Bullet(56)

“Yeah, he is.”

“Name’s Clayton, by the way, but they call me Jet.”

“Jet?”

“Yeah. Speed of light, you know.”

I nodded and grinned. “I’ve seen you play. It suits you.” I took the hand he offered. It was warm and dry and reluctant to let mine go. “Valerie.”

“Got a last name, Valerie?”

“Quinn. What about you?”

“As a matter of fact, I do. You’ll never forget it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. It’s Smith. But even if you find a thousand Clayton Smiths, I promise you won’t find one like me.”

Oh. That gaze…struck something inside me, melted something in there. And I believed him. Wow. Ethan was a lucky guy, because had it been anyone else, I would have been flirting with this guy hardcore. I smiled. “I think you’re probably right about that.”

“So what do you play?”

“I sing.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll be front row.” He reached behind him to pull his wallet out of his pocket. He had a large silver chain attached to it, and he whipped out a twenty. “I’ll take a large short sleeve in black.”

I reached over in front of Nick where the regular tees were and handed him the cash. “I need a five back.”

I handed the guitarist his change and he said, “Be right back.” He walked away, leaving me wondering what he was doing. He had captured my attention, but I was back in the moment. Yeah, he’d been flirting with me, but I didn’t want Ethan seeing or overhearing and thinking something unsavory was going on. I looked around while I waited for Clayton (or Jet?) to return, but I couldn’t see Ethan anywhere. And Nick…well, he was still charming the girls at our table.

Clayton came back, black shirt in hand, which he handed to me. “I’d be honored if you’d wear this onstage.” At first, I’d thought he was handing me the tee he’d bought from us, but when I unfolded it, I saw in big red letters LAST FIVE SECONDS. The lettering design was intricate and artistic, almost gothic but not quite.

“Tonight?”

He grinned, small dimples forming in his cheeks. “Yeah.”

I couldn’t help but smile back. “Okay.” He nodded. “So what do I call you—Clayton or Jet?”

He shrugged. “You decide. I go by both.” He started to back up. “Have a good show tonight.”

“You too.” I looked at the shirt unfolded in front of me. It was a small, and I usually wore a medium, so I knew it would be snug. If I’d had smaller breasts, it wouldn’t have been a problem. Still…I’d promised. So I asked Nick if he could cover the table for a few minutes, and he said he could. I went into the bathroom. Yeah…it was snug, but I thought I’d be okay with that. I knew, though, that I could make it cooler and more comfortable with a pair of scissors.

I went to the front counter, and there were a girl and a guy selling tickets to the show. The girl looked at me with disdain but the guy said, “Fully Automatic, right?” I nodded. “Everything okay? Need anything?”

I smiled. “Do you have a pair of scissors I could borrow?”

“I think so.” He rifled through a bunch of junk on the shelf underneath the counter and handed me an old pair of orange-handled scissors. “I don’t know how good they’ll be, but give ‘em a shot.”

He was right. Once in the bathroom, I started modifying the shirt. The scissors weren’t as sharp as I was sure they’d been back when they were new, but with effort, I was able to cut through the fabric. This was metal, for God’s sake. It didn’t have to be perfect and, besides, I didn’t have a lot of time to play around. I cut off the arms and then I cut a slit down from the neck to my cleavage. Then I cut a few triangle-shaped patches out—one in front of my navel and three on the back in various places and put a few fake rips in it. And as I finished, I knew Clayton would either love it or hate it. He’d either love that I’d made his shirt my own and wore it with pride onstage, advertising for the next band, or he’d think I’d desecrated it. I just hoped the guys wouldn’t ask about it.

They didn’t. They were used to me wearing a variety of ripped shirts, and I’d been wearing just another t-shirt that night anyway. Before we took the stage, Ethan grabbed my hand and squeezed it but didn’t say a word. I looked over at him and smiled. Oh, shit. He was f*cked up. I didn’t know what he was on, but he was messed up. That worried me. Yeah, I knew Brad could hold his own onstage if he needed to, but I didn’t like knowing Ethan was blasted out of his mind.

The first three songs were spot on. We were on fire, and the audience was eating us up. It was pure magic. But then, in the middle of the fourth song, Ethan started missing notes and just flubbing up in general. I didn’t think the audience noticed, and Brad maintained, but it was throwing me off. So, in between songs, I looked over at Brad. Fortunately, he knew exactly what I was thinking. He gave me a look of assurance, urging me to keep going and just disregard Ethan. I looked over at the man to whom I’d given my heart, but—as usual during a concert—he wasn’t with us. He was off in musical nirvana…exactly where that was for Ethan, I didn’t know, but he certainly wasn’t there with us.

We persevered, though. The next song, I’d decided to focus as much on the rhythm as I could, trying to ignore the guitar. That proved to be impossible but not unmanageable. It was during that song—“Metal Forever,” a song that had become my personal anthem—that I noticed Clayton/ Jet at the edge of the stage. Oh, God, was he cute, and he smiled when he caught me looking. I was in the middle of singing a line, so if he caught my acknowledgement back, it was through my eyes only. But after the song was over, I winked at him.

No, I don’t know why I did it.

When we were done, we hauled our equipment off stage to make room for Last Five Seconds to set up. Ethan was too far gone by that point, and Brad cornered him off stage. Ethan wandered off somewhere while the remaining four of us emptied the stage.

Clayton/ Jet stopped me before his band started loading their equipment onto the stage. “Nice show, Valerie. You stayin’ to watch?”

“We usually do. Gotta support our friends, right?”

“That’s what I like to hear.” He started walking up the stage. “I’ll be playing tonight for you.”

Whoa. That was heavy. And here’s where having a secret boyfriend—if that was what I could even call Ethan—presented some trouble. I couldn’t exactly tell him right there that I was seeing someone as he was walking away from me and my friends/ bandmates were right beside me. But chances were this was the last of it. I was just nice flirting material for him for the evening.

The four of us—Brad, Zane, Nick, and me—stood near the front. Nick had his arm around the girl he’d been talking to earlier, and I was surprised he wasn’t already making out with her, knowing his track record. I noticed the guitarist onstage looking around, and he kept it up until he spotted me. He pointed his left index finger at me from under the shaft of his guitar and grinned at me.

Brad noticed, because he looked over at me, but he didn’t say a word. I just looked back at him and tried to deliver as innocent a smile as I could.

My God, could those guys rock. Jet—that’s who he was when his guitar was in his hand—was one of the best live guitarists I’d ever seen. It was like he and his guitar were one. His fingers were like liquid, gliding over the strings, even when he was shredding. He was amazing to watch. He was sexy too. The energy he exuded, moving around the stage, singing backup when needed, looking down at me on occasion. Those looks gave me chills.

But I had to push those thoughts out of my head. Oh, my God. It was true, everything my parents had ever told me. I’d finally given in to my deepest desires, and now I was full of lust.

Honestly, though, I would have found him gorgeous before; in fact, I had. And, no, I still wasn’t to the point where I wondered what he’d be like in bed. No, but I did appreciate that he was a fine specimen of man.

When their show was over, they were lugging their equipment off stage so the last band could set up. Brad said to the three of us, “I’m gonna check on Ethan.”

Yeah, where was he? Brad was still gone when the fourth band started setting up, and after a few minutes, Last Five Seconds’s guitarist tracked me down. His hair was damp, and he’d run his fingers through it, pulling it away from his face. He was swigging on a bottle of water as he approached me. “What’d you think?”

I smiled. “Even better than the last time I saw you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Can I give you some advice?”

I was curious. “About what?”

“On stage.”