2. Asher

Coming backto Hade Harbor after five months in Colorado was jarring at first. It was like everyone had moved on already. My best friend, Beckett, had settled down, with my fucking twin sister of all people, something I had yet to get used to. The Hellions were playing averagely without me, something I'd remedy as soon as I was allowed back on the damn ice. My friends, the Ice Gods, were already halfway through their freshman year at HHU. I was stuck playing catch-up and sitting on the bench, thanks to the transfer rules.

The only place that was unchanged was The Dunes. It was still stuffed full of the kind of privileged dickheads I couldn't stand. The ones to spend a thousand bucks on dinner and kick the waitress a five-dollar tip.

At The Dunes there were also their kids to contend with. All trust fund babies looked the same to me. With their designer clothes and fake nails and noses, their faces all melded into one. With a single exception, and she was standing right in front of me. She hadn't noticed me lurking in the doorway of the staff locker room.

Winter DeLaurie. Ice Queen. Cheerleader. Stuck-up brat. The girl I couldn't stand. The one who wouldn't leave my fucking head. For a year she'd haunted my mind, where she didn't belong or fit. Where I didn't want her. She wasn't my type, not by a long shot, and yet, I would be lying if I said I hadn't thought about her while I was in Colorado.

She was hard to forget.

Currently, she was rummaging through Ramona's locker, my coworker at the bar. She shoved something in her purse and closed the locker. The little thief thought she'd gotten away with whatever it was she was up to, until I spoke. It was the first time I'd been alone with her since before I'd left for Colorado. My memories of senior year were a crush of training and part-time work. Sore muscles and tired eyes, pushing to get the best scholarship I could, working to make enough to be able to go anywhere. I barely remembered the days that had passed not that long ago, and yet, I remembered every single moment with this girl.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?"

She froze, her shoulders tight for a long moment, before turning. She took me in and raised her chin. I saw the moment she decided to lean into our usual dynamic.

"Who are you to interrogate me? Do you have any kind of authority here?" she asked in a bored tone.

"If you think being a stone-cold bitch is going to distract me from the question, you're wrong." I stepped closer to her.

Her dress was a fucking joke. Pink satin that looked like it was one good tear away from disintegrating at her feet.

"If I'm a bitch, what does that make you? An empty-headed degenerate with daddy issues?" she shot out, raising a caramel eyebrow at me.

She'd always had claws, this one. Too bad for her they didn't work on me.

"Very insightful…If I gave a fuck what went on in your vapid head, I might be hurt."

"I thought you went to Denver…couldn't hack it?"

"Keeping tabs on me, were you? Maybe I came back just to fuck with you," I smirked at her.

"Whatever, Martino," Winter sighed and made to walk past me. "I don't answer to you."

I reached out and grabbed her arm before she could take two steps. "That's where you're wrong. You will answer to me if I tell you to. Confess what you took, before I search you for it."

She scoffed, her patented derision oozing from every pore. "You wouldn't dare."

I chuckled darkly. "Test me and see. I fucking dare you."

I let my gaze slip down her bronzed shoulders and over that pink nothing of a dress. Christ. I could make out the entire shapes of her nipples. She'd clearly mistaken underwear for a dress. Every fucking old man in the building had to be staring everywhere she went.

I stepped closer, until I could make out the spirals of indigo in those ocean eyes. "Make me the first commoner to feel what's under those designer clothes and bratty attitude."

Her nostrils flared a touch. Her eyes fell to my lips and jumped back up to my heated gaze.

"Like I said, you wouldn't dare. I could have you fired with a snap of my fingers."

I nodded. "Maybe so, but the reality is that you were sneaking around the break room, going through a staff member's locker. Are you fine with everyone knowing what you were searching for? Do you mind daddy dearest knowing?"

She swallowed, the first crack to appear in her cool fa?ade. I was betting, given that she'd been rooting around in Ramona's locker, the club dealer, that she wouldn't want the great Charles DeLaurie to find out what his princess got up to behind his back. After all, she was still the only person in school whose parents wouldn't miss work to see her.

She tried to stare me down, and when it didn't work, she huffed, wrenching her arm free from my hand. "Fine, no need to manhandle me. Here."

She grabbed an envelope out of her bag and waved it in front of my face.

"I have to confiscate this. Can't have it on club property, you understand," I murmured, reaching out and snagging the envelope before she could move it.

Her pouty, pink-glossed lips opened in outrage, and she swayed toward me, reaching for it. I lifted it far above her head. The Ice Queen might be on the taller side for a woman, but she was still small to me. She narrowed her eyes at me, her head tilted back, her mouth set in a determined line. She jumped for it exactly once, her firm tits in that sorry excuse for a dress pressing into my chest, before stepping back.

"What do you want, Martino?" she demanded, her gaze raking me from head to toe.

I tucked the envelope into my pocket and gave her a lazy grin, which only pissed her off more, much to my satisfaction.

"Ask me nicely, and maybe I'll tell you, Your Highness," I mused, enjoying her discomfort. Since coming back to town and feeling like I was playing catch-up on my life, there had been little in the way of entertainment. Pissing Winter off was always entertaining, until it was annoying.

She was a girl used to getting her own way, clearly, and had no idea how to handle it otherwise.

"Tell me, Asher," she demanded again, pink growing in her smooth, creamy cheeks.

I'd never seen Winter get so agitated. This was the second time I'd seen Winter blush. Humiliation suited her.

"Ask nicely," I repeated.

She scowled at me, her foot tapping madly against the tile. What a brat.

"What do you want? Please tell me," she ground out, every word costing her.

"There you go. Now, that wasn't so hard, was it?" A slow grin worked across my lips.

"So, do you always smoke at work?" Winter asked in a hard tone and passed me the blunt after a few hits. She rested her head back against the wall and stared at the stars.

"Worried about my job performance? Don't be, I'll be around to pour your drinks for a long time to come."

"Lucky me," she deadpanned.

We were sitting in the small gap in the middle of the sloped roof between the valet stand and the staff changing rooms. It was off-limits to members. There was a small section where the roof dropped and made the perfect perch. I'd sat here plenty of times over the years but never with any non-staff members, except for my buddy Beckett. He might be richer than Winter, but he was a puckhound, just like me, and one of my oldest friends.

"I can't be long…I have people waiting for me." She was hugging her knees, her dress tucked primly between them.

"Let me guess – Selena, the wicked witch of Hade Harbor?" Winter had exactly one friend, Selena, who was an even bigger bitch than her.

Winter's lips quirked in a smirk before she shook her head. "She's not so terrible, sometimes."

I snorted. "That's a pretty low bar to set for a friend."

"Yeah, well, people disappoint you, one way or another, so she's not any worse than anyone else, she's just more honest."

"That's cynical, even for you," I remarked.

She rested her chin on her forearm. "Said like someone who knows me…" She glanced at me. "You don't."

"To be fair, I'm not convinced anyone does," I murmured, flicking ash onto the ground. The pot sank through my bones, making me loose and relaxed. Everyone knew of Winter, but no one really knew Winter. She'd never even hooked up with anyone at HHH. She dated older guys, ones her father set her up with, presumably.

"Wow, Martino. Better not let Coach Williams hear you. I'm pretty sure you aren't allowed to be a hockey player if you have an emotional IQ above a refrigerator."

"You're such a fucking brat, Your Highness. Be careful with the compliments, or I'll start to think you've got a thing for me."

"Right. And you're a menace." She stared at the stars. "Firstly, I don't have a thing for anyone. Secondly, if I'm the Ice Queen, queens are addressed as Your Majesty. Your Highness is for the rest of the royal family."

"Now who's hiding their smarts, cheerleader?"

She rolled her eyes, and my hand itched to spank her. Someone needed to teach daddy's princess some manners.

"Because all cheerleaders must be dumb, and all blondes are vapid, and women in general are just the weaker sex, right? Have an original thought for once."

"Yeah, because wondering about the IQ of the girls shaking their tits and asses in front of a stadium of mouth breathers is so interesting to me. Last toke, make it count," I murmured and pressed the burning butt of the blunt to her lips.

She hesitated a moment and then leaned forward and put her pouty pink lips around the tip. Her skin brushed my fingers and sent heat crawling up my spine. She inhaled deeply, her eyes fixed on mine. There was something filthy about having her mouth wrapped around the blunt I was holding, and the way she was looking up at me. It was like she had something else in her mouth. There was an inherent trust in her gesture that felt intimate. The picky princess surrendering.

I flicked the end away and rested my head against the wall. My hand found the length of rope I'd been tying and untying for the last week. It was a habit I'd picked up at a summer job at the marina a few years ago. Nautical knots. I liked to keep my hands busy. I pulled it out and tied a knot as Winter watched.

"You should know my father takes ransom inquiries by fax, but only during the last quarter," she said after a moment.

I chuckled. "It's just a habit. Idle hands and all that," I said.

"Nautical knots? You're not really living up to your jock reputation," Winter observed.

"Yeah, well, maybe no one really knows me, either." I held up the knot. "The real question is, can you name the knot, Your Majesty?"

"Figure eight," she immediately supplied and held out her hand. "My turn."

She tied a knot and presented it to me for inspection.

"Bowline. Basic."

"Fuck you, Martino. Fine, show me something less basic if you can."

I took back the rope, drew another end from my pocket, and started to tie. She watched me in silence. I held up the small, compact version of the two-rope knot. She reached out immediately and took it.

"That's cheating. You used an extra rope." There was no accusation in her voice, though. "Carrick bend."

"Good girl." My mocking tone sent her eyes narrowing.

She threw the knot at my chest. "Well, if you want to get my dad's attention, you better be able to help out on the boat," she muttered.

The pot was cracking the Ice Queen's frozen fortress.

"Daddy's a sailor?"

"At least once a year, when he remembers that he has a home here, a boat…and a daughter." Her tone was bored, edging on bitter.

"Well, don't get out the tiny violin for yourself just yet. Some of us have never met our dads, remember?"

She tilted her head to the side, considering, then nodded. "Yeah. You're right. You're far worse off than me." She handed me something invisible. "You can have the tiny violin."

I nodded. "Damn right."

There was ease in the silence between me and this girl. I hadn't expected that. Most people rushed to fill the quiet. Not Winter DeLaurie. It reminded me of that moment at Parents' Day, when she'd been more interesting company than I ever would've imagined. She seemed like two people in those moments. The spoiled popular cheerleader and the quiet, jaded heiress who hated the world.

A buzzing intruded on the peace. Winter's phone was vibrating in her bag. She took it out and sighed. She moved the screen away before I could read it.

"My mom's ordering my return." She sighed again. "They probably want to cut the cake or something. It's my birthday," she added with all the excitement of someone awaiting their last meal on death row.

Somehow, I wasn't even surprised. That was exactly the birthday reaction I expected from this girl. I remembered the kitchen preparing a special cake hours earlier for someone with a severe allergy. I doubted there were two cakes going out into the private dining room tonight.

"That six-tier monstrosity the pastry chef spent all day on is yours?" I gave her a once-over. "Got a deadly allergy I should know about?"

"Why? Are you going to try and kill me? Death by cinnamon. At least it'd be a sweet way to go," she sighed. Cinnamon. Something clicked. I'd helped my mom make her sweet empanadas enough times to know what went in the apple filling. Was there even the slightest chance that the picky princess wasn't as terrible as I'd imagined for the last year?

I passed her back the Carrick bend knot, laying it on her thigh. "Happy birthday, Ice Queen."

She stared at the rope, surprised by the gesture.

"Give it back, if you're just going to throw it away," I warned her. Why I was giving this girl a second chance to surprise me, after a year of ignoring her existence, I had no idea. Maybe it was the pot, making me generous. Or maybe it was the way the stars seemed to collect in her eyes when she smiled at me, alone together on the rooftop, hidden from the world.

Her fingers traced the shape and then she tucked it into her bag.

"You gave it to me. No take backs. This is the only homemade present I think I've ever gotten. My dad gave me a new Amex for a gift."

"Well, that was my second choice," I murmured.

She smiled, and opened her mouth to speak, but I never heard her words.

"Asher! What the hell?"

Leonard's nasally voice hit me like a gut punch. My asshole manager and pain in my ass. He was standing near the edge of the roof. I hadn't seen him approaching. Too wrapped up in Winter DeLaurie and the elusive peek under the mask of the most mysterious girl I'd ever met.

We both scrambled to our feet. I stood on the end of the joint to hide it, but it was too late. Leonard reached out and grabbed the envelope with the rest of Winter's stash.

"What the fuck, Asher? Miss DeLaurie, …I have to tell your father about this. It's against the rules of the club."

"No, you can't," Winter said quickly, pink flushing her cheeks. She was rattled. Alarmed.

"I have no choice," Leonard said in an apologetic tone.

I sensed Winter's thoughts racing. Her hands were shaking, and then they formed into fists.

Her gaze cleared, and she turned that crystal gaze to mine. I could see her mind was made up. Foreboding snuck up my spine. No fucking way. Second chances were always a mistake. Every fucking time.

She tore her eyes away from mine and turned back to Leonard. She straightened her shoulders and threw her head back, once again regal and poised.

Her voice rang out, sealing my goddamn fate. "It's not my fault. None of it is…the drugs are his. They're all Asher's."