3-2
233 Words
PAUL FOLLOWS THE MEASURED sound of gunshots, disturbing only in their potential. Alex is on the old range that’s been set up for generations, beer cans he must have raided from the recycle bin perched on an old stump. He doesn’t hear Paul approach — he’s got earmuffs clamped over his ears — but when he sees Paul out of his peripheral vision, he stops and pulls them off.
He doesn’t ask anything, either, just looks at Paul.
“Keep going,” Paul says. He picks a spot on the ground a safe way back to sit and watch.
Alex shrugs and re-positions the earmuffs before picking up the g*n again.
It is profoundly strange, seeing his boyfriend use an instrument of destruction and use it well: Alex is very good at this. But it’s not any stranger — and is far less awful — than lunch had been. So Paul lets himself relax watching Alex’s movements and delighting in the fact that Alex never does stop surprising him.
He takes a few pictures, just to catch the moment — Alex’s skill, and his profound stillness as he takes aim. Paul is aware that spending a week at his family’s house is a prime opportunity to finally tell Alex things about his own history he probably should have shared years ago. But Alex, often ill at ease in other people’s spaces, seems relaxed and happy. Paul doesn’t want to risk ruining that just yet to tell him something he doesn’t want to confess anyway.
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- Writer
