Bullet Series Box Set Books 1-8

by Jade C. Jamison

  Ethan’s engine was purring, steam pouring out of the muffler pipes, underscoring how the weather had turned cold. The sky was gray and Brad knew they’d get snow sometime that day. As he opened the passenger door to Ethan’s truck, he noticed his friend looked normal. The music was cranked, an Amon Amarth tune, and the heater was blowing out warm air. Ethan nodded, half smiling, as Brad climbed in.

  After Ethan shifted the truck into gear and pulled back out onto the street, he reached over and turned the music down. “How you doin’?”

  “Fine. Glad school’s out for a while?”

  “Hell, yeah. It’s kicking my ass.”

  “I can’t believe you’re even doing it.” Brad shook his head. “Still blows my mind.”

  Ethan ran his right hand through his reddish-brown hair. “Halfway done, man, and then fuck it. I’m never looking back.”

  Brad didn’t say anything. Part of him hoped it was true, because Ethan was an important part of his band. More than that, though, Ethan was like a brother. The guy was more a brother to Brad than his real-life flesh-and-blood brother, and he hadn’t realized how much Ethan had meant to him until he was miles away and never around. As fucked up as the guy was, he was more important to Brad than anyone else in the whole world. He and Ethan came from similar and yet very different worlds, but they understood and appreciated each other because of and in spite of their differences, and Brad had been struggling with his friend’s absence.

  He’d never tell Ethan that. He knew his friend and knew Ethan would give him shit about it if he ever said a word, so that—like so many other things between them—would be an unspoken fact.

  And, because of that, part of Brad actually hoped Ethan wouldn’t piss on the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity his grandfather had offered him. A guy like Ethan would never go to college by his own choice, but Ethan was no dumb ass. Brad knew that if his friend would apply himself, he’d do pretty well in school. Hell, he could take advantage of the music program any school had to offer and learn shit none of them ever dreamed of. He knew, though, that Ethan was simply biding his time, doing enough to get by, just like he had all through high school.

  Part of him didn’t blame Ethan. Brad knew he himself would have been at a crossroads. He understood the value of education, but college held nothing for him. He didn’t want to be a lawyer, doctor, scientist, teacher…he knew exactly what he wanted to be, and damned if he was going to find himself tens of thousands of dollars in debt when more school wouldn’t help him progress to that goal. Both his mom and dad tried to get him to do it. His mother, after all, was a nurse, and she had had three years’ schooling to become an RN. His dad had a two-year degree—something vague that Brad could never remember—but the man said it had helped him more than once land a job. Now his dad was a line supervisor in a government office, miserable as far as Brad could tell, and fuck it all if he was going to wind up like that. He’d rather be miserable in the struggle to be what he wanted to be.

  So, for Brad, that meant no college, no marriage, no kids, not till he’d made his way in the world. He couldn’t be tied down. He saw what it had done to his dad. His father had only said it once, heavily under the influence of alcohol, but it had stuck with Brad. His father had felt trapped by his marriage, his bills, his kids, and even though he said he’d accepted it and was happy the way things turned out (in spite of the divorce), Brad knew better. He could see it in the man’s eyes. His fire had been extinguished.

  Brad would not be that way. So while Ethan told him about the brutality known as finals week, Brad also tossed around thoughts in the back of his mind. Yes, he would make it or die trying.

  * * *

  They were halfway through the meal, and the conversation had dwindled. That was when Brad knew it was time to broach the subject that had really been on his mind. He rarely pulled his punches with Ethan, and he didn’t plan to now, but he did know he’d need to handle the topic delicately.

  “I’ve been meaning to ask you. What’s going on between you and your friend Valerie?”

  Ethan paused, then finished chewing his fry. He looked Brad in the eyes and said, “Why?”

  No sense lying about it. “Bros before hos, man. I like her. But…” He took a sip of his Coke. Goddamn. He hadn’t expected this to be so hard. What a fucking pussy he was turning out to be. It pissed him off that some girls had that effect on him. It was a problem he needed to find a way to fix. He decided to come at it from another angle. “I got the idea from what both of you said that you’re just friends. I want to make sure before I make a move.”

  What the fuck was Ethan thinking? Brad could usually read his friend like a newspaper headline, but he was closed off today. Ethan ate another fry and then shrugged his shoulders. “I like her. She’s a nice girl. But, you know. She’s, uh, too nice.”

  Which was exactly one of the things that tripped Brad’s trigger. He had a thing for the sweet girls. He’d never been able to figure that one out. Maybe because they were less likely to cheat? He didn’t know and wasn’t going to question it. Analyzing the fuck out of it wouldn’t change it, so why bother? Leah had been the first super sweet girl he’d dated, even though he’d admired many from afar, and—until the end when she’d broken his heart—she’d surpassed his expectations. “So it’s cool then?”

  “Yeah, but I gotta tell ya, man. For some reason, I think she really likes me.”

  “It’s ‘cause you’re a suave motherfucker.”

  Ethan started laughing and set his drink down. “Yeah. That must be it.”

  * * *

  One week left before Ethan had to return. The four guys had gotten together a few times, working on perfecting the songs they had, as well as writing three strong songs and playing two gigs Brad had lined up. The audience response was incredible, and it led Brad to believe, more than ever, that this was his destiny. He was glad to see his friends were starting to believe too, because then he felt like they had a fighting chance. It helped to play to a crowd bigger than fifty people, and not just any people—these guys were enthusiastic, headbanging, moshing, intense, hardcore metalheads.

  After that show, the four of them went to a party. They’d have to figure out a way to get back home afterward, and what made it trickier was that they weren’t even in their hometown, so Brad decided to go ahead and drink a little, but he’d go easy. That way, when the party was over, he’d be able to get them home safely. Yeah, it was Ethan’s truck, but Brad was usually the designated driver, simply because he had more willpower than anyone else. He got one beer and planned to nurse it all night. He’d save outrageous partying for when he didn’t have to drive.

  Ethan, Zane, and Nick were celebrating. They deserved to. It was the first time Brad had felt like the four of them had been a cohesive unit. They’d moved and played together on that stage tonight. Instead of moving like arms and legs on different dolls, they were coordinated, like the limbs of the same person. Each sensed what the other was going to do. They were in the groove and just felt—yeah, they fucking felt—where the band was going, what was happening, and it was exhilarating. If Brad could have bottled that shit, he knew he’d be a billionaire.

  Instead, he felt like a million bucks that night, and he didn’t think anything could change that. As if to slap him in the face and remind him that he didn’t have complete control of his destiny, the universe threw a wrench in the works. Ethan, partying hard as he often did, got his hands on something. The guy was fucked up and not in a good way. A lot of times, even if Ethan was a belligerent drunk, they could work around him, manage his moods, and he’d do just fine. This time, though, had nothing to do with how he was treating other people. He was fucked up beyond belief.

  When Brad and Nick found him, he was lying in a corner, his eyes glazed over. He could barely talk. Brad squatted and tried talking to his friend, but to no avail. He looked up at Nick. “Do you know what he took?”

  “No idea.”

  Brad snapped his fingers in front o
f Ethan’s face. He wasn’t even thinking when he did it, had just been wanting to get some kind of response from his friend. But Ethan seemed to barely register it. He looked back at Nick. “Go find Zane.”

  Nick nodded. Brad wasn’t thinking it in the conscious part of his brain, but buried somewhere, he knew. Every time something good happened, something bad happened to balance it out. It was fucked up, but that had seemed to be the path his life had taken consistently. Why would it change now? He’d always known that he would have been the kid who’d gotten the BB gun at Christmas and, unlike the movie A Christmas Story, Brad really would have shot his eye out. That was the way his life worked.

  Now, though, Brad was trying to figure out what they needed to do. Home was half an hour away, give or take (and the roads were good enough right now to make that kind of time), but he knew there was a good hospital here if they needed it. He just didn’t know how to get there.

  He remembered what had happened last year, right after Halloween. He’d thought Ethan had OD’d, and he and Heidi had rushed him to the hospital. Ethan had gotten in huge trouble and then later had laid into Brad, telling him he hadn’t OD’d. He was “just really wasted” and his friend could have spared him a lot of trouble by simply taking him home.

  So when Nick and Zane joined him back at the Ethan’s truck where Brad had Ethan lying in the front passenger seat, he said, “Here’s the deal. We’re heading home. If his breathing changes or something weird happens, you tell me.”

  “Define weird.” Nick didn’t look as though he liked the plan.

  “If we get home and things are the same, I have my mom look at him.” Zane’s expression was a mixture of pissed off and confused, but he didn’t say anything. “My mom’s a nurse, remember?”

  Zane nodded. “Then what the fuck are we waiting for?”

  There was one problem Brad hadn’t thought of—he had the trailer hooked to Ethan’s truck, and so the truck wouldn’t haul ass like it usually did. Secondly, he didn’t feel comfortable cranking the music like he normally would have, because he wanted them to be able to hear Ethan—if he was breathing or choking or gasping or if he wound up talking. The problem was playing no music made Brad even more nervous, and the ride home was tense and seemed to last forever.

  They made it, though, and Ethan was no worse for the wear. He got to his house and cursed because he’d forgotten his mom was working that night. So he called her and asked if he brought Ethan by if she could take a look at him. She told him it was his lucky night because they were slow. They had three recovering moms and one nowhere near needing to push. There were two other nurses on duty, besides, so she could take a break. When she asked why, Brad said he’d be there in a bit. Stupid as it was, he unhooked the trailer, not wanting to imagine how he’d maneuver the fucker in the hospital parking lot, and then he asked if Nick and Zane wanted to come with or have him drop them off at home.

  Both guys said they’d come along, so they jumped back in the truck and flew to the hospital. Brad texted his mom when they got there, and in less than five minutes, she was outside. “What’s going on, boys?”

  “Ethan took something. We don’t know what. But we want to make sure he didn’t OD.”

  His mom cocked an eyebrow at him, and he knew what she was thinking—why hadn’t they taken him straight to the ER? But then she answered her own question. She’d been a teen once. She knew. And then he could see the next question in her eyes, which was wondering what they’d been doing. But she was cool. And she was prepared. She had a little flashlight, and she lifted one of Ethan’s lids and shined the light. Brad couldn’t tell if she was shining it directly in his eyes or beside them, because he wanted to give her some space. He, Nick, and Zane huddled around on the side of the truck, and Brad didn’t even notice the cold. He knew part of it was because he’d had that beer, but he thought part of it was fear for his friend. He felt the cold now, though, now that he’d processed the thought, and he considered getting his jacket from the driver’s side of the truck and decided against it.

  His mom had the stethoscope on and was listening to Ethan’s heart. Then she picked up his wrist and Brad thought she was measuring his pulse. Finally, she said, “Ethan. Ethan, talk to me. It’s Barb, Ethan. I need you to talk to me.” Her voice was firm but not harsh, and she kept talking to him, saying his name.

  Ethan fluttered his eyes and stirred. He muttered something. Brad couldn’t hear it, but his mom responded. He missed that too, but Nick was visibly relieved, gesturing to him and Zane. His mom said, “Ethan, I need to know what you took.”

  “Don’t know.”

  “What do you mean you don’t know? You were there, weren’t you?” Oh, she was using the mom voice on Ethan, and Brad knew fully well that his mother had the same effect on his friend that she did on him.

  Ethan’s eyes widened, and he seemed to try to sit up, but then his head fell back on the chair and his eyes closed. Brad couldn’t take it anymore and walked deeper into the parking lot. His fear was that maybe his friend had ruined his brain or maybe his mom couldn’t help him. Should he have stopped him? He knew he wouldn’t have been able to. In February he and Ethan had come to blows over something Ethan wanted to take, and finally Brad had to simply throw his hands in the air. Nor would Ethan listen to reason. Ethan was an adult (even if in the loosest sense of the word), and Brad could no more control him than he could the sun.

  That said, should he have taken his friend to the nearest hospital rather than bringing Ethan home for his mother to check him out? Probably, but it was too late to fix it now. And he knew Ethan would have killed him once he was awake and aware.

  A few minutes later, he heard his mom’s voice in the distance. “Brad. Bradley Payne! Come here.”

  Oh. That was serious if she was calling him Bradley. He hustled back to the passenger side of the truck. Nick and Zane were still close, but they were standing back some, talking quietly to each other. Brad’s mom said, “Okay, here’s the deal. I can’t get out of him what he took, but I think he’s going to be okay. You are not going to take him home, not because I want to keep it a secret from June, because I think we need to let her know what’s happened tonight. Call her if you need to, to let her know he’s spending the night sleeping it off. You are going to place him in the recliner in the living room. He needs to be mostly sitting up so he doesn’t choke on his own vomit. And I would appreciate it if you got up every couple of hours to check on him until I get home.”

  Brad nodded. He felt like his mom had saved everything. He nodded again, feeling pathetic but relieved. And he planned on staying up all fucking night until he was sure his best friend was okay.

  Chapter Eleven

  BY MARCH, TWO revelations had given Brad some perspective on his crush—and that was what it was: a crush. An irrational one at that.

  Brad realized first that he’d met Valerie at a point in his life where he was primed for that kind of reaction. He hadn’t been in a real relationship for months, and he’d been hanging with skanky girls and banging an older woman, so when he met sweet Val, a young lady who reminded him of his Leah, he’d found her irresistible. A little time gave him perspective and helped the crush die a quiet death.

  He’d also gotten a few tidbits here and there, mostly through what was not said—well, that and Facebook. Putting the pieces together, Brad was pretty sure Val and Ethan had become involved somehow. How, exactly, he wasn’t sure, but he had the idea something was going on.

  But then, one of the weekends Ethan and Zane came home for a show, Ethan showed Brad lots of new song lyrics he was writing music for. They were unlike anything Ethan had ever written before, full of depth, wonder, and beauty, and when Brad asked more questions, he discovered why. Those words hadn’t been written by Ethan; they’d been written by Valerie, and Ethan had taken to calling her his muse. Reading those words gave Brad the same feelings he’d had when he’d been around her, but he didn’t feel like he could approach her, whether he was her
Facebook friend or not. She didn’t know him (in spite of the promise he’d made her in the passion of the moment), so she probably wouldn’t appreciate if he became overly friendly, whether or not he’d read her lyrics.

  But maybe he could change that. Ethan and Zane had almost missed one of their shows in February, and Brad had decided maybe he needed to slow down on gigs until the summer when Ethan would be nearby and easier to control. If Ethan decided to not show, Brad could move on. They could take a couple songs out of a set and they could just use one guitar for other songs, but he couldn’t move forward without a bassist. Zane had always been trustworthy, but when he had to rely on Ethan to give him a ride, all bets were off, and Ethan seemed to be moving toward another bad phase.

  So, between Ethan’s instability and Brad’s desire to see Valerie again to find out if his feelings for her were insignificant, he booked a show at The Cave which was close to Ethan and Zane, and there would be no excuse for Ethan not showing up. If his friend couldn’t be bothered to make it to a goddamned show, Brad would bring the show to him.

  The whole thing with Valerie, though—it pissed Brad off more than he wanted to admit. He wasn’t mad at Valerie. The girl herself had never hidden that she was smitten with Ethan. Ethan, though, had given Brad the go ahead, had said he wasn’t interested in Val. Ethan was fucked in the head sometimes, though, and Brad thought he knew why. He was sure his friend just couldn’t resist being adored anymore and had given in to her worship.