Lies(18)

“How exactly do I hold it?” I ask, probably yelling.

He moves to stand behind me, putting his arms around me in an almost embrace. Then his fingers position mine in a solid grip on the gun. “Like that,” he says in a deep voice beside my ear. “Hold it firmly, but don’t throttle it. Not too tight.”

“All right. I think I’ve got it.”

His arms fall back to his sides, but he doesn’t move. His breath is warm against my neck, the heat of his body at my back. It’s all very distracting.

“You’re going to stay there while I do this?” I ask.

“What’s wrong, Betty? Don’t trust me out of your line of sight?”

“Not really.”

He chuckles. A rather nice sound, unfortunately. “Put your feet shoulder-width apart, knees slightly bent. That’s right. One hand holds the gun while the other supports it. Arms extended, but not locked. Now line up the target. Nice, even breathing. And don’t tug at the trigger; it’s a gentle squeeze.”

“Okay.” I do as told. “Do I fire now?”

“Whenever you’re ready.”

My whole body is rigid with tension despite my best intensions. Maybe I just need to get the first one out of the way. Breathing hard, I line up the target, and squeeze.

The gun bucks in my hand and it is loud. Like crazy loud. “Where’d it go?”

“The roof,” he says. “You’re fighting the recoil. You’re anticipating the gun going off and jerking your hand. That’s what’s throwing off your aim.”

“All right. What’s the cure?”

“Awareness and practice. Go again. Squeeze slowly and stay relaxed. Let it surprise you.”

I try to calm my breathing, carefully lining up the target. Yet there’s something about him being so close. In the good old days of our fake relationship, back in the beginning, he’d kiss my forehead, slide an arm around my waist, all those sorts of little touchy-feely couple things. Now, however, I’m way too aware of his proximity. “You’re really going to stand there the whole time?”

“You’re fine,” he says. “C’mon. If you can’t relax and fire with me near you, how are you going to manage in an actual situation?”

I just wait.

The man releases a pained sigh and takes a step back. “Happy?”

“Ecstatic.” I fire again. This time I clip the corner of the paper target. “Yes!”

“Good job—you just mildly inconvenienced the enemy. Try again and actually hit him this time.”

“You’re not being very supportive.”

“I never wanted to see a gun in your hand. Never wanted any of this to touch you.” His voice is full of frustration, regret. It almost makes me not hate him quite so much. But then he manhandles my arms back into position, getting all up in my space again, and lining up the next target. “Aim for central body mass. That’s what we want.”

“Okay, okay. Give me some breathing room.”

Once more, he steps back. “Sorry. Shoot.”

This time, I hit the paper low in the bottom half. “How’d I do?”

“I think you clipped his groin, the poor bastard. Probably took out his left nut.”

“Ha. That’ll teach him to mess with me.”

I smile, and he smiles, and for a brief moment everything’s fine. Right up until I remember everything is most definitely not fine. Not even a little. My grin fades and so does Thom’s. Only his disappears at a slower rate. We’re most definitely not meant to be making any new and happy, if somewhat odd, memories here. We’re weaponizing me because of the shit he’s dragged me into. Best not to forget this salient fact.

“Go again,” he says. “You’re doing good, Betty. I’m proud of you.”

Huh. I don’t think he’s ever said he’s proud of me before. At least, not that I’m aware of. But they’re just words. A small throwaway statement with little real meaning, most likely. Nothing worth having warm, fuzzy feelings over.

I fire the rest of the bullets in an angry rush. None of them hit.

“You were way off. What happened?” he asks, because the man isn’t stupid. He’s also not distant or absentminded like he used to be, unfortunately. “What are you thinking about?”

“I just…nothing.” I sigh. “Let’s go again.”

He gives me a long look, then nods and hands over another magazine. “Okay. Take your time. I know you can do this.”

A half-assed smile is the best I can manage. Practice. I’m going to need a lot of practice. At both firing the gun and ignoring the real Thom, apparently.





CHAPTER FOUR


“Why me?” I ask, lying on the bed later that night. “I can’t have been the only desperate single at that particular moment in L.A.”

Thom steps out of the bathroom on a cloud of steam. It’s one of those bathrooms that has doors opening onto the hallway and the guest bedroom, so we get a little privacy. Though we don’t particularly need any. The towel wrapped around his waist doesn’t hide much, however. I don’t mean to stare, but I’m pretty sure I do. While it’s one thing to know his body by touch in the dark, it’s quite another to see it backlit by the bathroom and highlighted by the bedside lamp. If anything, the scars just add an interesting element to the ridges and planes of his musculature. He’s all lean and lethal. I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to the way he flaunts his form these days. Though I guess he’s not flaunting it exactly. He’s just not pathologically hiding it anymore.