“Or is it… you’re safe with my nuts?”
“Both are probably accurate.” He draws his full bottom lip between his teeth. “Maybe we could skip the archery lesson and test those theories…”
“Minx,” I tease, nipping at that lip when he releases it. “Don’t tempt me. I made a promise to make you a better shot, and I am nothing if not a man of my word.” One last, lingering kiss presses against his mouth before I slide him off the counter, setting his feet on the ground.
Muggy evening air washes over us as we step outside. The Tennessee sun is sweltering every day between mid-April and the end of September, hot enough that even the late hour doesn’t offer much of a reprieve.
Azrael takes his time as we walk towards the woods behind the house, stopping to watch the chickens peck inside their pen, then lazing over to the goats. He’sdelightedwhen they prance over, long ears flopping, and crowd him while they fight for attention.
I don’t rush him. Content watching his face light up, I adjust my cap to keep the sun from my face and lean against the fence. “Their eyes are so weird!” he shrieks as they nibble on his fingers. “And why don’t they have upper teeth!?”
“Careful, they do in the back, and those sonsabitches hurt.” It doesn’t deter him, although he narrows his eyes when one of them nips his hand again. After a few minutes, he pries himself away, full of sunny smiles as he joins me, and together, we walk into the woods.
Paper bullseyes are pinned to hay bales between the tree trunks. “There’s nothing around the targets but trees, so if you miss, you won’t hurt anything.”
“IfI miss,” he mutters, “as though it’s a possibility and not a certainty.”
I turn to find him anxiously chewing on his finger. A rush of affection hits me as I walk over and nudge his hand away from his mouth. “You have no reason to be nervous with me.”
“Are you kidding?” he says with a derisive snort. “I’m still trying to figure out how I caught your attention to begin with.”
“Well, you were covered in flour. It was hard to miss.” His laugh comes easier this time, morphing into a groan as he smacks at my chest.
“Then we got dosed with peanuts and you had to witness my swollen, anaphylaxic goodness. And somehow, you still find me attractive after seeing my lips ballooned up like sausages on my face. Honestly, just two dates in, and we’ve faced tougher relationship hurdles than some couples who’ve been together for years.”
A slow smile stretches my mouth as I lean my bow against a sturdy oak, his steely eyes following my every step as I prowl towards him. “Is that what this is, Azrael? A relationship? Are we a couple?”
Another of those beautiful flushes overtakes his cheeks as he tries to glance away, but I catch his chin and force his eyes to stay on mine. “I know we haven’t discussed it,” he says, giving me a shaky half-smile, “and I’m not pressuring you, and there are lots of things you don’t know about me…”
“And so, so much time for me to learn,” I say, leaning in and catching his lips again. “Thoroughly.”
Breath rushes from his nostrils in a whoosh as he kisses me back. It’s another distraction technique that’s far tooeffective, and it takes effort to separate myself. “Speaking of learning…”
His cheek falls against my chest as he pushes out a sigh. “Oh God, this is going to be awful. You’ll realize how incompetent I am, and I’ll make a complete fool of myself. Why did I agree to this?”
“Because you trusted me to help.”
“It’sembarrassing,” he laments, and I can’t keep my slight chuckle from breaking free.
“There’s nothing embarrassing about trying to improve.” I kiss the top of his head as I pull myself away from him. “In order for me to understand where you need help, I’ll have to see a demonstration. Show me what you’re doing, step by step.”
Az makes a dramatic performance of his reluctance, but he complies. The confidence he’s started to have around me completely disappears, his posture folding in on itself. Arrow nestled into place, he lifts the bow, but his shoulders are tense, and his back is hunched. The arrow leaves the bowstring with a sharptwang, but his last-second flinch sends it careening far left, a dull thump marking its distant landing.
“Again,” I request, watching as he shoots. The process creates a pattern—the whizz of arrows followed by the thud of them striking the ground and ending with his annoyed grunts. Six more arrows fly before I identify the most obvious of his flaws.
“Alright, stop there for a minute.”
“I’m terrible,” he whines as I jog over and position myself directly behind him.
“Load another and hold it,” I instruct, dropping a kiss next to his ear as his body instinctively leans into my touch. He shivers, then sighs, nocking an arrow and holding it taut. We adjust his stance, and despite his insistence that he’s a poorstudent, he pays close attention and wants to do a good job. That much is painfully clear.
It also breaks my teacher’s heart, realizing how eager he is to succeed and wondering how often he’s been told he won’t.
With my guidance, his posture shifts, the muscles of his back now absorbing the tension that had been concentrated in his neck and shoulders. “Feel more comfortable?” I drop another kiss on his ear as he nods. “Good. Try again.”
I step back as he looses the arrow. It still goes wide, but the shot is much closer and flies in a straight line instead of wobbling. “Better.” I take my place behind him once more, and for the next thirty minutes, we work until he hits the target.
It’s just the edge, but we jump and cheer and celebrate, and his smile is breathtaking. Two more shots land before he misses another, but his frustration doesn’t flare like it did when we first started. More stance adjustments and a few tips on how to aim, and I step back once more.
