Graham leans in, grabbing my chin gently. My breath catches in the space between my lungs and the back of my throat. It’s almost like he’s asking for permission. I don’t move, and he takes the chance, tilting my face up toward his.
“I want to kiss you again,” he says.
“That would be a bad idea,” I acknowledge. The windows are large and wide, and while the sun is still rising, anyone could be awake.
Graham concedes my point by stepping back and I breathe easier.
“Do you want to kiss me again?” he asks.
I roll my eyes. It’s not a no. He takes it as such and grins.
“Why are you here, anyway?” I pick up the gun and goggles and step up to the end of the lane, checking my stance awkwardly. The gun feels too heavy in my hands.
I remember Leighton’s instructions from yesterday—good stance, firmly planted feet, straight shoulders, aim, shoot. I follow through them, pulling the safety off, and then fire. Almost immediately, my arms are ripped up and back by the kickback, and I stumble, cursing loudly.
“Motherf—”
“To help you learn how to shoot.”
I pause and look back at Graham. His mouth is pressed into a thin line.
“Don’t laugh at me,” I snap.
“I’m not laughing!” he protests. He bites down harder on his bottom lip. I know what that lip tastes like.
“You want to,” I accuse, and that’s what breaks him. He snorts into his arm, making a quiet keening sound.
“You’re very bad at shooting. Worse than your riding,” Graham says plainly.
“All you ever have to say is how bad I am at things. Maybe I should ask Pierce to help me,” I taunt. I regret the mention of his brother almost immediately. Graham does too, from the way he gives a full-body twitch that takes him a second to control.
“Pierce is a terrible shot. I’m not,” Graham continues. “So, I’m here to help. If you’d like me to.”
“You know I need your help,” I say impatiently. “？‘Like’ has nothing to do with it.”
Graham’s lips twitch and he shrugs. “Yeah, I guess. Now, first things first: You’re way too stiff. Loosen up.”
“Leighton said—”
“？‘Leighton said,’？” he mocks, voice scooping into a shrill, pointed, know-it-all voice.
“I don’t sound like that.”
“Oh?” Graham asks, raising a single eyebrow. I roll my eyes as he steps up, his large hands falling onto my shoulders, gently massaging the tension out. “Leighton only knows how to shoot like she’s at a range; she preferred a more close-range weapon in her Finish. I know you don’t want to use it, but if you have to, in the maze, you’ll be on the run. You’ll need to be as loose as possible.”
“How can I be loose when I’ll be trying to put a bullet in someone’s head?” I demand.
“You won’t be,” Graham says patiently. “You’ll be aiming for the leg, because you’re good and kind and not a raging murderer. Now, come on, loosen up.”
I relax under his fingers, the weight of them familiar now.
“Breathe in.” I inhale sharply as he leans in. “Breathe out.” I exhale, and then something finally comes loose inside me and my muscles relax.
“You’re really good at this,” I murmur.
“Good at what? Getting you to relax? I’ve been known to do so,” Graham says flirtatiously.
“No, I mean rich-boy things,” I explain. “Horseback riding. Hunting. It’s very WASPy for someone who’s always seen as not fitting in with his family.”
Graham groans. “God, don’t say that.”
“Well, it is!” I laugh, shaking my head.
Graham lets out a messy sigh and steps in close again. “At least it’s finally proving useful.” He presses his chest against my back and guides my wrist back toward the target. His fingers wrap tightly over mine, the weight daunting on the trigger.
“So, you’re going to do what I said. Relax. Breathe. Center yourself, but relax,” Graham repeats. I inhale and exhale. “Good. Now, aim with your dominant eye. Arms aren’t straight out, but slightly bent. Nowhere near your face.”
Each line of Graham is pressed close to me, and saliva pools on my tongue as I follow his guiding motions into a much looser and comfortable version of what Leighton showed me on the first day.
“Just… like… that,” he whispers, the scrape of his stubble against the shape of my ear, and I bite my bottom lip hard. His hands over mine guide the pistol up, and I squint at the target, not too far, just far enough, the length of a lane in the maze, according to Leighton.
I steel myself over as I guide the safety back until I hear the softest of clicks. And then I pull the trigger.
I barely feel the kickback as Graham holds me in place, and I stare at the damage.
A perfect bullet hole in the chest of the target.
My eyes sting and I slowly lower the gun, clicking the safety back into place. I turn in Graham’s arms, groping for the side table. I drop the gun there, never shifting my gaze from Graham’s face.
“Good shot,” he whispers.
“I have a good teacher,” I say, and then I deliberately take a step to the side, attempting to escape his gravity. And yet it still feels too intimate. I look back at the target, paper shredded in a tight circle.
In a person, that bullet would explode, ricochet off bone and muscle, turning them into mincemeat from the inside out. I close my eyes and inhale deeply, staving off the light-headedness. This is what they all want. What they all expect from me. Except one.
“How are you the un-favorite?” I blurt out, but sober quickly when I realize what I’ve asked.
“It’s fine,” Graham insists, shaking his head. He runs a hand through his short black curls. “I taught myself to be good at these things. The riding and the shooting and the biting wit. I taught myself because I have always been the un-favorite.”
I can’t imagine a time where Graham might want Third to look at him like Third looks at Pierce—the heavy weight of legacy in the pinprick pupil of his eye.
Graham grabs at the table edge, anchoring him there. “My father very purposefully didn’t give me his name, because from the moment I was born, he decided that I wasn’t Remington enough for it. It was how my mother reacted to my birth. She was distant. I know now that it was postpartum depression, but what kid understands that?” Graham asks softly, and he’s sinking. I can see it happening, watching him vanish into memory. “I don’t remember it. But the body keeps the score, right? Even now, when my parents touch me, it feels… unfamiliar.”
“Graham,” I call quietly, and he is not back with me, not exactly, but he seems a little more awake.
“And then Pierce was born,” he says sharply, and the light in his eye grows. “I can’t remember my life without him. There’s a picture of me holding him soon after he was born. I’m, almost two, maybe? It was like my mother had gone to a board meeting at Edgewater, and she came back with something for me. That’s the first picture I have with my mother, too. She came alive again. We all came alive. So, it makes sense that he got the name. And that I would make sure he only got the right things. The happiness that he brought back to our family.