“Are you crazy?”
“Probably. Yeah…we did stupid shit, Val. Just…I knew when to stop. And…apparently Ethan doesn’t. And…at least he’s not hooked on something like meth.” He took a long draw off his beer. “So, we gotta be here for him. We need to catch him when he falls, because he will. He’ll fall. And that’s when he’ll decide he needs to do something different.”
I felt my expression soften. “So what’s the difference between you and him? Why could you stop and he can’t?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he has a more addictive personality than I do. Hell, I don’t know. Seriously, Val. The man’s been through hell. You have no idea. And this is one of the things he does to cope.”
So Ethan hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d said he did the drugs to survive. I’d never forget that, but I wasn’t sure how I could help him…or even if I could help him. And I wanted to know what Brad knew, but I also knew Brad wouldn’t tell. He’d tell me I needed to ask Ethan, and I also knew Ethan would only tell me when he was damn good and ready and not a moment before…if ever. I nodded, letting Brad’s words sink in, that we had to just be there for Ethan. I knew he was right, and I hoped I could be strong for him.
“Offer on the beer still stand?”
Brad raised his eyebrows. “You serious?”
“I know…stupid.”
He laughed. “Nah. If you’re gonna drink, this is better than a lot of other things.” He twisted off the cap and handed it to me.
I took a sip. Yuck. I’d had beer before, and I’d never been a big fan. Just not a flavor that made me want to drink more. But I’d asked for it. Brad smiled at me. He knew, just like he knew way too many of my thoughts. I didn’t know that my expression had given it away, but he knew just the same. He said, “There’s something else we should probably talk about.”
I squinted my eyes. What now? Hadn’t we covered enough tonight?
“You and me. I want you to know I respect the hell out of you, Val. Now that you’re in the band, it’s hands off. I don’t want to lose you for Fully Automatic. You’re exactly what we needed. No way am I gonna fuck that up. So…I just wanted to assure you, in case you had any worries, that I’ll keep my hands to myself.”
Part of me was crushed. I’ll admit it. Brad and I had something between us, something I couldn’t name, but it was even stronger than what I felt for Ethan, and I don’t think Ethan knew that. But he was right. We needed to maintain a professional relationship, and even at that young age, I saw the wisdom in that decision. Brad was driven, determined to see his band go as far as it possibly could, and a fling…well, that could make a mess. I knew emotions could muddy the waters, and I respected his call. I held out my hand to shake his, and the warmth and electricity in his hand reminded me those feelings were still under the surface, but I’d have to ignore them now. “I respect you too, Brad, and I trust your decisions for the direction of the band.” I didn’t even think ahead to the fact that I’d be out of the band once school started up again. I was just living in the moment, enjoying it.
But we shook on that agreement that night, based on the hope that the band could get far. And I awoke the next morning, refusing to acknowledge the dream I’d had about him. If Brad was to keep his hands to himself, I had to keep my thoughts from myself…anyway I could.
Chapter Nineteen
Present
I’D HAD NO idea what becoming a mother would mean. Even with all the reading I’d done, the connecting with groups, and attending classes, I’d had no clue what I would be facing. It didn’t help that little Christopher had jaundice, so we had to take him in to the doctor frequently until it cleared up. But that first month was insane, and all I’d really wanted to do was to get to know my baby and figure out how to be the best mom I could. I’d decided to breastfeed, so I had to figure out how to do that in addition to all the other things Ethan and I were so new at and clueless about.
But by the second month, I was starting to believe Ethan, that he was leaving his old self behind. He wanted to be a loving father and husband.
The first time Christopher laughed, it was as though the world had stopped. Ethan had placed him on the floor on a blanket to change his diaper, and he was kissing the baby’s belly, rubbing his beard on him, just enjoying the feel of our child. Chris laughed. I got down on the floor too. My baby laughed! “Do that again,” I said to Ethan, and Ethan tickled Chris’s tummy with his beard again, and the baby laughed again. We spent a long time there, with Ethan tickling the baby’s tummy over and over again. Then Chris would laugh, and we would laugh at his cute little giggle.
I was in love. That baby was now my life, and no matter what happened, the task before me was clear. My job was to love and nurture, protect and cherish this baby for the rest of my life.
After a while, we were on the couch watching a movie, Chris in my arms, having fallen asleep. I wasn’t really watching the movie. I was staring at my baby’s peaceful face as he dreamed. Ethan paused and said, “I still can’t believe I’m a father.”
I pried my eyes away from the baby to look at my husband. “Why not?”
He too was staring at the baby. I couldn’t tell what he was feeling. He shook his head. “Just…I guess it’s better than I thought it would be.”
I let those words wash over me. “Did you think it would be bad?”
“No…I just…can’t wrap my mind around the fact that I have responsibilities now.”
I smiled. “You had them before.”
He shook his head. “Not like this.”
I was starting to suspect he was feeling trapped, and that was not a healthy place for him to be. I knew Ethan too well by this point, and I didn’t like where this was going. “Are you not happy?”
He smiled. “Oh, no. I am, babe. I am. It’s just…different.” I started looking at Chris again. I knew my baby wouldn’t, couldn’t break my heart like his father had so many times, and just by his words, I feared Ethan was feeling cornered again. I didn’t know if I wanted to talk about it or just brace myself for what was sure to come. He pulled me close to him. “No…this is good. I’ll just…miss the old days. You know, fighting for you but still being a wild child.”
I couldn’t help the incredulous sound of my voice. “Fighting for me? You hardly ever fought for me.”
He laughed. “I did…in my own way.”
I sat there with him for a little longer, but then I decided to put Chris to bed. His crib was in my bedroom, so I lay him down and covered him with a light blanket, and then lay down on my bed. I couldn’t sleep, though, because Ethan’s words wouldn’t leave my head.
A while later, Ethan came in the room and lay next to me. I could feel as he shifted in the bed. Well, at least he was still at home. He wasn’t running…not yet, anyway. So I was surprised when I felt him move again, this time pressing up against me from behind, his warm breath on the back of my neck.
I was surprised. We hadn’t made love since I’d had the baby. At first, I knew it was because the doctor had said we couldn’t for a while, and we were so tired and stressed with being new parents that sex was the last thing on our minds. And, frankly, I hadn’t wanted to think about it, because past experience told me Ethan would find it elsewhere if he felt his needs weren’t being satisfied. So, feeling him behind me, rock hard and ready, made me instantly aroused and made me forget about the feelings of insecurity I’d had earlier.
“Mmm…” He started kissing the back of my neck, and I reached up over my head to run my fingers through his hair. His hand moved up under my shirt to find my breast. It wasn’t as sensitive to his touch as it had been, but his touch in general was welcome and wanted. I could tell he wanted me now, and knowing I was awake and willing just encouraged him. He slid his hand under the back of my panties to pull them down my leg, but my weight had pinned them between my body and the bed. He just tugged harder until they were down my thigh.
I felt his other hand slide under my side, and he kept movin
g until his fingers were between my legs. He could tell I was ready. Of course, I was ready. He hadn’t touched me this way in months. We hadn’t been together much right before I got pregnant, and even then when we did, he was usually under the influence. And then, when I was pregnant, he tended to treat me like a piece of porcelain. Yes, I needed him; I wanted him, and I didn’t want to wait anymore. I could tell he didn’t plan to focus on foreplay, and I was okay with that.
I was a little nervous until I felt him thrust inside me, filling that need I’d forgotten was there. And even though we didn’t say a word, he held me close after in that same position, making me hope it hadn’t just been a dream. And still…an old song I’d written during the summer after my freshman year in college kept rolling around in my head. But one line, just one line from that song kept haunting me: “I thought I’d lost you forever.”
But I was afraid to say it out loud.
Chapter Twenty
Past
BEFORE I KNEW it, I was back at home preparing for another semester at school. I’d managed to save up some money and had avoided blowing any on a car or tattoos or anything I didn’t really need. I was feeling down, though, knowing my tenure with Fully Automatic was just about over.
I didn’t want to go back to college. I didn’t hate it, but I still had no idea what I wanted to do there. It held no interest for me, and I was beginning to think it was a waste of time and money. Worse yet, I didn’t know if Ethan or Zane were planning to go back. I supposed I could continue to sing—as long as the dates were weekends only—but the venues would be a lot harder to get to, especially in the winter. Throw into that the time I’d need to spend on school work, and I really did need to plan on hanging up the mike after our last show.
So when the guys picked me up on our last trip—another show in the Denver Metro area—I tried to put on a happy face. No matter what we’d gone through up until this point, I’d enjoyed being in the band and becoming closer friends with the guys. I would never regret the time I’d spent with them. It had been an exciting journey of self-discovery.
As we drove down the mountain from Winchester toward Colorado Springs, Brad turned down the music. “Val, we wanted to broach a pretty serious subject with you, and now’s as a good a time as any.” He looked behind his shoulder. “Right, guys?”
They all made sounds of agreement, and Brad looked over at the passenger seat to look at me. Why did this make me nervous? It sounded too serious. “Okay.”
His arm was bent at the elbow, resting on the door. The window was down, blowing air through the van, helping the temperature inside be a tolerable level. It was blowing the hair on the left side of his head around, emphasizing how much it had grown since I’d first met him. He’d also gotten more tattoos, one on his right forearm and another on his right pec. Out of everyone in the van at this moment, I knew that Brad would make it. Music was his life, and everything he did played into what he perceived to be his endgame.
He was grinning, because he could tell how I was taking it, that I was a little on edge. “We’ve been talking, Val, and we’re not ready for this to be over. Not by a long shot. You know we’ve already got dates clear through November, and I’m still booking shows out past that.” He kept his eyes on the road but kept talking to me. “We don’t want to lose you, Val. You’ve become one of us, and we can’t see doing this without you anymore.”
I nodded and looked out the front window myself. This was going to be a sad conversation. “Yeah, but I’ve got college soon.”
“Yes, that’s what you’ve said. So you’ve decided on a major then?”
“Well, no.”
“You’ve narrowed it down, though, right?”
I knew where he was going with this. “No…”
“So why can’t school wait until you know?”
He had a point. Why was I so hell bent on doing it right then? I was in a hurry to get it done so I could be out of school, but to what end? I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. He was right. I could go to school anytime, once I knew what I wanted to go for. Waiting would make sense.
I’d just have to talk my parents into it. And that’s what I said. “Okay, so let’s say I wait. But then I have to get my parents on board. More than that, though, my job’s ended. What do I do then? How do I support myself? It’s not like we’re rolling in the dough.”
“But what if we were playing four or five nights a week?”
“Yeah…I can see how that might add up. But you’d have to spend it all on gas, though, wouldn’t you?”
“Not if we moved to where the shit is.”
It started to sink in, what he was saying. “Are you thinking we should all move somewhere and play all the time?”
He’d started grinning. “Yeah…that’s what we’re thinking. We mostly play around Denver, so why not find a place that fits all of us? I keep booking shows, and I could do more if we lived there and didn’t have to drive all over the place. Instead of figuring out if it fit around work and if we could make it to a show on time, I would just have to make sure we had the time free. There are lots of shows we could do, and Denver’s a huge place. And that wouldn’t mean we couldn’t do shows somewhere else, but it would make the ones there a lot easier to get to.”
I nodded. It was a great idea, but I really didn’t know what my parents would think. They’d been uneasy about my “touring” with the guys, but I didn’t know how they’d feel about me sharing living space with them. Brad continued. “We have a better chance of building a big audience, maybe even of getting picked up by a label someday in the future, if we’re playing more shows.” He could sense my hesitation. “Would it help if all us guys talked to your mom and dad, let them know you’re safe with us?”
And that’s how the men of Fully Automatic got invited to the Quinn family barbecue the following Sunday. I’d told my parents I wanted them to meet the band, and I also said we wanted to talk to them about something important. I hadn’t told them yet that I wasn’t planning on returning to school.
We were all out back that afternoon after church. Mom had finished making coleslaw, baked beans, corn on the cob, and potato salad, and I’d helped her carry them out to the picnic table, along with condiments, paper plates, and plastic flatware. Danny was sitting at the table, texting his girlfriend, while dad stood at the grill, checking for the doneness of the steaks on top. I heard the doorbell ring and went into the house to let the guys in.
A feeling of dread clenched my gut. I hoped they’d toned down their look. I hadn’t asked them to, didn’t feel it was right to request it, but I had gently suggested they try to be conservative. Brad told me he was on it, so I knew he’d look fine. I suspected he’d whip the other guys into shape too.
And I was glad to find that they all looked like respectable young men…in my eyes, at any rate. Brad’s hair—now between chin- and shoulder-length—he’d pulled into a ponytail and—in spite of the warmer weather—was wearing a white, long-sleeved button-down shirt. He almost looked like he would fit in a laid-back office setting. But I knew what was under the shirt, and the weather could force him to roll up his sleeves if it got too warm.
Ethan’s hair had grown over the last couple of months, and it was longish but still not the length that would make my parents freak out. His t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers made him look like any normal college guy. Zane’s hair had always been longer, but he too didn’t look bad. He wasn’t wearing the eyeliner he had been during shows, and the new tattoos he had were high on his arms, so his t-shirt sleeves covered most of them.
Nick…well, Nick was still the shy guy and hardly stood out at all. Not only was he quiet verbally, but he seemed to never want to draw attention to himself, so he didn’t do things that would pull eyes to him. He looked like the most “normal” guy of the group: closely cropped hair and plain blue t-shirt and jeans, one small tattoo on his upper right arm that was covered by the shirt sleeve. Assessing my bandmates as a group, I felt a huge wave of
relief washing over me. I knew then that they had a chance of my father not just dismissing them summarily. They could win him over with their personalities.
“Hey, guys! Follow me.”
I noticed Brad was carrying a bouquet of flowers and thought he wasn’t gonna win my dad over that way…until I realized he was going to give them to my mother. Oh…he was going to try to capture mom’s heart. Nice play. Should’ve known. Brad was a class act and smart as hell.
Zane said, “Nice place,” as we walked through the living room and kitchen to the back door.
“Thanks. I’ve lived here all my life.”
We got out of the cool house and out into the bright sunlight shining in the backyard. The picnic table had an umbrella, so we’d be saved from direct rays there, but until we sat, we were at its mercy. My mom was already playing hostess and welcoming them to our home. Dad was at the grill a ways away and wasn’t in any hurry to make his way over.
“Mrs. Quinn,” Brad said, handing her the bouquet. “We wanted to thank you for inviting us over…and for letting us borrow the vocal skills of your talented daughter.”
Mom smiled. “Oh, you’re certainly welcome.” I introduced the guys to my mom and to Danny who actually bothered to look up from his phone for two seconds. But he seemed to think the guys were cool and wound up sliding the phone in his pocket after one last text. Mom said, “I’d better get these in water. Valerie, could you introduce them to your father?”
As she walked into the house with the flowers, my dad was making his way over to the picnic table with a platter full of steaks. All the guys looked cool and composed, but I was nervous as hell. That’s probably because I knew my dad a lot better than they did. When dad made his way over, I introduced each of the guys to him and had finished just as mom was heading back out. Dad didn’t give anything away as he shook each guy’s hand.
We sat down to eat, passing around plates and bowls of food, and just as everyone’s plate got full, my dad asked what we had wanted to discuss with them. So I told him as matter-of-factly as I could. Mom said, “You’re not planning to go back to college this fall?”
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