Page 34 of Edge

“That’s why it’s good to practice. So you know what to expect.”

“Should I go again?”

“Yes. We’ll empty this magazine and then you can shoot by yourself if you feel comfortable.”

I hoped like hell she felt comfortable, because I didn’t know how long I’d be able to stand being pressed up against her without losing my mind. I’d been trying to keep things platonic between us because I knew she had a lot going on, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want her. She was beautiful, but she also had a great personality and was fun to be around. I genuinely enjoyed spending time with her.

“Well, what do you think? Do you want to try by yourself?” I asked as she reloaded while I replaced the target.

“I think so,” she said nervously.

“I’ll be right here if you need me.”

She was doing fine until the sixth or seventh round. Suddenly, she put the gun down and jumped back. “Hot! Hot! Hot!” she shrieked while shaking her shirt. When a brass casing dropped to the floor, I understood what happened and started laughing.

“I’m sorry,” I chuckled. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. But holy crap, that was hot. Why didn’t you tell me that could happen?”

I held my hands up in surrender. “Because it didn’t occur to me. If you were wearing a low-cut shirt, I might’ve thought of it, but you’re dressed fine for shooting.” She looked at the gun warily. “It was a fluke. I doubt it’ll happen again.”

“Are there any otherflukesI should know about?”

“Not that I can think of.” I gestured to the gun. “Do you want to keep shooting?”

She wrinkled her nose. “Not really, but I know I need to.”

“I don’t know. It kind of seems like you’re a natural,” I said and pointed to the target. She’d hit the target each time she fired. “If that was a real person, you would’ve stopped them.”

“It’s probably just beginner’s luck.”

“Well, keep shooting and we’ll find out.”

After reloading and shooting three more times, we determined it wasn’t beginner’s luck. “You did great! Look at these targets!”

She grinned. “I have to admit, I’m a little proud of myself.”

“You should be. Are you ready to go or do you want to keep going?”

“I’m good, but what about you?”

“What about me?”

“You haven’t had a turn yet. Aren’t you going to shoot?”

“I wasn’t planning on it.”

“Oh, come on. I want to see what you can do.”

“If I didn’t know better, I might think you were trying to secretly compete with me.”

She laughed. “Compete? No. Honestly, I want to see your targets because I don’t have anything to compare mine to.”

“Oh, well, I think I can help you with that.” Hers were good, but she obviously thought I was just telling her that to boost her confidence.

When I finished shooting, we collected our targets and cleaned up after ourselves before leaving the store. In theparking lot, we stood at the back of my truck and compared our targets. My shots were mostly concentrated in one area of the target while hers were wider spread, but all of her shots had pierced the torso printed on the paper.

“See? I wasn’t lying. You did real good.”