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I helped pack the picnic basket this morning.
Romance and a dash of fucking fear. It’s a total Meadows kind of date. With my family, I’ve swam with sharks. Bungee jumped. Sky-dived. Adrenaline junkie activities, adventure sports—I know them well.
Yet, I’ve run when things get uncomfy, and I’m afraid I’m going to shoot once and bolt like a coward.
“I don’t want to mess this up.” I motion to everything—our date, the bottles on the haybale, the guns.
“You’re not messing it up,” Akara says like that’s impossible.
Banks catches my gaze beneath his lashes. “We can skip the shooting part and go straight to the picnic, but I think it’d be good to at least try.” He picks up the extra handgun, his gun, the same type I’m interested in purchasing. “I don’t want to push you too far—but I’m gonna push you a little bit.”
I start to smile. Pushing myself is easy when fear isn’t attached. I’ve never been scared to stay late at swim practice or sacrifice family outings for extra Olympic training sessions. Kicking myself is second-nature, and so is disappointment when I don’t achieve enough.
But I need help going forward now. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” His mouth curves up. “I have plenty of experience living outside a comfort zone, and I’ll take you there when you wanna go.”
I want to go. He knows I do.
But I tell him out loud anyway, “I want to go there.” I glance between them.
Akara has a smile in his eyes. “I’ll be there to protect you. Like I’ve always done.” His fingers loop in the rope of my whistle. “Like I’ll always do.” Just when I think he’s drawing me closer, he flings the rope off my head and steals my whistle. Too fast for my reflexes.
But I slug his side. He makes a grunting noise that boosts my confidence.
Akara blows the whistle, straightening up. “Unsportsmanlike conduct from Player Three.”
“You want unsportsmanlike, I can show you un-fucking-sportsmanlike—” I’m grinning, about to chase Akara around the field, but he holsters his gun to protect me before I try to tackle. And my smile fades into the reality of what we’re doing.
I’m not here to pounce on Akara Kitsuwon like a snow leopard.
With a deeper breath, I keep teetering between a smile and a frown. Fuck these fucking nerves. I don’t want to be scared forever. If I’d been afraid of a gun during the cougar attack, Akara might not even be alive.
And I think my dad always intended for me to own my own handgun, but the minimum age in Pennsylvania is twenty-one. The opportunity only arose this year.
Both guys study me as I go quiet again.
“If I seem down,” I say softly, “it’s because I’m a horrible fucking person and I had a horrible thought at practice.” Before Akara contests how I’m not horrible at all, I just tell them, “I wished Frankie would fail.” I expel a pained breath. “And it doesn’t even make much sense. I’m coaching her. Her success is my success in a way.”
Neither Banks nor Akara seem shocked. I might as well have just said my hair is brown and snow is beneath our feet.
“Okay, something is seriously wrong with both of you.” I reach up and touch their foreheads. “You must be running a fever because you should be looking at me like I’m Satan incarnate, or at least, I traveled close to Satan’s butthole.”
Banks lets out the loudest laugh.
Akara smiles. “Sulli. You can’t be riding up against other people’s buttholes, devil or not.”
Humor makes me feel better. “Seriously, though. I wished failure on the girl I’m coaching.”
“You’re competitive,” Akara says like he understands the feeling. “It happens.”
“It shouldn’t just happen.” I wince. “I retired from competitive swimming. I’m not going back.” Those last four words plunge a knife in my ribs. Breathing in the sharp, cold air, I wince more. I was fine with retiring at eighteen. Why have my feelings changed?
I shake my head a few times. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore. Let’s just shoot.”
Banks passes me earmuffs, and I fit the ear protection over my beanie. Sounds immediately soften. Akara goes first. We stand back while he positions himself behind a low haybale.
Akara is quick to check the magazine, rack the Glock, and then squeeze the safety. Like ripping off a Band-Aid, he just fires.
Pop. Pop. Pop.
I flinch each time. Unblinking, I hear the hellacious growl and feel a heavy, cumbersome weight on top of my body. The warmth of blood soaking against my skin.
And then silence.
Pure fucking unbearable silence.
Agony and panic roars into me, the same feeling that slammed against me when I thought I lost Akara and Banks. When I thought they died.
I blink into focus.
Banks has an arm wrapped around my waist, and he’s slid one earmuff back. So I can hear him say, “Sulli?”
