“I said you don’t freeze under pressure.”
The man shakes his head. “Never.”
Brittany points to me. “Jet, this is Stone Maddox. Stone, this is Jet, my husband and producer.”
Jet shakes my hand a bit too hard, so I squeeze back. His eyes narrow before he gives a slight nod and looks away. “I was just checking the perimeter for the game later.”
“We all good?” she asks.
“All good.”
I’m in over my head. Coco’s dad thinks I’m about to impregnate and ghost his daughter. Her sister has already labeled me soft.
Brittany points to a chair and Jet sits. “We were talking about how Coco never brings guys around.”
Jet stretches his legs out in front of him. “Oh yeah. She doesn’t date. Or maybe she does, but she keeps them away.”
I can see why.
Harold nods to me. “Anytime you’re ready, Stone, just call it.”
I almost forgot I’m supposed to shoot. I pick up the rifle and press the butt to my shoulder. Then I drop my cheek and look through the scope, lining up the bull’s-eye in the crosshairs.
Beside me, Brittany says, “Not everyone can be a natural like me.”
A hammer hits me in the sternum—a tightening behind my ribs, like my body remembers something my brain can’t reach, and ithurts.
That hole inside me just woke up, and it’s full of pain. My God, so much pain I nearly fall over.
A voice rings out inside my head: feminine, low, older—my mother. Bright as day, I hear the phrase, “Not everyone can be a natural ... jerk like your father.”
It feels like I’ve been punched with a giantWreck-It Ralph–sized fist. The memory is so sharp it stabs.
I’m not expecting the emotional fallout, and as quickly as it arrives, it morphs into something else.
Fury.
And I realize everything she told me about my father wasn’t real. It was a lie that still rings in my heart.
A switch flips inside my head. The anger channels into my posture, my breathing. I slow it down, line up the crosshairs. “Fire in the hole!”
I pull the trigger and everything happens in slow motion: the sound of the rife exploding beside my ear, the kick of the butt against my shoulder, and the bullet launching toward the target.
Then it’s over as quickly as it started.
I sit back and gently rest the rifle on the table.
Brittany smirks. “Don’t feel bad for not hitting the bull’s-eye.”
She hands me the binoculars and I ease them to my eyes. “I hit it.”
“What?” She shoots me a confused look before checking for herself. “Well, I’ll be damned.”
Harold rises. Soon as he does, all the rifles the uncles are holding go down. Coco’s dad strides to the target. He pulls out a black marker and draws a circle around the hole I shot—a hole that’s dead center.
“Bull’s-eye,” Harold calls out. “Good job, Stone.”
I don’t say anything. I can’t say anything. Anger still courses through me.
