Chapter 15

It was a beautiful Saturday afternoon, and I was headed to the skeet range to do some shooting with Tom.

On my way from the truck to the clubhouse, I found myself thinking about the half-formed memories from when I was sick again. Specifically, the memories of cuddling with Ruth. She’d been acting a little strangely since I’d gotten sick so I didn’t think it was a fever dream or anything like that, but she wasn’t there when I woke up, and neither one of us had brought it up. I did know one thing though, real or not, I remembered how nice it was being snuggled up in Ruth’s arms, and deep down I wanted it to happen again.

“Yo, earth to David!” Tom shouted with a whistle, just before waving his hand in front of my face. Startled, I jumped back a little.

“Hey, don’t scare me like that!”

“Dude, I said your name like three times!”

“Oh...” I grunted, feeling kinda dumb.

“Come on, let’s just get going,” he urged with a laugh.

We dropped off our cases and picked up our shells, then headed to the sporting clays course.

“Alright, you think you can beat Dead-Eye Renault!?” Boasted Tom when we got to the first stall, and I laughed at his ridiculous moniker.

“More like ‘Dim-Eyed,’” I joked, as we both knew I was the better shooter.

“Hey, I’ve got a good feeling about today!”

“You say that every time, and every time you get your butt kicked,” I reminded him teasingly. “I’ll go first so you can see where the targets are coming from though!” I offered.

“Fine!” He agreed. He sounded indignant, but I knew he was willing to take every advantage he could get!

Looking at the trajectory diagram at the first stall, it looked like the first clay pigeon was going to be coming to me high and from the left, and the second would be going away low on the right, probably pretty quickly too. I loaded up a couple of shells and flicked the selector so that my close shot barrel would fire first, giving me a slightly longer window of opportunity for my second shot.

I shouldered my gun and yelled “pull!”

Ker-chunk!

The clay pigeon left its launcher and drifted toward me nice and easy. I lined up my shot and pulled on the trigger ... but it wouldn’t move! The target lazily finished its arc and shattered upon hitting the ground.

“Dude, did you forget to take the safety off?” After a quick inspection, it turned out that the safety was indeed still on.

“Yep...” I replied with embarrassment.

“Eh, it happens,” Tom said nonchalantly. “Go ahead and try again.” I pushed the safety button off and got back into my shooting stance.

“Pull!”

Ker-chunk

Once again, I sighted in the target and pulled the trigger.

Blam!

And I missed!

Ker-chunk

As expected, the second pigeon was moving much faster!

Blam!

And I missed that one too!

“Huh,” grunted Tom. “I can understand you missing the second one, but the first one should have been easy...” I took a deep breath to quell my frustration while I ejected my shells and loaded two fresh ones.

“Alright, let’s try this again...” I muttered. “Pull!”

I managed to hit the first target, but the second one evaded me again. Sighing, I reloaded for the third and final time for this stall.

“Pull!”

I hit the first target squarely and it exploded, and I barely grazed the second one, but it still counted and at that point I was going to take whatever I could get!

“Three out of six ... not a good start...” teased Tom.

“Just get up there and take your turn!”

Once his turn shooting was over he’d ended up hitting the first target and missing the second for his first two attempts, and hitting both on his second, putting him one point ahead of me.

“Not looking good my friend,” taunted Tom.

“It’s still early!” I retorted.

Unfortunately, the trend continued all day. Normally I would hit about fifty targets out of sixty, and Tom was normally around forty. However, by the time we finished with the last stall Tom had racked up forty four hits, which was a good round for him, but I’d stunk with an terrible score of thirty seven!

“Geez, what’s up with you today? You’ve never shot that bad!”

“I dunno,” I lied, knowing that it was probably because I was preoccupied with the situation with Ruth.

“Dude, something’s on your mind, because you keep spacing out on me too,” he insisted. I groaned, but didn’t give any more answer than that. Instead we walked in awkward silence for a couple minutes until I couldn’t bear the quiet anymore.

“Alright, fine! I’ll tell you, but you’re gonna think I’m crazy.”

“Dude, you’re already crazy,” he joked.

“Not helping...” I deadpanned.

“Ok, shutting up!”

“Anyway, it’s about Ruth.”

“What about her?” I took a deep breath and let it out slowly with a pop of my lips.

“I think I’m starting to like her.” Tom didn’t say anything for a few seconds, then he snorted out a chuckle.

“That’s a good one. You almost had me there for a minute!” I glared at him and he stopped laughing. “You’re not kidding...”

“No, I’m not.”

“So ... you’re into hooves and horns now?”

“No!” I scoffed, but then I stopped walking and thought about the gum incident for a second. “Well ... maybe if they’re Ruth’s...” I added, and started walking again.

“You’re insane.”

“Not helping,” I snapped.

“When did it happen?” He asked, completely bewildered.

“Pfft, I dunno. It just kinda snuck up on me.”

“Alright, fair enough.”

“It also might be because she’s the sweetest, gentlest, most polite person I’ve ever met ... and that includes my mother!”

“Dude, your mom’s a peach!”

“I know. That’s the point I’m trying to make!” Tom stopped walking and rubbed his forehead for a moment.