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He concentrates on his hands. “The thing about fighting up close is everything is desperation.” He flexes his fingers into fists and I notice the small white scars on the knuckles, like ghosts of past brutalities. “The goal is to hurt them as fast as you can. Better to have a gun than to use your fists. Although guns are loud and sometimes you need to be quiet.”
“As I’m very aware at this point.” I rub my ears. We mostly wore hearing protection, but he made me shoot a few off without it and now I feel like I’m going deaf.
“At least you didn’t learn to shoot like I did.” He chews an olive and tosses the pit into the grass. “One morning when I was six years old, my father dragged me out of bed at dawn, took me into the back yard, shoved a .22 caliber pistol into my hands just like the one you’re using, and told me to shoot the target until I hit it ten times in a row. It took me all fucking day to hit that stupid target ten times in a row, and when I finally did it, all my father did was let me have something to eat. My arms ached, my hands were torn to pieces, and he didn’t give a damn. All he cared about were results.” He’s staring off into the distance, remembering.
I try to picture a little Peter with his little hands holding a gun that was probably too big, but it’s hard to see it. Six years old and already learning how to kill. Peter’s only ever been this big, strong man to me. It’s tough to see him as an innocent kid. It’s hard to imagine his past, his traumas and failures. The horrors that made him into what he is today.
I ask, “Was it hard, growing up in your family?”
“Hard is one word. It was okay when I was little, when nothing was expected of me, but things changed around the time my father began to teach me how to shoot. There were other lessons, like how to pick locks, how to steal without being caught, how to fight, how to climb, how to run, how to kill. Every day, my father taught me something more and expected me to master it by the time our next lesson rolled around. When I wasn’t perfect, he hurt me. When I was, he said I still wasn’t good enough. Over and over, for years, we went on like that. And you know what I got when it was all over?”
“What?” I whisper and find myself leaning closer to him. I want to put my hand on his arm but I’m afraid to touch him right now. I’m afraid I won’t want to take my hand away.
“I got to join the family business.” He smiles bitterly. “I was told in no uncertain terms that all my training would be put to use for the Calimeris crime family, and that my life was essentially forfeit. If I had dreams, I could forget them. If I had wishes and desires, I could squash them. The only thing I was allowed to want was whatever my father and uncle ordered me to do. And for a long time, that was enough. I numbed myself to anything else in the world and ignored my fear.”
“It’s not enough anymore, is it?”
“No, it’s not.” He leans his head back and looks at me. “What about you? Your sister seems to think you grew up in luxury.”
I push myself up and brush my hands on my pants. “She’s not all that wrong,” I admit as I walk a few feet away. I look at the gun lying in the grass still aimed down range at the target. I’m tempted to pick it up, load it, and start shooting, but hearing him share like that made me want to give him a piece of myself in exchange. “My mother shielded me from most of the bad stuff. I didn’t really know details about her life until after she died.”
“Really? That’s surprising. I would’ve guessed your father would’ve been the one trying to hide all that.”
“Neither of them actively wanted me to be a criminal. Dad was more willing to talk about his job and the people he worked for, and I thought it was all endlessly fascinating. He’d talk to me about what they were like and what they could do, while Mom never went into detail about her past. She said it was all over and done with, and I was better off living like a normal person. She said life was better that way.”
“She was probably right.”
“Maybe, but I don’t know. She died without ever giving me anything real. I mean, they gave me a good childhood, it was genuinely comfortable and happy, but I don’t feel like I ever knew them. Mom never opened up about what she was like before me, and Dad kept her secrets because he loved her.”
“That’s why you want to talk to your sister.”
I turn and look back at him. “She knows more about my mother than I ever will. Isn’t that terrible? I lived with my mother my whole life, and I don’t know her at all.”
“It’s a shame but I doubt Reina is going to have a heart-to-heart talk with you anytime soon.”
“Who knows. You opened up. Maybe she will too.”
He laughs at that and slowly stands. “You’re right. I’ll be more careful next time.” He walks over and guides me back into position. “Now, I want you to shoot and keep shooting until you’ve hit the target ten times in a row.”
I groan. “You bastard.”
“It’s the only way I know how to make you really learn.” He puts the gun in my hands. “Now, fire.”
I squeeze off rounds. Over and over until my hands feel like they’re blistering. But by the end of the day, as the sun’s beginning to set, I hit that target ten times, twenty times, thirty times in a row. It’s not perfect, but it’s a start, and as we walk back to the house, I feel like I’ve accomplished something hard for the first time in my life. And Peter seems genuinely proud of me in a way I’m sure his father never showed him.
We walk shoulder to shoulder, practically holding hands. There’s an easy, happy comradery between us. I think of the kiss and wonder what he’d taste like right now—a little of his sweat mixed into the heady bouquet of his tongue. I can imagine his hands on my body, my sticky body, as he licks sweat from my nipples. I almost want him to make my back arch, to make my mouth moan.
“Why won’t you touch all that money your parents left you?”
His question comes out of nowhere and all that giddy physical excitement blows away like smoke in wind.
I cross my arms over my chest and put some distance between us. “Why are you asking me that?”
“I’ve been wondering it since we met. Your parents left you a fortune, and you famously won’t spend it. Famously in our circle anyway. Why would anyone do that?”
I stare at the ground. “I don’t owe you an answer.”
“I know. But I’m curious.”
