Bullet

by Jamison, Jade C.

  After class, we wound up walking out together and just naturally started heading toward the community of dorms on the other side of campus. We never said it nor acknowledged it; it just happened while we were talking. We started talking about metal music in general, but by the time we were out of the building, he said, “Hey…there are some Colorado bands from out of town playing here next month. Do you get into local bands?”

  I hadn’t, but it wasn’t because I wasn’t interested. It would be more because I’d been under my parents’ watchful eyes. So I said, “I don’t know any, but if they’re good, I could.” Did that sound as stupid as I thought it did in retrospect?

  “Well, the two bands I’m going to see are called Last Five Seconds and Name of My Killer. They’re both extreme metal, and I figured if you like Suicide Silence, you’d like them too. I know the guys in Last Five Seconds, so I’ll be there supporting them, but…I have an extra ticket and thought you might like to come along.”

  Seriously? That fast? And would this be considered a date? I could hardly keep my breathing steady. It had definitely been worth my time to sit by this gorgeous guy and to strike up a conversation. “Yeah…if you really want me to.”

  He shrugged and smiled. “It’d be more fun to take someone with me who likes the music as much as I do.”

  “Thanks, Ethan.” That was the first time I’d actually said his name. Ooh…I liked the way it felt on my tongue. “Yeah, I’d love to go.” We programmed each other’s number into our cell phones and then went to our separate dorms.

  I was convinced I’d met the cutest, nicest guy on campus.

  We didn’t hang out during the time before the concert, but we did talk regularly in history class for the entire month before the concert. As far as I was concerned, the first week of November couldn’t arrive fast enough.

  Chapter Three

  Present

  I SAT UP and rubbed the sleep from my eyes. I looked over at Ethan. He was snoring, but it was soft, and if I hadn’t been in the same room, I wouldn’t have heard it. I looked over at him, feeling happier than I had in a long time.

  Ethan’s hair was tousled, black eyeliner smeared under his eyes. The sheet lay around his waist so I could look upon his muscular arms and chest. I ran my fingers up the soft, smooth, hairy skin on his arm, just gazing upon his beauty. Ethan had always been good looking, but I hadn’t appreciated it in a long time. He’d been so distant and I’d been so angry that I hadn’t just taken him in and enjoyed him in a long time. Rubbing his arm must have awakened him, because he stirred and then turned on his side to face me.

  “Morning.” He grinned through the at-least-three-day growth on his face. “How do you feel?”

  “The same as usual. Why?”

  A grin spread across his face. “You’re pregnant.”

  I couldn’t help but smile. When Ethan was happy, his mood was infectious. “I’ve been pregnant for two months, Ethan. I don’t have morning sickness anymore. I feel fine.” I hoped he wouldn’t ask why I’d put off telling him for so long. I smiled as he sat up in bed. “What do you want for breakfast?”

  “What do I want for breakfast? I’m making breakfast this morning because you’re in no condition to.”

  Okay, so right now this was cut and funny, but it would grow annoying pretty damn quick if he didn’t chill. “Ethan, I’m pregnant, not disabled.” I bounced up off the bed and put on my robe and slippers. “Would you rather have eggs or pancakes?”

  “Babe, you relax. Take a shower while I make breakfast.”

  “Ethan—”

  “I insist. So…eggs or pancakes?”

  “You’re the chef. You decide.” I walked into the bathroom and turned on the water so I could take a warm shower. Ethan really was going to change; I could tell already.

  * * *

  In the following weeks, Ethan and I enrolled in a natural childbirth class, but we wouldn’t be attending until it was closer to my due date. He came with me to my next monthly OB/GYN visit and asked the doctor dozens of questions and even offered to pay him more if he’d be more patient while Ethan went through his list. He even bought books. I told him I wanted to have the baby at home, and I was going to start interviewing midwives, and he freaked out. He didn’t like the idea of our baby being born “the way third world babies are delivered.” I interviewed them anyway, but he wasn’t happy about it.

  Ethan was a guitarist for a heavy metal band, and each afternoon they would get together and practice. They were close to laying down all the tracks for their newest CD, but they wanted to perfect each song and make any changes they felt were necessary. Before Ethan knew I was pregnant, he’d been in a rut—he would party with the other willing band members till morning or until he was too drunk to drink anymore. Now, though, he’d quit partying after each session as he had been. He was home a lot more. He started making meals, and he liked shopping for the baby. He quit drinking and smoking like he’d promised. He occasionally had a beer or a few cigarettes, but I’d never expected him to quit completely anyway. That would have been too much to ask of him. I was just glad he was making the effort. I was overwhelmed by those efforts, because I’d never expected Ethan to quit; I’d thought he was just speaking through his drunken and overly enthusiastic stupor.

  So…as I started to show a little in my tummy, I was cautious yet optimistic. Ethan Richards might turn out to be a great dad after all. I couldn’t give up hope.

  Chapter Four

  Past

  WHEN I FIRST met Ethan, he seemed to be one of the nicest guys I’d ever met. And we had a common bond—our mutual interest in and love of heavy metal music. I hadn’t met many people like myself who knew the names of every person in the rock groups I listened to; Ethan was one of those few. And as the days progressed, I found myself more and more attracted to him.

  And November arrived. By then, Ethan and I had become pretty good friends, even though our interactions mostly took place right before and after history class. We texted a little and walked back to the dorms after most classes, but we didn’t spend much time with each other aside from that. It didn’t matter, though, because the time we did spend together was exciting for me. He was a guy friend whom I was also attracted to, and that was a bit of a thrill.

  The local bands were playing in our sleepy little college town. Ordinarily, I walked everywhere, but Ethan had his truck with him at school, and he was going to drive to the concert. He stopped by my dorm room to get me, and I was so glad Charlotte was already gone. I didn’t want her putting the moves on my hot friend. When I opened the door, though, I got a lot more than I’d bargained for. Yep, we were going to attend a metal concert and I should have expected it, but I hadn’t. So I had to pick my jaw up off the floor before I could say hi.

  Jeez, did the guy know how to clean up…or metal up might be a better description. He was metal standing in my doorway. He was poured into black leather pants that—holy shit—made me start salivating, and he wore a black mesh shirt ripped halfway down the middle. The effect? He could have been naked, because my mind was able to fill in the blanks. Well, almost. Remember…I was still a virgin at this point in the game. But the effect almost made me blush.

  That wasn’t all, though. He also had a black leather jacket draped over his shoulders and was wearing black leather spiked wristbands. Yeah, he was a little metal. I also saw he was wearing silver hoop earrings in both ears. I don’t know why I hadn’t noticed the piercing holes in his ears before, but maybe it was just because I hadn’t actually seen him wearing earrings. And, as I caught my breath, I also noticed the tiniest bit of eyeliner and black nail polish on his fingertips. Yeah…not many guys could pull off guyliner, but Ethan was one of them. Somehow, it made him look sexier.

  I’d dressed for the concert too, but compared to him, I felt dreadfully underdressed, and I hoped he was okay with that. I wore black jeans, black boots, and a black Anthrax t-shirt. Yeah, all in black. It was a metal concert, for goodness sake, so black
was the color. My makeup was darker than usual and I had on more than Ethan did, so I thought I was okay there. I wore my medium-length light brown hair down, but I ran a little mousse through it so it looked a little messy. And I should have worn a coat, but I thought my jean jacket looked a lot cooler.

  God, I was excited. Much as I’d wanted to go to concerts (and my parents didn’t have too much of a problem with them, in spite of being super religious), I hadn’t attended many in high school. It was usually a problem with money, but oftentimes it was also because I didn’t want to go to a concert by myself. A lot of my friends weren’t into the music I was, and at that age, I would have felt self-conscious attending a concert alone. So, walking out to his truck, I tried not to act giddy and silly. Hot guy by my side (maybe a future boyfriend?), going to an awesome heavy concert…could life get much better?

  When we climbed in his shiny black truck, he turned the ignition switch. The engine didn’t purr; it roared. It was loud and bad and mean. I could feel the power without taking the wheel. And then he turned the stereo on. He was playing some Ozzy, but it was old Ozzy. I recognized “Crazy Train” just from Randy Rhoads’s opening licks. I loved that song and then wondered how broad Ethan’s musical scope was. We’d only talked about newer metal, focusing a lot on things like metalcore and thrash, but here he was playing some early straight-up metal from the eighties. The music was cranked, just like it should be, so I knew we couldn’t and wouldn’t engage in conversation on the way to the concert. But as soon as he’d parked the truck and we got out and started walking toward the…well, I guess you could call it an arena, but it was a small venue with a nice stage and great acoustics called The Cave. They didn’t serve alcohol, probably so they could get a younger crowd in, because we’d spend money, drunk or sober.

  Anyway, as we started walking from the gravel-lined parking area toward the building in the dark, I asked Ethan, “So…it seems like you love all metal…new and old and of all kinds of intensity. Anything you don’t like?”

  “Oh, hell, no. You got it right. I love it all.” I liked that, but I just smiled. He probably couldn’t see it in the dark. “But my biggest influences are probably eighties metal and metalcore.”

  Influences? I couldn’t ask him what he meant because we walked inside the big doors at the front of the building and were immediately blasted by loud, heavy music. Ethan handed our tickets to one of the guys at the door, and we stepped into what really did look like a big, dark cave the size of a small gymnasium. There were laser lights and other small lights here and there so we wouldn’t trip or fall, but it was dark. There was a huge stage at the back, but there was also a large open area in front of it for moshing, then tables and chairs all along the sides, and we walked through an aisle between some of the chairs to get closer to the stage.

  I realized the music that was playing was a recording—a CD, maybe, but the song wasn’t familiar to me, so I wondered if it was a song of one of the bands playing. I felt Ethan’s hand on the small of my back, as though he were guiding me forward. It caused an electric charge to buzz up my spine, and I almost wanted to stop walking and press into him. He got closer to me and shouted so I could hear, “Do you like to mosh?”

  I stopped walking as we neared the moshing area and turned to face him. “Depends. You?”

  He shrugged. “Whatever you want.”

  Yeah, well…suddenly, I wanted to go back to his truck and make out with him. No way was I gonna say that, though. “Can we kind of hang back for a bit and see how crazy it gets?” He nodded. “Either that or can we get close up so we can headbang without getting jostled all over?”

  He smiled and repeated himself. “Whatever you want.”

  The venue was filling up quickly, lots of bodies behind and around us, so I made a judgment call. His hand was no longer on my back, so I grabbed it and pulled him closer to the stage. It wasn’t as dark there because of all the lights spilling on the band and its equipment. One of the bands was already up there, doing mike tests and scales on their axes. When we first got there, Ethan gave me a look, something I couldn’t quite identify. His eyes were dark and stormy, but a small smile began to creep up on his face. Then he looked up on the stage to watch the band get ready to play.

  Two gigantic monitors hung above the stage so people at the back of the room could still catch the action, but we’d decided we wanted our metal up close and personal. This particular band had five members—two guitarists, a singer, a drummer, and a female bassist (which I personally thought was badass). While women in metal weren’t unheard of, they were rare, so I celebrated inside at seeing her up there playing with the boys. The monitors were flashing ads for local businesses, upcoming concerts, and info about the two bands playing that evening, but I caught the words Name of My Killer on the bass drum that faced the audience.

  Ethan shouted, loud enough so I could hear, “Someday soon I’ll be on a stage like that.”

  “That would be awesome. I fantasize about stuff like that too.”

  “Fantasize?” His brows furrowed. “I have a rock band. We just need to get our shit together.”

  “You’re in a band?” Holy crap. I’d liked Ethan before, but that just made him an even more desirable commodity as far as I was concerned.

  “Yeah. My band’s called Bullet.” His eyes scoured mine. “I never told you?”

  I shook my head. “What do you play?”

  “Guitar…but I do some of the vocals too.”

  Don’t ask me where my sudden forwardness came from. “Wow…guitarists and vocalists are my favorites. You’re setting yourself up to be a girl magnet.” As soon as I’d said it, I felt the warmth and redness from blushing crawl up my neck to my cheeks. Good thing it was dark in there.

  He didn’t seem embarrassed at all…or even shocked. Instead, he said, “You have class, Ms. Quinn.”

  “As do you, Mr. Richards.” I giggled.

  But then our smiles faded, and I would almost swear the volume of the music decreased too. He ran his hand over the side and then the back of my hair, resting his palm on the nape of my neck.

  Oh…this was it, wasn’t it? Feeling his hand brush over my hair and the top of my ear had sent electric chills down my spine. I couldn’t pull my eyes away from his, and I figured my gaze was dreamy, as though I were looking through rose-colored glasses, my head tilted, my lips slightly parted in an innocent yet desirous fashion. And as his head tilted toward mine, I felt my heartbeat increase, and I awaited the touch of his lips on mine.

  It never happened, though, because the frontman of the band started talking, announcing their first song. Right after, one of the guitars screeched, and they began to play—a hard, driving, heavy yet melodic song. Ethan kept his eyes on me still, though, and smiled. He moved his hand over so that his arm was now draped over my shoulder, and then he turned to watch the band.

  His arm didn’t stay there long, though, because we had some serious headbanging to do.

  And that was okay, because we’d had a great moment, and I knew there would be more of them. The music, of course, would always take precedence.

  * * *

  When it was time to leave, we were exhausted and shouting at each other because we couldn’t hear a thing. The music had been so loud. It had been an awesome show, and I was so glad I’d gone with Ethan. “Thanks for inviting me,” I said on the way back to his truck.

  “Yeah. No problem.” He unlocked the truck and opened the passenger door for me. “You hungry?”

  “Starving.” He closed the door and walked to the other side. I felt some relief that he wasn’t—so far, anyway—talking about the second band, because—even though I was a little naïve and unworldly—I was pretty sure the guitarist for the second band was making eyes at me. He was pretty damned good looking, too, but my heart was set on Ethan. It had started before they even got onstage. He’d stood beside me for the last three songs Name of My Killer performed, getting a little too close, but that was okay because we were
in a moshing area and that kind of thing is expected, especially with more people. He smiled at me more than once. Problem was, aside from not being Ethan, he had to be in his mid- to late twenties, and that was a little out of my comfort zone. At first, though, I just thought he was being friendly. But as soon as his band had set up onstage, he made sure to make eye contact with me before the house lights went down again. Yeah, the guy was hot. His arms were covered in tattoos, and he was pretty cut. He was a bit too extreme for me, but it worked on him. He had snake bite piercings that ordinarily I didn’t go for, but not only did it work for him, it made him even cuter. And his dark brown hair was longish, in his eyes until he’d flick his head to the side.

  I didn’t even know the guy’s name. I only knew he was the guitarist of a kickass awesome local band named Last Five Seconds, and for some reason, the guy had taken a shine to me.

  But…that didn’t matter. I was with Ethan, and he was the guy I wanted. “McDonald’s okay with you?”

  Had to pay attention. “Yep. Sure. That’s great.”

  The drive to the fast food restaurant only took a few minutes, and even though Ethan was playing the music loudly in his truck, my ears felt like they were getting a rest. When we got there, I was surprised at how empty the place was, although there were a couple of cars in the drive-through. When we got up to the counter, Ethan said, “I got yours.”

  I shook my head. “You don’t have to. You already paid for my ticket.”

  He scowled. “I want to.”

  I sucked in a little breath. “Okay.” Didn’t want to argue with that and besides…if it helped him feel more comfortable getting closer to me, then I definitely didn’t want to stop him. So we ordered, and they made our food quickly. We found a booth next to a window and sat down. I took my jacket off and set it on the seat next to me. As Ethan unwrapped his burger, I asked, “The name Bullet’s awesome for a band, but are you sure it’s not already taken?”