“Then text me the address. I’ll meet you at twelve.” Ronan ended the call.
I tossed my phone onto the counter beside my coffee pot and took my cup into the living room. The couch was more comfortable than the patio chairs, and warmer, so I settled in and found something mindless to watch while the seconds on the clock ticked by.
At 11:00, I got dressed; at 11:30, I slipped my holster up my shoulders; and at 11:32, I shrugged on my favorite denim jacket. I patted myself down, ran my marginally steadier fingers through my hair, and headed to the car. It was a short drive to the range, and I met Ronan out front. He looked a little worse for wear, but greeted me with a smile.
“You look like shit,” I said, enveloping him in a hug and clapping him on the back.
“Three hours would have been good,” he said with a stifled yawn, “but I came home to a horny boyfriend.”
“What a hardship.”
He raised a white Starbucks cup between us. “I’ll survive it.”
“I have no doubt.”
We checked in and I guided Ronan down to our assigned lane.
Everything from there out ran like clockwork. I didn’t have to think about checking my weapon, didn’t have to think about clipping on a target. My brain and my instinct took over. I talked Ronan through the process, making sure he kept the gun he’d borrowed from me pointed down range the whole time. His first few shots barely nicked the edge of the target, but by the time we were through, he was hitting mostly within the target area.
Mine were as clean as always.
Emptying my magazine with a series of shots through the head of the last target, I set my gun down and waited for Ronan to finish.
“You really like this?” he asked after he’d finished firing. He pulled his ear protection down so it rested around his neck. I gestured to his safety glasses and he pulled those off too, folding the arms in and handing them to me.
“I do.”
Shooting had done the trick. My heart rate had slowed; my breathing felt regulated. I felt more like myself than I had since before Christmas. Together we walked back to the front, sliding back the loaned protective gear in return for our IDs. Outside, we sat down on the curb in front of my car and I stretched my legs out, crossing them at the ankles.
“Do you always have guns?” Ronan asked, gesturing toward the bulge on my ankle.
“Always.”
“What about shooting do you like?”
“It keeps me alive,” I answered easily, even though it was a loaded answer with more than one implication. Knowing how to protect myself kept me alive, knowing how to shoot to kill…well, that also kept me alive. “It gives me control.”
Ronan made an amused noise in the back of his throat.
“The irony.” I shoulder-checked him. “I know.”
But like everything in my life, I always had control, and Ronan knew that as well as anyone. Even when I found myself bound and used and hurt, it was a choice I’d made, control I’d bartered or traded for pleasure. I called the shots. I said when enough was enough.
That’s enough, yeah?Sage’s voice echoed in my head and I closed my eyes, leaning back and bracing my hands on the sidewalk behind me.
“What’s your plan for the rest of the day?” Ronan asked after the silence settled between us.
“I have a work thing.” I opened one eye and glanced at him to gauge his reaction.
“Do you want to come over later?” he asked, giving me a worried look.
“What’s wrong?”
“With me?”
“Obviously.” I straightened and leveled a knowing look at him.
“Nothing. I’m just not sure how to ask you this.”
