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“As much as I have. The way you guys are talking, you were confused on how to hold the damn<br />
thing.”<br />
“Miranda,” Nathan said in his infuriatingly smooth voice.<br />
“I’m just curious.” I tried a smile, hoping it would cover how crazy I felt, and how awful I was for<br />
being angry that my sister was happy.<br />
Ashley looked down at the table, the light that had come back to her eyes snuffed out. “It was just<br />
never my thing.”<br />
The corners of her mouth evened out, and she rolled her food around on her plate with her fork,<br />
returning to the same lifeless vessel that she’d been since Cooper died.<br />
Bryce shot me a look. I didn’t have to ask him what he was thinking. I knew he was angry that I’d<br />
been so hard on her, and he should have been. I was angry with myself.<br />
“I’m sorry, Ashley. I didn’t mean—”<br />
“It’s fine,” she said, her face devoid of emotion.<br />
I sat back in my chair, feeling judgment from everyone at the table. I deserved it, so I sat there,<br />
letting them glare, stare, or shake their heads. I wasn’t sure who was the angriest. I wasn’t brave<br />
enough to look up from my plate.<br />
• • •<br />
AFTER THE LIGHTS WENT OUT, Bryce tried to tug me out of the recliner. “You coming”<br />
I nodded. “I’ll be there in a bit. I’m not really ti<strong>red</strong>.”<br />
He nodded back, resigned. After he disappea<strong>red</strong> in the hall and closed the door, I stood.<br />
Joey was breathing hard but regular, facing the floor in the last half of a pushup. His face was <strong>red</strong><br />
and moist, and as usual, he was without a shirt. The veins were bulging from his hands and arms.<br />
Noticing my feet next to his face, Joey looked up at me.<br />
“Can I talk to you outside for a minute” I said, and then turned to go to the front porch. Joey came<br />
out, quietly shutting the door behind him.<br />
Now that we were alone, and he was half naked, I fought to recall why I was angry in the first<br />
place.<br />
“What’s going on with you” he asked.<br />
“I saw you.”<br />
“Huh”<br />
“With Ashley. Earlier. What the hell do you think you’re doing”<br />
Joey crossed his arms across his chest and shifted his weight nervously. “Um . . . teaching her to<br />
shoot”<br />
I laughed once without humor. “Oh, bullshit. You’ve taught me to shoot before. I don’t remember<br />
your hands being all over me like that.”<br />
“My . . . what”<br />
“You heard me. I saw you!”<br />
Joey’s expression morphed from surprise to mild anger. “I didn’t have my hands all over her,<br />
Miranda, you’re being ridiculous. And you knew what you were doing pretty well before we went out
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