Snow

11 | you want a crash-course on the economics of cocaine?

❝this is not work ethic, it's survival technique. and there's nothing i can really do.❞

❘❘

SERENITY COMES IN THE RHYTHMIC MOTIONS of his fingers—tattooed knuckles flickering through a snowy breeze. The anchor flutters; a skull skitters; a crown flashes. They clutch a Queen of Hearts, a curved playing card, skip and skate over the pile of cocaine, and then slow.

For a long, dizzying second, I'm jealous. I want to be the Queen of Hearts within his grasp, careless and free, just drifting through a snowscape.

As the flurry of white powder unravels, skids, and spreads across the long mirror in front of me, I watch in silent awe.

"No entiendo," Rio says quietly, but his hushed voice still manages to wrench me from the hypnotic haze and back to the moment.

Sometimes it feels like winter, but it's not. It's September.

The Queen of Hearts flutters innocently to the mirror. Julian scoffs, slides to the side, and reaches across the table for a pair of latex gloves. My gaze stays on the slippery slope of snow. "¿Qué no entiendes, Rio?"

Smoke clouds my visions, slowly disentangling the leftover daydream. And then Rio drops down to the seat beside me, our thighs brush, and any inkling of winter is swept away. A spark erupts in my limbs, stunning me into an unexpected heatwave.

It's not winter.

I steal one last second of fleeting admiration before turning my gaze up to Rio. As he flicks ash into the glass tray at the corner of the table, I lick my lips. The stubble along his jaw has grown out in the past few days, leaving it trimmed and perfect to run my teeth, or my fucking tongue, or my lips, over it. There's something a little tame about Rio that I admittedly find irresistible.

Maybe I just haven't gotten to know him—or his body—well enough.

Those dark eyes find mine easily, and before I can say a thing, he's holding his cigarette out to me.

I take it without hesitation.

"What I don't get, Jules," Rio drawls, shifting his attention away from me as soon as I put the cigarette to my lips. "...is what your plan is in the long run?"

Those hot, gravel eyes stir the smoke from my lungs and into the hazy air. I blink innocently under Julian's smoldering stare, willing him to complain about me sharing cigarettes with someone else.

He never does.

Instead, his gaze flickers to Rio, an unimpressed scowl twisting at his lips. "We stretch it and make more money."

Stretch it. That's what he had said before, and I didn't understand it. I still don't.

I follow his movements curiously, watching in silence as the cigarette dangles from my fingers. Julian has turned the table in their kitchen into curated chaos. Atop the mirror that spans the entire table, a box of latex gloves, a razor blade, a small scale, baking soda, and a mesh strainer block our reflections. They all seem perfectly meaningless alone, but surrounding the pile of snow, they're strangely lethal.

When Julian grabs the mesh strainer and the baking soda, a twinge of disbelief captures me. My lips part, but no words come out.

I blink.

And then the slow-burning snowstorm begins.

A dull throb catches me off guard; my heart butterflies in my chest. It's impossible to tear my eyes away.