Bounty

by Aubrey St. Clair

“Oh,” I say, a little perplexed but relieved. “Who buys you guns? Protective boyfriend? Crime fighting best friend?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she says, her eyes far away. Something about that makes my gut twinge, but I ignore it.

  “Well, great!” I say. “It just so happens I’m actually pretty good with a gun. I love having my finger on the trigger.” I give her a raised eyebrow.

  She blushes a bit, then scowls and pushes open her door. “How nice for you.”

  “Yup,” I say, hopping out of the car after her, and circling around to her side. “And since you haven’t asked me anything about myself,” she looks down, slightly abashed, “I’ll tell you that my dad was really into hunting, and I can shoot with the best of them.”

  Strictly true, but misleading — my dad was into hunting, sure. Hunting for criminals. He was a cop, back in the day, and I learned everything I know from him. Before he was shot in the line of duty.

  Not that she needs to know that.

  “Well, I didn’t want to actually shoot it,” she says. “Just here to return it. I don’t want it.”

  “Aw, come on. The gun range can be really fun. I’ll show you,” I offer. “Don’t you think your crime fighting best friend would want you to learn, even if you don’t keep it?”

  She gives me a sidelong glance, and something about the turn of her lips, and the little shrug she gives — fuck, it’s cute. Plus, it presses her breasts together, deepens the crease of her cleavage, lets me peek down the front of her top…

  “Alright,” she says, arching her lithe spine as she reaches back to tighten her ponytail. She heads straight into the club, boots heavy.

  What is this girl?

  I shoot a quick text to Vicente: I think I’m onto something. Out with shop girl, and she has a gun. Getting more intel.

  Vicente replies: Tick-tock, Copperhead.

  She works out the handgun return, a range lane, and a quick rental with the guy at the front almost by the time I catch up to her. She’s already picked out the most ambitious gun, too. Maybe to spite me? It’s a Savage bolt-action rimfire — enormous compared to her little arms and hands.

  “Whoa! Have you done safety training?” I ask, shooting a quick glance at the guy at the desk. He merely shrugs and waves us in. Doesn’t even ask to see my permits.

  So much for gun control laws.

  “Yeah,” April says. “A long time ago.” Then she pulls up her headphones and pulls down the flimsy plastic goggles, which just look insanely adorable on her. I swat that thought away quickly.

  Before I can try to talk some sense into her, she marches off to the outdoor range, huge gun cradled against her chest.

  “Okay,” I say when we get outside. There’s a line of human-shaped paper targets, and a line of cans. The sun is bright and I’m momentarily blinded by the way it reflects off her copper hair.

  April takes her place right at the line, pulls in a quick tug of breath and hefts the rifle up to her face. With the big scope and the wide butt, it looks like the rifle might knock her clear over. I should not have let her pick that gun.

  “Hey, there,” I say, rushing to her side, unsure where to put my hands but wanting to help somehow. “Careful with that. You sure you don’t want to start with something a little…” smaller? “…smoother?”

  The kickback from that thing could knock her clean on her ass. Or punch the gun back into her face, giving her a nasty bruise. I’ve seen idiots crack their cheekbones from the recoil of rifles like this.

  “But I like this one,” she says, tossing her hair to the side to peer through the sight, one bright green eye peering out ahead of her.

  “Here, let me —“

  I step in behind her to wrap my fingers around hers on the barrel. I can almost feel her smile, somehow, from behind. Trying to ignore the feeling, I re-adjust her grip on the rifle, making sure the butt presses gently against the pad of her pec and shoulder. She cocks her hip to the side, and I correct her, grazing my fingers against her hipbone to realign it, kneeing her legs further apart, redistributing her weight evenly between her feet. I wrap my other arm around her, too, checking the angle of her wrist. Her hair smells amazing.

  Fuck.

  She melts into my body, easing her hips parallel with mine, and suddenly I realize the position we’re in. How good she feels against me. I pull her in tighter, under the guise of perfecting her posture.

  “Yeah, like that,” I say, my voice coming out much rougher than I’d intended.

  “Oh,” she says, a little breathless, and her ass grazes against my cock, which is now hard as a rock. Fuck.

  I step back, out of the way, and the absence of her body against mine is like a cold draft.

  Stay cool, Copperhead.

  “Okay,” I say, working to sound as nonchalant as usual. “You should be safe to fire now. Remember, nice and slow, one at a time. Give it your best shot.” I punctuate with one of my most rakish winks.

  She flips off the safety and shoots me a sweet smile. “You sure you don’t want to squeeze my trigger for me, too?”

  I gape at her and BLAM BLAM BLAM! She pegs the target twice in the forehead, dead center, and once between the legs.

  She lowers the rifle, confident, radiant.

  “Thanks for the tips,” and she winks back at me.

  Holy shit. I think I’m completely fucked.

  Well.

  That was rather unexpected. April cleaned up at the range, a natural sharpshooter. She seemed to be able to effortlessly put a bullet wherever she wanted it, sure and swift, and fuck if a girl holding a big gun isn’t hot.

  She’s still cagey with me, though. Still a little skittish and stand-offish. I can’t tell if she’s just wary or what, but she’s been blowing hot and cold all afternoon – one minute teasing me with a raised eyebrow, and the next, kind of stonewalling me. Obviously she’s not in the most stable place, what with crying in the shop the other day, insisting she didn’t want to flirt, and then agreeing to this date at all.

  Whatever. It still works for me. I just need to get more information from her.

  “Not bad, Miss Clockmaker. Not bad at all. How’d you learn to shoot?” I ask, as we’re returning our rentals.

  “My dad taught me,” she says, and then snaps her mouth shut. She tenses, almost frozen in place.

  “Oh yeah?”

  Her face looks drawn, her wide, lamp-like eyes down-turned, lashes whispering against her cheeks.

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  But I really do. Could her dad have been involved with Devlin Sullivan? She obviously is on the take for the gang, whether or not she knows about it. Perhaps her dad has something to do with it. But I gotta take it slow, get her to trust me. So I can learn more about her store, who’s on the other end of that landline phone. Take a look at her books, tap her phone, her laptop, her contacts.

  I’m a pushy guy. But I can’t push too fast. Can’t lose this lead.

  “Hey,” I say, putting all jokes aside, injecting as much sincerity as I can into my voice. I put a light hand on her shoulder, in what I hope is a bracing way.

  Sincerity isn’t really my forte.

  “Wanna get Sushi Mizu? C’mon.”

  She inhales, and her exhale is just a little bit shaky under my hand. Then she blinks up at me with eyes that are like two green search beams.

  “Why the fuck not,” she says, and laughs a little.

  I’m in.

  4

  April

  Okay, my scare-him-off-by-shooting-targets-in-the-balls strategy has obviously backfired.

  Horrendously.

  I don’t understand, it’s always been effective in the past. Men usually find it really off-putting. Alan hated it when I went to the range. He is against guns of any sort, but being a lawyer, I guess that makes sense.

  There were so many little things I used to think were endearing, little details that I thought only I knew, things I loved him for, instead of in spite of. Th
e little things that made me think he was mine.

  I was so wrong.

  Gotta stop thinking about Alan. Especially because I knew, even after we got engaged, that it wasn’t going to last. I knew he wasn’t “the one”. I was just tired of waiting. Afraid no one else would ever come along. I think, sometimes, I’m more upset at the embarrassment of having to admit that mistake than of losing the relationship in the first place.

  See, this is why I shouldn’t be going out on dates, and why I should be scaring Liam off, not egging him on. I have no idea what I’m doing when it comes to relationships.

  But after some target practice, he seems even more interested than ever, teasing and smiling and making me tease and smile back, even when I try not to. I should have guessed he’d know how to handle firearms himself, just look at him, all those corded muscles, and tattoos. I’ve figured some of them out now — like the one of a black star and sunbeam crawling up the back of his neck. His tattoos feature quite a few stars, and barred across it, gorgeous blocks of light blue and red, with curling vines and what almost look like thorny dandelions. Perched along a shoulder blade I can see the edge of a gorgeously rendered crow.

  I really know how to pick ‘em.

  For some reason, it’s hard to keep my guard up when I’m around him. Like when I mentioned learning to shoot from dad.

  Why I know how to shoot is a complicated question. How my dad is involved in my work is a complicated question. And in my day-to-day life I try not to think about it, thank you very much, and I don’t like to be reminded. I don’t want to talk about how I haven’t seen him in almost a year, that he’s been in “Mexico” on “business,” but that I’m not sure where he really is. That I’m afraid for him, and every once in a while, of him, and I don’t know how to reconcile that with what a caring father he was when we lost my mom.

  Not exactly first date material. Not that this is a date.

  But when Liam starts asking, I can’t really help it. I just shut down, and there’s tears again, and I feel so small. And a part of me thinks, good. Maybe this will put an end to this bizarre, stupid day that I never should have agreed to. And another part of me just feels incredibly vulnerable.

  When Liam lay an uncertain hand on my shoulder, like he wasn’t sure what to do but wanted to help, he seemed to say the exact right thing.

  Lucky guess, but there’s nothing that will cheer me up like a bowl of hot miso and some delicate, foodie, Americanized tuna rolls. And Sushi Mizu is my favorite. Seriously, how did he know?

  I should have said no, but then there was that damn dimple.

  I should have definitely said no, but it’s like I can’t summon that word when I’m around this guy. There’s just something about him.

  “It’s my favorite spot in the city,” he says.

  Goddammit. “Me too.”

  He peels his hand off my shoulder, and places it, just for a brief moment, on the small of my back, as if guiding me away from whatever state I was just in. The warmth of his hand sends a line of heat up my spine to my cheeks, and straight down between my legs.

  We walk in silence to the car where he makes a joke of opening the driver’s side door for me.

  “The lady drives, of course, but a gentleman opens the door for her.”

  It’s so stupid but I can’t help giggling a little. And when I pass between his body and the car, I catch a quick whiff of his cologne, or aftershave, mixed in with just a little bit of sweat, and I feel almost dizzy as I slip into my seat.

  “Thanks,” I say in a daze.

  He leans over me, around the frame of the car, and it’s just… I want to touch him. I feel a wash of heat go through me, from my heart to my core. I can feel my pulse between my legs.

  “No problem.”

  He closes the door for me and circles around while I try to get my breathing under control.

  This is going to be a long car drive.

  To defend myself against his stupid aftershave smell and his stupid delts and biceps and pecs, I crank up the music and sing along. Green Day, the dorkiest of bands to still love. Maybe that’ll drive him off? At least his one dimple is pointed the other way so I don’t have to see it out of the corner of my eye when he smiles at me. Which he keeps doing, despite all of my efforts to let my freak flag fly, warbling along to Green Day’s greatest hits.

  All of my plans seem to be backfiring. He sings along with me, and now we’re belting out “21 Guns” at the top of our lungs and it’s fun. Fuck everything, I’m having actual fun. He rolls down his window and then I do too and now we’re howling into the late afternoon, bouncing in the car seats, glancing at each other every so often and laughing.

  Fuck it. If trying to drive him off isn’t working, if crying in front of him wasn’t a total deal-breaker, if I’m a huge mess right now and I don’t know what I want, but he’s really hot and this is fun, why not?

  For the rest of dinner, I stop trying to push him away. I stop trying to end our date – fine it’s a date – or scare him off, or weird him out, and we end up having a great time. We get a coveted seat on the roof at Mizu (a moment when I’m reminded that Liam seems to have quite a lot of money, because the hostess greets him as Mr. Liam and shows him right to the best table) and watch the sun set over the city, eating tempura and drinking hot sake, and I’m completely underdressed in my sweaty beater. But so is he, and it’s great.

  And we talk about all sorts of stuff. Even Alan, and once I get started on that, it’s hard not to let the whole story spill out. Our sensible, long-term-planning romance, our perfect courtship. And finding him in bed with the waitress from our favorite restaurant. At least this time I don’t cry. Usually the humiliation of reliving that detail brings on the tears.

  Liam also asks me a ton about my clock shop, seems really interested in my process and my business. He seems a lot more interested in getting to know me rather than talking about himself — it’s refreshing. With Alan we were always talking about his cases, the politics, his world. There’s only so much to say about making clocks, is what he always said. But Liam seems really interested in the details of my life.

  “Bluebird happens to be a great name for a clock shop,” he says. “I guess. I mean I don’t know about that stuff, but sounds good. Like… birds pop out of coo clocks, right?”

  I laugh. “You mean coo coo clocks? I don’t even make those.”

  “Maybe you should, Bluebird,” he smiles.

  “Oh, and that’s not my real name,” I say, feeling daring.

  “Excuse me?”

  My dad’s warned me against this, many times, stressing the importance of maintaining my ‘stage’ or ‘art’ name, especially with anyone who’s been in my shop. But fuck it, I’m so tired of doing exactly what he says.

  “My name is April Fitzpatrick.”

  Liam’s face does something strange, and the only way I can think to describe it is quiet. His face goes quiet for a moment. Is he mad I lied to him?

  “It’s just a business name,” I say. “You know. Branding.”

  Liam’s face is carefully blank for one more moment, and then he breaks into a grin, his eyes bright. “You chose Bluebird? You total nerd,” and we’re back to teasing and I let out a sigh of relief.

  “Well, it sounds cuter, doesn’t it?”

  But it’s so nice to use my real name. Even though Fitzpatrick isn’t as glamorous, it’s mine. My mother’s, to be exact.

  “I don’t even know your last name.” Suddenly it strikes me how strange and reckless and unlike me this whole thing has been.

  “It’s Copperhead.”

  “Like David Copperhead?”

  He laughs at me. “Copperfield you mean?”

  I try not to blush. “Sure. The magician.”

  “Have I cast a spell on you yet, darling?” He waggles his eyebrows at me.

  “Kind of,” I confess, and immediately feel my face heat up. “I mean, in more of a stupefying way than—”

  He reaches across
the table and traces his fingers across my elbow, down my forearm, to my hand. His fingertips grazing across my palm are like electricity. My heart leaps in my chest. It’s almost unbearable — I miss being touched like this, and it feels so good. And Liam is unbearably attractive. Just watching his forearm muscles twist and bulge back and forth as he traces my wrist is mesmerizing. I can see each tendon, imagine the strong grip of those hands. How firm, how sure they would be, grasping my waist, my hipbones, holding me down and making me whimper with need. How amazing his fingers would feel, deep inside me, pressing into me, opening me wider. How wet could he make me with those wide, rough fingers and strong hands?

  Oh, fuck. No. That’s a terrible idea.

  I let his hand rest on mine across the table anyway.

  “Shall we head back to the car?” he asks, and a shot of heat moves through me, centered between my legs. There’s no denying it — I want to fuck him. My pussy is literally aching for him. I feel it throbbing, beating into the chair below me.

  “Okay,” I say.

  He drops my hand, and we get up to leave. It’s like a spell really has been broken.

  He’s quiet on the walk to my car. Maybe he’s tired. I’m tired too, but it’s the soft, glowing exhaustion of a good day. The warmth of sunset on my skin. My insides are still aching for him and I feel almost dizzy.

  “You okay to drive?”

  “Oh, yeah,” I say distantly. “It’s really close, actually. Basically just around the corner.”

  “Let me just walk you home, then,” he says. “Just to be safe.”

  I don’t need the help, but…

  “Sure,” I say, and he smiles, and again my traitorous heart leaps.

  It’s only a five-minute walk, and the entire time I am hyper-aware of his shoulder mere inches from mine. What his hand felt like. I want to take it and interlace our fingers together. Or, rather, I wish he’d take mine. But I can’t give in, I don’t want him to know his charm works so well. And besides, guys like him aren’t gonna walk down the street holding hands sweetly with someone they haven’t even fucked. I mean, he’s probably just interested in sex. If that. And as much as I could probably be okay with that, I know I’m a wreck right now. My feelings are all over the place. I wouldn’t want to accidentally get too attached to a rich, tough playboy who would probably just fuck and run.