POINT-BLANK
Considering our destination is a shooting range and I only have four outfits total, I spend a ridiculously long time deciding what to wear to leave this house. I settle on my only pair of shorts, sneakers, and the T-shirt I bought my first day in Paris. I ran a load of laundry when I woke up this morning, and the machine did a better job of drying my clothes than the sheets.
Lev’s expression doesn’t change at all when I exit the bedroom.
He’s so carefully controlled all the time. I would shake him, if it were physically possible.
Twelve years.
How long we’ve known each other is not an explanation for this bizarre situation. I hope our history means I’m right in trusting him. His easy confidence is a respite at least from the panicked isolation of the past week.
I study his choice of outfit as we head outside. He’s wearing athletic clothes—all black, of course—and it takes effort not to let my eyes linger on how the lightweight fabric clings to his perfectphysique. I think he’s gotten more muscular since I last saw him, which seems impossible.
We walk in silence past the beds of purple lavender and around the periphery of the pond. A frog leaps into the algae-covered surface, startled off the embankment by our approach. The land surrounding the house becomes more wooded, the farther we walk, the ground an endless carpet of green grass. Dappled sunshine filters through the leaves dancing overhead in the slight breeze. Birds chirp nearby.
“It’s beautiful here,” I say, stating the obvious.
“Yes.”
I swallow a sarcastic response to his bland reply. When Lev announced after breakfast he was going to teach me to shoot, I had no doubt he was serious. It was the same matter-of-fact way he had questioned my inability to swim. Incompetence is unacceptable, from his perspective. Swimming was a survival skill. I guess shooting is, too, although I doubt I could ever pull the trigger when aimed at a living target.
He’s trying to help me. And I pray it’s not so he can feel guilt-free when I wind up back in Italy.
“Is this your seventh trip to France?”
“Eighth,” he answers. “I had a meeting in Nice last year.”
“Nice.”
He’s walking faster than me, so I can’t tell for sure, but I think I catch a glimpse of a grin.
“I visited the Cathédrale Saint-Nicolas de Nice while I was there.”
I gasp dramatically. “You went sightseeing? On a work trip?”
I still can’t see his expression. But I sense his smile, the same way I can feel the sunshine filtering down from the sky. Lev’s affection doesn’t wane the way my father’s does. His warmth is like a fire—sometimes a roaring blaze, sometimes glowing embers. But it never extinguishes. It lingers like an eternalflame. Even when he’s on another continent, I retain some glimmer of it.
“I went for services. It’s a Russian Orthodox church.”
“You’re religious?” I sound shocked because I am.
“Occasionally.” He stops suddenly, so I nearly crash into his broad back. “Here.”
I scan the woods, which look no different from where else we were walking. Then I spot the line of potatoes on a fallen tree to the left. Lev must have set them out here earlier, while I was still sleeping. I take a step toward them.
Lev grabs my arm, stopping me. “From here.”
I glance between him and the log that is … not close.
“I’ve never done this before,” I remind him.
Lev pulls a gun—a real, actual weapon—out of the waistband of his shorts. I appraise the natural way his fingers close around the handle, like he’s held one a thousand times before. He probably has.
“It’s easier than smoking,” he says.
“And slightly more likely to kill you.”
Lev doesn’t smile. “Keep your finger off the trigger until you’re ready to fire. This”—he points at a small lever above the handle—“is the safety. It’s a mechanical block. When it’s engaged, the gun can’t fire accidentally. Down is off. Up is on. Now, your stance.” He steps behind me. “Face your target, but don’t stand square. Keep your feet shoulder width apart. One foot—use your right—should be in front. You can lean a bit ahead too. You don’t want the recoil to knock you off-balance, especially if you’re firing rapidly.”
