Page 14 of Ho Ho Oh No

The damn maternal side she’s awakened in me wants to protect her from doing this. Each time she flinches or yelps, the urge to swoop in and calm her rises. I have to stop myself from taking her away to watch silly rom-coms or, God forbid, holiday movies until the jitters pass. The reason I haven’t done that yet is because my badass soldier side knows learning to use a weapon can be empowering as hell. And my logical side suspectsconquering her fear of guns will be another step in healing after her parents were murdered.

She’s trying to take her power back. I respect her for being so brave.

Incidentally, if you tell anyone my maternal instinct exists, your stomach will meet the working end of my left boot. You may be wondering why it’s not my dominant right side. Well, that’s simple. My left side grew strong as hell when my TBI turned the right into a temporary shit sandwich. Now that both sides are functioning properly again, I don’t want to lose that dexterity. So it’ll be a left boot to your gut if you talk about my girlie shit. Got it?

Good.

The door joining the firing range to the reception area opens behind us. Junior peeks his head inside and meets my gaze, drawing his brows up inquisitively. I lift one shoulder and tip my head, silently answering his question.

He saunters over to me, diet soda in hand. “How’s she doing? Any better?”

All I offer him is a telling roll of my eyes before I fix my attention on Val. This should be the last bullet in the chamber unless I miscounted.

“Her form is good,” he offers, leaning his head for a better view of her profile.

“Of course it is. Look who her adoptive parents are.” I sweep imaginary dust off my shoulder. “The problem is that she’s too timid. She’s like a cat and a cucumber.”

He scrunches his nose. “Huh?”

“Come on, Junior. You’ve seen those videos with the cats that leap six feet in the air when they see a cucumber, right?”

The crack of Val’s gun is followed by another jump. This time, she only gets about four inches off the ground. I guess that’s an improvement.

She lowers the gun to the counter, aiming the barrel down range like we taught her. After removing her ear protection, she backs slowly away from the lane.

“Good job, kid. You almost hit a target this time,” Junior goads before she turns around.

The sight and sound of him makes her lurch even higher than the fifteen or so preceding shots.“Oh my gosh! Junior!”

Laughing diabolically, he throws his one empty hand up in front of him. “Easy, drama queen!”

Val marches the three steps toward us and smacks him in the chest. “Stop scaring me, Cretan. I thought we talked about that. I don’t like when you sneak up on me.”

“You talked. I listened but never agreed to anything.” He gives her upper arm a slight nudge. “Besides, it’s not like I have any control over your little freak-out fits. It doesn’t take much to scare you. Someone blowing their nose across town. Puppy barking. Cat purring. Truly frightening things indeed.”

I open my mouth to defuse the tension, but Val’s already got her response locked and loaded.

Contorting her face into a mock pout, she addresses him like he’s a pound short of a load. “You probably think you’re throwing shade, but it’s hard to do when I’m way up here with the trees.” She raises her flat hand over her head. “And you’re way down here with the insects.” She lowers her body, hovering her palm over the ground. “While you’re down there, perhaps touch grass and get right with yourself.”

Junior saws out a bitter laugh. “Real classy, Val. Exactly how a billionaire princess should act.” He shakes his head and to himself mutters, “Brat.”

Despite enjoying the show, I interject before it devolves into further name-calling.

And also because I’m the only brat around here.

I step between them, arching a brow pointedly at them both. “Pipe down, children, or I’ll get the hose.”

She scratches her right eye with her middle finger extended in his direction. Nice. I approve of that move. Entirely possible I taught it to her.

Val’s crush on her primary bodyguard seems to have dissipated recently, to my relief. Instead of making moon eyes at him, she’s progressed into antagonistic taunts and eye rolls. Perhaps the initial glow of having a hot guy following her around has waned. Happens to all of us eventually.

Unless the hot guy doles out orgasms like they’re Snickers bars. Then, the glow lasts longer, as in my case.

However, that’s out of the question for Val and junior. She’s not even seventeen yet. He better not be doing that, or I’ll kill him. If not me, Shep will murder him.

Fortunately, I’m back to full strength now. So I can replace Junior in the lineup if he should find himself in a ditch from touching Val inappropriately. I’m sure Boss will understand.

Noticing the not-so-subtle flip-off, Junior pastes on a smug grin. As if he’s proud he got under her skin. The shit head.

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