“And why is that?”

In my periphery, I could see her fiddling with the straps of her backpack, just to do something with her hands. This was difficult for her. Going out. Being seen. I slowed down, giving her time to collect herself.

“Why is what?” I took a final hit of my joint before flicking it to the sand. Conversation went fine now. I didn’t need it.

“Why does your job not allow you to date?”

“Because I fuck women I shouldn’t be fucking to get away with fucked-up shit I shouldn’t be doing.”

There was no point hiding the truth from her. She was going to hear it from someone else sooner or later. When we stopped in front of a new shop that had opened just days ago by an interloper from out of town, I knew I’d done the right thing being upfront. Her face transformed from annoyed to…what was it exactly? Fascination. Mischief. I might have even seen a little attraction thrown in. Jury’s still out on that one.

My Whole Life Has Been Pledged to This Meeting with You

A sudden need—to break these walls and see who she was before what happened to her—slammed into me. This quote couldn’t be about us, could it? I wasn’t that person. I was the bastard who used her to get his surf park.

“You’re an escort?” Her already large eyes widened further. I reached for one strap of her backpack and snapped it against her shoulder, careful not to touch her, then smirked.

“I prefer the term sexual plumber.”

She snorted. “Oh, God.”

“Yeah. They sometimes call me that, too. Point is, you’re definitely not getting for free what people pay good money and services for. So you don’t need to worry. Look, you need a friend, and I need a barista and someone to hang out with who doesn’t see me as God. We make sense, ya know?”

She actually smiled a real smile for the first time, and holy fucking shit, Jesse Carter needed to smile for a goddamn living. She could very possibly bring about world peace, and I wasn’t even entirely exaggerating. It was those dimples. They dented that smooth, pale face of hers like a patch of dirt in the snow.

“Wait here. I’ll be back in ten minutes. Then I’ll buy you a complimentary smoothie for allowing me to save your ass.” I jerked my head to the store behind me.

“I’ll come with you,” she said, and I wasn’t surprised. She wasn’t a flickering candle. She was a blaze, but someone had put her flame out. Three someones. I was about to ignite her right the fuck back up, even if it was the last thing I did. I flattened my palm against an imaginary wall between us. “No way, Jose.”

“Why not?”

“Because then you’ll technically be an accessory to a crime, and no smoothie in the world is worth a criminal record. Trust me on that one.”

Instead of asking me more questions, she nodded, turned around and parked her ass on the first step leading to the shop. I watched the crown of her head for a few seconds before snapping out of it and pushing the glass door open.

I slammed the door behind me, feeling myself smile against my will.

No, she wasn’t a snowflake.

She was a snowstorm.

The secret to being an asshole was to not be an asshole.

This probably warranted some kind of explanation. Sure, there were people like Vicious. They were outwardly crass. But people like him were born with the world at their feet. It wasn’t so simple for people like me. I had to worm my way into people’s good graces and hearts when I needed something. Winning people over became sort of an art. I had to compete for affection, be it from my colleagues, my enemies, my one-night stands. Hell, even from my mom.

Freeze frame.

Rewind: I was born in St. Petersburg twenty-five years ago to Sonya, daughter of a semi-aristocratic family that fell from grace along with the Soviet Union and lost most of its wealth. My sperm donor was a Bratva soldier. If you ask yourself what a good girl like Mom wanted with a bad boy, the answer is—nothing. My mother had been raped. That’s how I came into this world, and that was my disadvantage in winning her over. My mom decided to flee the country and study in the US. She wasn’t considered rich anymore by any stretch of the imagination, but she had enough for the both of us to stay afloat and to put herself through school. Barely. She became a child therapist. I always half-wondered if it was about me, if she wanted to make sure I wouldn’t turn out like my dad, so she studied how to defuse fucked-up kids. Maybe I overthought it. My guess was, the truth lay somewhere in the middle.