Blizzards and Bastards

Chapter 1

CYAN

On the first day of Christmas … a broken toilet?

My butt is stuck to a toilet seat.

No kidding. It’s quite literally frozen to the porcelain bowl beneath me, the one I had to sit on bare cheeked because there’s very little toilet paper and absolutely no seat covers left.

“I hate my life,” I groan as I try to force myself to pee in the freezing cold restroom—the freezing cold men’s restroom. Much to my chagrin, when I pulled my little Kia Forte into the icy lot and did the full bladder dance up to the women’s restroom, I was greeted with a crudely scrawled Toilets Don’t Work sign … only the one I saw was spelled like this: Toylets Dont Werk. Seriously, no joke.

Sprinting over to the opposite side of the squat brown building, I threw myself into the one and only stall in the men’s room and plopped right down on the icy white porcelain. Now, that’s a choice I’m coming to regret.

“Come on, come on,” I whisper, rubbing my mittened hands together and watching my breath frost in the air. I still have about a three-hour drive to get to my parents’ house, and I am not leaving this spot without peeing first. I adjust the beanie on my head, brunette tendrils springing out in random directions as I finally relax enough to let nature take its course.

Obviously, my day isn’t shitty enough for the cruel forces of the universe because as the sound of, um, melting yellow snow fills the bathroom, the raucous noise of several laughing voices enters with a fresh blast of frigid air.

“It was that fucking assistant of yours that clogged the toilet,” one of the men is saying, black ankle boots squeaking along the dirty floor and pausing in front of the stall. Not knowing why I care, I lift my legs up and try to hide my feet. I’m not exactly ashamed to be in the men’s room, but for some reason sitting with my butt frozen to a toilet seat while a bunch of strangers mill around doesn’t much appeal to me.

“It wasn’t my assistant, Frost—it was you,” another voice replies, and then two distinct laughs begin to echo around the room. Meanwhile, the man with the boots tries my stall door, jiggling it a few times and then leaning down to peek underneath. Thankfully, he doesn’t bend down far enough to see me—just enough to note the fact that there’re no feet present. “Nobody in here,” he says, and I can hear his clothes rustling as he stands back up. “Maybe this one’s out of order like the other side?”

“Just piss in the urinals and let’s get out of here,” a third voice drawls, and then I hear the sound of several zippers coming down.

My plan is to wait these guys out, whoever they are, and get on my way. I still have three hours of driving to get to my parents’ place in Detroit Lakes and no time to hang out with strange men in deserted public restrooms.

I swear, it takes them a year and a day to piss. So long, in fact, that my phone ends up going off, the embarrassingly sweet sounds of the band Inked Page’s new Christmas song, A Gift of Starlight, echoing around the small tiled room.

“Fuck, we got a stalker,” one of them says, and another sighs.

Meanwhile, I’m straining to peel my ass off the ice-cold toilet seat, so I can lean forward and snatch my purse, digging frantically around inside for an old napkin or a leftover lipstick stained tissue to supplement the one-ply sheet of TP that’s left. Why is there no fucking toilet paper in this damn stall?!

“Alright, come on out of there,” one of the men says as I yank a crumbled McDonald’s receipt from the chaos strewn hellhole that is my purse, wiping frantically and flushing. I stand up and just barely manage to get my pants fastened before a guy’s face appears below the stall door.

“Hey,” he says, climbing under and rising to his full height in front of me. Which, of course, is a very impressive six-foot-something-or-other. I stand there, five-foot-three and tiny as hell, dressed in over-the-top designer Christmas wear that does not seem to impress … Aspen Carver?

This is not Aspen Carver, I tell myself. But he could be. He is. I’m looking at the lead singer for Inked Pages.

I know who this man is because I guiltily play his band’s music on repeat in my car … in my apartment … at work on my headphones … basically all the damn time. My Spotify Wrapped worships this guy. I listened to his most famous song six-hundred-and-ninety-two times.

He’s even prettier IRL than he is online. How is that possible?! He doesn’t need filters; he is a filter. Hair the color of chestnuts roasting over a bedroom fire, the eyes of someone who is definitely on the naughty list, and the presence of the holy spirit.

Aspen Carver just saw me take a piss.

Holy hark the angels, what is even happening?!

“What are you doing here?” I gasp and then, managing to pull myself together, throw on the most indignant face I can muster. A rare feat considering I’m looking up at the hottest pop rocker since, well, ever. “When is it ever okay to just crawl under a bathroom stall? I was peeing in here.”

Stand your ground, Cyan. I am. I do.

The man looks at me from cobalt eyes, two brilliant circles of blue with a ring of hazel-gold just around his pupils. He’s standing so close to me, it’s impossible not to notice. My idol just saw me pee; my idol is a total weirdo. If any other man had climbed into the stall with me, I would’ve already unleashed my pepper spray. Or punched him in the nuts. Probably both.

His gaze sweeps me, cutting the subzero chill of the restroom like a roaring fire with a cup of hot cocoa. Standing in front of him like this is a visceral experience, urging my inner fandom to new heights. Aspen’s intensity in person makes his online presence seem as dim as a broken Christmas light. Scrolling through shirtless photos of him on social media will never be the same again.

Stand your ground! I shake off my Stan vibes. Pop rock god he may be, but he crawled into the stall without permission. I wait for him to apologize, but he doesn’t. He smiles at me, his brunette hair tucked under a black trapper hat with candy cane charms hanging from the ties of the earflaps.

“What am I doing here?” He repeats my words back at me, a gleam in his eye that is much less holy than his presence. Un holy is what I’d call that. “If you’re asking a question like that, then you must already know who I am.”

Stupid rockstar with a voice like crushed velvet and cinnamon. It roughs past the eardrum, softens, and then flashes with a bit of warm spice. It’s low, sensual, but capable of hitting those high notes, too. There’s nobody in the music world that can sing like Aspen.

“What you just did is rude. And not just rude, but creepy, too.” I assert myself. He’s attractive and famous, sure, but he crawled into the bathroom stall with me. How is that anything but inappropriate?

“What?” Aspen asks, looking perplexed as hell, but also sexy as fuck, too. He tucks his hands into his jacket pockets, expression thoughtful. It doesn’t seem to have occurred to him that he’s in the wrong.

My phone goes off again, lyrics swirling like snow around us as I scramble to find it in my purse and shut it off. I accidentally bump the screen and answer it instead, just after Aspen’s golden goose of a voice croons out from the speaker: “Your kiss is a gift of starlight, and your thighs are like the moon. There’s no such thing as Christmas morning if the day doesn’t start with you.”

Thighs like the moon. Don’t know what that means, but it’s hot.

“Mom,” I answer with a ridiculous amount of false holiday cheer, “I was about to call you.”

“I just wanted to tell you that your cousins stopped in, so we have an extra full house through the end of the year. You like sweet potatoes, don’t you? If you do, would you let me know, so I can have the caterer prepare a few extra trays? I know how you like to eat.”

I purse my lips as she continues talking, Aspen’s confused stare still focused on my face.

“There’s a big blizzard coming in and all the news reports say it’s best to stock up for a week-long apocalypse.” She sighs dramatically and cuts me off when I try to talk. Aspen just crosses his arms and leans back against the wall of the stall, watching me with those beautiful baby blues of his. “Of course, I already called into the office and had my secretary start prepping for some work-from-home hours. I’m having her schedule all my clients for—”

“Mom, I’m a little busy right now,” I say, trying to swallow past the sweet scent of spruce that followed this gorgeous, gorgeous man into the stall. It’s weird to think how delicious he smells, standing in the middle of a bone-chilling public restroom. Before Aspen crawled under the door, all I could smell was stale urine.

So not a good start to the holiday week.

Well, until now.

This is good, right? This deliciously hunky man staring at me, arms crossed over his chest, brows raised in question.

“I’m on the toilet.” It needed to be said. Wish Aspen wasn’t staring at me while I said it.

“Learn to multitask, Cyan. Piss and chat. There aren’t enough hours in the day to move like a sloth. Shame on you.” I try my best to reply, but when I open my mouth, no words come out. Aspen reaches out a hand covered in tattoos and plucks the phone from my fingers.

“She’ll call you back,” he says, his mouth curving into a knowing smirk. “What she failed to specify was that she’s in the bathroom with me .”

He hangs up and then starts going through my phone, like he really is a god and has every right to do what he damn well pleases.

“Give that back to me,” I manage to sputter, breaking through the shock of seeing a multi-platinum recording artist in my toilet stall. I try to go for the phone, but Aspen simply lifts it out of my reach. I have no idea how tall he is, but I have big brothers at home that are six-foot-three and six-foot-four.

I know how to deal with their shit.

“Give it to me or else you’re getting a face full of Peppermint Rage ,” I say, whipping out a white and red striped bottle of pepper spray. Yep, even my self-defense tools are holiday themed. What can I say? I’m a Christmas fanatic.

“Sorry, it might be your phone, but I don’t have patience for stalkers who hide in bathroom stalls and steal photos of me.” Aspen is sassy, smirk half-cocked and beautiful eyes lidded, assured of his placement at the top of the world’s pecking order.

“I wasn’t stalking you!” I snap, accidentally compressing the button on the top of the Peppermint Rage bottle. A snake of liquid spurts out, not unlike cum from a rigid cock, and hits Aspen right in the face.

“What the fuck, you crazy bitch?!” he screams, dropping my phone to the ground and covering his face with his hands. “Dude, get Donner!” he screams and because it’s so close to Christmas already, I immediately think reindeer .

But then I realize he’s probably talking about a security guard of some sort.

“I’m sorry!” I say as I pick up my phone from the floor and then start crawling under the stall door myself. “It was an accident, I swear.”

Scrambling to my feet, I find myself face-to-face with a guy sporting a headful of blonde, blue, and silver hair—like ice. A black beanie with white snowflakes is shoved over the top, crushing the tendrils down so that they drip into his beautiful golden eyes.

“Well, hello there,” he says, winking at me.

Vale Connor, the drummer for Inked Pages. I know it’s him—and not only because I’m a little too obsessed with the band—but because he offered to dye his hair with a holiday/winter theme if his fans donated enough to his favorite charity. He then matched their donations and dyed his pale blonde hair with wintery streaks of blue and silver, like Jack Frost or something.

Speaking of Frost … That’s the name of the guy that’s just stumbled up to us, desperately jerking on the zipper of his jeans and … are those Frosty the Snowman boxers? Oh yeah. His eyes are like a pair of wreaths, hung in the center of a snow- white face. Paired with a nasty scowl and an expression of self-righteous indignation, seems like somebody is channeling the Grinch in here, and it isn’t me.

Mm. Frost Manderach, another Inked Pages bandmate. Guitarist, this time.

Because it wouldn’t be Christmas if I didn’t embarrass myself in front of all my favorite musicians.

“What did you just do to Aspen, you parasocial psycho?” Frost shouts, kicking the door to the stall open dramatically and knocking Aspen ass-first into the toilet. Good thing I remembered to flush.

“Oh my God,” I shout as I meet Vale’s amused eyes and raised brows, scooting past him and toward the exit. The exterior door swings inward, hits me in the face, and makes my nose pour blood down the front of the puffy white coat my dad bought me last year. It has shadowy gold snowmen on it, their arms positioned just so, making them look like they have two giant dicks instead of arms.

I won’t be sad to see it go.

“Oh, my face,” I groan, turning around and putting my hands on the side of a grubby porcelain sink. Red drips into the bowl as the speakers in the corner of the room—which haven’t played a single damn note since I came in here—creak to life and start pouring nineties pop Christmas music into the bathroom.

“The fuck is happening in here?” a woman with a gruff voice says, stepping into the room in a hideously clichéd Christmas sweater with a … is that a gun in her hands?! How did things escalate so quickly? All I wanted was to pee and be on my way.

“Donner, we got a stage-five clinger,” Frost says, guiding a dripping and squinting Aspen toward the angry lady named after one of Santa’s reindeer.

“I am not a stage-five anything,” I sniffle, sounding stuffed-up from my bloody nose. “The ladies’ room is out of order, so I came in here to pee. I just didn’t feel like talking to a bunch of weird-sounding men in a deserted restroom in the middle of nowhere, so sue me.”

I fling my hand for emphasis and spatter Vale with blood.

Oops.

He looks down at his white hoodie and cocks a single blonde brow.

“I’m not a stalker,” I murmur … and then my phone goes off again. It’s my dad this time, and my ringtone is yet another Inked Pages’ Christmas tune called A Dark and Open Heart .

“ You stalk me in the night, chase me in the light of day, but misery, enjoy the cold shoulder because being single over the holidays isn’t the worst thing that ever happened to me.”

Fuck. My. Life.

Just as I’m about to answer the phone, Donner wrestles it from my fingers and starts going through my photos—totally and completely illegal, I’m sure. Paparazzi take pics of these guys without their permission all the time, right? Even if I was a stalker, I wasn’t doing anything wrong. Except, you know, assaulting a guy. But their security guard just assaulted me, too.

“Whoa,” Donner says, gritting her teeth and then passing the phone back. “She’s clean, guys. And now I can see why she didn’t want us to see her phone.”

As I reach out, Frost snatches my phone and … he sees it. He sees it; I know he sees it.

“Wow,” he says, blinking panty dropping-ly beautiful eyes at the screen as I grab my phone and yank it back against my chest. Why is it so much harder to be furious with a man whose eyes are the color of the evergreen trees at my favorite Christmas tree farm? And why am I comparing this cocksucking asshole to something so nice? I should say his eyes are … the color of … of … green mold on leftover fruitcake. “A threesome? One of the guys is wearing a Santa hat, so I’m assuming this was recent?”

It’s from two years ago. Other than the bookstore, that night is one of the few risks I’ve ever taken.

“My sex life is none of your damn business,” I shout, shoving past the blonde woman and into the snow outside. The ground is so icy, I immediately lose my footing and start to slip.

“Careful there,” a sinfully slow and sexy voice says in my ear, a dripping Southern drawl that should rightfully melt all the snow in a ten-foot radius. “Wouldn’t want a girl as—”

The man stops when I spin around and he sees the blood all over my face.

“Holy hell, what happened to that sweet face of yours?” he asks, reaching out a thumb and brushing it over my bloody lips. He may as well have flipped a switch in my brain, too, because suddenly all I can think about is Crispin Fox—the man standing in front of me as well as the bassist for Inked Pages—fucking me into soft flannel holiday sheets with snowflakes. It’s somehow all that much sexier to imagine him doing me hard and fierce and wild on such a sweet, innocuous bedding set.

“I—” I start to say, but then the door to the bathroom is swinging open and the rest of the band is piling up, their crazy security guard along with them. “I … sorry for the pepper spray … and the toilet.”

Putting a hand to my nose, I jog my way across the snowy parking lot and climb into my car, slamming the door closed and trying not to gawk at the massive pile of snow that’s collected on my windshield in such a short time.

I have just officially registered myself for my favorite band’s blacklist. Not only that, but I humiliated myself in front of them. Even worse: Aspen and Frost are rude. They’re always playing it up online, acting like Aspen is some sort of folk hero while Frost is brooding but kind. He did a whole video series of himself rescuing puppies and bottle feeding them.

My dreams are as crushed as my nose. I sniff and taste blood on my tongue. Hopefully it isn’t broken. That’s the last thing I need: the loss of my bookstore, an unwanted move from San Francisco to Detroit Lakes, the crushing disappointment of learning my favorite band is filled with Scrooges, and a broken nose that heals crookedly. Merry Christmas, Cyan.

“What the hell just happened in there?” I mumble as I turn the key in the ignition and … hear an awful sputtering sound instead of the engine turning over.

Oh no.

No. No, no, no. This is not happening, not here, not now … I’m miles from the nearest town on the snowiest day of the year, a blizzard incoming, with nowhere to sit and wait for the tow truck except in my freezing ass car or a public men’s room that reeks of old urine.

A knock on the door startles me and I glance up to find Crispin’s face in the ice-and-snow-crusted window. There’s white powder clinging to the edges, making it look as if the man’s handsome mug is stuck in the center of one of my father’s holiday-themed picture frames.

“Want me to take a look?” he asks, dog tags hanging low, wearing nothing but a gray wifebeater and a denim jacket. Like, he has to be freezing his perfectly sculpted little ass off out there and yet, he’s smiling at me. No, grinning is more like it.

Seems like Crispin’s public persona is on-brand: he’s a notorious ladies’ man. Not six months ago, he was involved with some actress. Hard to say if his kindness here is an act or if it’s genuine. Either way, does it matter? I need the help.

Before I can even think to respond, Crispin is yanking the door open, prying it loose from the crusted ice and flooding my senses with his smell. I can almost taste it on the back of my tongue, this musky sweetness, like amber and apples. I want to scoop it up with a spoon and eat it over ice cream.

“You know about cars?” I say skeptically, looking at the man in the holey denim pants and boots like he’s full of shit. He’s a freaking pop star. The fuck does he know about cars?

If I sound salty, it’s because I am. I’ve been in love with Inked Pages for years, and now that I’m meeting them in person … Vale didn’t make a move to help me when I was bleeding. Frost was actively insulting me. Aspen is a creep who crawls into bathroom stalls. And Crispin? While I appreciate the help, he’s turning on the charm, and I know it’s not because he’s fallen for the bloody girl in the snowman dick jacket.

“A little,” he says, leaning in toward me, so close I swear for a second there that he’s about to kiss me on the mouth. I meet his warm brown eyes, like my grandma’s big, soft ginger cookies. Like, fucking seriously, just staring at them for a second, I can see all sorts of gradations and different colors in his irises, like God spent a little extra time with a tiny detail brush to get this man just right. “Gotta pop the hood,” he says, grabbing the small switch near my left knee and tugging on it.

He retreats from the car, taking his sandy-brown hair and perfect ass with him, and opens the hood.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Frost growls, storming over to us and staring at me with his evergreen eyes, crossing his arms over his white t-shirt and looking at me like I’m the Antichrist. “We need to go. Concert in Saint Paul, remember?”

“Eh, that’s days away and this little lady’s got a dead battery,” Crispin says, lifting up from his position inside the hood. “So get the jumper cables from the bus and let’s give her our juices.”

Our juices?

My brain—whose switch was totally flicked by Crispin, remember?—starts fantasizing about him riding me from behind, coming inside, and making me scream my favorite Christmas carols.

Okay, wow.

Clearly, staying up all night to wrap Christmas gifts was not a good idea. The lack of sleep is playing tricks on my brain and making me feel even weirder than usual. It’s not like I’m a nympho or a sex addict or anything—despite what Frost Manderach might think of those threesome photos.

“Juices?” Frost asks, his dark hair tousled and beautiful against the snowy white backdrop. He didn’t participate in the whole dye-your-hair-for-donations thing, and instead offered to take the most generous donor on a private date—private except for the fact that the whole event was live-streamed. Very romantic. “You’re seriously deranged, bro.”

“Whatever, dude,” Crispin says, imitating his bandmate’s distinctive West Coast accent. “Just get the jumper cables, so we can get this sweet slice o’ sugarplum pie on her way now.”

“I don’t know why the battery would be dead,” I choke out, climbing from the car and waddling over to Crispin in my two hundred layers of winter clothing. Dragging my purse along with me, I dig out some wet wipes and start cleaning the blood from my face.

My nose hurts and I figure it’ll probably be bigger and brighter than Rudolph’s by the time I get to my parents’ place. Won’t my sisters and brothers have a field day with this one. They’ve been teasing me mercilessly since the day I was born, and I have a feeling things aren’t about to change. They might have families of their own now, but that doesn’t stop them all from acting like pricks.

“Here, let me get that,” Crispin says, leaning over and taking the wipe from my hand before I can protest. He slides it across my lips first thing, taking that sex thermostat in my brain and amping it up by a hundred degrees. My nipples, already hard from the cold, pebble into icicles. Hang ‘em from a rooftop, and they could be deadly. “Poor thing. Donner’s a bitch; she owes you a serious apology.”

“No,” I say, but the word is breathy and sweet and all I really want to say is yes, yes, yes to whatever this man wants to do with me. God, am I that desperate? I tamp down on my hormones which are raging completely out of control and try to pretend like standing in front of my idol isn’t doing shit to my body. Like, my sex isn’t swollen between my legs, and my heart isn’t chugging along like the Polar Express. “It was an accident; the whole situation in the bathroom was an accident.”

“Well, regardless, we’ll get your car runnin’ and get you on your way, okay?” His voice oozes over me, hot buttered rum with a real cinnamon stick. I’m drunk on it. Spicy.

“Sure,” I reply in a daze, mesmerized by Crispin’s face, the strong, stubbled line of his jaw, his lush mouth, the length of his lashes. Ladies’ man, remember, Cyan? Doesn’t he flirt with everyone via his fan cams? You bet he does. “Thank you.”

Crispin finishes wiping the blood from my face and steps back, flicking his tongue across his lower lip and shivering briefly. So he is cold, standing out amongst all this snow with little to no clothing on. He does make a pretty sight though, so at least there’s that. I shrug myself out of my largest coat and offer it to him. He doesn’t take it, just stares at it like he can’t imagine why anyone would do that for him.

I clutch the snowmen-with-dicks outerwear against my chest, mortified. They think you’re a fangirl, remember? Wait. I am a fangirl. But our meeting is pure coincidence. Who would believe something that crazy though? No wonder they don’t like me.

“Did you find the cables?” Crispin asks suddenly, and I glance over my shoulder to see Frost striding through the snow in black suede snow boots and matching jeans. He looks irritated as fuck, and he’s definitely not holding anything in his hands.

Uh-oh.

“There are no cables,” he drawls with a long, tired sigh. His eyes flash to mine, a hot take that my bloody nose and crumpled snow-dick jacket don’t deserve. Oh. Frost’s attention lingers on the sharp V-shaped dip of my cranberry-colored sweater. The skin at the edges of his eyes crinkles as he forces himself to refocus on my face. “Donner says we don’t have any.”

“Did you ask Magda?” Crispin says, and I wonder who that might be. Some lucky girl who gets to hang out on their bus? A groupie? Oh, God, I bet she’s a groupie! My stomach feels queasy. Too many of my grandma’s pecan tarts in the car. Well, from my grandma’s recipe. She can’t bake anymore because—

I suck in a breath and both men turn to stare at me. The expressions on their faces are complete opposites: open and thoughtful, closed-off and small-minded. But then the latter smirks and shakes his head, putting his hands into the rear pockets of his pants. His eyes find that V-dip again, and I shift from one foot to the other. Does Frost find me attractive?

No way. Not a chance. I’m fangirl-fantasizing.

But then … Frost wets his lips and runs his tongue over his teeth. Uh. It was the threesome pictures, I’ll bet. Had to be. I looked pretty hot as Ms. Claus, huh?

“Magda says no, too, so let’s call this girl a tow truck and get the fuck out of here.” Frost narrows his eyes at me, hot as hell in his big puffy jacket, unzipped and showing off the tight white t-shirt underneath, his nipples as pebbled and hard as my own. He is into me. He totally is. He quirks the corner of his mouth again, and I know that I’m not imagining it. Then he scowls at me, and I get oh so confused.

Crispin closes the hood and steps back, pulling his phone from his pocket and wiggling it at me.

“A real man never leaves a lady in distress,” he says and then winks. I find him as charming as I find Frost annoying. Too bad I can’t trust either of them. Crispin might be billed as a ladies’ man, but Frost is billed as the cinnamon roll of the group. You know, all gooey on the inside. He looks like a goddamn ice sculpture. “Lemme make a call and we’ll get this taken care of.”

Twenty minutes later … I’m climbing up the stairs to their bus.