He nods. “I know.”
“And he’s your friend? What the hell kind of friends do you have, Angelo? What happened to hanging out with normal people?”
Chuckling, he places his hand on the small of my back and jockeys me toward my lane. “He’s Kane’s friend, not mine. Here we go.” He takes the still unloaded gun from my hand and starts doing… something with it. “I’ll set you up in rounds of fifteen. Fifteen bullets, stop, check your target, reload.”
“You didn’t answer my question back at the house.”
Distractedly, he simply makes the ‘hmm’ sound in his throat.
“I asked if you still had the gun from that day at the club. You said no, but you didn’t say if you’d kept learning.” I watch his skilled hands work the gun. Hands that can play an instrument. Hands that can rebuild an engine. And evidently, hands that can load a gun. “Looks to me like the answer is yes.”
“Yeah. Sorta. I got a gun and took it out to the old haunted house. You remember the one?”
I nod.
He shrugs. “I kept going out there. Eventually I learned to hit a bottle cap from about thirty paces away. Took a long time, lots of bullets, lots of patience.”
“Why didn’t you come in here?” I accept the plastic glasses and slide them over my face. “If Alex caught you shooting at Popcorn Palace, he’d get mad.”
“Alex is always mad, so I don’t let his moods dictate my actions. And I didn’t know this place existed.”
Turning to face me, he slowly lifts the earmuffs, and when I nod, places them over my ears. As gentle as a fingertip on a soap bubble, he pushes my hair behind my ears, breathing on my forehead as he works.
My heart races. Not so long ago, it would be racing because he’s too close and I need to back up. Today, it races because he’s so close, and yet…
“Can you hear me?”
I flash a smile that only widens when his eyes drop to my mouth. “Yes, Sensei.”
He chuckles and plops muffs over his own ears. “Alright.” He picks up the gun with a nervous swallow and places it in my hands. Turning me to face the targets, he stands behind me and places his hands on my hips. “Your gun is live. Don’t point it at yourself. Don’t point it at me. Don’t even point it at Spence, no matter how much he annoys you.”
When I snicker, his hands tighten on my hips.
“Don’t point a gun at any human being unless you intend to shoot them. It’s not a game. Guns aren’t toys.”
“So leaving one in the bread box is…”
“Bad.” I feel his shaking head. “It’s bad, and Bish deserves a kick in the nuts for doing that. You need to focus. Your target’s up; aim for the center dot. Aim for his chest. Big target; more likely to hit.”
“Okay.” Silliness aside, my hands begin to shake.
“It won’t bounce back so long as you stay strong. Concentrate on that dot, and don’t forget to breathe.”
“Did you ever forget to breathe and pass out while shooting?”
He snorts. “Did I forget to breathe? Yeah, a thousand times. Did I pass out? No. Concentrate.” His breath fans my neck so the loose tendrils of my hair tickle my flesh. “Breathe. Aim.” His hands slide along my ribs and up to my arms. I don’t think he means to touch as intimately as he does, he’s just trying to teach me this skill, but even with a live gun in my hands, I still manage to focus on the way he makes my heart race.
He slides them along my arms until they cover mine. “Safety off. Your pointer finger stays off the trigger until the very last second. If your finger’s on the trigger, that means you’re ready to shootnow.You ready?”
I trap my bottom lip between my teeth and nod. “Okay. I’m ready.”
“You’ll bite a hole in your lip if you do that. Let it go.” Before I can ask how he knows, he chuckles. “I can hear it. I’ve known you a long time. Release your lip, relax your shoulders, breathe.”
I study the black and white paper human hung from the ceiling twenty or so feet away. Standing in a tiny booth with walls surrounding me on the left and the right, a counter in front of me, and a large body behind, my heart pounds as I slide my finger along the cold steel. “Angelo?”
“Mm?”
“Why does Spence call you Riggs?”