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“You shooting today?” Garrett calls out.
Charlie nods without looking up. “Thinking about heading up to Cedar Ridge. You guys want to join?”
Garrett glances at me and I nod. “Sure.”
My dad insisted I train with a firearm, so we head out at least once a month. “I’ll meet you out front in twenty?” Charlie asks.
Garrett nods and we clean up the gym. After a quick shower, I throw on a clean pair of running shorts and a tank top and step into my tennis shoes. I re-fill my canteen and head outside, catching Charlie laughing at something Garrett just said.
Charlie opens the door of the truck for me while he talks to Garrett. We head to the shooting range in a small ravine between two hills. Someone filled in one side, creating a dirt wall. The area is littered with various shooting targets. An old chunky computer monitor pitted with hundreds of bullet holes, the screen long gone, sits on the right. A row of coffee cans filled with sand line the halfway point. The centerpiece is a thick wooden post nestled between two bales of hay against the dirt wall.
Garrett grabs the staple gun and the large butcher papers with the silhouette of a man’s torso covered with circular targets. He heads toward the post, and I grab our gun cases and set them on the dilapidated wooden picnic table. Charlie brings out his own arsenal and sets them next to ours, working with practiced efficiency as he removes the magazines and brings out a bucket of ammunition.
“Y’all got any ear protection?” he asks.
“Garrett keeps earplugs in the glove compartment.”
He digs around his small duffel and adjusts his fancy noise canceling earmuffs and hands them to me. His look tells me not to argue, so I take them. He walks to the truck and returns with bright orange ear plugs, shoving a handful in the pocket of his jeans.
He notices me standing there watching him and takes the earmuffs from my hands. His lip curves up on the side and he places them over my ears. “Good?”
He smirks when I give him an awkward thumbs up, then he returns to his guns. I tell the tingle in my lower abdomen to quit that nonsense. Charlie has zero interest in my tingles.
Garrett returns and I load the magazine of my dad’s Glock 22 and slide it in place. “You go first,” Garrett says. Charlie grabs a pair of safety glasses and sets them on my face with another smirk. There’s that tingle again.
I blow a strand of loose hair out of my vision, aim, and pull the trigger three times. Three holes appear in the white of the paper, missing the target by a wide margin. Despite my dad and brother’s career choices, I was never an excellent shot. But getting it on the paper is an improvement. Charlie and Garrett each take their turns and then I step up to the line Garrett drew in the dirt. Three more shots go wide, and I sigh in frustration.
Charlie’s clean scent hits me before I feel him step in close. I lower my weapon, but he steps behind me and rests his hands on my elbows, nudging my weapon into position. “Whatever you’re holding onto, let it go,” he says.
Such a simple statement has a profound effect on me. I blink the tears away and suck in a deep breath.
“Let it go. Breathe out and squeeze the trigger,” he says, and I relax my shoulders.
“That’s it. You got it.” He drops his hands but stays so close I can feel the warmth of his soft breath on the back of my head. A tingle swirls down my spine and bursts between my legs.Dammit. Normally, I can control myself around Charlie. But since our moment in the gym, whatever was holding it back has disappeared. It could be because I haven’t gotten laid since Luke dumped me over a year ago.My vibrator can only do so much.
I focus on the target in the distance and push the thoughts of Luke and Charlie that crowd my brain away. I imagine I’m floating in the middle of my uncle’s lake, not a care in the world, like I did when we would visit as kids. My heartbeat counts a rhythm, and I breathe out as I squeeze the trigger. The gun fires and everything comes back into focus. Charlie steps away, taking his warmth with him.
“Holy shit! That’s your first bullseye!” Garrett says, holding his hand up for a high five. I slap my palm to his and turn to thank Charlie, an excited grin plastered on my face, but his back is to me as he loads his next round.
“Thank you, Charlie.”
He looks over his shoulder at me and smiles. “It was all you.”
I hit the bullseye four more times that afternoon and smile to myself the entire way home. I didn’t know it was possible to let Luke go. It was brief, but it felt amazing to not feel sadness looming over me for those few minutes. I hope that one day when I think of him, it will be with fond remembrance instead of longing and uncertainty. But that day is not today.
