Chapter 9 Gabe
Gabe
Hell, I don’t even remember why we’re here in the first place. I didn’t come out today to shoot, and I’m sure as hell not going to let Taryn have a go.
Giving her access to a gun still feels like a really, really bad idea.
I breathe out, steady my hands, and take three shots, then pause to look at the target. Dead bullseye, all three of them, and a thrill of excitement runs through my veins.
Hey, don’t come at me. There’s nothing wrong with feeling proud of a job well done. Shooting isn’t my main thing, but I’m pretty fucking good at it, and I don’t mind showing off a little bit.
I bring the gun up and shoot three more times, each bullet going through the same hole, and can’t help but smile to myself. Maybe this was a good idea after all. I like that it’s easy for me and that I’m good at it.
I like that Taryn Matthews is standing behind me watching me nail that same hole again and again. No pun intended.
I pull off the earmuffs I put on to protect my hearing and turn around, ready to brag about how good I am, but find Taryn looking distinctly unimpressed.
“What?” I ask, my heart stuttering a bit. “I just hit the same spot six times in a row.”
She turns bored eyes on me and shakes her head. “So I saw. But you said you were going to teach me. And this is not that.”
I snort. “You didn’t actually believe that, did you? I just said that so we could get away from everyone else.”
Her look turns to suspicion. “Is that so? Why would you do a thing like that?”
“Because I didn’t want to talk to them anymore. Obviously.”
She walks up to me, her steps slow and measured, and stops when she’s close enough for me to be able to smell her. Looking up, she tips her head slightly. “And why would you want to stop talking to them? Obviously.”
For a moment, I can’t breathe. She’s too fucking close, her face on the edge of laughter, and I can feel her energy poking at me, like she’s looking for a way in.
Looking for an opening that will allow her under my skin again.
And God, I want to let her do exactly that.
It’s been so long since I felt any warmth for another person, or like anyone wanted to know what I was actually thinking.
So long since I believed anyone actually cared.
And this girl is the one who taught me that I could trust again.
She was there in the middle of the night when I needed someone to talk to me, there when I was in a dark spiral that was going to take me down.
She never stopped holding my hand, never stopped stepping into the void to protect me from my own memories.
The instinct to draw her into me, breathe her in and let her fix everything, is so strong it almost knocks me down.
But that’s exactly what makes her so dangerous.
She forces those tiny fingers into the cracks in my soul and pulls them open, exposing the softest, most unprotected parts of me.
Spreads the broken pieces of my heart out to the sun and tries to stitch them back together.
But I don’t know how long she’s going to be here, or if I can trust her.
And I can’t let her dig into my mind if she’s just going to disappear again.
I can’t afford to be that vulnerable.
“Because I don’t want them getting the idea that you’re here to stay,” I say coldly.
Her eyes shutter and a mask comes down, and part of my heart breaks at the sight. The other part says that’s exactly what needs to happen, because it protects us both.
I’m so busy thinking about that, though, that I stop paying attention, and am caught completely off-guard when she reaches out and snags the gun neatly out of my hands.
“Well then I guess you better get to teaching me, or I’ll go out there and start making friends,” she says simply. “That girl Sammy already invited me to her house. And if she’s your stepcousin, I’m guessing she has some entertaining stories to tell.”
I grab for the gun, horrified, but she keeps it just out of reach, her face calm.
“Teach me,” she says. “Or I’m going to go out there and start talking.”
Well, fuck.
The problem is, I’m not sure I have much choice here.
I don’t want to teach her how to shoot. But I’ve known Taryn long enough to know that if I don’t do what she wants, she’ll go out of her way to make trouble for me.
And granted, talking to my friends isn’t the worst thing in the world.
But she knows a lot of things about me that they don’t.
And the thought of them knowing some of that... Knowing how damaged I actually am, when I’m being honest...
No. I can’t have that. I’ve spent too long building a reputation as someone who has it all handled.
I make another grab for the gun, then one more, but Taryn is quicker than I remember and all I get is a handful of her T-shirt.
It’s too big for her and when I pull it, it ends up coming down off one shoulder, exposing a bra strap.
She shrieks like I’ve just attacked her—which, okay, I did—and I lunge for her face, slapping a hand over her mouth.
“Sh!” I hiss. “Sam is going to think I’m trying to kill you or something!”
I don’t expect the laughter that comes bubbling up out of my throat, but this is all so familiar that I can’t help it.
I’ve shushed her because we were going to get in trouble over something more times than I can count, and usually it was a failure.
Because her laughter is so big that it can’t be shushed.
And when she starts laughing now, the sound leaking out around my hand, I realize that she hasn’t lost that part of herself.
“Taryn!” I mutter. “I’m serious! Sam did me a favor loaning me a gun and—”
“You two okay back here?” a voice asks, half a second before Sam appears through the door to the shooting range.
I jump away from Taryn so abruptly that I know it looks unnatural, and watch Sam’s eyes move between the two of us, considering.
“Absolutely,” I say. “She took the gun before I put the safety on. I was just fixing that.”
A lie. I didn’t need to have my arms around her to fix the safety. And the way we were struggling was, to be honest, the opposite of safe.
“Right,” he says slowly. “I’m trusting you to be safe, Gabe. Don’t disappoint me.”
Don’t disappoint him. The phrase takes all the wind out of my sails, and I nod, suddenly solemn. He leaves, thank God, and I turn back to Taryn, my own face serious.
Hers is anything but, though. She’s working hard to suppress her laughter but it’s not working, and one look at her flushed cheeks and glowing eyes and I’m fizzing with giggles again, my heart flying in pure sixteen-year-old glee at being out fooling around with my best friend.
God, this is all so familiar and safe, and the feeling of actually belonging with someone is. ..
A revelation. I don’t use big words as a rule, but it’s the only one that fits.
I feel like I’ve finally come back home after four years of wandering lost in the woods. And if I thought I was terrified before, I didn’t know anything.
“Here,” I say quickly, putting the earmuffs over her ears. “If you’re going to shoot, you’ll need these.” I adjust her grip on the gun, showing her where to put her fingers and how to secure the base of it in her hands, then take her by the shoulders and turn her toward the target.
“What about you?” she asks, her voice far too loud.
I chuckle. She can’t hear herself speaking, then, which means she won’t hear whatever I say. I answer anyhow. “I shoot in the forest without earmuffs on all the time. I’ll be fine.”
She somehow feels that I’m talking, though. “What?” she asks.
Even louder.
And now I’m laughing again. It’s just so ridiculous.
I don’t answer, though. Instead, I move her toward the line marked on the ground and gesture down toward it.
She nods and puts her toes on the line, then lifts the gun in front of her.
I do some more adjusting—mostly unnecessary, and just an excuse to touch her—and then step back, leaving her to it.
I expect her to take a few wild shots and miss everything, giving in to her usual need to be in control of herself.
Instead, she turns to look at me over her shoulder, her eyes wide and nervous.
“I don’t know how,” she says, and this time her voice is quiet.
“Just pull the trigger,” I say, and when she frowns, I demonstrate with my hand. “Hold the gun with one hand. Pull the trigger with the other.”
She just stares at me like I’m speaking Greek, her face a mask of nerves. “I don’t know how,” she repeats. “Help.”
God dammit.
This girl.
I don’t bother answering her, because she can’t hear me and she’s got her mind made up.
I step toward her again and get right behind her, turning her back to face the front.
And then, against all my better judgement, I wrap my arms around her and pull her back until I can reach the gun myself.
I wrap my hands around hers on the gun and feel that she’s actually shaking.
Christ, I thought this girl could do anything she wanted but put a gun in her hands, and she’s shaking and asking for help.
I steady my hands around hers, using my arms to cage her in, and feel her breathe out slowly.
The shaking stops. Her shoulders relax. She leans back against me slightly, like she’s looking for the comfort of my body, and something inside me turns on.
A light I haven’t felt in years, and one that I thought I’d lost. I feel warm and cold at the same time, chills chasing each other across my skin, and my heart starts beating so hard I’m sure she can feel it in her back.
She does. She presses against me more firmly, like she’s trying to give me the same comfort I gave her moments ago.
Her back arches slightly, driving her shoulders hard against me, and within moments I realize that the movement is also pushing her ass into my groin.
A million images flash through my head—Taryn in my lap, her lips on mine and my heart telling me we should have done this years ago—and I rock my hips. It’s not a conscious decision.
Hell, it doesn’t even feel like a choice.
It’s my body reacting to her without my brain’s involvement. My soul recognizing her as my person and reaching for her. Doing whatever it takes to bring her home again.
In that moment, I realize that I’m hard as steel, my cock aching badly enough to drive me to my knees, and that my hands have dropped to her hips to pull her back against me. A few easy moves and I could turn her and claim her mouth again, reminding her where she belongs.
Reminding myself that this is home.
Holy. Fuck.
I step back so quickly I stumble and nearly fall, and then I turn and walk away. I’m done here. I can’t do this. I may not love the life I have, but I’ve just started to live again after what she and her mother did to me.
And if I fall again, I’m not sure I’ll be able to get back up.