Bullet(67)

I looked at Ethan. I knew. Something inside him had thought he was going to be able to resolve his feelings by seeing this man. He’d once said he wanted to just kill his father. Ethan was a lot of things, but he wasn’t a murderer. The problem was seeing him and talking to him was resolving nothing. When Ethan spoke, I could barely hear him and his voice was like a growl. “I just wanted to come tell you I’m not your son.”

“I suppose you think that’ll hurt me.”

Ethan shrugged. “I don’t give I shit.”

“Look…you want a sorry? Fine. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I hurt your mother, and I’m sorry it hurt you, and I’m sorry I wasn’t a part of your life. But it’s nothing I can go back and change now.” He placed his hand on his chest and sat down. Ethan regarded him for several seconds and then sat down as well.

I couldn’t help myself. “Are you okay?”

I could tell he was lying when he said, “I’m fine.” He took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. What’s your name?”

I tried to smile. “Valerie Quinn.”

“Are you Ethan’s girlfriend?”

“That’s none of your goddamned business,” Ethan said. He stood up again. “Come on, Val. Let’s go. I have nothing else to say.”

Ethan was already walking toward the front door before I could even stand. I’m sure I looked sheepish as I stood to follow him. I wanted to apologize for Ethan’s rude behavior, but that was between him and his father. I knew I needed to stay out of it. So I tried to smile and then caught up to Ethan. In the hallway, he wrapped his hand around mine, and we walked down the stairs in a hurry. It wasn’t until we were at the truck that he squeezed my hand again. Before he kissed me, he said, “Valerie Quinn, you make me a better man.” And as I drowned in his kiss, I wondered exactly what he meant by that.

* * *

Brad, along with Last Five Seconds, organized some traveling concert. There was another band involved, and they managed to set up nine concerts in nine different cities over the course of fourteen days. Brad managed to get the time off from work, but my boss told me if I took that much time off, he couldn’t promise my job would be there when I returned. I told him it was something I had to do, and I hoped the two months’ advance notice I’d given him counted for something. He said my timing was rotten. But no way was I going to let my bandmates down.

Brad said he was sorry. “We have a couple of days off in the middle. Maybe I could drive you back so you could work those days so maybe your boss would go easy on you.”

“Are you kidding? That wouldn’t even be worth the gas. And we’ll need rest. That’s what those days are for.”

“Yeah, I know. But I’ll do it if it’ll help you out, Val.”

I smiled. “Brad, that’s really sweet, and I appreciate it. But who cares? If I lose this crappy job, I’m sure I’ll be able to find another.”

And I wasn’t worried about it. We weren’t making loads of money, but every month, we made a little more. That was all I could hope for, and we were getting more and more fans. By branching out into other states and farther out of our usual spots, we’d only gain more fans. I didn’t see how focusing on the music was a bad move.

We had two new songs we planned to debut on the road too. I was excited. Truthfully, I’d been getting comfortable doing what we’d been doing. I was used to most of the venues now, and I even recognized faces—we did have a fan base. That was good, but just a fan base in the Denver area wouldn’t be enough so that we could make it our full-time job for the rest of our lives. We had to go further, push harder, get more recognition for that.

So we made plans. We changed our set list, added new songs, switched things up. I bought some new clothes because I wanted to wear some new things. I added more vinyl and skimpier outfits, mainly because it was getting warmer out. Most venues were hot under the lights anyway, especially because we were working our asses off, but add higher temperatures and there was no way to stay cool.

As we made preparations and got excited, Ethan once again grew distant. He was stoned more often than he was not, and—even though I didn’t catch him in the act—I was starting to suspect he was sleeping around on me again. Until I could prove it, though, or I was convinced beyond all doubt, I wanted to trust him.

Honestly, when he’d told me after leaving his father’s house that I made him a better man, I felt almost obligated…that Ethan would deteriorate into a shit of a human being if I didn’t stick by his side.

At our last Denver concert before hitting the road, I caught Ethan doing what he called Special K with a girl in the van. I would have sworn the girl was still in high school, but Brad chased her off before I could grill her for information. And Ethan just got that stupid ass puppy dog look on his face. He swore they didn’t do anything, but I wondered where it would have gone if the rest of us hadn’t arrived, ready to leave.

I was also pretty sure Brad was seeing somebody, but—in typical Brad fashion—it was something he didn’t talk about and definitely something he didn’t flaunt.

The three bands had a meeting at Village Inn the night before we left. It was kind of weird seeing Clayton in daylight. He was still good looking; don’t get me wrong. It just made me realize that a lot of these guys I’d only seen at night with spotlights flooding down on them. And now we were going to spend a little over two weeks together.

Clayton sat across the table from me and just smiled. He’d said, “Hey, Val,” earlier but didn’t say anything else. Ethan sat next to me and draped his arm over the back of the chair, but I felt like he was doing it out of habit, not because he felt loving. Clayton kept his distance, though, and it was probably a good thing, because Ethan was sober for the first time in a month.

I caught him smiling at me once or twice, though.

And then I knew Ethan was being possessive when all three bands stood outside in the parking lot, chatting, reluctant to say goodbye, and Ethan decided to slam me up against the van for a pretty raucous PDA. It wasn’t like we’d been talking about anything sexually arousing. But no…he was playing alpha and challenging anyone who dared. And I would have been okay with it if that had meant he was going to stay faithful to me. But I should have known Ethan just couldn’t rein himself in. Not before and certainly not on our mini tour. But I had yet to find that out.





Chapter Twenty-nine



IT WASN’T FORTY-EIGHT hours on tour that I was convinced Ethan was sleeping around. No, I still had no solid proof, but he hadn’t slept with me in a week, high or not, and when we’d finished our first show, he disappeared for several hours and showed up at our room long after I’d gone to sleep. Yeah, we were sharing a motel room, but I don’t know why. I didn’t anticipate our making love anytime in the near future, not at the rate things were going. And talk to him? He’d have none of it. It was always, “Not now, Val.”

The next day we were on the road to the next town, and we played that night, but I think we were all feeling tired. Still, we all decided we wanted to party together. We were all having so much fun, and being in new places with new audiences just made it all the more enjoyable. That night, we’d had an even better reception than usual and were feeling too excited to just sleep it off.

When Ethan didn’t show up to the party, I knew something was going on.

And I decided in that moment that we were done. I’d had enough. I was tired of having my heart tugged around like a useless piece of meat.

The biggest band out of us three (some guys who called themselves Spanky’s Kids) went all out and rented a suite in the hotel where we stayed, and it was a big place so we were all able to party together. We’d made our reservations long in advance, and Brad had taken care of ours, keeping our band down to two rooms, something more affordable. We were playing in a fairly large city in New Mexico, but the days blended together, and I wasn’t quite sure where we were this particular night. Anyway, I was drinking a beer and talking with Clayton and Brian, the bassist for his band, but Brian was called off to smoke some weed in the bathroom, and Clay and I wound up sitting down on the sofa just talking. He told me about his love affair with music, how he was going to do it till he died, even if that meant he’d just keep playing smaller venues like he was now. He loved it. He was music.

And I believed him. What impressed me most was the love and the passion in him for it, and it showed when he talked about it.

As the night wore on and the party started to dwindle, it didn’t escape my notice that there was still no Ethan to be found anywhere. I wasn’t going to say a word, though. And Clay wasn’t getting handsy or anything. We were just enjoying talking with each other. At one point, I asked, “Okay, so…you love music. I’d go so far as to say—after talking with you tonight—that it’s the most important thing to you, that no woman would ever compare. True?”