by Jackson Kane
“Pick it up.” He dismissed my joke. Dante never gave me an inch when I was getting in my own way. “You are in control.”
“It doesn’t feel that way.” I swallowed, tentatively sliding the gun off the table, grasping it in both hands. A hot surge of anger washed over me that Mom worked so much after being diagnosed. Nothing about my life felt under my control anymore. Mom’s cancer turned my whole world upside down. I was second-guessing every decision I made. I was afraid of everything! And being out here very nervously holding a gun wasn’t helping.
“Do you remember what I said in the parking lot before you went into your interview? About being confident even when you’re terrified?” Dante adjusted my stance a little wider and set my shoulders back. He placed a rough, wonderful hand on my stomach. “Tighten your core; it’ll straighten out your posture.”
“Yeah. Acting is all about pretty little lies.” My mind cleared at his lingering touch. I focused on his every nudge along my body. He moved me into the perfect firing position.
“I’ll let you in on a little secret.” Dante finally sidled up behind me and wrapped both my hands around the gun. His hands were tightly pressed over mine. Goosebumps flickered up my arms as he spoke softly into my ear. “If you pretend to be brave long enough, eventually it won’t be pretend any more. You can do this, Autumn.”
I took a long breath in and extended my arms. Dante slid my headphones back into place and for once I didn’t have the urge to reach for my lucky stud. Having someone believe in me was intoxicating. Suddenly I wasn’t as afraid or overwhelmed.
Having Dante pressed into my back and holding my arms perfectly in place calmed my nerves. I closed one eye, lined up my front and rear sights just below the target, exhaled and slowly squeezed the trigger.
The gunshot didn’t seem so loud, the recoil wasn’t nearly as fierce and I knew without a doubt that the gun wasn’t flying anywhere. The bullet came in too low, but it at least hit the paper target. Every subsequent shot crept a little closer to the bull’s-eye.
I was in control.
Dante stepped away and let me finish firing off the remaining rounds. I ejected the empty magazine and replaced it with a fresh one. Over the next few hours I fired the gun as fast as Dante could fill the magazines for me. By the time we broke for our third meal, I’d blown through the pyramid of boxes and the rest of the rounds in his backpack.
“How do you feel?” Dante asked after our meal. I appreciated that training had become more of a conversation than a just a series of orders.
“Surprisingly good!” I smiled at him, my pride swelling under a wave of accomplishment. I still had a long way to go, but it was incredible how far I’d come in such a short time. “I never ever expected to actually be comfortable holding a gun. But it’s really not that bad. What’s next?”
What if Dante was right? What if I could do this if I just pretended long enough?
“I have one more thing to show you,” he said, a knowing smirk crawling across his rough lips. “Then we’re going to put your skills to the test.”
Chapter 19
Autumn
“Ow, shit! That hurt.” I recoiled from the sudden pain stinging my wrist. When I looked back up, the rubber training pistol I was holding was now in Dante’s hand.
“Pain is inevitable; it’s what you do with it that matters.” Dante flipped the gun over in his hand and offered it back to me.
“No fortune cookies for me thanks. I’m still full from lunch.” I shook the last of the tingling out of my hand and scowled. I snatched the black rubber gun from him. “If I’m doing the disarming why do I have to get my wrist slapped?”
“You wanted to learn the why and the how of what you’re doing. You don’t get to cherry pick. Besides, it’s important you learn how much force it takes to do this in real life.”
“Real life?” I chuckled, thinking back to my quiet neighborhood. There was crime of course, but it was mostly petty theft. Walking around at home I’d never even felt threatened before. “I’m not nearly that interesting.”
“Life doesn’t give a shit about your preferences.” The scar cutting through Dante’s left eyebrow creased as his eyes narrowed into a hard distant look. Even though it wasn’t directed at me, it still sent a chill firing up my spine.
Dante walked off to drink some water. He rarely showed it, but beneath that suave cocksure demeanor was a lot of darkness.
I couldn’t help but do some research as I found out more about him. His real last name was Teller. Despite my internet super-sleuthing there was still very little info on him anywhere. I found out that he was enrolled in a high school around here with his brothers, but Dante never finished. Then there was nothing. He didn’t exist for almost fifteen years! No jobs, no medical history, nothing… When he returned after his father died, Dante changed his last name to Marks and worked exclusively for Lionhouse from then on.
What happened to him in between?
“Anyways, the director might want you to go harder to sell the action.” Dante’s stern features softened when he stepped back onto the blue mats. He’d moved us back into the gym to get us out of the brutal sun. “The stunt team will understand if you have to get a little rough with them. Here, let’s go over it again slowly.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, quickly filling the silence. “OK.”
“Always close the distance.” Dante slowly advanced with his hands up in an unarmed position. “You let your hands gradually come down, then when you’re close enough—” He dodged to the right while simultaneously moving my gun to the left with his off-hand. “This isn’t stage combat; you don’t have to perform for people in the back row. These aren’t big moves. The camera picks up on all the little details. You’re just advancing and getting out of the line of fire. Once you’re here.” Dante was close enough that I could see the little flecks of black in his rich, brown eyes. His intense stare made me stutter in a breath. He exuded command and control. “Slap the wrist with your other hand and strip the gun away.”
His movements were so sharp, subtle and powerful that the flutter in my chest quickly turned into a tingling that coursed down my entire body. Everything about him was infuriatingly sexy.
Dante hadn’t stepped away. The heat from his body seared my skin. His eyes flickered down my body before recapturing my gaze. “Are you ready to try?”
He’s my trainer. He’s my trainer. I repeated like a mantra, hoping that it would help force down all the urges that flooded me. It was like holding an umbrella against a tidal wave hoping not to get wet. If Dante was good at anything, it was getting me wet. God I wanted him so bad…
“Yes.” I swallowed, exhaled loudly and shook my head. There was something about intensity, physical contact, and a little pain that destroyed me. I never knew I liked it until I met Dante.
I moved my camera to get a better angle for where we were set up. There wasn’t a ton of battery left so I’d just let it run until it died, and do a sped-up time-lapse with the footage later. When Dante aimed the gun at me it made my heart jump. I knew it wasn’t real, but it was still a movie quality fake. From more than a few feet away it looked terrifying. There was something truly unsettling about staring down the barrel of a gun, even a rubber one.
I hoped I’d never have to use this skill in real life…
At first my moves were too exaggerated, you could see what I was up to mile away. My disarm strip was too slow and too weak. After he showed me the technique Dante didn’t budge an inch; most of the time I couldn’t even pry the gun out of his hand.
“Harder and faster,” He scolded me, pushing the fake rubber gun painfully into my shoulder. “This isn’t for fun. I’m trying to fucking kill you!”
We practiced this one move for hours and slowly I became more fluid, striking sharper. He gave me micro-adjustments on my form here and there. I was eventually able to fully strip the gun away a few times, although he might’ve let go.
“Good. You’re getting it.” Dante
flexed the soreness out of his wrist with circle rotations and stretches. He winked at me. “A few thousand more reps and I won’t have to go easy on you.”
“Few thousand?” My hand was numb from slapping his wrist over and over. I filled my glass from a pitcher of water with ice and lemon on a stand by the wall. The cold glass felt amazing against my hand. “OK. I think I need a break for a little while.”
Dante checked the wall clock. “It’s not even dinner yet. You know the rules. You want to call it early, you have to earn it.”
The Game.
I hated the stupid game, but that was only because it was impossible to win. Dante was just too fast and strong. I could never get a damn hit in! By now it had become of a threat now than anything else, something he teased me with to keep me working all the way through the day.
But that competitive streak in me—one I didn’t even know I had—had grown exponentially since I’d been here.
And it was all Dante’s fault.
“So what’s it going to be?” A few strands of Dante’s hair fell over his deepening eyes as he stepped toward me, giving him that sexy, Devil-may-care attitude that was second nature to him. It was the same heady look that froze me in place on the boat— and even before that on set. It wasn’t just sexy, but also fun.
Ever since our day off together Dante had lightened up, but it was on days like this we even joked around a little. I think it was something to do with the desert heat. These long, hot days out in the sun made us both a little loopy as the day dragged on.
“You want an early day?” Dante teased, playful, but still smug. He raised his arms guarding himself with open hands.
Of course I did.
“I want a lot of things.” I put my glass of water down and turned back to him, fighting to keep my smile from splitting my face in half. I put up my hands and walked toward him. From my very first punch I could feel the difference. He’d dodged it of course, but not nearly as easily as before. The look of surprise on his face made the smile I wore spread even further. I’d become noticeably stronger in the weeks I’d been here; I could feel it.
It felt really good.
I’d dropped a pants size and a half and even had a little definition in my arms and legs. Feeling my muscles coil and strike was exhilarating.
“I want a shower and air conditioning,” I said in between punches. Feeling confident, I pressed forward and moved faster. I was too quick for him to just dodge, Dante had to use his hands to redirect me more. “I want to call my mom and idly browse Imgr or maybe even lose myself in the library. I want cookies and cream ice cream with cookie dough and—” My punch nicked his shoulder and my eyes nearly fell out of my head.”
“Glancing blows don’t count,” he quickly interjected, cracking his neck on either side and shaking his arms out like a boxer. “Solid hits only.”
“Oh, what the hell?” I protested, pointing at his shoulder.
“My game. My rules.” Dante shrugged, then took on more of a defensive posture. The bounce in his footwork became more apparent as he started taking The Game seriously. His smirk was still there, but the smugness gone. “Now are you going to whine or are you going to hit me?”
“Whipped cream,” I grumbled, raising my hands back up to meet the challenge.
Suddenly it didn’t seem so impossible. I felt strong and tough, and didn’t even have to pretend.
We did our violent dance for the next half hour. I pushed him all around the gym. I punched and he blocked or moved out of the way. I wasn’t as angry, scared and frustrated as I was last time. I wasn’t flailing and tiring myself out, I was focused and driven. I had a goal and I was determined to get it by any means necessary.
I was amazed at my endurance. When Mom was healthy enough for jogs again, I was going to smoke her ass. But it was more than just all the cardio we’d been doing. I wouldn’t have known how to conserve my energy if Dante hadn’t shown me through all the fight choreography.
“You’re not going to win, Autumn. Not like this.” The hint of disappointment flashed across his face. For as fast as I had become, I knew I wasn’t going to hit him, especially now that I had his full attention. He’d been doing this far too long and was far too proud to let me beat him at his own game. “Either play to your strengths or give up and let’s get back to work.”
Dante had taught me so many things, most importantly was how to think on my feet. It would never look convincing on camera for a girl like me to beat up a guy like him, he was just too big.
If I was going to win I had to change the game.
I advanced hard, pushing him straight back out of the weights area and toward the rock-climbing wall.
“Sneaky,” Dante’s eyes narrowed once he felt the slightly raised stone floor under his feet. He stopped just before the swimming pool that was one step directly behind him. He hopped over the corner to the other side, putting the water to our left as I walked forward to meet him. “But you’re not going to trick me into falling in my own pool. Even if you had, that still wouldn’t count as a—”
Tired and a little winded, I clipped the edge of the stone apron that surrounded the pool and lost my footing. I was the one who was going to fall in after all. Dante’s eyes went wide as he lunged forward to catch me.
That put him solidly within my reach. It wasn’t until I smiled that he knew he fucked up. As I toppled headlong into the pool I put my knee solidly into his stomach. I hit the water with the grace of a burlap sack filled with potatoes, but it didn’t matter.
I won.
After sweating buckets all day, the cool, clear, clean water was amazing. It felt like victory.
I kicked my feet against the shallow end of the pool and popped out of the water with a cheer on my lips. “In your face! I got you—”
Dante was kneeling by edge of the pool hunched forward in intense pain.
“Oh my God! I’m so sorry!” I clasped my hands over my mouth. I hadn’t kneed him in the stomach; I kicked him in the balls!
Chapter 20
Dante
“Wow…” Autumn spun slowly taking everything in. “Are you sure you want me in here?”
No.
“It’s where I keep the icepacks.” I pointed over to the refrigerator.
“I thought this was like a woodworking shop or something. I didn’t realize it was a museum.” Autumn grabbed the black, ice bag out of the freezer and handed it to me wide-eyed and with a warm genuinely surprised smile. “I mean this is really incredible.”
I sat down on the room’s one beat-up couch and iced my aching balls. I must’ve been out of my mind letting her in here. It was like inviting someone to walk through your childhood.
When I agreed to let her train here, I promised myself she wouldn’t ever be allowed in this room. No one, aside from Frost, ever was- and he never came by. He didn’t like reliving the past either. And despite our animosity I’d have let Keats in of course, but he’d never talk to me again. If anyone had a rightful stake to everything in here it’d be Keats.
Posters, faded framed photos, banners, and giant letters with blocky western font that read things like “WALL OF DEATH” and “LEGENDARY HELL RIDERS” and “DEATH-DEFYING THRILLS” lined the walls of a room big enough to hold all three stunt cars, two motorcycles and enough space to work on them. The place was littered with decades of dusty, half-remembered memories.
No, this wasn’t a museum. It was a mausoleum—a magnificent tomb for our family’s tarnished legacy.
It was ironic that it was our greatest talents and ultimate success that destroyed the Tellers. We ended up being the villains in every story, both on and off camera.
“Wow. Was this your father’s racing suit?” Autumn leaned in to inspect the mannequin I had set up with Crash’s outfit. It was a full-body set up with his scratched helmet, bare-in-spots leather jacket over army-green jumpsuit and beat-to-shit, black boots. She went to pinch the leather on the jacket’s cuff, but stopped not knowing if she was allowe
d to.
“Go ahead,” I said, studying her. “There’s nothing you can do to it that thirty years of barnstorming across the country hasn’t done already.”
For as personal as it all was, seeing the wonder in Autumn’s eyes made me happy…and a little jealous. I wish I could be that excited again. The look of awe she had walking around the room reminded me of the first time I saw one of my father’s shows in person.
Autumn was strikingly beautiful in that moment with her wet clothes and flattened brown hair. The clothes matted against her trim body sharply defining her edges, her sweet, little nipples and the indent of her belly button. Despite the numbness in my crotch from the hit and the ice, blood started pumping to my cock and warming me up.
Having her in here walking through and genuinely being interested in all this warmed other parts of me too. I’d spent so long keeping people at arm’s length that sharing this part of my life was intimate almost to the point of taboo. Since I started collecting my father’s stuff no one had ever been in this room before today.
“This stuff is so cool!” Autumn walked around the white painted wooden ramps and blocks that used to launch cars hundreds of feet through the air. She flipped through a few thick books of photos, old newspaper clippings and fair brochures where Crash headlined.
I grabbed a clean shop towel, an old, unworn thrill show T shirt and pair of sweatpants from the cabinet on the other side of the cars and bikes. The clothes weren’t glamorous, but at least they were dry.
“You’ll have to go commando until you get back to your room,” I said, handing everything to her.
“Thanks,” she said, her big, brown eyes beaming. She met me over by the mostly restored jump car. “Reminds me a little of laundry day when Mom isn’t around.”
“Your mom still does your laundry?”
“Not always!” Looking surprised at herself for blurting out that tidbit, Autumn back peddled. “She borrows a lot of my clothes, because I’m so fashionable.”