She blinked and then smiled. But then she whispered, “I’ve heard it hurts. Bad.”
He pulled her close and whispered in her ear. “I’m not talking about losing your virginity.” He kissed the side of her ear and then pulled his head back, his hands still cupping her head. “I’m just talking about when you let me touch you.” She blushed and giggled. “I want you to feel like I just did. But that will wait until you’re ready.”
Her cheeks remained a soft pink. “Okay.”
Brad had only had success once thus far, and it was thanks to his dad’s advice. He didn’t see his father much nowadays, but the man was still the best father Brad could have asked for. His father had told him that all women were different, but the tongue could level the playing field. It took a lot of patience and what his dad called “indirect stimulation,” but it had worked, and Brad was amazed. He could tell the girl’s orgasm was nothing like his had been—hers was long and sustained, whereas his was out of this world but bam! and then done. He wanted to try again with Leah, because she was a girl he really cared about. He’d told her no pressure, though, and he’d meant it.
“Come on. Let’s get out of here.” He tucked himself back in his pants and zipped up. He took Leah’s hand and walked toward the bathroom door. When he opened it, he halfway expected someone to be there waiting to come inside. But the coast was clear, and they walked down the hallway toward the stairs and descended them.
The closer they got to the ground floor, the more bodies cluttered the stairs. Some of the people were talking, while others were embraced and in various stages of making out. Apparently, Brad wasn’t the only one to get lucky that night, but he was one of the first. It was loud downstairs, music blaring from the speakers of the stereo in the living room, and Brad figured the only thing saving the kid hosting from having the cops show up was the fact that his parents’ house was in the boonies. He had no idea where the kids’ parents were, but he wasn’t going to question it.
One step before they got to the floor, Brad shouted at Leah, “If you see Ethan anywhere, let me know.” When his friend had knocked on the bathroom door earlier, he’d sounded ready to snap. Brad knew what that meant—it meant he had to get his friend out of there and pronto. He was probably fighting with his girlfriend again. Those two were volatile, like oil and water, and Brad would breathe a sigh of relief when Ethan grew tired of the stupid girl. He had no idea what Ethan saw in her. The girl was a slut and had hit on him once or twice—after she and Ethan had started dating. Brad had turned her down, but it had eaten at him, and he’d considered telling his friend more than once. Instead, he’d hinted around that maybe his friend’s girlfriend wasn’t so nice. Ethan seemed to know but didn’t care.
Brad and Leah walked through the noisy, crowded, smoky living room, slowly making their way through the crowd that halfway parted as they moved between bodies. He held her hand tighter as the crowd pressed in. He couldn’t see Ethan anywhere and decided to make his way toward the living room. But then Leah squeezed his hand and he heard her voice. He turned to look at her and she said, pointing with her other hand, “He’s over there.”
Brad looked at her finger and followed the invisible line extending from it away toward the front door. But Ethan wasn’t quite that far. He was standing beside the closet door next to the door leading outside. He was opening the door to the closet and he looked beyond pissed. Brad took that as a signal. He’d seen his friend like that enough to know he was ready to beat the shit out of someone—and that meant he was risking another night in jail.
He had no idea how much his friend had had to drink, nor if he’d taken anything else to feed his buzz, but he did know he’d promised Ethan’s mom that he’d try to keep him out of trouble. He pulled Leah through the crowd, this time not waiting for people to part. Instead, he shoved his way through. He knew that meant people would be spilling beer on themselves or the floor when the motion from his jostling made their arms sway, and their tipsiness kept them from being able to balance their cups enough to keep the liquid inside.
Ethan’s expression was one of both anger and hurt, and he was getting ready to reach inside the closet when Brad got there. Leah was behind him and wasn’t able to see inside, but Brad was close enough that he could. Inside the closet, the coats were pushed to one side and Ethan’s girlfriend Heidi stood beside them, a guy leaning back against the wall, Heidi’s hands on his chest. The guy, who looked to be a year or two older than Ethan and Brad, had a cocky grin on his face, but he was still fully clothed. Heidi’s skirt was hiked halfway up her thighs, but she too was dressed. She was almost pouting at Ethan. “What the fuck are you doing, Heidi?”
Brad couldn’t hear the girl’s response, but it didn’t matter. Anything coming out of her mouth would be bullshit. “Come on, man. Let’s get out of here.”
“No fuckin’ way.” His friend’s green eyes narrowed as he clenched his jaw. “I’m gonna beat this motherfucker senseless first.”
Brad placed his open palm on Ethan’s chest. “Don’t do it, man. It’s not worth it.”
“Says you.”
Heidi’s blue eyes twinkled. She got off on this shit. Ethan was feeding her, making it worse, but the guy didn’t see it. Ethan reached in the closet and grabbed the guy by the collar, starting to pull him out. Brad knew he had to intervene or it was going to be a bad night. He pushed Ethan in the chest while shoving the other guy back, and he wedged himself between them as best he could. He was up close and personal with Ethan and stared in his eyes. Man, Ethan wasn’t even there. How the fuck could he rationalize with him while the guy was in an animal state?
He had to try. “Let him go, man. Just let it go.” Ethan’s eyes flashed again but something registered. Brad could see it in his friend’s eyes. His words were pointed when he said, “She’s not worth it.” Surely, Ethan knew that. He’d bitched and moaned for months about how he was pretty sure Heidi was being unfaithful, but instead of ditching the girl, it had made Ethan all the more insecure and clingy. But Brad thought maybe this time he was getting through to his friend. Again, he repeated himself. “She’s just not worth it.”
Ethan let go of the guy’s collar but then, as though it were a last-ditch effort, he lunged at him. Brad managed to hold him back nonetheless. He thought maybe it was a ploy so that Ethan could save face. Ethan valued his reputation as a scrapper and a bad ass, so he couldn’t just walk away from a potential fight. Instead, if his friend stopped him from beating the shit out of some guy, he could later say his plan to pummel the dude into the ground had been thwarted.
Ethan strained against him, but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle. Brad pushed back, forcing Ethan farther into the living room away from the closet. He turned his head and yelled. “Heidi, if you know what’s good for you, you and your lover boy will get the fuck out of here now.” He turned back to Ethan. His friend’s eyes didn’t show it, but Brad believed he was getting through to him. “We’re getting out of here.” He turned to make sure Leah was with them and he nodded his head toward the front door. She nodded back and followed as Brad pulled, pushed, and dragged his friend until they were outside.
On the deck in the cool air, Brad could see the glint in Ethan’s eyes under the porch light, but he wasn’t struggling anymore. “Deep breath, man.” Ethan’s jaw was clenched and Brad knew one of two things would happen—either Ethan would start trash talking or he’d say nothing. When his friend marched promptly to the railing on the deck and leaned over, throwing up probably most of what he’d drunk that night, he figured he’d say nothing. “It’s late. We need to get out of here.”
Leah’s voice sounded panicked. “It’s not midnight yet, is it?”
Brad smiled and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “Not even close. I’ll have you home way before your curfew.” She grinned back at him and stood on her tiptoes to give him a sweet kiss on the lips. “Coming, Ethan?”
His friend shook his head as though to get his bearings and walked
toward them. Aside from the shit that had gone down that evening, Brad had the two most important people by his side now, and nothing could get him down.
Chapter Two
BRAD WAS DOODLING in his notebook, trying to stylize the word Bullet so it would look good on the cover of a metal CD. He curved the letters, much like he’d seen done in other logos, but past incarnations had looked like blood dripping and, on another one, he’d tried to make the t look like a handgun. It didn’t matter yet anyway. He and Ethan still had to settle on two other members and start writing music. Brad had already written two songs in secret, but he had no idea what they’d sound like once the whole band was together. In the meantime, he and Ethan played covers of some of their favorite tunes to sharpen their skills.
Part of the problem too was Ethan enjoyed partying too much, but now that toxic Heidi was out of the picture, Brad hoped he could get his friend to focus better.
So Thursday morning in early April, he sat in government class doodling. He realized his teacher would have preferred it if Brad had been taking notes, but Brad figured the guy should be happy Brad was paying any attention at all. Drawing helped him focus on the man’s words, and right now his teacher was droning on and on about the president’s vetoing power. Brad was so ready to be out of school. He was just hanging in there until graduation, maintaining passing grades until he could walk away, done. He had friends going on to college, some to tech school, others going into the military, and even others venturing out into the unknown, but Brad had one dream, one goal—that was to make his band. He’d already been in one other his sophomore year in high school, but it had fizzled when the drummer and vocalist had gone to college at the end of the year and—since then—Brad had focused on becoming the best guitar player he could. Ethan tried talking him into being in the school band, but he wanted no part of it. Ethan played bass drum for the marching band and he enjoyed it, but Brad thought playing in the school band would just distract him from what he really wanted to do—and that was to be part of something big. He dreamed of being in a metal band. He would even sing if need be, but music was his life, and he would only be happy if he could make that dream a reality.
The bell rang and he left class, walking down the hall to his locker. He dropped off the notebook and textbook and then looked around for the two people he spent most lunch breaks with—Leah and Ethan. Ethan showed up and nodded his head. Brad was somewhat surprised. His friend had handled his breakup with Heidi surprisingly well. But he was afraid it was the calm before the storm. He knew his friend well enough to know that he could be self-destructive, and he expected a cascade of shit to come crashing down in the next week, whenever Ethan finally managed to completely lose it. He’d either track down closet guy and beat the shit out of him or go on a complete bender. The problem was that Brad had been trying to hide Ethan’s out-of-control behavior from June, the guy’s mother, but Brad was afraid the gig was about up. Bad enough Ethan had wound up emptying a bottle of Vicodin that had been prescribed to June a year earlier. All Brad could figure was that either June was such a mess that she couldn’t see Ethan for what he was becoming or he and Ethan really were good at hiding it all.
He was pretty sure June had the blinders on, though. From what Brad knew, her life had been a continual mess, and Ethan just happened to suffer from collateral damage. Brad and Ethan had partied together hard earlier in high school, but Brad soon realized it wasn’t simply fun rebellion or a need to get loose and crazy for Ethan. Ethan seemed to need to get lost once in a while, to drown in oblivion, but he always managed to come up for air and be stronger for it. Still, Brad worried about it sometimes, but the times he’d bring it up, Ethan wouldn’t talk. It was better just to support his friend and be there to pick up any pieces that might fall to the ground.
For now, though, Ethan appeared to be lucid and calm, and he hadn’t said shit about Heidi or the guy they’d caught her getting ready to bone. It was almost as though Ethan had managed to get it all out of his system that night. That his friend hadn’t talked about her, called her, or asked around about her made Brad think that maybe Ethan had grown up some in the past year. He could only hope. He nodded back at his friend. There was no sense talking. The halls were always noisy and chaotic between classes, but especially right before lunch. He looked around and then he saw her—beautiful Leah, rounding the corner. She saw him too and smiled, waving her tiny pale hand, the bracelet around her wrist wiggling back and forth with the motion.
God, she was a sight. Her long blonde hair framed her lovely pale face that was enhanced with the light makeup she wore, and her warm brown eyes always made him think of a deer—innocent, not quite willing to trust or relax. She was thin but filled out, thanks to her involvement on the school’s dance team. He’d never been with a girl who’d had as firm a body as hers—and he liked it. Today, she wore as short a skirt as she could get away with, which was barely halfway up her thighs. From what Leah had told him, her dad was pretty strict about what she wore. She couldn’t wear as much makeup as her friends, and jewelry had to be modest. Body piercing was out of the question, although Brad didn’t think she would have been interested in it anyway. She couldn’t wear anything revealing—no bare midriff, no super short skirts that would lend themselves to a peek, no low-cut tops. Brad felt honored just having been able to touch her bare thigh or her back underneath her shirt. She’d let him move a little but not much. Her dad had influenced her heavily, and Brad respected that. He didn’t want her dad bearing down on him one night with a shotgun.
It wasn’t like Brad couldn’t get laid. He was no slut, but he’d had enough sex to know there would always be a girl out there willing to part her legs. And he had no intention of pressuring his girlfriend. He cared for her a lot, and if they were going to consummate their relationship, it would be when Leah felt completely ready and not a moment before.
She made her way through their crowd of classmates flooding senior hall and slipped her hand in Brad’s. She’d already put her books away and had her purse over her shoulder. She stood on her tiptoes and raised her voice in Brad’s ear. “Where we going today?”
He shrugged and looked over at Ethan, and the three of them walked outside. Once they were in the fresh spring air, Brad asked, “You guys just wanna get something from the gas station and hang at the park to eat?”
Leah smiled. “Sure.”
Ethan said nothing but nodded and ran his hands through his reddish brown hair. They walked toward Brad’s little white car, what he called his tin can, and got in, Ethan in the backseat. The first time he turned the key, the car sputtered but didn’t catch. Brad drew in a deep breath. He’d live if his car needed more repairs, but it was damned inconvenient, and he was sick of sinking money into it. He had a weekend job at Super Lube, changing oil in cars in record time, but he wanted to spend his money on important things, things related to his dream, not keeping a piece of shit car on the road. He spent a little money on Leah too but not much. She was pretty low maintenance, and his mom loved having her over for dinner, so Brad rarely had to spend lots of money on dates—the movies once in a while, the price of admission for school dances, but nothing outrageous.
The second time, though, the car started up and he gave it extra gas to make sure it didn’t die. The music was on the loud side. The radio station was playing a Mudvayne song, but Leah wasn’t as big a fan of metal as he and Ethan, so he turned the radio down and grinned at her as he slid the car in gear and pulled out of the parking space.
By the time they got to the gas station, Brad could smell the smoke wafting up front from the backseat. Leah didn’t say a word, and at first Brad couldn’t tell if it was a cigarette or pot. He felt relieved that it was only a cigarette, but he could never be sure with Ethan. He and Leah both opened the front doors but Ethan didn’t get out. He held a five-dollar bill out the window to Brad and said, “Just get me a Dr. Pepper and a Snickers, would ya?”
“Great lunch.”
“Wh
at’re you having? Nachos or a hot dog? Like that’s so great?”
“Better than all that sugary shit.”
“Yeah, well, I’m gonna need it to survive English this afternoon.”
Brad saw his friend’s eyes and knew he’d taken something on the drive. Yeah. The last thing he needed was more shit in his body, but there was no arguing with him. He shook his head and draped his arm over Leah’s shoulders. The two of them wound up getting a sub sandwich to split, chips, and drinks, and then the three of them drove to the park a couple of blocks away. They found a table partially shaded by a tree, but the sun was warm and pleasant and there wasn’t even a hint of a breeze. Leah sat completely in the shade but wore a pink cardigan over her beige dress. None of them said anything at first, instead just eating, but Brad finally asked Ethan, “So, what’d your friend say?”
“Who? About what?”
“Nick, right? One of your drummer friends from band?”
“Oh, yeah. Yeah. He wants to come over this weekend. He said he could set up his drum kit in your garage and jam some with us… ‘see if it’s a good fit,’ he said.”
“Cool. And I told you about Zane, right? He said he’s in.”
“Not even gonna try playing with us?”
“Nah. I’ve known him for a while. He played in another piss ant band about a year ago, and he’s seen me play. He said he doesn’t give a shit as long as we don’t play pop or country. He’s in. He misses playing in a real band. And he’s good. Trust me. He’ll be a good fit.”
“I trust you, man.” Ethan’s eyelids were getting heavy and he rested his head on his forearm. Not good. Brad didn’t want to have to drag his friend into the nurse’s office.
Fully Automatic (Bullet) Page 2