Shots Fired || Kimi & Warren
The lake was glinting, sparkling with the reflection of the nearly setting sun. The whole place smelled like forest and earth and nature, a scent that she usually didn't care for but that was a welcome change at the moment. She treaded softly, somehow feeling less mobile in her white and teal Reebok runners than she would've in four inch stilettos. She had on a pair of Lululemon capris and a baggy burnout sweatshirt in forest green that kept slipping down and exposing her right shoulder. Kimi was serious about this gun thing, wouldn't show up in an outfit Warren would tease her about. She wouldn't even have bothered with makeup had it not been for the slowly-healing bruise on her cheek. Even the thought of Warren seeing that mark, questioning it, sent shudders down her spine. So she'd settled for the barely-there touch that had most men believing a woman was au naturale . Her hair was so short now a ponytail wasn't necessary, and after packing a small purse, she'd headed out.
Things were getting better, Kimi would argue, and yet they'd never been worse. She'd done what she could to fix what had been broken between her and Verne, and yet he still eluded her, hung just beyond her grasp. He was there and he wasn't, all at once, and she was trying but it felt futile. It bothered her, had her defensive nature threatening to rear its ugly head and send her out the door again. But she dialed it down, found peace at the salon with Mallory, at Tamsin's, with Sophia, with Warren. She had no intention of getting into details with Warren today about why she wanted the practice, how the knowledge of using a gun would be like prescription medication to fix her insomnia. The good news was, Warren didn't pry; Kimi got the sneaking feeling that he would just be happy to tag along, to be invited, to see her. After all, she did have that effect.
She pushed her thoughts to the recesses of her mind the way she had trained herself to do, the way she had done ever since she'd become her own person. She would not be ruled by those thoughts, not now when she had to keep her mind open to other things. Based on the fact that the place she was staying at could be likened to Fort Knox lately, this could very well be the first and last time Warren would be able to teach her how to use a gun. Kimi intended to retain as much information as possible, to have a new skill, to add a new trait and layer to herself; to prove she could, almost. To prove she wasn't the girl she'd been, and that she never would be again. It was desperate and needy, she supposed, but in no way as it beneath. She was at the bottom of herself as it was, scraping the stony bottom with blistered knuckles. This was reprieve; it was absolution.
She hears him, turns with a look of excitement and claps her hands, falling naturally into Spanish dialogue and saying, " Por fin! Mi héroe ha llegado!" She pauses, adds with a flirtatious bat of her lashes, "Y lo que es un héroe guapo que eres!"
