Bullet(12)

“He’s probably right there.” She took another sip of her coffee. “You look pretty tired. Did the two of you get any sleep at all last night?”

She was right. I was tired. “Maybe I will take a nap…if that’s okay with you.”

“Of course.”

“Thank you, Mrs.—is it Miss or Mrs.?” I didn’t want to be presumptuous. I’d barely met the woman, and Ethan’s introduction hadn’t exactly been stellar.

“Which sounds better?” That was weird. I just smiled and shrugged my shoulders.

“Just call me whatever’s easier for you. You can call me June if you’d like. Or even mom if you’re comfortable with that. Brad and Nick call me mom.”

Maybe she didn’t like being called by a title at all, so if she wanted me to call her that, I would. “Okay, mom.” I giggled.

“Sleep tight, Valerie.”

I felt a little awkward calling her mom, but she seemed happy that I’d made that choice. I thought maybe after a little while, it would feel like second nature to call her that. And, if not, I could always call her by her real name. As I drifted off to sleep, my head buried in Ethan’s pillow, I felt myself unable to fully grasp all the surreal happenings of the last twenty-four hours. Little did I know, it wasn’t over yet.

* * *

“Wake up, sleepy head.” Ethan greeted me from his bedroom doorway. “Ready to go to Brad’s?”

How long had I slept? It was still light outside, so it couldn’t have been too late. “Let me at least sit up. What time is it?”

“Two o’clock. You awake enough to go?”

“Well, yeah, but can I at least do my hair?”

He rolled his eyes, but I could tell he was just giving me a hard time. “How many hours will that take?”

I slid out from his bed and slipped into my shoes. “Ten minutes, tops.”

“I’m timing you.”

I stuck out my tongue and then started rifling through my suitcase for my brush. I still couldn’t believe I’d let him see me without makeup earlier. Granted, a lot of it was still on because I hadn’t washed it off the night before, but still… Now I wanted to touch it up, make sure my hair was okay, and I wanted to brush my teeth too. I had a new case of morning breath.

Less than ten minutes later, I was bounding down the stairs. I slid my coat on and said goodbye to mom as we walked out the door.

After we were in the truck, Ethan said, “My mom likes you. That’s good. She doesn’t always like my friends. She never says anything, you know, but I can tell when she doesn’t like one of my friends.”

“I like her too, Ethan.” I left it at that. I could tell Ethan’s mom was a little insecure, and I wasn’t sure why, but she was a nice, loving person, and I couldn’t help but like her back. I didn’t want to discuss his mom with him, though, especially when I wasn’t quite sure what the dynamic of their relationship was.

“And don’t ask what I was doing when I left.”

I felt confused. “I already know what you were doing. You said—”

“I know what I said.” And then I saw that bitter look he’d always had in his eyes surface again. I just shut my mouth. He didn’t want to talk about it, but I wondered why he’d even brought it up now.

A few minutes later, we got to Brad’s house. I steeled myself, hoping my memories of the night before had been exaggerated in my mind. You can do this, Valerie. Yes, I could do it.

* * *

“Hey, guys, I can’t believe I didn’t show you this shit already.” Yeah, Brad was still as hot as he’d been the night before. Only this time, he was literally hot, little beads of sweat forming on his forehead from two hours of playing in the band. It wasn’t as cold in the garage as it had been the night before, but I still could barely understand how he could be that overheated.

He walked across the garage and moved a couple of boxes. Then he opened one and pulled out a bottle of rum. “And I’ve got two twelve-packs of Coke chillin’ in the fridge.” He lowered his voice and got closer to the group. “Mom’s working tonight…leaves around six-thirty, so we can get f*ckin’ wasted.”

Ethan slid his guitar so it hung on his back. “Wait a minute. Do you even drink, Val?”

Uh-oh. He’d already figured out my goody-two-shoes nature, and I thought I’d hidden it so well. “Umm…” God, I was going to sound so uncool. “I can be your designated driver.”

“Perfect.” Well, maybe that wasn’t so hard after all.

Brad hid the bottle back in the box and returned to the group. Then Ethan said, “Guys, there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.” Zane nodded but said nothing. “There’s a reason why Val’s our designated driver. She’s f*cking brilliant. And I hate to even admit it, but she figured out something none of us other numbnuts did. The name Bullet? Fucking cool, right?”

“Hell, yeah.”

“Yeah…and it’s taken.”

Brad snarled. “So? I’ve never heard of ‘em, so what?”

“Do you really want somebody’s sloppy seconds?”

Brad started laughing. “Fuck…not when you put it that way.”

“Exactly. So…close your eyes and tell me…what do you think of Fully Automatic?”

Brad and Nick were quiet, so quiet. No. I was sure that meant they hated it. But then Nick nodded his head. Brad was the wild card, though. After a few moments, he said, “Yeah…that’ll work.”

“You don’t sound convinced.”

“I just need some time to try it on…know what I mean?”

“Yeah,” Ethan said, “that’s cool, man.”

Brad slapped him on the back. “Damn straight.”

“So let’s work out this next song.” They spent the next two hours perfecting a song they’d been working on. I hadn’t really noticed any of their lyrics before, but I was able to hear these in scrutinizing detail. And, because their sound was so rockin’, there was no way I was going to criticize their lyrics…but they weren’t deep, and they sounded pretty cliché. There weren’t any sentiments in the words I hadn’t heard dozens of times before. I had gathered from what Ethan had told me before that usually he and Brad wrote their own lyrics to the songs they sang, but this one wound up being a collaboration. I just sat back and listened to them work things out. They got the music down first—solo included—and then started writing the lyrics.

“Down on my knees…how’s that?”

Ethan said, “Yeah, yeah…that’s good, and it rhymes with me too.”

Brad nodded. Zane and Nick were working on percussion, trying to perfect the rhythm of the song while Brad and Ethan sat on two other lawn chairs. I sat next to them both, keeping my mouth shut.

Then Ethan said, “Oh…this is better: ‘I’m begging you please’.”

“Yeah.”

Oh, God…I couldn’t help it anymore. I’d been quiet long enough. “Um…guys…can I give you a suggestion?”

Oh, shit. It had come out of my mouth. I hadn’t been able to stop it. Both of them grew quiet and looked at me. Ethan said, “Uh…sure.”

I took a deep breath. They were my friends, and there was nothing wrong with constructive criticism, right? Especially if it was given with care. At least that’s what I told myself, so I moved forward. I didn’t want to be harsh or mean, so I just said, “Your music is awesome. It’s so original. Some of the words here, though…they’re kind of…”

“Generic.” Thank goodness Brad said it before I had to. I just nodded my head. “Yeah, you’re right.” He looked at Ethan and then back to me. “Any ideas?”

Oh, double shit. I couldn’t think on the fly. I just knew unoriginal when I heard it. I felt like a ladybug under a magnifying glass. But then it came to me. “Your words are a knife that twist with every breath.”

Ethan smiled. Then he looked skeptical as he started to say, “That’s—”

“Wow. Not perfect, but…I like the metaphor.”

Oh, great. Like Brad needed to look even better to me than he already did. But it couldn’t be helped. He scored points with me—not because he liked my words, but because he knew what a metaphor was.

“Do you care if I use it…even if we change it a bit?”

“No…please.” Ethan didn’t seem too thrilled about it, but he and Brad started working around the knife metaphor and wound up completely changing the words. Suddenly, though, with just that one little suggestion, the words became riddled with meaning, and not just superficial dribble. It was no longer a bunch of words I’d heard a million times before. It went from being okay to being pretty special. And by the time they were done, even Ethan was happy.