AJ's POV

AJ's POV is coming along, I have the first 'chapter' done and I like it even though I'm still trying to figure out the voice. 

I'm going to do a series of really short one-shots instead of trying to get everything down in one go. Currently it has just hit 1,500 words and I like it. The tone is a bit experimental, I'm trying to stay true to AJ's voice but it's being difficult so don't be surprised if each 'chapter' seems different from the first until I hit my stride.

The shorter length feels more realistic in regards to his character and I decided to go with third person so that it'll be more distinct from Judi's and because I feel it carries over his feelings a bit clearer since AJ is more of an action person. He plans and then he does, he doesn't really worry about the consequences of his actions which is why he screwed himself over this time.


I really need to figure out a title for this. Since it's not going to be a novel in the traditional sense it's hard for me to pick something although currently I'm leaning towards 'Part of the List' [it's a Ne-Yo song from his Gentlemen album although I don't love it]


Anyway, although I'm going to post this up on fictionpress I'm going to post it on here first for those of you who read this so I can get some early feedback and see what you guys think. Hopefully it'll help tide you over until I can get chapter 29 out as well.

mierda -- shit
gilipolleces -- bullshit

PART ONE

If he’d had even a twinge that she’d become more than an object to bring Jared to his knees, he never would’ve put his plan into motion. If he had known how hard he’d fall for her, he would’ve turned around and walked in the opposite direction.

But he hadn’t known, so instead of thinking about how smooth her skin was, or the way her smile seemed to change her face, he was sitting here trying to think of how he could get her back. Because yeah, if he’d known how much he would hurt her, well, he wouldn’t have cared. If he’d known he would love her, he would have avoided her. Love wasn’t something he needed in his life, not now.

But the thing about hindsight was that it was absolutely useless and just made you feel like a bigger shit than you were. He knew he was no good for her, he knew and not just because she came from money, or because her brother hated him. She was the kind of girl who had never been in a serious fight before she’d met him and was loyal to people she really should’ve punched in the throat years ago. 

She had surprised and intrigued him and before he knew what was happening he found himself with a challenge, his own bitterness and anger losing in the face of her, of her everything, and his life became so much more complicated, but for the better.

It wasn’t that he wanted her because she was a challenge. AJ didn’t really like challenges all that much. Yeah, they started off as intriguing but when you got down to it they usually weren’t worth the time and effort. He’d learned his lesson with Carmen.

And she wasn’t the prettiest girl he’d ever seen, he’d had prettier. And easier. Morally they were just not compatible, mainly because pesky things like the law were thrown out the window when his moral compass declared it necessary to right a wrong that he knew the legal system wouldn’t handle.

Her father was a lawyer and she still believed that regardless of the colour of her skin, the police were her friends. Her whole face lit up when she smiled and she gave away smiles like candy on Halloween, even to people who were, in his opinion, more deserving of a solid back hand then one of her smiles.

He rarely smiled. He used too, when he was younger, but then he’d fucked up and his sister had fallen for someone he should’ve dropped the first chance he got. But he hadn’t. Shit, he’d let it continue even though he’d known it wouldn’t end well. So while little Miss. Judith was doing whatever the fuck it was bougie middle class Princesses did with their time, he’d been trying to glue back together the pieces of his older sister, someone he’d spent the majority of his life looking up too, but now someone who had to take pills to make it through the day.

And it was all thanks to Jared, 'king' of the Goblins and the only reason AJ had taken an interest in one frustrating little rich girl. Well… that wasn’t exactly true.

The first time he saw her, no, noticed her, she’d been in tenth grade and dressed as a leprechaun or some shit to gain points for her homeroom. He probably would’ve looked past her again because she really wasn’t his type except he’d been the accidental recipient of a smile that had made something low in his stomach tighten and caused him to take a second look.

She had waved shyly and he’d been a bit stunned only to feel one of the Dicks that called themselves basketball players brush past him and go to her. He had continued to look at her longer than was necessary before shrugging it off and forgetting about her.

And then his sister got pregnant and her world fell apart because he failed. And that’s when he noticed her the second time. This time she’d been blocking the hallway laughing with her friends and he’d been too pissed to walk around them. Instead he’d told her to move her cute ass out of his way. Once again he caught the tail end of a smile that made her whole face light up and a slow burn to start under his skin only for the smile to disappear quickly and the fire it had started extinguish when he noticed her eyes.

Or eye, to be exact. While one eye was brown, the other was hazel, brown with enough flecks of green and gold to make it stand out, almost green in the light he was seeing it in. She’d dropped her head, and instinctively he’d grabbed her chin to try and get a better look when she’d recoiled quickly, a strange expression crossing over her face before she’d grabbed her friend and hauled ass away from him.

He scowled, not amused as his boys began to dog him, knowing that she’d been disgusted as he took in that all of her friends were wearing Pink and Gray in some way. The Pretties, bitches who swore they were better than everyone and caused shit because their daddies could pay to pull them out of it.

He tried to get her out of his mind, he really did, but it was as if now that he noticed her he couldn’t stop thinking about her. And the worst thing was the fact that she didn’t notice or care that she was becoming an unhealthy obsession.

He wasn’t lusting after her, although his boys and some of the Panthers thought he was. Yeah, he had noticed that she was prettier than he had originally thought, and her laugh did funny things to his insides but he never would’ve acted on any of it; she was weak. She avoided confrontation and continued to hang around with girls who tore her apart and would leave her at the first sign of trouble.

No, he only paid her any attention because the more he watched, the more he noticed little things about her that reminded him of Jared. 

And then one day he went home and found Anita passed out on the floor, baby Jose doing those gasping screams a baby does when they’ve cried so much they’ve tired themselves out and a bottle of pills was lying empty beside her.

He confronted Jared about it, hating the fact that the little mierda got off scotch free while his sister hurt. And Jared had just looked at him, putting it all on Anita even as he raised the child that he still denied, confusing not just Anita but AJ and causing his hatred and frustration to rise even further as Jared searched for a sister he had lost years ago. 

That’s when the plan began to form, get her to go out with him and fuck with pretty boy Jared’s mind a little bit. When she began to pop up everywhere he looked, he took it as a sign and put his plan into motion. Too bad she didn’t get the memo.

She wasn’t afraid of boys, which was what he’d thought at first. He’d see her smiling easily with some of the biggest assholes he’d ever had the bad luck of meeting but she’d take the long way around when she saw him.

That shit just pissed him off. Now, he wasn’t bragging but girls didn’t run from him. He smiled, they came. And if they were lucky, they came. And don’t come to him with that ‘she’s a good girl’ gilipolleces either. Shit, the ‘bad boy’ persona got him more pussy then he knew what to do with and a lot of them were girls who some folks would say were above his income bracket.

Had said until he’d broken jaws to get his point across; keep his name outta your mouth. And females ate that up even more, some because they knew he could defend them and other because they saw it as a sign that he was screaming to be saved.

The fact that he had to resort to some bullshit blackmail scheme because every time he tried to approach her she’d cut and run irritated him. Shit, he hadn’t even known she’d existed until a few months ago, and that was after going to school with her for two years, where the fuck did she get off turning her cute ass nose up at him whenever he so much as got within speaking distance and running?

That’s when the plan went from seduction to coercion. He watched her, the ball of rage inside of him growing bigger as she laughed with boys who he knew he was better than but could never compete against when it came down to money. And any twinges of conscience he might have had about bringing an innocent into this war disappeared when he went home and had to deal with the bitter and hateful person his idol had become thanks to a man with Judith’s eyes and better than you attitude.

So he was going to see how Jared liked it when his sister was treated that way. So he planned and plotted, seizing the first opportunity he had with her when she was partnered up with Missy and would be away from the Pretties. With a few choice words AJ set everything into motion, positive that everything would go perfectly as planned.  

Too bad he’d never expected to fall in love.