Page 85 of Fame and Obsession

“Same thing.” If anything will get her mind off stalkers and invisible threats, it’ll be this.

She stomps her high heel. “I’m not going to dinner with you dressed like that. We look like we’re going to a Halloween party.”

“Ah, she’s catching on,” I tease.

“What the…?” Letting out an adorable little groan, she palms her forehead. “Oh, my God, you’re so damn frustrating!”

I have to admit, I’m enjoying the hell out of this. It’s even lessening my bad mood. “I told you to be dressed to kill.”

“I know what you said! You said dress to kill. That’s exactly what I...” Her eyes widen. “Oh my God…”

She’s still shell-shocked as I lower her into the passenger’s seat. “Oh, this is going to be all kinds of fun.”

As I round the car to the driver’s side, I smile, recalling our words from a darkened hallway…

“Oh, princess, you didn’t think I’d go to all the trouble of digging up the ghosts of flower queens past just to be your wingman, did you? You think I want to take you shopping or some other platonic shit like that?”

“I could be non-hostile learning to shoot a gun. How does that fit into your agenda?”

“Oh? Maybe some one-on-one time so I can teach you how to handle heavy artillery?”

“I’d hate for you to be embarrassed and have your ass handed to you by a flower queen.”

“So it’s a date.”

I never forgot anything that woman says to me. She’d do well to remember that.

* * *

“Basically, skeet shooting is designed to simulate bird hunting,” I explain as we walk from the car to the clubhouse. “There are two houses that hold devices called traps, and they launch targets. You use shots to break the clays.”

She didn’t say much when I pulled into the parking lot of the Asbury Skeet Club…

In New Jersey.

I hold her hand, watching for a reaction as we make our way through the grassy field. She’s looking anywhere but at me… But I can’t take my eyes off her.

I didn’t consider the consequences of bringing her clay shooting while she’s dressed like a walking wet dream.

Focus, Bale…

Denting the iron wall she’s constructed around herself is the goal of today’s activity. We’ve made huge strides the past couple of weeks, but there’s something still keeping her at arm’s length.

“You shoot from seven positions on a semicircle. There are high shots and low shots, and... Am I confusing you?” I second-guess myself as her high heels sink into the mud.

“No, well, maybe a little. It seems really complicated.” Phoebe chews the inside of her cheek while batting those baby blues.

There’s something she’s not telling, but hell, that’s nothing new.

“Don’t worry. We’re just getting away from the city for a while.” I give her a wicked smile. “I want you in the wilderness where no one can hear you scream.”

She rewards me with a punch to the bicep. “I’ve got seven-point-five million volts that say I’d make you scream first.”

“Damn.” I rub my arm because shit, for such a small woman, there’s some some serious horsepower in that fist. “I was kidding. You scare me with all that stun gun talk. I have an aversion to electrified nuts.”

Pressing the back of her hand against her mouth, she stifles a giggle.

“That’s a beautiful sound.”

---