he would do well to remember that.

Chapter Fifty

KAREN’S HEAD RESTED on Brad’s chest, her dark hair flowing down her back.  She rubbed his uncovered pec with her fingers.  Brad felt himself getting sleepy.  He needed to get up because he had to work the next day, but he wasn’t ready to leave, not yet.  He didn’t want to just fuck her and run, even if his feelings for her didn’t run deep.  Karen had a brash personality, but Brad was starting to suspect it was to cover up deep insecurities.

“You know I really like you, don’t you?”

He smiled.  “Yeah.  I kinda like you back,” he joked.

She lifted her head to look at him.  “Seriously, though.  I know…”
  She shifted her eyes to look at something else.  She was having a hard time saying what was on her mind.  “I know in your business that you probably get plenty of…girls.  And I’m not asking for a commitment, okay, but I just want you to know I’m here.”

He wasn’t quite sure what she was saying.
  He was going to let it slide, but then she looked him in the eyes.  She needed something from him, and he wasn’t sure what.  “What do you mean exactly?”

She exhaled, then inhaled again, both visible and full of effort.  “I mean…”  She swallowed.  “I mean I know you probably get pussy thrown at you day and night and it’s hard to resist.  I get that, and I don’t want to interfere with it.”  Brad raised his eyebrows.  He wasn’t going to correct her.  Yeah, he had offers, but it wasn’t a constant barrage of women approaching him with their legs open.  Ethan got way more offers than he did.  He was okay with that, because he didn’t want to fuck everything that was
“thrown” at him simply because he had the opportunity.  He was trying to figure out how to respond when she said, “I’m just happy to be with you whenever.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying I’m perfectly fine being a friend with benefits.”

At first he thought he’d never been in that position before, but that wasn’t true.  His brief relationship with Jo (or “Sugar”) had been that kind of thing, even though they’d never called it that.  She’d call him when she wanted him around
, and he wouldn’t hear from her for weeks.  If the sex hadn’t been so damn hot, he might have felt used.  And now, here Karen was
asking
for that.  He didn’t want her to feel like she was a second choice.  No one deserved to feel that way…and yet she was.  Unless and until he could find a way over her, Val would always be number one in his heart.  Karen might have thought it would be his success in snagging groupies, but that would be the least of her worries.  On some level, she must have known his heart couldn’t fully engage.

He struggled inside.  He thought maybe he wouldn’t say anything, but—in a way—that felt dishonest.  He sat up.  “Karen, you are a great girl.  I’m glad I met you.  And I enjoy the time we have together.”

Her mouth screwed up in a grimace.  “But no way, huh?  Just not good enough?”

“Oh, no.  No.  That’s not what I was going to say at all.  No.  There’s something you need to know, though.”  He took a deep breath.  Her brown eyes searched his.  “There’s a woman—just
one
—I’ve known her for a long time and, as stupid as it sounds, I have loved her for almost as long.”

“Not reciprocated?”

“No, not really.  We hooked up once and things just didn’t work out.”

Karen smiled and scooched up so her lips were close to his.  “Ah…so
my
job is to push her out of your mind, and then you can just focus on little old me.”

Brad wasn’t going to tell her that he doubted it was possible.  He hoped it was.  And he felt better, knowing that he wasn’t harboring that secret from her.  If she wanted to try pursuing some sort of relationship with him, she had to know what she was up against.

He didn’t know that he was ready, but he also knew that he probably never would be.

* * *

It was a good thing he’d been socking money away again.  He’d always wanted to record a higher-quality CD, but now he
had
to.  Jet called and asked him to deliver something as soon as possible.  Last Five Seconds now had
connections
, but Jet said he needed to move pretty quickly.  Brad called around to studios in the area, because the one he’d settled on before had changed its rates.  Even the least expensive studio he talked to was more than he had, so he sat the band down and told them what was going on.  They’d probably instead have to cut an EP—two or three of their best songs—and just make sure they couldn’t get the songs any better.  But Val said she had some money too and Ethan said he had some money.  If Brad didn’t know better, Ethan was going to hit up his grandfather (either that or they had money they’d received as wedding gifts that they’d socked away).  Ethan hadn’t asked the old guy for money in a long time, but Brad knew Ethan’s grandfather had a little nest egg and was happy to share with his grandson when he asked.  Brad almost told him not to, because he was pretty sure Ethan was still paying for his Texas coma (and Brad was grateful for that, because, otherwise, he would have had to come up with the money).  The only thing that saved the guy was that Val’s parents paid for the wedding.

But the entire band agreed to forego concert funds if it meant they could put together enough money for a decent CD.  Zane said, “Besides, even if this falls through, we can sell it at our merch table.”  Brad knew that was right, and they could sell it for lots more than the shitty CD they’d been selling for the last couple of years.

Knowing they had the money after another few weeks, they decided to go balls out.  They couldn’t settle on a few songs and wound up with fourteen.  The cost of putting the CD together would depend upon how much time their asses were in the studio, so Brad stressed perfection.  “Practice your asses off first, guys.  When you go in, you need to nail it the first time.”  They knew what was at stake.  If they fucked up on studio time too much, they wouldn’t be able to record all the songs.  It was as simple as that.

It started with Nick.  They bought an hour here, an hour there, and booked the studio for those times.  After Nick laid down the drum tracks, Brad and Ethan took turns doing guitars.  Ethan was rhythm on some, lead on others, and vice versa with Brad. 
Zane followed up with bass.  They finally got all the music down and were happy with it.

Val had a problem, though.  Her voice hadn’t been up to snuff for a month or two, and Brad was afraid it was going to affect the quality of the CD.  He didn’t say anything, but she was starting to sound like crap—hoarse and raspy.  It might have sounded sexy on a song or two, but it didn’t work for some of the sweeter melodies she had to belt out.  At first he thought maybe she was coming down with something, but he lost that notion when she was even worse a month later.

No one wanted to say anything, but Brad was sure they were all thinking the same thing.

They were
fucked
.  No studio executives in their right mind would want Fully Automatic sounding like that.

Still, Brad intended to give her a chance.  She’d been with them for the long haul and had propelled them to new heights.  He didn’t want to just shit on her.  But he was worried.  This was their big chance, everything he’d ever hoped for.

He’d let her record and then they could discuss it—as a group—and decide together.

The first song she recorded was “Metal Forever,” one of her favorites.  It was one
that highlighted Val’s emotional depth as well as her range.  But, right out of the gate, her voice was raspy and harsh.

She spent an hour recording and rerecording, because she wasn’t happy with it.  He wasn’t either, but he wasn’t going to say anything
even though he could feel the money bleeding out the door.  He and Ethan were in the studio.  At the end of the hour, she broke down in tears.

Ethan was being a good husband.  Brad was glad for that.  He pulled her in his arms.  “What’s wrong, babe?” he asked.

“You guys have noticed, right?  Something’s wrong with my voice.  I rest it and it just doesn’t snap back.”

Brad wanted to be encouraging.  “It sounds okay, Val.”

Ethan patted her back.  “Yeah…works for the song.”

Her voice was scratchy sounding, like she’d been yelling in a football stadium all day.  “Maybe so, but it’ll never work for ‘Just Another Stupid Love Song.’  My voice has to be clear for that.”  Brad agreed, but he was glad she’d said it instead of him.  Ethan started to say something, but Val interrupted.  “No, Ethan, you know it and I know it.  I can’t sound like I took a fucking emery board to my vocal cords for that one.  I have to sound sweet and soft and sexy, or it doesn’t work when I scream at the end.  Goddammit.”  She started crying again.

Brad wasn’t willing to give up on her yet.  “So you take it easy tonight.  You drink extra tea and don’t say shit.  Nothing.  If your voice is still fucked up, you go to the doctor.”

“I—we can’t afford the doctor.”

“Bullshit.  You’re goin’.”  Why the fuck was she being so stubborn?  Did she
not
want to do this?  She acted like she was going to argue with him.  “You’re going, Val.  Don’t piss me off.”  He looked at Ethan.  “Talk some sense into your wife, please.”

“Yeah, because I’m really good at persuading her.”  But Ethan looked at Val, his eyes sympathetic.  “Val, he’s right.  If your voice is still sucky tomorrow, you should go.”

“And then what?  You know how much money it’ll cost just to be seen?  And then what?  What if—”

Brad needed her to be rational and quit stressing her voice out more with her emotional outburst.  “Stop it.  We cross that bridge when we come to it.  For now, you go home and rest.”

And, even though Brad wasn’t a religious man, he considered praying that night.