Seven Years Ago
So according to Mr. Kincaid, given what happened so many years ago, Winter Ashby’s parents deemed it necessary to request that I attempt no interaction with their daughter—or either daughter, for that matter—while they were enrolled at Thunder Bay Prep. And failure to abide by that request would force them to seek a restraining order against me.
Unless I wanted something like that on my record, then I should obey.
Or you would think I would obey. Anyone else would.
But hearing that only got the wheels in my head turning, and I dove into the alluring possibility of the danger and all the trouble I could cause.
I nearly laughed, remembering the conversation. A restraining order? Gimme a fucking break. What a pussy. We were children back then. Griffin Ashby was just pissed his wife had been screwing my father once upon a time, and if he couldn’t get his puny, pasty little hands on a man like Gabriel Torrance, then he pumped up the size of his dick by taking a jab at me now and then.
Yeah, there was an accident when we were kids, and Ashby had clearly poisoned his daughter over the years to warp her memory of exactly how that all went down, but I hadn’t meant to hurt her. It was a fucking fluke, and kids have accidents.
I stepped out of my car and slammed the door, hitting the button on the key fob and arming the alarm.
“Why didn’t you want me to pick you up?” Michael yelled over at me, getting out of his G-Class.
“Because I might not leave when you do,” I told him.
“Or he’ll be done before everyone else,” Will added with a chuckle as he flanked Michael’s side with Kai on the other.
The three of them drove together, and I was usually with them, but sometimes we came on our own. If we anticipated separating at some point during the night, that was.
I didn’t really have a plan, but who knew?
After Winter’s and my conversation in the cafeteria earlier this week, and her clear fear of me when we ran into each other in the locker room, I was intrigued. What did she remember about that day in the fountain? She was young when it happened—like me—so her memory might not be as sharp.
When she’d wandered into the locker room—or was pushed in, I later discovered—seeing the scared but stubbornly defiant look on her face reminded me of Banks. She looked about two seconds from cracking, the blush of embarrassment all over her cheeks and her eyes glistening a little. But her jaw was flexed hard and her fists were balled up tight. She was freaking out on the inside, but definitely pissed, too.
It was kind of cute.
And I liked the hint of helplessness. It made me feel…
I don’t know. Powerful, I guess.
The same way I felt with Banks and the basketball team, because there were things that only I could do for them.
Call it arrogance. All I knew was that I didn’t like the taunts directed at her when the guys noticed her.
No, scratch that.
I didn’t like anyone else taunting her.
And I really didn’t like another man coming to her rescue, even if it was Will.
And fuck her dad. He wouldn’t take out a restraining order on me. The alumni liked winning games, didn’t they? Michael, Kai, Will, and me…We were given very long leashes as long we kept doing our jobs. He didn’t have the guts.
We headed around the circular driveway, “Bad Company” by Five Finger Death Punch drifting up from the backyard as we walked past the dumbass marble fountain with four horses spitting water and fat cherubs posing up on the higher tier. It was the type of ugly shit Americans put on their property when they wanted to look European, but it just kind of came off looking like a trailer park bird bath, only bigger.
Griffin Ashby was a poser. And even if he could like me, I still wouldn’t be able to stand him. Luckily, he was in Meridian City for the weekend, his wife having gone with him, and their eldest daughter Arion decided to have a pool party tonight. Hopefully Winter hadn’t gone with her parents. I wanted to talk to her again. See how long it would exactly take to get inside her head and fuck shit up.
“Hey!” I heard Will bark as we walked. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, come here!”
I looked over, seeing him grab a kid by the shirt and stop him as he headed through the driveway, trying to leave.
I instantly recognized him. Misha, his little cousin. Grandson of a state senator but looked more like the prodigy of Sid and Nancy.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Will asked him. “You’re like twelve.”
“And?”
Smart-ass kid.
Will faltered a moment and then laughed under his breath. “Yeah, you’re right. Never mind. Drink responsibly.” And he pushed the kid back toward the party around the back of the house.
But Misha pulled out of his hold and whipped back around, walking toward the road instead. “I’m going home,” he grumbled. “This is boring.”
“You can’t walk from here, you little shit!” Will argued. “It’s miles.”
“So leave the party and gimme a ride.”
“Are you nuts?”
The laugh was lost in my throat as I turned around and started heading for the backyard again.
“That damn kid,” Will said, jogging to catch up to us. “I don’t know how he can be my blood.”
We walked around the house—the text invite stressing that no one was allowed inside the home and to come directly around to the backyard—and stopped just as the sprawling lawn came into view.
People danced and played drinking games, commotion going on in every corner as the music blasted and a football coasted through the air.
I could smell the food laid out on tables as several people played or talked in the pool. Nearly every chair was occupied, and some students took up the chaise lounges by the pool house, steam billowing out of the showers behind the structure. A light layer of mist also lingered just above the surface of the water, making the pool look like a hot tub.
“Hand in your phones,” someone called out.
I looked over to see a JV football player—whose name I didn’t know—sitting at a card table, eyeing us with our names already on Post-Its, ready to confiscate our shit, so no evidence of the party leaked online.
“Fuck your mother,” I muttered and looked back to the party, hearing Kai snort next to me.
All we needed were our phones getting stolen while in someone else’s possession. Pictures, texts, videos, receipts… I didn’t give mine up for anyone. It was safer with me, and if they wanted to kick us out for not following a rule, then good luck with that. People didn’t stay at parties we weren’t at.
The freshman didn’t say another word—or even move—as we walked into the party. Girls ran around, some in bikini tops, even though it was in the sixties tonight. I knew the pool was heated, but it had to be chilly if you were out of it.
One of them glanced up at me as she scurried by with her friends, a suggestive little smile playing on the corner of her lips that told me she probably wouldn’t take as much work as some if I were interested tonight.
But I like work.
I let my eyes trail around the backyard, shooting from corners to tables to the sporadic clusters of people.
But I knew who I was looking for. Even though I knew I shouldn’t be. This might actually be crossing a line, even for me.
When we were eight and eleven, it didn’t seem complicated to want to know each other, but now it was. People would read it wrong.
Michael let out a sigh, rolling his head and stretching out his neck. “Let’s get a drink.”
We nodded and moved into the party, getting beers and stopping here and there to talk to people.
Eventually, we found a table and I kicked off my shoes, pulling off my hoodie and throwing it down on a chair before grabbing my beer bottle and downing the rest of it.
Spotting one of our own basketball JV guys at the table, I shoved the empty bottle at him, which he took as he halted his conversation, pausing only a moment before he rose to get me another.
“All of us,” I mumbled to him as he left. Will drank faster than I did, so he’d be empty soon if he wasn’t already.
Kai sat down at the table, drinking and laughing at something someone said, while Michael walked off to talk to Diana Forester.
“Whoo-hoo!” Will cupped his hands around his mouth, howling in the middle of the party, over the loud music.
Everyone startled and turned just in time to see him run, shoes and shirt discarded, and leap into the deep end of the pool, somersaulting backward in mid-air before splashing into the water.
People laughed, hooting and hollering after him, and I walked over to the edge and stepped in, dropping into waist-deep water. I wore long, black swim shorts that fell to just above my knees, and I hadn’t brought a change of clothes. Banks had begged to come with me tonight, and I ended up charging out of the house to get away from that pathetic look on her face, a little pissed and a whole lot distracted and forgetting my cigarettes in the process.
Will popped up through the water, laughing and exchanging a few splashes with others before he swam over to me. I planted my elbows on the deck behind me, leaning against the edge of the pool.
“Arion Ashby wants your ass bad, man,” he said, standing up and pushing his hair over the top of his head. He jerked his chin off behind me, amused.
I glanced over my shoulder, seeing Winter’s older sister standing with her friends and eyeing us. My gaze traveled down her body, long, slender limbs in a white, strapless bikini and a long, fluffy ponytail. Both of her legs were adorned with anklets, and a multi-strand gold necklace in varying lengths rested on her chest.
She’d be hotter with just the jewelry on.
I turned back to Will. “I have plans for her. Don’t worry.”
His eyes lit up. “I love your imagination. Do I get to come?”
I tilted my lips in a smile, not missing his double-meaning. “I have plans for you, too.”
And then I let my eyes fall to the two hickeys on his neck, one of them damn nasty looking. I knew exactly where they had come from, too. The girl who’d dealt them probably had twice as many of her own.
“Some girls need to learn that sucking dick like a vacuum is a skill you don’t waste on a man’s neck,” I told him, flicking water with my fingers as aggravation settled in my gut. “Maybe you should watch while I retrain the one who did that to you.”
“Aw, jealous?” he teased.
But then a look passed between us, and I wasn’t fucking laughing. His cocky smile started to fall, and he straightened up.
Will was my best friend, and what was mine was mine. He knew that.
An awkward silence passed, but then he noticed something behind me and jerked his chin. “Uh-oh.”
I looked over, seeing Arion walking toward us through the water. She’d let down her hair and had her hands tucked behind her back. I had geared up all week to be in the mood for something far different tonight, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to stay.
But my plans fell apart, I had nothing better to do, and if she wanted to play, maybe I could get my head in gear, after all. She was pretty enough, even though she had a set to her eyes that made her look a little mean and her jaw was more square, making her look too thin and giving her an air of hardness I didn’t like. She wasn’t sweet.
But whatever. I wasn’t the one who would fuck her.
As she reached us, she pulled her fists out from behind her, eyeing us coyly, and opened the left, revealing a turquoise triangular pill and handed it to Will.
X.
“Hell yeah.” He took the pill and washed it down with his beer.
She then looked at me, opened her right hand, but it was empty.
I darted my eyes up to meet hers, but she just smirked and then opened her mouth, revealing my pill already on her tongue.
She rose up, moved in for my lips, but I turned my head away.
“I don’t need help to get crazy,” I told her.
Plus, this wasn’t middle school.
Her eyebrows rose with the challenge, and she took my beer out of my hand and took a drink, swallowing the pill herself.
Licking her lips, she plastered her body to mine, and I let her stay there. For the moment.
“Let’s go upstairs,” she whispered up at me. “I’d like to see your crazy.”
I reached up, holding her chin between my thumb and fingers.
Would you?
It no longer worried me that there were things wrong with me. That over the years I developed different tastes than other people, or that I was harder to please than other men.
The only thing that worried me now was that it was getting harder to please those tastes. It was like I was developing an immunity to kink, and I constantly needed to up the dose.
I stroked her jaw once, trailing the sharp ridge with my finger. “I want you to go into the hedges,” I told her in a low voice. “Over there.”
I gestured to her right with my eyes where there was a hedge line around the property before it gave way to the forest, the cliffs, and the ocean beyond. There wouldn’t be anyone back there.
Her eyes fell to my mouth, and she looked like she liked that idea. “And what are you going to do to me behind the hedges?” she asked.
“I’m going to watch you.”
Will laughed quietly at my side, and while a sliver of guilt nipped at the back of my mind, making my gaze falter, I dug my fingers into her jaw a little tighter, feeling the heat I needed coursing through me all of a sudden.
“I’m going to watch someone touch you,” I told her. “I want to watch someone have you.”
She paused, her face falling a little as realization hit. Her gaze shifted, looking unsure, and she was probably wondering if this was a joke or if she should back out now. Surely, she’d heard the stories.
She probably just thought she was so hot that how could I not want to fuck her myself, right?
Her blue eyes flashed to Will. “Him?”
I shook my head once.
Her eyes then wandered hesitantly, landing on someone behind me.
“Kai?”
I shook my head once again.
Will shook his head, too, sounding amused as he finished his beer. “Jesus.”
“Marko Bryson,” I said, eyeing the guy on the patio behind her.
He stood with a group of people, no shirt on, and a half-full bottle of Fireball in his hand. Arion looked behind her, seeing him for herself, and turned back to me.
“He has a girlfriend,” she said under her breath.
“That’s what makes it hot.”
I’d already watched plenty of people have sex in my short lifetime. All the men hanging around my father’s house and the whores they kept. The secret lives of the mothers and fathers in this town. The girls who ruled the underworld of our decadent little school just as much as the guys did.
Yeah, I’d seen some shit.
But now… Stronger, harder, more. Always more.
“But I want you,” she protested.
“And I want you to like what I like.”
She stared up at me, the wheels turning in her head, but she closed her mouth and didn’t argue further.
She could leave. She could say no. It wouldn’t break my heart, and she knew that. But she also knew if she said no, that would be the end of it. I wouldn’t want her otherwise, and I certainly wouldn’t make her my first girlfriend if she didn’t accept everything I was about. I wasn’t going to change.
“Someone will find out,” she finally said.
And I couldn’t help but tilt my lips in a little smile. It was the last protest. Her final attempt to find an excuse out of it. Or a reason to give in.
“He won’t say no to you,” I told her.
It was always subtle, but I could see when it happened. The last argument dying in her eyes like it did with anyone I played with.
She started to open her mouth to agree, but then her eyes shot up, above me. “What?” she barked, and I realized there was someone standing behind me.
“Arion, can you help me find the snow village in the basement?”
Snow village? That voice.
I closed my eyes, the little hairs on my neck rising.
Winter. She was home, after all.
“What? Now?” Arion whined. “Have Mom help you when she gets back.”
Get the fuck out of the pool and get her what she wants.
“I don’t know why you want it.” Arion took my beer again. “It’s not even Halloween yet, and you can’t see the damn thing anyway. What’s the point?”
Bitch.
But even as my aggravation with Arion Ashby rose, the skin on my back warmed, knowing Winter was right there behind me.
And even if I tried, I couldn’t think of anything else right now.
What was I about to do to her sister just to get that same, exact feeling?
How did she get out here anyway, and how did she find her sister? I wanted to turn around, but I just stayed planted, listening.
“It has music,” Winter said, her tone growing defensive. “I like it, so what do you care?”
But Arion didn’t answer, and after a moment, her gaze dropped back down to me. Winter must’ve walked off.
Now that I knew she was home, any lukewarm interest I was able to muster for Arion had all but disappeared.
It has music. I like it.
I didn’t know if I felt responsible for the fact that she now only had four senses by which to experience the world, but it was a strange feeling to want to protect someone from others when I knew I’d be worse for her health than anyone.
I nudged Arion off and turned around, hopping out of the pool. Walking over to the table, I grabbed a fresh towel and glanced around, finding Winter near the pool house. Her hand was hooked around the arm of another girl about her age. That must’ve been how she made her way out here and found her sister.
Girls swarmed around her, and she looked overwhelmed but happy. Her mouth changed a lot, showing that she was a little nervous with all the commotion, the music, the people in her backyard… Folding her lips between her teeth, pursing it to one side, various hesitant but sweet smiles… She wasn’t used to this at all.
What kind of parties did she have at her blind school in Canada? And why the fuck did he send her all the way to Canada, as if she’d needed to be buried behind the curtain of some foreign country, so everyone would just forget about their less-than-perfect daughter? A wealthy family like hers could afford tutors for her to stay home if they thought regular school was too much. And if not, there were schools in the city.
Hooking the towel around my neck, I sat down at the table, instantly patting my shorts out of habit.
“Fuck,” I muttered.
I needed to find a cigarette.
“Get your sister a sweatshirt,” I heard Kai say to someone. “Everyone can see through her shirt.”
I shook my head, about to laugh.
“So don’t look at her tits,” Arion replied as she reached over the table to grab a towel. “She’s a kid.”
Sister.
Arion’s sister. I looked over, seeing Winter nodding to something someone was saying as her eyes lingered, unfocused toward the mid-section of the person in front of her.
She was barefoot in jeans and a white, ribbed tank top, a little stretched out and worn like she just did not care, but her face was clean of makeup, lips a natural dark pink and the barest remnants of curl left in her blonde ponytail as it draped past her shoulders. She was perfect.
A smile pulled at my lips, but I stopped myself and took a deep breath.
And that’s when I noticed the outline of her breasts through the fabric. The faint curves of the half-circles and then the points, more prominent with the chill in the air tonight. I darted my gaze left and right, noticing one group of guys looking over at her, speaking amongst themselves and laughing in unison at whatever was said.
Dumb fucks.
Kai picked his sweatshirt up off his chair and tossed it to Arion. “Do it now,” he commanded.
And from the tone and the look on his face, he wouldn’t allow her to disobey.
“Fine,” she spat out and got up.
But I grabbed the sweatshirt and yanked it out of her hand, throwing it back on the table.
Kai glared at me.
“She’s fine,” I told him, more as an order rather than a statement.
He rose up out of his chair, the hint of disdain on his face as he picked up the hoodie. “Not every woman in this world will be for your personal amusement,” he bit out, staring down at me. “Someday one of them will be your kid, and you’re gonna damn well worry when she’s drawing the wrong kind of attention.”
“You teach your daughter to hide in everyone else’s world,” I shot back, “and I’ll teach mine everyone else exists in hers. Go fuck yourself, and leave the kid alone.”
I wasn’t sure where the hell I was coming from, because if Banks walked out of our room like that, I’d lose my shit. But with Winter…
Nothing she did would be wrong. It was their fault for looking.
He straightened, breathing hard but not blinking.
And grabbing the sweatshirt again, he turned around and headed toward Winter.
Fucker.
Kai and I weren’t friends. We were brothers. In every way except biological. Whether we liked each other or not, we were family, and we had each other’s backs.
But that didn’t mean we liked each other, either.
He was the noble one. The voice of reason in our little group, and while I sometimes envied his happy house, I knew there would be a time when he’d have two choices—and he wouldn’t choose me.
Noticing Arion still next to me, I looked up at her. “What are you waiting for?”
Her lips tightened into a line, knowing I was referring to Marko Bryson, and finally, she walked off, either to get to work on him or tell me to piss off and to get back to her friends. Either way, I didn’t care. I just wanted her gone.
I turned my eyes back on Kai, watching as he approached Winter and the girls around her parting to let him in.
Winter’s smile faltered as he leaned in and she listened to whatever he was saying. She pulled back a little, her spine straightening and her head bowing in embarrassment.
My fingers closed into a fist.
Then he took her hand and held the sweatshirt up to it, so she could take it and put it on.
But much to my surprise, she shook her head and waved him off, adding a small smile for good measure. Instead, she reached out to touch the brick column of the pool house, using it to feel her way as she left.
He watched after her, threw a look at me, and I just shook my head at him. She wouldn’t cover up, but now she was leaving the party good and humiliated. Great job, asshole.
He threw the sweatshirt back over to the table, and I turned my eyes over to her, watching her trail the perimeter with her hand grazing the hedge line. How long did it take her to map out a new place in her head? She seemed pretty self-sufficient. Even at school already. Of course, she’d be familiar with her home the most. If she followed the hedges around the corner, they would take her all the way back up to the house.
Standing up, I took Kai’s hoodie and walked, making sure to go slowly as I slipped away from the party and down the small incline, away from the noise and eyes.
Winter walked along the line, rustling the green leaves as she brushed past them on her way back to the house, and I pulled on the sweatshirt, masking my scent as I dove through an opening in the line to the other side of the hedges.
I slowed to a walk, my heart suddenly hammering as I saw the white of her shirt through the leaves, not one foot away from me. I put out my hand, following hers where it grazed the leaves on the other side.
I closed my eyes for a moment, walking with her and following the path with my hand as I heard the blood pump in my ears. My head started to float a little, and the world seemed to tilt under my feet.
I opened my eyes, still walking with her although she didn’t know.
It was annoying, the loss of equilibrium when I closed my eyes, but I was sure it was far scarier than I realized. I would never know what it was like to be her, because I could always open my eyes.
“Where is he?” someone breathed out. “He wanted to watch this, didn’t he?”
“I don’t know if—” Arion’s voice turned muffled, like she was being kissed, and I darted my eyes up to see her and Marko ahead of us, between two trees.
He bent Arion over just slightly and squeezed her tits. On the other side of the hedges, Winter had stopped, her body unmoving as she no doubt heard what I heard.
“Take off your top,” I heard Marko order, but I wasn’t looking at him. I lingered back, finding a glimpse of Winter’s face through the leaves and watching the unreadable look on her face.
It was a mixture of curiosity and fear, but I wasn’t sure which one she felt more of. How long would she stay?
“So glad I didn’t bring Abby tonight,” Marko said. “I needed to get off on something new.”
Arion whimpered and moans filled the air around us, and I saw Winter’s mouth drop open a little like she was about to run for the hills or break out in a laugh.
“We have to hurry. I don’t want to get caught.”
“Lick me,” Marko told her. “Get me hard, Ari.”
Winter’s eyes widened, probably realizing it was her sister, and then I heard a zipper…
“Ah, yeah,” Marko groaned. “Fuck. Swallow that shit, baby. Nice and deep.”
Winter’s jaw clenched, and she stalked off a few steps and then broke into a run, back to the house.
I quirked a smile. Well, well, well…
I slipped through an opening in the hedges, pulled up my hood, and followed her slowly as she headed back up to the dark, empty house, away from the noise and crowd of the party.
She scared easily.
Oh, good.
