Jack

Field trips aren’t as fun when you’re an adult. Especially if you’re a lifelong Manhattanite. We don’t like to leave the borough unless it’s on fire, with the exception of your standard vacation. Or when a friend drags you to Brooklyn for craft beer and an outdoor concert. Today, however, I’m more than willing to endure the trek because Katie is two rows ahead of me on the academy-chartered bus and she can’t stop turning around, peeking at me through those eyelashes. Pretending to take pictures of the passing scenery. Adorable.

There is only so much we can learn at the indoor firing range, so we’re traveling to our sister academy in Long Island to train outdoors. It’s Friday morning and I haven’t seen Katie since Wednesday night when I got her pants off in the gym. Meaning I’m desperate with an ache in my pants that won’t quit. If I had my way, yesterday would have been spent with my mouth attached to her pussy, but since she’s here with the exchange program, she was required to meet with some Irish community leaders and members of the NYPD brass. Meetings that ran late into yesterday evening.

I want her to myself. Yesterday. Now. Tomorrow. I don’t like her meeting other dudes without me around. Hate having gaps between the time we spend together. We’ve got so little time and I want to make the most of it.

Am I crazy to have this new, quiet voice in the back of my head whispering that . . . Katie could stay in New York? Yeah. That’s exactly what it is. Batshit crazy. She has a life in Dublin. A family that loves her. A badass job. Shit, though, I would miss the honesty in her voice when she speaks to me. Looks at me. It makes me want to be honest, too. Not only for her, but for myself. Like I’m finally wondering if I owe it to myself to try harder. At the academy. Hell, at life.

Jack, I think you have a serious talent for marksmanship.

What if that was actually true? Before Katie showed up, I never would have thought an opportunity existed for me outside of a daily grind on the way to a bottle, but . . . the conviction she delivers while looking me straight in the eye? It makes me want to believe. In everything. Myself. Magic. Rainbow-colored unicorns.

I’ve been sober since Monday. Yesterday was difficult. I woke up sweating and actually went for a run along the East River with Charlie to exhaust myself. My bedroom is cleaner than before I moved into it and I even volunteered for the grocery run. My roommates are still reeling. And hell, this morning isn’t easy, either, but when the bus pulls to a stop and everyone begins to get off, I’m sure as shit not thinking about vodka. I’m thinking about getting close enough to Katie to remind her we’re still on. Jack and Katie are a thing for the duration of her stay. I’m determined to be sober for every second of it, so I won’t forget a thing.

Almost everyone, including the instructor who came to assist Katie, heads out of the parking lot and towards the outdoor range, packs thrown over their shoulders. Three recruits hang back like diseases to help Katie carry the heavy cases she brought, but I send them on their way with a jerk of my head. “Fuck off, yeah?”

One of them thinks about mouthing off, but his friend tugs on his elbow. “No offense, but pick your battles, bro.”

“Good advice,” I say, winking at the trio. “Better listen to him.”

Katie stands at the bus’s luggage compartment. Looking over and seeing me waiting, she sends me a cute, disapproving frown and, fuck, my tongue feels unnatural inside my mouth. Like it doesn’t know how to exist without kissing her anymore. “Just helping out my instructor . . .” I slide a look down her body and wink. “With her equipment.”

The sunshine highlights her flushed skin. “Just for that, you can assist me in a demonstration.”

“Yeah?” I pick up a heavy case in each hand and waggle my eyebrows at her. “You didn’t seem the type to like an audience, but I’m game if you are. Kinky.” She sputters and marches off ahead of me. I follow with a grin on my face, not bothering to hide my appreciation of her tight, twitching ass. How’d I miss her so much? “You don’t really plan on having me help you with a demonstration, right?”

“Oh, but I do.” She tosses a triumphant look over her shoulder. “How does it feel to be thrown off?”

“I’ve been thrown off since we met, honey.” Her step slows down long enough for me to catch up with her. Blocking us from the moving pack of recruits with my turned back, I drop my voice low. “Come out with me tonight, Katie?”

“I have a fundraiser dinner,” she whispers. “At the Irish Consulate.”

I can’t hold back a frustrated sound. “Tomorrow.”

She hesitates, before giving me one firm nod.

My smile is dopey as fuck over gaining her agreement, but ask me if I care. “I’m not taking you just anywhere.” As I quell the urge to kiss the life out of her, I’m also kind of marveling over how good it feels to be clearheaded and have a plan. I could get used to this. Even as I have the thought, there’s a twinge in my throat, a tightening in my spine, but I ignore them both. “Any idea why I’d want to take you to Bensonhurst?” I hum in my throat, like I’m trying to come up with a reason. “Maybe to a little place called Sal’s Steakhouse?”

“Shut up. Bensonhurt, Brooklyn?” She smacks me in the chest, but her smile could make a man want to move mountains. “You’re . . . that’s where crime boss Joey Big Time was taken out. No way. You’re not taking me there. Yes, you are. Oh my God.”

“You’re a little sick, honey, you know that?” My laugh feels strange climbing my throat because it’s so real. “I love it.”

She stares at me for a beat, the wind dragging a strand of red hair across her mouth. “Thank you for thinking of that. Thinking of . . . me.”

My heart is knocking against my ribs. “Don’t mention it, Snaps.”

“We should go,” she whispers. “Before they send out a search party.”

Katie turns and starts to head in the direction of the firing range, but spins and plants a quick, forbidden kiss on my mouth. We stare at one another a moment, before she gasps at her own behavior and jogs off.

Afterwards, I stand there and remember that open, carefree look she hit me with right before our lips connected. A lot like how she looked at me when I hit that target in the firing range. I love it. I want her to keep looking at me like that. A girl like Katie wants to spend time with me and I should be on cloud nine. A man earns a girl like her.

Have I earned a night out with her, though? Would she still want to go out with me if she knew I’d lied about my drinking?

Katie wasn’t kidding. I’m actually helping with a demonstration.

When she calls me—by my last name—to come forward, no one is idiot enough to say shit about her odd choice, but there is a definite ripple of skepticism through the ranks. Charlie smacks me on the back, wishing me luck and I don’t have to look at Danika to know she’s enjoying every second. One of the other two instructors smirks, leaning back against the low concrete wall to watch the show and I hate how it gets to me.

Not that I care what he thinks, but I’m already beginning to sweat, wondering if the night with Katie in the range was a fluke. I’m barely getting used to Katie believing I have potential, now I have to prove it in front of these assholes, none of whom take me seriously. Unless you count my ability to clean their clocks or win a battle of insults.

A tremor snakes through the veins on the backs of my hands. It’s been happening a lot over the last five days, but not now, though. Not now. As if one symptom tempted the others to life, I feel like I’m sucking sand, the grains flying to the back of my throat and causing abrasions. Katie waves me forwards, but I catch the uncertainty in her eyes, as if she’s wondering whether she made a mistake, testing me too soon.

No, I won’t let her think that.

Willing the shaking to stop, I shove my hands into my pockets and saunter forwards.

“Put me to work.”

I feel, rather than see, Katie’s relief. “Right,” she says, addressing the recruits. “So in our first session, we fired with bladed-off stance. Today we’ll be utilizing the athletic position, which is more for tactical shooting or a situation where rapid fire is required.” I can hear every intake of breath in my ears as Katie approaches the firing point and goes over safety instructions, the proper technique for holding the weapon. Every recruit is glued in and I want to be, too, but that goddamn tremor is still going through my hands, making all her words bleed together.

Before I know it, Katie is turning and calling me forwards.

When I sidle up beside her, she glances at me, then down at my pocketed hands, giving me no choice but to draw them out. And I call on something deep inside myself to stop the fucking shaking. I think about the fountain spray on my face, the sound of my footsteps while walking through the crosswalk after putting Katie in a cab, the sizzle of pancakes in a pan. All the clear thoughts I’ve gathered over the last five days and shit, I can’t believe it, but the rightness of going without a drink stills the tremors.

“Ready?”

I nod, taking the weapon from her, making sure to keep it safely pointed away. Just like in the underground range back in Manhattan, the weight of the rifle makes my blood slow, brings everything into sharp focus. Calm slides beneath my skin and spreads out like warmed-up peanut butter. Katie is at my side, talking to the recruits about the proper stance and I listen to every word, while somehow already anticipating what she is going to say. Feeling her instructions, interpreting them faster than I would have thought myself capable.

Recalling Katie saying not to rest my finger on the trigger until I’ve made a conscious decision to shoot, I breathe and slowly press digit to metal. The sound of shuffling, the wind, traffic on the nearby road fades out. By the time I fire, I’m not even surprised when I hit the target. In my stomach, it was a given. A certainty I’m stunned by.

My mind goes back online, hearing Katie’s breathless encouragement first, then everyone else. There’s actual whooping of my name, high fives going on behind in the viewing area. I set down the weapon carefully and turn, trying to bite back a smile when Charlie gives my shoulder a shove.

“You been holding out on me, man?”

I try to shrug it off, but my roommate is like this massive, unmovable barrier of positivity most of the time. Right now? He’s The Great Wall of Charlie. “Some things I save for the privacy of my diary, all right?” I shoot a glance at Katie and she’s smiling to herself, preparing the weapon for the next recruit. God, I want to scoop her up and hold her so bad, my arms feel like empty vessels. This. Shooting. It’s something I share with her. We share this.

She gave it to me. I need to give her something back.

My knee-jerk answer is sex, but . . . she needs and deserves more. I have to find out what I’m capable of giving and right now, right this minute, I’m looking forward to the challenge.

“Hey.” Charlie steps into the firing point, the rest of the recruits fanning out down the row facing the target area. “Help me out?”

“Me?”

The question is barely out of my mouth when another guy I’ve only spoken to once in the locker room calls my name, farther down the row. “I’m next.”

“I’ve known him longest,” Danika says, holding up a finger. “You can all wait.”

I’m dumbfounded by the sudden requests for help, and my gaze zooms to Katie. And my little Irish honey winks at me, so fast I barely catch it.

Tomorrow night can’t get here fast enough.