“Works for me.” He squinted into the darkness. “Set ’em up over—”

“Uh-uh. This is supposed to be a challenge, remember?” I drew back my arm, ready to pitch the can. “Whenever you’re ready…”

“Fuck no.”

I turned a grin on him. “You think this is too challenging? Wait for the whiskey shots.”

He laughed, a low rumble that was an actual laugh, maybe the first I’d ever heard from him. Then he took out his gun. “Five bucks.”

“Oh, getting serious now, are we?”

His eyes sparkled in the moonlight. “Nah. You want serious? Wait for the whiskey shots.”

I laughed and threw the can, closing my eyes as I did, hearing the crack of the gun, then the sharp ping of the can. When I looked, he was walking to the beer can pile, moving with his usual slow, deliberate gait, never in a hurry. He bent…then whirled fast, whipping the can without warning.

“Cheat!” I yelled as I fired.

The bullet zinged through the can. Jack shook his head. “Fuck.”

“If you want an advantage over me, you’re going to need to do better than that.”

I passed him the bottle. He uncapped it and took a slug, then paused, letting the alcohol settle into his stomach before handing it back.

“Ten bucks,” he said.

“You got it.”

He got the can, too.

Our shooting, predictably, grew less impressive the more whiskey we consumed. Jack gave me pointers on overcoming the imbalances, but it was less a serious practice than “Let’s get a feel for this”…with a generous heaping of horseplay.

I pulled into the lead quickly, but lost ground the more I drank, with Jack seeming to hit his “low point” early, then staying there. Earlier Jack had said I didn’t seem to be much of a drinker. I suspected the same went for him. It took less than half a bottle to get us both pretty wasted—well beyond the point where we’d ever attempt a hit.

As for Jack, I must admit I was curious to see him drunk. He was one of those guys you can’t imagine stumbling and slurring. And he didn’t, his feet and tongue steady even as I could see the alcohol taking its toll.

I’ll admit, too, that I was curious about how the alcohol might affect his tongue in other ways, but the only thing it did was make his brogue more pronounced. He didn’t start waxing eloquent…or even use more pronouns. Nor did he delve into tales of his sordid youth, as much as I would have loved to hear them.