“I bet so too, buddy.”
Vince returned to his seat, smiling from ear to ear, which warmed my heart. He was treating Kylie more and more like a mother figure in his life.
I felt the same. I’d fallen for the beautiful blonde. I just had to get my fear outta the fucking way and step into our relationship fully. Soon. I kept promising myself that I would soon.
Garren’s warning rose up in my head, reminding me about Linda and forcing me to promise to be careful. It wasn’t just my heart on the line. Kylie would never do that to Vince. She couldn’t break his heart.
She wouldn’t leave me behind either. Would she? Fuck.
I shook my head and tried to get away from feeling like such a loser. Walking out to breathe some fresh air, I exited the gun shop. As I looked down the road, I spotted Kylie’s car pulling up.
All the negative thoughts drifted away as I saw her face. It felt like having her around was the only cure to keep me from thinking the worst. Whenever I saw her, all my worries melted away.
I walked toward her car, opening the door for her. She got out with a bright smile on her face. She gli
stened under the sun’s rays, her beauty illuminating before me like a precious gem.
“So, what brings you here?” She was carrying a paper bag from the convenience store. Handing it over to me, I peeked to see what was inside the bag.
I saw several juice drinks in bottles and packages of cheese bread in it. “Thank you for this.”
She smiled back, her eyes still on mine. “You’re welcome. I stopped by to tell you about Cat’s birthday party tomorrow. Did Vince tell you about it?”
“Yeah, he’s pretty excited about the gift you’re getting for Cat.” I pointed back to the gun shop. “He’s in there reading some more of the books your mom gave him. She’s too good to him.”
“He’s a great kid, Hunter. We love him to death.” She smiled and ran her fingers through her long locks, causing my thoughts to move back to our last night together, which was over a week before, if not more. I wanted her so bad it hurt. What the fuck was holding me back?
“He is. I’m sure he’d like to see you.”
“Great, I’ll go see him in a little bit. I wanted to see if I could go practice shooting today again? The last time I shot was when we went hog hunting, and I didn’t do nearly as good as I thought I should have.”
“You were amazing, baby.” I reached out and ran my hand down her forearm, taking her hand. “Best female shooter I’ve been around.”
She laughed, captivating me. “And you’ve been around a lot of us?”
“Nope, and I’m not digging myself into that hole. Let’s get back to talking about shooting practice. I’m all in.”
“Wait. Now?”
I smiled. “Absolutely. Let me tell Garren that I’ll be right back.
“Thank you so much.” She turned and walked to her car.
I walked into the shop and called out to Garren. “Going back to the range. You good with Vince in here?”
“Sure am, buddy.” He glanced up from doing some paperwork with a big, burly dude. “Have fun.”
“Thanks, man.” I walked back out into the warm sunlight and lost my breath. The most beautiful girl in the world walked toward me, the look on her face filled with adoration, and a gun case in her hand. I’d fucking died and gone to heaven. “Come on, beautiful.”
I held out my hand for her to take. She took it, entwining our fingers as we walked into the back yard where the gun range was. I felt my heart beating faster again due to the bliss of having her in my life.
As we reached the gun range, Kylie put her case down on the table and took her gun out. I observed how she reloaded the gun by herself perfectly. She was independent in preparing the gun for shooting, doing everything without any supervision from me.
I sat on one of the benches, watching as she exhibited her gun shooting skills. For a novice, she was great. She knew how to handle the gun well. Her grip was pretty good, learning quickly from the past training I did with her.
She pointed the gun down to one of the wooden, human-formed targets. After a few seconds of concentration as she locked her target, she fired her gun. I watched the target that bore a hole in the upper arm. She missed her aim for the heart.
Adjusting her stance, she breathed out audibly as she locked her gaze on the target again. In a matter of seconds, she fired another shot. I checked the target, which now had a second hole straight on the left part of its chest.