Zeb…

I made love to her for a couple of hours, our bodies entwined under the covers; warm despite the chill in my flat from the fire going out. We’d gotten decent sleep. Her nightmare at least allowed for that, hitting her close to when we needed to be up anyways.

I was so wrapped up in her that I didn’t hear my phone buzzing across the floor by the bed until the second time it went off. I swore and slipped out of her, reaching for it as she covered her mouth with her hands, eyes sparkling with the smile that she hid.

“What is it, bro? I’m kind of busy,” is how I answered.

“Yeah, and we’re out here freezing our nuts off, wondering where the fuck you’re at. Or did you forget we were supposed to be teaching your charge how to shoot today?” Trigger sounded irritated and I felt a bit sheepish.

“Ah, yeah, nah, Bro, I didn’t forget. Just got a bit distracted is all.”

“Distracted, right, that’s great. Will you hurry your ass up and get out here? We ain’t got all day, and it’s fuckin’ cold as shit out here.”

“Point Nowhere, yeah?”

“Yeah, ain’t got no goddamn heat, so move it, would ya?”

“On our way, sorry again.”

I looked down at Tiffany who was smiling at me, her hands moved from her mouth and to my shoulders.

“I take it we missed our appointment?” she said, and I bent my head to kiss her again.

“Yeah, but they’re waiting. Bundle up, it’s going to be a cold ride and there’s no heat where we’re going.”

“Lovely,” she said rolling her eyes and I could tell she was about as done as I was when it came to the cold outside.

“Gives me an excuse to warm you up when we get home,” I pointed out.

“You don’t need an excuse,” she said, and I smiled at her and moved off of her. She sat up and sighed, a contented sound.

We got cleaned up as best we could without taking a shower and got dressed. She layered up and so did I. Winters in this area were no joke and the bitter cold made me miss home and the summertime there.

“Ready?” I asked her and she looked longingly back to the bed for a minute.

“As I’ll ever be,” she declared and followed me out into the blistering cold.

I’d never wished for a cage as much as I did then. We couldn’t get the bike up the long track into point nowhere, so we’d parked it on the side of the road and Reaver had driven his truck down to the bottom to pick us up.

Tiffany sat stiffly between us as he drove us back to the top where Trigger waited by an old oil drum, hands outstretched to the fire he and Reaver had going in it.

“About fuckin’ time you got here,” he mumbled around a cigarette. A real one, which told me just how irritated he was.

“Sorry, bro,” I said, and he raised an eyebrow and nodded.

Tiffany slid out of the truck behind me and I shut the door. Trigger got a good look at her and his eyebrows went up.

“All’s forgiven,” he said and gave a nod. Yeah, I figured he’d understand it when he saw her.

“I’m Trigger,” he said and took a final drag off the cigarette he shouldn’t have been smoking and flicked the butt into the flames licking at the edge of the barrel.

“Tiffany, most people just call me Tiff.”

“Nice to meet you, Tiff. That there is Reaver. You ready to learn how to shoot?”

She shifted from foot to foot in the white powder at the top of the drive and let her gaze wander over the sheet metal building and snow-covered hulks of cars scattered at its base.

“Truthfully, no. I’ve never liked guns. They scare me.”

“Humph, ain’t nothing to be scared of. C’mere, let’s start with the basics.”

She swallowed hard and drifted over closer to the fire and stood a good two feet away from Trig. Reaver walked up to me and knocked his shoulder into mine, grinning.

“Banging the stripper, huh?”

“It’s not like that,” I said and didn’t take my eyes off her. His teasing smile melted right off his face, from what I could see out of the corner of my eye.

“No, I can see that now, sorry.”

“It’s all good, Bro.”

“Trig will get her straight,” he said with assurance, and I nodded. “That’s not what you’re worried about, though, is it?”

“Nah, I’m more worried about her learning what you can teach her. This ex of hers ‒ from everything she’s told me, he likes to get up close and personal-like.”

Reaver nodded. “If she’s scared of guns, they aren’t going to be much use to her.”

“Too right.”

“How far have you and Mali gotten?”

“Not far yet.”

“When’s her next lesson on hand-to-hand?”

“Tomorrow.”

He grunted and gave a nod. “I’ll be there.”

I felt some relief. “Thanks, Bro.”

“Any piece of shit that can do that to a woman’s face… I’d like him to meet my blade.”

“Yeah, me too,” I agreed.

“Come on this way, you two,” Trigger called out and we trudged over to them through the snow.

“You ready to shoot that thing off?” Reaver asked, grinning.

Tiffany shook her head no but said: “As I’ll ever be.”

Reaver nodded, laughing, and said, “All right, I like your style.”

We went around to the back of the building and Tiffany kept me in her sight. I went to her and pulled her aside. She looked up at me quizzically through the long fall of her hair and I turned her away from my brothers and smoothed it out of her eyes.

“You can trust them,” I told her. “Just like you trust me, eh.”

“Not like I trust you,” she whispered. She chewed her bottom lip lightly in indecision and finally sighed, her breath pluming the frozen air. “I’m trying,” she said finally, after a moment of silence and I smiled.

“I know. I know this is hard for you but listen to what Trigger has to say and I promise, she’ll be right, okay?”

“Okay.” She fixed her hair and went back over to Trigger, who smiled at her patiently.

“You’re gonna be holding a gun, Sweetheart. You’re gonna be shooting at something.” He let out a breath and said, “You’re gonna have to get your hair outta your face.”

She licked her lips, the way she held herself stiff but finally, she said, “Don’t judge, and try not to stare?”

“Not me,” he said and held up fingers in what he’d once told me was a boy scout’s salute. Meant he couldn’t lie.

Tiffany chuckled and moved her hair out of her eyes, hanging it behind her ears saying, “An outlaw biker who’s a boy scout. Isn’t that some kind of an oxymoron?”

“We didn’t all start as outlaws,” Reaver said with a reckless grin. Tiffany’s eyes dimmed and her expression lost its hard-won smile of the moment before.

“That’s a fair point,” she said.

“Oh, how the mighty have fallen,” Trigger said, and held out a handgun to show her. “Which is all right. A lot of us didn’t like it up there anyway.”

“Which is why we’re slumming it down here,” Reaver agreed.

“This here,” Trigger indicated a point on the gun, “pops the magazine.” He dropped it and caught it with his other hand, handing it to Tiff. She took it and he said, “Now that doesn’t mean it’s not loaded. You always gotta assume there’s one in the chamber.” He pulled back the slide to show her. “See there?”

When he said he was going to run her through the basics, he meant it. He educated her from the ground up, and she listened with rapt attention. I’d asked them to meet us out here rather than at the club because the club was always full of people anymore. Brothers, ol’ ladies, and a lot of the time their kids were around. I figured out here would be nice and quiet. Much more Tiffany’s speed.

She didn’t like being around people much, and I couldn’t say I blamed her. A lot of the people around here could be right cunts. Staring at her openly like some bug under glass. Some of them would just walk right up to her and ask. Others took one look at me and assumed the worst. I found those citizens to be the most amusing. And they called us the fuckin’ animals.

“It’s gonna be loud, you’re gonna jump, and that’s okay. The goal of coming out here on the regular is to get you to where you don’t jump so much, as much as it is to improve your shot. You ready?”

“No.”

“Shoot it anyways,” Trig said, and hand trembling, she held the gun out, sighted down the barrel, let out a breath, and fired. She jumped and nearly dropped the gun. Reaver laughed and I smacked him on the shoulder. She was a nervous thing, and this was way outside her comfort zone.

“Sorry!” she said immediately and Trig shook his head.

“Don’t be, just try to hit the target and this time, don’t stop until the gun is empty.”

She did as she was told and lowered it when it was empty. She let out a shuddering breath and asked, “Okay, how’d I do?”

Reaver squinted across the snow at the paper target tacked to a piece of plywood nailed to a board out there and said, “Ehhhh, we’ll get you a shotgun.”

Trig sighed and closed his eyes, shaking his head.

“I don’t know what that means,” she said blankly.

“Means you’re kind of a terrible shot and you’re gonna need practice,” Trig said gently and I could see her shoulders drop slightly. The look on her face was stone, but the flinching in her eyes spelled defeat.

“Rome wasn’t built in a day, eh,” I said gently.

She looked at me and nodded, standing up a little straighter.

“Again?” she asked. Trigger nodded.

“One more magazine for today. Let’s teach you how to properly load it.”

“Okay,” she agreed but I could tell she wasn’t thrilled at emptying another into the paper target across the snow.

Shooting was not my girl’s thing.