Bullet Series Box Set Books 1-8

by Jade C. Jamison

  Chapter Fifty

  KAREN’S HEAD RESTED on Brad’s chest, her dark hair flowing down her back. She rubbed his uncovered pec with her fingers. Brad felt himself getting sleepy. He needed to get up because he had to work the next day, but he wasn’t ready to leave, not yet. He didn’t want to just fuck her and run, even if his feelings for her didn’t run deep. Karen had a brash personality, but Brad was starting to suspect it was to cover up deep insecurities.

  “You know I really like you, don’t you?”

  He smiled. “Yeah. I kinda like you back,” he joked.

  She lifted her head to look at him. “Seriously, though. I know…” She shifted her eyes to look at something else. She was having a hard time saying what was on her mind. “I know in your business that you probably get plenty of…girls. And I’m not asking for a commitment, okay, but I just want you to know I’m here.”

  He wasn’t quite sure what she was saying. He was going to let it slide, but then she looked him in the eyes. She needed something from him, and he wasn’t sure what. “What do you mean exactly?”

  She exhaled, then inhaled again, both visible and full of effort. “I mean…” She swallowed. “I mean I know you probably get pussy thrown at you day and night and it’s hard to resist. I get that, and I don’t want to interfere with it.” Brad raised his eyebrows. He wasn’t going to correct her. Yeah, he had offers, but it wasn’t a constant barrage of women approaching him with their legs open. Ethan got way more offers than he did. He was okay with that, because he didn’t want to fuck everything that was “thrown” at him simply because he had the opportunity. He was trying to figure out how to respond when she said, “I’m just happy to be with you whenever.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying I’m perfectly fine being a friend with benefits.”

  At first he thought he’d never been in that position before, but that wasn’t true. His brief relationship with Jo (or “Sugar”) had been that kind of thing, even though they’d never called it that. She’d call him when she wanted him around, and he wouldn’t hear from her for weeks. If the sex hadn’t been so damn hot, he might have felt used. And now, here Karen was asking for that. He didn’t want her to feel like she was a second choice. No one deserved to feel that way…and yet she was. Unless and until he could find a way over her, Val would always be number one in his heart. Karen might have thought it would be his success in snagging groupies, but that would be the least of her worries. On some level, she must have known his heart couldn’t fully engage.

  He struggled inside. He thought maybe he wouldn’t say anything, but—in a way—that felt dishonest. He sat up. “Karen, you are a great girl. I’m glad I met you. And I enjoy the time we have together.”

  Her mouth screwed up in a grimace. “But no way, huh? Just not good enough?”

  “Oh, no. No. That’s not what I was going to say at all. No. There’s something you need to know, though.” He took a deep breath. Her brown eyes searched his. “There’s a woman—just one—I’ve known her for a long time and, as stupid as it sounds, I have loved her for almost as long.”

  “Not reciprocated?”

  “No, not really. We hooked up once and things just didn’t work out.”

  Karen smiled and scooched up so her lips were close to his. “Ah…so my job is to push her out of your mind, and then you can just focus on little old me.”

  Brad wasn’t going to tell her that he doubted it was possible. He hoped it was. And he felt better, knowing that he wasn’t harboring that secret from her. If she wanted to try pursuing some sort of relationship with him, she had to know what she was up against.

  He didn’t know that he was ready, but he also knew that he probably never would be.

  * * *

  It was a good thing he’d been socking money away again. He’d always wanted to record a higher-quality CD, but now he had to. Jet called and asked him to deliver something as soon as possible. Last Five Seconds now had connections, but Jet said he needed to move pretty quickly. Brad called around to studios in the area, because the one he’d settled on before had changed its rates. Even the least expensive studio he talked to was more than he had, so he sat the band down and told them what was going on. They’d probably instead have to cut an EP—two or three of their best songs—and just make sure they couldn’t get the songs any better. But Val said she had some money too and Ethan said he had some money. If Brad didn’t know better, Ethan was going to hit up his grandfather (either that or they had money they’d received as wedding gifts that they’d socked away). Ethan hadn’t asked the old guy for money in a long time, but Brad knew Ethan’s grandfather had a little nest egg and was happy to share with his grandson when he asked. Brad almost told him not to, because he was pretty sure Ethan was still paying for his Texas coma (and Brad was grateful for that, because, otherwise, he would have had to come up with the money). The only thing that saved the guy was that Val’s parents paid for the wedding.

  But the entire band agreed to forego concert funds if it meant they could put together enough money for a decent CD. Zane said, “Besides, even if this falls through, we can sell it at our merch table.” Brad knew that was right, and they could sell it for lots more than the shitty CD they’d been selling for the last couple of years.

  Knowing they had the money after another few weeks, they decided to go balls out. They couldn’t settle on a few songs and wound up with fourteen. The cost of putting the CD together would depend upon how much time their asses were in the studio, so Brad stressed perfection. “Practice your asses off first, guys. When you go in, you need to nail it the first time.” They knew what was at stake. If they fucked up on studio time too much, they wouldn’t be able to record all the songs. It was as simple as that.

  It started with Nick. They bought an hour here, an hour there, and booked the studio for those times. After Nick laid down the drum tracks, Brad and Ethan took turns doing guitars. Ethan was rhythm on some, lead on others, and vice versa with Brad. Zane followed up with bass. They finally got all the music down and were happy with it.

  Val had a problem, though. Her voice hadn’t been up to snuff for a month or two, and Brad was afraid it was going to affect the quality of the CD. He didn’t say anything, but she was starting to sound like crap—hoarse and raspy. It might have sounded sexy on a song or two, but it didn’t work for some of the sweeter melodies she had to belt out. At first he thought maybe she was coming down with something, but he lost that notion when she was even worse a month later.

  No one wanted to say anything, but Brad was sure they were all thinking the same thing.

  They were fucked. No studio executives in their right mind would want Fully Automatic sounding like that.

  Still, Brad intended to give her a chance. She’d been with them for the long haul and had propelled them to new heights. He didn’t want to just shit on her. But he was worried. This was their big chance, everything he’d ever hoped for.

  He’d let her record and then they could discuss it—as a group—and decide together.

  The first song she recorded was “Metal Forever,” one of her favorites. It was one that highlighted Val’s emotional depth as well as her range. But, right out of the gate, her voice was raspy and harsh.

  She spent an hour recording and rerecording, because she wasn’t happy with it. He wasn’t either, but he wasn’t going to say anything even though he could feel the money bleeding out the door. He and Ethan were in the studio. At the end of the hour, she broke down in tears.

  Ethan was being a good husband. Brad was glad for that. He pulled her in his arms. “What’s wrong, babe?” he asked.

  “You guys have noticed, right? Something’s wrong with my voice. I rest it and it just doesn’t snap back.”

  Brad wanted to be encouraging. “It sounds okay, Val.”

  Ethan patted her back. “Yeah…works for the song.”

  Her voice was scratchy sounding, like she’d been yelling in a footbal
l stadium all day. “Maybe so, but it’ll never work for ‘Just Another Stupid Love Song.’ My voice has to be clear for that.” Brad agreed, but he was glad she’d said it instead of him. Ethan started to say something, but Val interrupted. “No, Ethan, you know it and I know it. I can’t sound like I took a fucking emery board to my vocal cords for that one. I have to sound sweet and soft and sexy, or it doesn’t work when I scream at the end. Goddammit.” She started crying again.

  Brad wasn’t willing to give up on her yet. “So you take it easy tonight. You drink extra tea and don’t say shit. Nothing. If your voice is still fucked up, you go to the doctor.”

  “I—we can’t afford the doctor.”

  “Bullshit. You’re goin’.” Why the fuck was she being so stubborn? Did she not want to do this? She acted like she was going to argue with him. “You’re going, Val. Don’t piss me off.” He looked at Ethan. “Talk some sense into your wife, please.”

  “Yeah, because I’m really good at persuading her.” But Ethan looked at Val, his eyes sympathetic. “Val, he’s right. If your voice is still sucky tomorrow, you should go.”

  “And then what? You know how much money it’ll cost just to be seen? And then what? What if—”

  Brad needed her to be rational and quit stressing her voice out more with her emotional outburst. “Stop it. We cross that bridge when we come to it. For now, you go home and rest.”

  And, even though Brad wasn’t a religious man, he considered praying that night.

  Chapter Fifty-one

  IT WAS A few days later before Val was able to get to the doctor. She came home in tears, Ethan holding her close, and they said they wanted to have a band meeting.

  Ethan did most of the talking because Val was struggling to hold it together, but Brad suspected he was talking because of her voice too. She was holding out hope.

  They sat in the living room and Ethan said, “Bad news, guys. The doctor said Val has some pretty brutal scar tissue. He chewed her ass for not getting vocal training, said she had shitty vocal techniques. He said the cure is surgery—laser would be best—and vocal therapy. The two of us have talked, and we don’t think Fully Automatic has the time or the money.”

  Brad looked over at Val. She reminded him of a water balloon filled past its breaking point, her eyes springing leaks, tears starting to falling down her cheeks, because he knew how much this meant to her. Fuck. He was the one who’d talked her into being their lead singer in the first place. He’d had no idea she’d been stressing her voice so hard for so long. He’d give her credit—he could tell she was sad, but she was doing a great job of holding it together.

  He started to protest. It was killing him seeing how this whole mess was eviscerating her. He too wanted to hold her close and tell her everything would be okay, but it wasn’t going to be. She had to have surgery, and Ethan was right—they didn’t have the money and they probably didn’t have the time. If healing from the surgery was like other operations, they were talking weeks. And therapy on top of it? They didn’t have that kind of time, not if they wanted in on the opportunity Jet had offered. So he stopped himself from giving a knee-jerk response, trying to spare Val’s feelings, and instead asked, “So what are you proposing?”

  Ethan shrugged but Val steeled her face—Brad could see it—and she said, “I think you should sing lead vocals.”

  Brad knew he could do it, but he hadn’t expected her to say that. He too was feeling emotional, and so he blurted out, “No. No way.”

  Val nodded and reached over to grab his hands. “Please, Brad. You know I can’t do this.”

  Zane added, “They’re right. If we weren’t under the gun, it might be different, but…”

  Nick nodded too but didn’t say a word. Brad sighed. “Val, you sure you want to do this?”

  She hadn’t taken her hands off his. In spite of the tears threatening to fall, making her eyes glisten, she smiled. She whispered, “Yes.”

  Ethan said, “You’ve been singing most of the backup of all the songs since Val took over.”

  Zane said, “You’ve got a great voice man.”

  Brad took another deep breath. Being their leader meant he’d take responsibility, even when it might hurt others. So he nodded. But then he said, “Okay. But no fuckin’ way am I rerecording ‘Metal Forever.’ That’s Val’s song. It stays as is or we scrap it.”

  All three of the guys agreed and Val started crying then. She couldn’t hold it together anymore. It was as though her tears ducts had been cracks in a dam, and they had weakened to the point that they just couldn’t hold the water back any longer. It was torrential. She excused herself and went to the bedroom she now shared with Ethan.

  Brad asked Ethan, his voice quiet, “Think she’ll be okay?”

  Ethan, his voice equally low, said, “I don’t know, man. I’ve never seen her like this. I’m worried about her.”

  Nick said, “This sucks. Totally sucks. Can’t we wait?”

  Ethan shook his head. “No way. We’re talking thousands of dollars for this surgery. We just don’t have it. We’re still paying for my hospital stay in Texas. We don’t have the money, and we don’t have the time…right, Brad?”

  “Yeah—Jet made it sound like if we wait too long, we might as well just kiss it goodbye.”

  Nick sighed, looked at his feet, and then shrugged. “Poor Val.”

  Brad knew they all felt like total assholes, but they knew what had to be done. Brad wanted to practice in the apartment that night so he could go in that Saturday and bang them all out, but he wasn’t going to rub Val’s nose in it. Instead, he sang one song on the way to work and coming back home, then the next, and the next. He had a few days before the next studio slot. And he sang each song until he went through it once without any mistakes and sounding the way he wanted it too. Sometimes he could get through three songs going one way.

  He couldn’t hold a candle to Val. She’d perfected the songs. But when he sang, he dedicated each song in his heart to her.

  He wasn’t sure how he did it, either, but he had all thirteen goddamned songs recorded in a few hours. Lots of water and not stressing his voice. He was nervous now, though, wondering if he should get vocal lessons. He didn’t want to suffer in the future like Val was today, and maybe a little prevention now would save him from pain and surgery later. So he decided he’d get a little vocal training on the sly over the next year.

  He felt like such an asshole. It should have been Val’s voice on the CD. Everyone listened to the CD and loved it, including the track with Val’s vocals. It sounded great.

  And that made Brad feel guilty as hell, but there was nothing he could do about that.

  He shipped it off to Jet, but not before talking to him on the phone. “Man, Val’s only on one song.”

  “Why? What the hell happened?” Brad told him about what had been happening with Val’s voice and that she was going to need surgery. “That sucks.”

  “Yeah, so we decided I should do the vocals. We knew we had to get this done and get it done quickly. If Val could have had the surgery…”

  He heard Jet sigh. “Frankly, she was one of the selling points. But I’ll see what I can do. You guys kick ass.” Brad suspected that if Ethan had done the vocals, Jet wouldn’t have touched it with a ten-foot pole. It had never been a secret that Ethan and Jet couldn’t stand each other, but he and Jet had a good working relationship, and Brad trusted him. If he said he was going to try, Brad believed he meant it. And, after he paid the clerk at the post office, it was out of his hands. Their fate rested in others’ hands, and Brad decided to put it out of his mind. Thinking about it would just stress him out.

  Now came the time to tell their hardcore local fans about Val. And he knew that wasn’t going to be easy, because she had a lot of fans. Still, it had to be done. The weekend before, they’d said she was ill (half true) and couldn’t perform, so Brad was covering for her. Now, though, they had to tell the truth and pray the fans didn’t throw shit at them. />
  Brad was talking to the guys about how to do it and Val said, “Let me do it. I want to.”

  Val had been teetering on depression. Her telling her fans could go one of two ways—it could, in one way, give her closure and also let her know how well loved she was. It could at least make her feel better about leaving. On the other hand, it could just make her feel worse, knowing how much she would be missed. Still…if she wanted to, he wanted to let her. And, coming from her, he was sure the fans would understand better.

  All three shows that weekend, she opened. She sang “Metal Forever” first, and she was able to hold it together for the most part. But then she said a tearful goodbye to her fans, telling them what had happened. Each night the fans screamed and hollered and cheered for her, and the last night, one good-hearted fan even started collecting money for her. At the end of the night, the girl gave Val a coffee can filled with bills. Val didn’t want to take it, but the girl insisted. It held over three hundred and seventy dollars…not nearly enough for surgery, but it made Val cry fresh tears nonetheless.

  If Brad had any say in it, someday he’d make sure Val got her real shot. But he had to make sure Fully Automatic made it first.

  * * *

  Ethan’s dad died a couple weeks later. Ethan pretended like he didn’t care, but Brad knew from his long-standing friendship that Ethan had a lot of daddy issues. As much as he acted like he didn’t give a shit, Brad knew better. And, worse yet, Brad saw the signs that indicated a new cycle of drugs and alcohol abuse were just around the corner. He didn’t know if Val recognized the signs, but he did.

  Brad was surprised, because Ethan indulged for about a week and then got his shit back together. Just in time, too, because their dream came true. They got the call and were signing a contract within a week. Ethan got pissed at Brad because Brad read every line on those papers and even questioned a few. Ethan just wanted to sign and be done with it.