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Gabe nods, takes the shotgun from me, and I pull off the earmuffs as I follow him to the table. Right now, stress – what it is, what it means, and how it feels – is completely foreign to me. My blood is still pumping swiftly with a buzzed elation. This is fun. So much more than I ever thought possible. I'm not comfortable holding it unless I'm about to shoot, so I let Gabe do that. He asks if I want to load this one, but I shake my head. That's for another day.
“This one doesn't have a safety,” he tells me, glancing at my wide eyes. Gabe chuckles. “It's fine, Ryan. Don't freak out on me.”
“I'm not.” I rock on my heels. “This is amazing, but I don't feel comfortable holding it longer than it takes to aim and shoot.”
Gabe nods, turning to walk back to where we were standing. “That makes sense, and I don't mind doing all the work for you.” He flashes me a smile before getting back down to business. “Okay, this is a little different than the shotgun. This is how you're going to hold it.” The curve of the handle is where the curve between my thumb and forefinger will rest. “You want to make sure this is how you hold it. When you're out of rounds, this is going to cock backwards, and if you're hand is there, it's going to hurt when it fires back at you. You're going to wrap your fingers around it, leaving your forefinger out straight until you're ready to shoot.
“Then you'll place your left hand over your other hand to steady it. This recoil is different than the shotgun. The gun itself is going to sort of fling back, like this.” He moves his hands, the gun going from straight towards the target to upwards towards the sky. “You need to hold it tightly, and keep your arms steady. To aim, it's similar to the shotgun, but you have to line up these three squares.” He points to two of them on the outer edge at the top of the gun, closest to me, and the other in the middle at the end of the barrel. “Once you line those up with your target, you're good to go. All you have to do is pull.” After a moment, he adds, “The casings will eject automatically, so I'll be standing on your left to avoid them.”
I nod, and he asks if I'm ready. I nod again, so he holds the gun out for me to take. This gun is so much smaller, which makes it feel so much more dangerous. Gabe senses my anxiety, I guess, because he stands behind me and places his hands over mine to hold the gun with me. To stall, I ask what kind it is, even though it means nothing to me.
“45 mag.” His hands help steady me, the nerves fading as I match his breathing. His hands leave mine. “Here, you forgot these.” Gabe moves the earmuffs from around my neck and over my ears.
“I'm good now,” I tell him, and he takes a step backwards away from me. With long, slow intakes of air through my nose and breathing out my mouth, I find my calm. The gun is steady in my hands as I pull back the trigger. He was right, the recoil is different, but it happens so fast, I'm not sure I can describe what it does exactly. I aimed for the bullseye, of course, but the bullet hit the lower right corner in the white.
“You're hesitating right before you pull the trigger, and the gun dips a little. Try again. Take your time, but don't hesitate,” Gabe says from my left. I nod and repeat the process, taking my time as instructed.
This time, I hit the black. On my third try, I make sure that my hands are still, almost to the point of locking my arms in place. I look at that little red circle, pulling the trigger back with my finger, a high taking over from the powerful force. My mouth parts when I see that I hit it. I lift the gun to do it again. Just to see if I can put another hole there. Holy fuckaroo. I did it. Again. And then, lost in this crazy high, I pull the trigger four more times rapidly.
The top of the gun pops back, just as Gabe said it would when it was out of bullets. Gabe's eyes are wide when I hand it back to him.
“Got a little trigger-happy, didn't you?”
Despite my trembling hands from the power that little thing holds, I grin. “Just a little.” My entire body feels light from being overwhelmed by the force of the weapon. “I need a break.” I hold my hand out, so he can see it shaking. He takes it in his, lacing our fingers together as he leads us back to the picnic table, setting the gun down before taking a seat with his back against the table.
I sit sideways in his lap, wrapping an arm around his broad shoulders once I've let the earmuffs hang from my neck again. He has one hand on my lower back and the other on my outer thigh so that his arm rests on my legs.
“So what do you think?” He asks.
“It's crazy,” I breathe honestly, looking out at the target. “There's so much power in it, and it floods through me, trying to overrun me. It's addicting, but scary.”
“Obviously considering your four back-to-back shots.” His hands move up and down, one along my spine and the other along my leg, soothing me.
I almost feel faint, so I lean into him, resting my head on his shoulder. After about five minutes of silence and his hands gliding over me, I feel calmer. The rush is still there in the background, zipping back and forth in a little box, waiting to come out and drown me. I sit upright again, anxious to test out the other gun, but my eyes catch sight of a line of vehicles coming up the path at different intervals. Have we been out here long enough that it's time for his family to be here? Suddenly, nerves wash over me again, but these are different.
“Is that your family already?”
Gabe follows my gaze. “Yep. That'd be them.” He turns to look at me again. “Don't be nervous, Ryan.”
> I narrow my eyes. “What makes you think I'm nervous, Gabe?”
He laughs and picks up the hand I had resting on my knee, showing me that it's shaking a little again. I hit his shoulder and then remove myself from his lap as the first truck gets closer. He backs up near where we were standing earlier to shoot. Seconds later, another truck. Then a car and doors are starting to open and shut. Gabe stands, takes my hands, and leads me closer.
It's a huge relief when I see Owen get out of the truck that parked close to the shooting area. He grins at me and then his brother. All the men from five different vehicles look alike. It's scary, really. There is one, though, who sticks out like a sore thumb with his blonde hair.
“Who's that?” I can't resist asking.
“Charlie. He married into the family.”
Ah. That makes sense then. They start towards the picnic tables with guns and bullets in hand. That's not scary at all. My eyes land on the man with Owen, though. That has to be their father. He has rough, rugged features and is seriously handsome to be what looks to be his late fifties. Each pair of eyes are focused on me, the intruder to their men's day. Never have I felt so intimidated as I do right now. Without meaning to, I show them my fear by taking a small step closer to Gabe.
He lets go of my hand to wrap an arm around my waist as the men set the guns down on the picnic tables. It's not until they've finished that they truly acknowledge me.
“Hey, Ryan,” Owen says. “It's good to see you again.” His eyes do a quick once-over of my body, and I remember what Gabe told me.
Before I can think about it, I say with one eyebrow perched, “Still as hot as you remember?”
Owen laughs, and a couple of the men chuckle. “Yep.”
