“Yeah, I definitely was. Guess that’s why she dumped me.”
Both his friends’ smiles dropped.
“Oh. Man, I’m sorry, I didn’t know… I swear you just told me you guys had started dating.”
Garrett nodded, his jaw clenched. “We made it about two weeks. Might be a record for how short a relationship it was.”
“That Jennifer girl and you only made it like four days in high school, right?”
“Shut up, Noah.” Will hit their friend, who snapped his mouth closed.
“It’s fine. It’s over, and that’s that. Can we just go shoot some stuff?”
Noah perked up at that. “I brought my AR if you want to try it. It took me months to build, and I haven’t even shot it yet.”
“I don’t think Garrett wants to be your guinea pig and try out a gun you built yourself. What if it blows up?”
“Half the reason I want him to try it instead of me.”
Garrett actuallyalmostfelt a grin cross his face at that. “Yeah, sure, let me see it.”
Thankfully, his first shot with the rifle went off without a hitch.
“How’s it shoot?” Noah asked, putting bullets in his hand gun.
“Great. Nasty kick though.” He checked that the area was clear before putting the gun back to his shoulder. He took a steadying breath as he aimed with the scope, trying to relax some of the tension he’d been feeling. It worked enough to shoot mostly on target. Not quite a bull’s-eye, but close.
Will came up beside him, leveling his own rifle to his shoulder. He sighted his target and pulled the trigger, hitting smack in the middle of the black circle.
“I’m still waiting for you to tell us you’re secretly in the CIA,” Noah remarked, stepping up to Garrett’s other side and shooting. He missed the target completely. “How did you get so good with a gun?”
Will shrugged. “Practice.”
“We’ve been practicing with you for years, and neither of us can shoot like that,” Noah countered.
Will just shrugged again.
Garrett sent off another round of shots, still not as good as Will’s, but passable. They’d at least made it on the target. He sent another.
And another.
He was getting worse with each round. So, he stepped back, lowering the gun and scowling.
Will glanced at him before putting his eye back to his scope. “Want to talk about it?”
“Not a bit.”
Will nodded, taking another shot.
“She says we don’t want the same things in life. It’s a load of crap.”
“Thought you didn’t want to talk about it.”
“I don’t.”
“That means he does, apparently,” Noah added helpfully.
“Remind me why we’re friends?”