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“Jesus, can y’all not?” Memphis grumbled.
Ending the kiss, Ray gave her his middle finger while saying to me, “Do this for me, for Blaze, baby.”
Hesitantly, I nodded and said, “Okay.”
“Good. Let me show y’all to the range,” Ray stated. He had the baby strapped to his chest with his hand on her little bum as he led us to the panic room door, through the entry space, down to the basement, and through a door in the basement living room that led to his armory. There, another door led to an actual shooting range like the ones you see in movies. There were two stalls, for lack of a better word, and I could see the target paper hanging in the distance.
“I didn’t know this was here,” I said, my mouth hung open. The basement was like a-whole-nother house!
“Didn’t want you to think I was crazy,” Ray replied.
“Yeah, well…” Memphis mumbled.
Ray shot her a look. “Anyway, it can get loud in here, so be sure to wear the headphones. Let me get baby girl out of here. I’ll be up in the living room.” With one more kiss to my lips, he was gone.
“Okay, here you go.” Memphis pulled a gun out of nowhere and handed it to me.
“Oh, it’s so tiny and cute!” I chirped, holding the firearm.
“Bitch, it’s a gun. Guns aren’t cute.”
I rolled my eyes. “Whatever. It’s cute compared to those big things you and Ray like to carry around. You think these come in pink?”
“I’m sure they do—wait a minute! I’m not here to discuss aesthetics. Girl, focus!”
“Okay, fine. Damn, you are so freaking mean. Always have been. What’s wrong with wanting a cute gun?”
“Uh-huh. So, that’s a twenty-two-caliber pistol, a good beginner’s gun. It’s small but deadly at the right distance. We’re gonna start with it and move up to something more powerful.”
She went on to show me the basics like the magazine and how to load it, how to attach the magazine to the gun, firearm safety, and all that stuff. Next, she put the headphones on me before she covered her own ears. We both donned what I would describe as pairs of goggles, also.
“Okay, always hold the gun with your dominant hand and steady it with your other hand,” Memphis yelled. “Your feet need to be shoulder width apart. To aim, you need to—damn! Okay, um…you just gonna start shooting?”
I shrugged. I wasn’t trying to interrupt her. I was just eager to see how it felt to pull the trigger. Although I was hesitant to learn and I hated guns, I had to admit this was kind of exciting.
Removing my headphones, I said, “Sorry.”
“Well, let’s see how you did. I didn’t even tell you where to aim,” she mumbled, pressing a button and causing the paper target to move toward us.
“I figured I needed to go for the head, right?” I replied. When I saw what I hit, I yelled, “Oh, wow!”
“Well, I’ll be damned. Right in the head,” Memphis said.
Later, hours after I’d shown Ray the results of my lesson with Memphis—a target whose head was full of holes—I lay in bed with him spooned behind me.
“Baby?” he softly uttered into my ear.
“Mmhmm,” I hummed.
“Uh, you did good today. Excellent, really…but you do know every shot doesn’t have to be a kill shot, right?”
“Yeah, Memphis told me that, too, but I remember a long time ago my daddy used to say if you pull a gun on someone, you better be ready to kill them.”
“That’s valid, but I want you to practice an arm shot. You know, something a little less lethal because you kinda scaring me.”
“Okay,” I said with a big grin on my face.
“Good girl.”
