Page 1 of Bullet
Chapter One
Bullet
The sound of bullets piercing their targets was my favorite sound in the world. Something about the hollow hiss, just before the dull pinpoint of the heated metal sinking in was like music to my ears.
“Bullet! Fucking fire!”
My finger flexed against the trigger and the gun vibrated in my hand as the bullet fled from it with a mission in sight. I recoiled back but smiled as the bullet found purchase. I sighed with satisfaction as the remains of my quarry splattered out and hit the floor below.
“That’ll teach you to challenge me,” I growled.
I rubbed the barrel of my gun free of any stippling with a rag and grumbled at some of the evident soot on my shirt. A change of clothes would be necessary, no matter how much I tried to avoid it.
“That’s why they call ya ‘Bullet’,” Avery said, pointing his gun out in front of him, peering over it like a hunter cornered on its prey, “but you know what they call me?” I smirked as he pulled the trigger and his bullet released, but it faded down to a frown as I watched his bullet shoot straight through the center point on the target in front of him, skirting mine which was one ring outside the center. He looked over at me and winked. “Bullseye.”
“Fuck.” I stared down the row of ten targets, each with one bullet hole near the target and all with one straight through it. Not one of the direct hits was mine. “Load up another ten. I’mgonnabeat you.”
“Dude,” Avery groaned. “We’ve gone five rounds already. Give it up. You arenotgoing to beat me.”
“I’ll pay for it, just go tell them to load up another ten.”
“Stop. What’s wrong with you?” Avery lifted his goggles, letting his blue eyes catch in the overhead halogen lights of the shooting range. “I know you like a good shoot-off, but this is weird, even for you.”
“Nothing’s wrong. I just wanted to get some shooting in before the meeting,” I replied. “Are you scared?”
Avery snickered. “Do you honestly think I’m that childish, I’d fall for that? You’ve known me since college, and I’ve known you, too, and I know something’s wrong.” He pointed his gun at me, knowing full well the one bullet in it had already been discharged at the target. “You fucking tell me or I’m calling Cameron.”
“Do what you say or you’re gonna tell my dad? How old are you?”
“Take it or leave it, Bullet. I ain’t shooting another ten targets just because you have a bug up your ass about something.” He raised an eyebrow at me. “Is it that date you had?”
The question knocked me sideways just a bit. Avery’s nickname was Bullseye for two reasons as far as I was concerned. One, because he could hit a dead shot at midnight with one eye closed, and the other because he could take one look at me and know exactly what was going on in my brain.
“That date was weeks ago,” I barked. “Why would it be that?”
“Exactly, it was weeks ago. You were asking people for advice and you wouldn’t shut up about her for a few days there, then all of a sudden you just stopped talking about it.”
Grabbing the cloth again, I cleaned my gun off one more time, engaged the safety, and shoved it into the back of my waistband. “I stopped talking then, and I’m done talking now. Let’s go, we have a meeting.”
Avery let out a low whistle and then a gruff chuckle. “Aw, man. Doesn’t go out on a date in how long, six months? Seven?”
It had been closer to a year, but who was counting. “Shut your mouth.”
“Fine. Party Pooper.”
“It’s not like you have women falling outta your house,” I snapped back.
“Don’t you worry about me, bud. I do just fine.”
He could say that, but I knew Avery was a romantic. He hadn’t had a woman on his arm in any permanent capacity in at least as long as it had been since my last date; it had to be getting to him. “Anyway, Celia is hardly a concern of mine.”
“Celia,” Avery repeated. “That’s her. That tall, hot chick right?”
I didn’t respond. “Tall” and “hot” were descriptors that objectively described Celia, but she was much more than that. In the one meal we’d shared, we went tit for tat like a tennis match. She took everything about me in her stride, and we shared one amazing night together.
Then I never heard from her again.
“Isn’t that the one Nicky set you up with?” Avery asked.
