I don’t think I have it in me to actually pull the trigger, even if someone is threatening me.
“Jesus,” Parker mutters when he turns his back to the class and begins a crude drawing of a handgun. “Do you see how big his hands are? I bet he could palm my entire ass in just one of those things.”
“Shh,” one of the women sitting at the table in front of us hisses.
Parker cocks an eyebrow, but she snaps her mouth closed.
I don’t answer that I have in fact noticed how big his hands are because the woman shushed us, but because I have no clue why I’ve even noticed something like that in a man before.
Plus, his flexing forearms and big hands don’t discount his surly attitude.
All the good traits, including those pretty blue eyes lined with lashes women all over would be jealous of, don’t matter if he’s going to open his mouth and say something rude. Even one of those growly grunts I’ve heard from him more than once is too much, too irritating.
Now, if he could just stand there, maybe slowly turning in a circle every so often without making a sound, then I might consider getting excited like my best friend.
The women in the group, my best friend included, are enthralled as he draws arrows to each part on his drawing and explains what they’re called and their purpose.
“And what’s that near the tip?” Parker asks in a sweet voice.
He looks from her back to the board before using the side of his fist to erase it. “That’s just a smudge.”
Several of the women snicker, and I roll my eyes. Parker has a quality check she does on men, and Quinten not playing into her ditzy woman trap by wasting time explaining why a smudge was on the board like he’s talking to a child just rocketed him up a little further on her scale.
I swear if he calls someone ma’am or holds a door open, I’ll never hear the end of it from her.
***
“You’re going to need to find a handgun that feels comfortable in your hand. Grip is very important,” he explains thirty minutes later. “I want you to move around to the different stations to see which one feels the most comfortable. If none of them do, let me know and we can find something that does.”
We’ve moved to the actual gun range part of the building. It’s a long, narrow room sectioned off to make seven lanes.
“Not on the trigger,” he says loud enough for everyone to hear through the earmuffs we’re all required to wear in this room.
I push the flimsy glasses back up on my nose, knowing I look just as silly as everyone else in the room wearing these stupid things, but still feeling singled out each time he looks in my direction. Of course, he has on super cool looking glasses and sleek black earmuffs, whereas we’re all wearing either bright orange or bright green ones, looking like we’re getting ready to go into the woods to hunt for food.
I scowl at Parker when she tries to hand me the gun.
“Place it down on the table in front of you. Do not hand over a gun to someone else. Do not move a firearm from one lane to another. When we’re in here, I will do that for you. When at the gun range, the range officer will do that.”
Obediently, Parker lays the black gun down on the little table at the head of the lane we’ve been assigned, and I just look down at the thing. Never in my life have I held a gun. Not a real one anyway, and I don’t think this is going to have the same feel of the Nerf power blaster I used once at a party in college.
“So hot,” Parker mutters. “Look at his forearms. Damn, I could just take a bite out of that man.”
Chapter 5
Quinten
“Here,” I tell Rachel. “Now you try it.”
I place the Springfield XD back on the table at the head of the lane and take a step back.
“Good, now position your hands like this.” I show her with my empty hands how to stack them around the grip.
“Like this?” She moves her fingers, but they’re still in the wrong position.
“Like this.” I turn to the side so she can see my hands better. I’m not going to touch her, and I don’t get the vibe that she even wants that.
“Like those jeans should be illegal. Do you see his ass, Hayden? That man does squats.”
“Both thumbs pointing forward like this,” I say while trying to ignore Parker Maxwell.
There are two things most newbies in a gun range don’t realize. One being they talk several levels louder because their own hearing is muffled. Two, any person that knows their way around a weapon is going to wear a pair of electronic compression earmuffs. That means I can hear what everyone around the room is saying even though they can’t hear each other unless they speak louder. Hayden’s friend Parker is practically yelling at this point.