He pauses, presumably so I can ask any questions, like he’s an official instructor.
“Okay,” I say, unable to come up with any.
I’m distracted by the awareness of him hovering behind me, which becomes worse, not better, when he grasps my hips toadjust my position into the posture he suggested. I haven’t had sex since his visit in February. That’s the reason I’m turned on in the midst of alethal weapon lesson, I rationalize.
“Here.” Lev steps forward so we’re side by side again, holding the gun out to me the way you’d offer a child scissors. “The safety is still on,” he adds when I hesitate.
Carefully, I close my fingers around the handle. The gun is heavier than it looks. Slowly, I raise my arm, aiming the barrel at a potato.
“You don’t want your arm to be rigid. Bend your elbow a little. Lower your shoulders. Keep your hold firm and high on the back of the grip.”
I try to follow his brisk instructions.
“Relax, Carina,” he tells me.
“I’m holding a gun,” I snap. “That’snotrelaxing.”
“You will get used to it.”
“I don’t want to get used to it.”
“Then go home, where men will shoot for you.”
I scowl, squinting at the target. Silently weighing the possibility I could actually hit one of the vegetables from here. From anywhere. I have a bad feeling I could be a foot away and miss. “I’ll never need to know how to do this.”
“Like you never needed to know how to swim?”
I hate his smug tone. I hate that he’s right. Leo, Luca, and Enzo all know how to fire a gun. I’ve noticed the bulges beneath their shirts. My father taught them, but he never taught me.
I lower the gun. “You first.”
“I don’t need to practice.” He no longer sounds superior, but his relentless confidence is irritating too.
“Watching you will help me,” I insist. “Like a demonstration.”
“Fine.”
His fingers close around mine, tugging the gun out of my grasp. By the time his arm lifts, he’s flipped the safety off, and he’s in the proper posture he described. There’s a brief, loudbang, and then chunks of white flesh fly in the air. I smell metal, a sharp tang to the fresh air that didn’t exist a second ago.
Lev holds the firearm back out to me. “Your turn.”
THE FUME OF SIGHS
“Can I have one?”
I heard her approach across the patio, but I don’t glance at Carina until she speaks.
“Now you like smoking?” I ask, slipping another cigarette out of the open box on the metal table and holding it out to her.
“I don’tlikeit. I’m just … if you can’t beat them, join them, you know?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know. I beat them.”
Carina rolls her eyes. “And yet you keep smoking.”
She holds out a hand again, and I pass her my lighter.
She traces the engraving, which I’ve seen her do before. What she hasn’t done before is say, “I looked up what this means.”
