The shooting range at Holland and Holland was tucked into the Surrey countryside, a forty-minute drive from London through rolling green hills and narrow lanes lined with hedgerows. Blake drove, his window cracked open, the warm summer air filling the car with the smell of cut grass and wildflowers.
Liam sat in the passenger seat, talking without pause. “The thing about clay pigeons,” Liam was saying, gesturing with his coffee cup, “is that they’re completely unpredictable."
"Well, no, they’re not. They follow a set trajectory."
"But they feel unpredictable. It’s the speed. Your brain tells you it’s going one way, and by the time you’ve processed that information, it’s already somewhere else.”
“That sounds like returning a serve,” Blake said.
“Exactly! That’s exactly what it’s like. Except with a serve, you don’t get to blow it to pieces.” Blake laughed. It was a sound that surprised him — not because he didn’t laugh, but because it came so easily. He had known Liam for less than two weeks, and already the man had a way of disarming him,of slipping past the careful, practiced exterior that Blake presented to the world.
The range was beautiful — a wide, open field bordered by ancient oaks, the sky above a pale, washed-out blue. A gamekeeper met them at the entrance, a weathered man in his sixties who handed them ear protection, safety glasses, and a pair of Beretta over-and-under shotguns that felt solid and reassuring in Blake’s hands.
The weight of the gun was familiar. The last time he had held one, he was sixteen, standing on the manicured grounds of the Greenwich Country Club with Tyler beside him, both of them squinting into the Connecticut sun. Tyler’s father had taught them — a patient, methodical man who believed that every young man should know how to handle a firearm with respect.
Blake had been good. Tyler had been better. But Blake had loved it — the focus, the stillness, the single moment of absolute clarity when the clay disc launched into the air and everything else fell away.
A memory surfaced, unbidden and sharp. He was fifteen, standing on the fifth station at Greenwich, the sun beating down on his neck. Tyler was beside him, trying to show off for a group of older girls who had wandered over from the tennis courts. Tyler had mounted the gun with an exaggerated flourish, called “Pull!” in a voice an octave deeper than his usual register, and fired.
He had missed the clay entirely, but the recoil had knocked him backward, his foot catching on a discarded shell casing. He had gone down hard, landing flat on his back in the dirt, the Beretta pointing safely at the sky but his dignity entirely destroyed. The girls had giggled behind theirhands. Blake had laughed so hard he couldn’t breathe, doubling over, tears streaming down his face. Tyler had lain there for a moment, staring at the clouds, before finally starting to laugh too.
It was one of the last pure, uncomplicated memories Blake had of Tyler — before adolescence complicated everything, before the expectations, before the pool party at Tyler’s house the day before Blake left for Paris, when Tyler had been drunk on tequila and had kissed him in a guest room, and everything between them had changed forever.
“Ready?” the gamekeeper asked. “
Ready,” Blake said.
The first clay launched with a sharp crack, arcing across the pale sky. Blake tracked it, his body settling into a stance he hadn’t used in over a decade, the stock pressed firm against his shoulder, his cheek resting against the cool wood.
He fired.
The clay shattered, a puff of orange dust against the blue.
“Bloody hell,” Liam said, his mouth hanging open. “You said you were decent.”
“I am decent.”
“That was not decent. That was obscene.”
Blake smiled, ejecting the spent cartridge. “Pull.”
Another clay launched. Blake tracked it, adjusted, fired. Another clean hit.
“This is humiliating,” Liam said, watching with a mixture of awe and theatrical despair. “I’ve been coming here for a year and I hit maybe one in three. You haven’t touched a gun in — how long?”
“Twelve years.”
“Twelve years! And you’re hitting everything! This is deeply unfair.”
“Try leading it more,” Blake said, stepping back to let Liam take his position. “You’re shooting where it is. You need to shoot where it’s going to be.”
“That’s very philosophical for a man holding a shotgun.”
“It’s the same principle as tennis. Anticipation.”
Liam raised the gun, his stance slightly awkward, his elbows too high. Blake reached over, gently adjusting his grip, lowering his front elbow.
“There. Now keep your head still. Don’t chase the clay with your eyes — let it come to you.”
