“You’re not my type, and I doubt I’m yours.”
She went completely still and then narrowed her eyes. “I can only imagine what your type is.”
I liked women with a lot of sexual confidence. I loved women who could go emotionally from zero to a hundred in under a minute. Mila was an innocent version of my type. She had a temper on her, and the confidence to call me out on my shit, but she possessed none of the sexual awareness of my previous partners.
I’m not interested in innocent.
I worked to stay focused on the conversation at hand. “Grisha’s watching you. He’s looking for signs you’re happy.” I cleared my throat. “Tomorrow he’ll be watching to see if we’re more comfortable with each other after spending the night together.”
She looked upset. “Like what? What is he looking for?”
“We’ll stand closer. You can lean into me. Stare into my eyes. That kind of thing.”
She gave a derisive snort and then caught herself. “Sorry.”
“Sergei’s frothing at the mouth, waiting for his chance with you.”
That immediately sobered her up. “Fine.”
“We’ve also been entered in tomorrow’s skeet competition. He said we’d be outside most of the day. He told me to tell you to dress warm.”
Dismay crossed her face. “No! My uncle’s competitions are the worst. Did he specifically say I had to participate?”
“Yes.”
“He says he’s trying to toughen up his family. Last winter we all had to do a scavenger hunt while cross country skiing, and four people got frostbite. Another year, we had snowmobile races. Someone broke their leg, and someone else’s machine went into the lake before they were rescued.”
“Skeet shooting isn’t dangerous. And it’s not winter, it’s spring.”
“He always adds some twist to make it harder. And he punishes the losers.”
I couldn’t decide if she was being dramatic or if she was genuinely upset. “It’s skeet, and we don’t have snow anymore. At best we’ll be cold, so dress warm.”
She looked dejected. “You’ll see.”
I decided to give her privacy while she got ready for bed. “I’m going for a walk.”
She turned away from me to kneel by her suitcase, but she didn’t speak again.
When I returned later, the lights in the room were out and she was on her side, with her back to me.
At seven in the morning,after a hasty breakfast in the room, a luxury bus picked up two dozen of us and drove us into the mountains, serving only vodka and coffee on the trip.
Now we stood outside in pairs, listening to the range master go over the rules for the skeet range and the competition. Behind him, the pale morning sun fought against a dreary gray sky that promised no warmth and a chance of rain.
“This is not your typical skeet range,” he yelled out like a drill sergeant. “This is one of the most challenging private obstacle skeet courses in the world.”
Several people groaned while others laughed. Mila and I had been paired together. She stood silently beside me, drowning in her oversized raincoat and boots that came up to her knees. She didn’t look at anyone, just stared straight ahead, like a prisoner bracing herself for whatever came next.
The range master droned on. “Both members of the team need to make it to each station. Each member needs to shoot at least once in this competition. You’re allowed to help each other. Only one rifle will be provided between the two of you, and only one team member can shoot per station. There will be clay pigeons, five per station. You will be judged on how fast you make it through the entire course and how many pigeon disks you hit.”
Someone called out, “What kind of obstacles?”
The range master sounded bored. “We have the bog station, which is just over half a mile. You’ll need to put on hip waders and walk out to the station to shoot. We also have a net and wall station, which consists of roped walls that you must climb and netting that you crawl under. The rest I will let you discover on your own.”
Beside him, Mila’s uncle took a swig from his flask. “Tell them about the prizes,” he boomed.
“The team that finishes first will be awarded a cash prize and a case of our finest vodka.”
