Page 48 of Wandering in Darkness
Grayson points at the trees as the leaves rustle in the breeze. “There’s no wind?”
My hair blows into my eyes like even the wind wants to mock me, and though it’s making me blink up a storm, I refuse to move it and prove his point. “Okay. There’s not a lot of wind.”
“You think we’re going to be doing this during a tornado?”
“Maybe!”
He shakes his head and grins at me. “Fucking hell, that’s a nice shot,” he says as he lifts the binoculars to stare at it again.
I’m trying, and failing horribly, not to feel giddy over this. Honestly, it’s so ridiculous and foolish of me.
Grayson lowers them enough I can see his blue eyes fixated right on me. “Can you do it again?”
“You want to watch?”
“I sure do.”
“What if I get stage fright?”
“What’s the saying? Just think of everyone else naked.”
I laugh as I lie back down. “I’m pretty sure that’s for giving speeches. And it really doesn’t help in this situation.” Truthfully, it just makes me significantly more distracted. The last thing I need to think of is this man naked. My mind already wanders too much when I’m alone with him.
“The team wants to get together for dinner and drinks tonight. You good to go?”
I nod. “Yeah, I told Devon I’d be there.”
“Good,” he says as I find the target and without hesitation, I pull the trigger.
Grayson lets out a low whistle. “Fucking hell… Did you even have time to look?”
“I wasn’tthatfast.”
“You really are far too modest, you know that? If I made a shot like that, I’d be peeling that target off and hauling it around to make sure everyone was well aware. Like ‘Look what I can do!’ I’d probably tape it to my shirt so people could witness the accuracy.”
I laugh as I sit up so I can look up at him. “You’re being ridiculous now. I feel like the moment you tape it to your shirt, you’re claiming you’re the target.”
“I’m definitely not being ridiculous. I’m surprised they even let you leave the military. If I was in charge of you, I’d have been like, ‘Look at this nice fun bonus you could have.’”
“They expressed their desire for me to stay, but I was done. This is okay. This is like… once every month or couple of months. I don’t mind this. It’s actually kind of nice, but to do it full time… I don’t think I can do that anymore.”
“I get it. I really do. I think if I didn’t have the freedom I currently do, I also wouldn’t be here. You want to drive over to dinner together?” Grayson asks.
I immediately perk up. “I would love to.” Did that sound too eager? Definitely too eager. Maybe something a bit less eager, like… “Yeah, I mean… if we’re both going there, we might as well ride together, yah?” What’s the “yah” for?
He just laughs and helps me clean up. My friend Tate had given me a ride here since my car was giving me fits, so it’s nice he won’t have to swing by and pick me up since he’ll be heading to the bar and grill from the opposite direction.
I put my rifle into the back of Grayson’s car before sliding into the front passenger seat. “I always get nervous that something really is going to go wrong.”
“I have faith that Lt. Allen has things organized,” Grayson says. “It’s better to have you and not need you than regret not having you.”
“Yeah… What if we get like three snipers so that if I fuck up there are two more to handle it?”
He laughs. “I really don’t think it’s that risky of an operation. And if you can’t handle it, I have my doubts anyone else can.”
“Your flattery gets you nowhere.”
Grayson glances over at me and grins. “You sure about that?”
