Arlan's Point Of View

Hanging my leather coat on the hook of my home, I remove my shoes and loosen my jaw. That 'Dustin' fucker has me ready to knock him dead, though I didn't want to make that obvious to Aurora; I had to keep my cool until I got home. I couldn't stand his annoying ass blonde hair and squeaky voice, nor what he tried to make an intimidating smirk which was just crooked teeth waiting to fall out like a hockey player.

I was ready to do a full investigation of the fucker only to realize it wasn't like he was some drug cartel or criminal I had to bend over backwards doing computer research for-he was a high school field hockey player with a diet of nicotin and beer. He was nothing for me.

"Nate," I called, rubbing my neck. "It's been a long day."

My tattoo artist emerges from one of the common areas and enters the kitchen.

"The usual, boss? Leg?" He says, carrying his tattoo items over on a rolling cart.

I seat myself on my leather recliner and toss my head back, sighing.

"No. I want it on my knuckle."

"But, Sir, your hands are completely covered?" He argued, preparing his materials to tattoo me. Yeah, this is how I take off the edge most days: spontaneous tattooing. It was no wonder my entire body, besides my chest and stomach, were nearly entirely inked.

"Yeah, well, I want this fucker to see something funny before lights out," I grin tightly in sarcasm. I look down at my hands, where the tops of my fingers across are tattooed in 'lights out' between both hands.

"Span it across my right hand. Make it go across each finger on the bottom," I point to each finger as I say, "f-u-c-k," I peer to my thumb, "e-r."

Nathanial laughs dryly, raising his brows. "Fucker?"

"Yeah, clever, right?" I smirk.

"In more ways than one, sure Kacelynn will love that too," He said, winking and shaking his head at me and beginning to trace the outline on my hand. I sighed, moving away from him, suddenly agitated more.

"Well, Kacelynn fucking broke up with me, so actually, not more ways than one. But...I'm working on it."

"Anyone you want me to find?" He said, preparing to do his stalking materials. Nate was more of the behind the scenes guy while I was very hands-on. I was the boss, after all.

"No, Nate, I don't need you to go batshit-mafia-crazy on me. I can pick up a high school girl just fine on my own."

I pictured Aurora's sweet face and smile, her delicate features and intoxicating smell. Looking down, I splay out my fingers and look at the curve from my point finger to thumb.

"Actually, put 'fucker' on the curve here."

"You sure?" He looks at me inquisitively at my back-and-forth indecisiveness.

"Positive," I said, closing my eyes and hearing the buzz of the tattoo needle.

Suddenly, Aurora's face came into my mind and it starts to daydream. We're in my bedroom, I'm fucking her with my hand choking her, my fucker tattoo wrapped around her neck, squeezing tight. Her eyes met mine, and hers were hazy, drooped, and full of lust and ecstasy, open-mouth moaning , her jaw to her collarbone.

I squeezed the side of the chair as the needle hit a sensitive spot in my bones painfully, breaking me out of my thoughts.

"Hurry up," I snap at Nate. While he's my best friend, he knows my attitude. Everyone in the mafia business knows one thing about me, or rather two: My impatience, and that I always, always get what I want.

-The Following Next morning-

Since Amethyst's brother was on the field hockey team, I knew practice started at 5 AM. Rolling up my tinted windows, I made my way out of my driveway and to the high school to pay ol' Dustin boy a little visit. The bandage of my new tattoo crinkled against the steering wheel and I looked at it briefly, growing excited to beat the shit out of this fucker.

I peer into the locker room after parking in a discrete location and to my absolute fantasy, he's alone. Everyone is on the field, and he's still at his locker, tying up his shoes on a bench. I beep my walkie talker and murmur, "All clear, he's alone. Make sure the coach doesn't come or some shit."

It crackles before, "You got it, boss." With that, I'm out of the car.

Removing keys from my pocket, which can open every door to the high school, I find one for the gym and swiftly unlock the door. Dustin's head whips up as he looks at me unexpectedly. His face whitens with intimidation before he immediately tries to play it off.

"Fuck are you doing here, Paris?" He straightens up and squares back his shoulders, trying to buff-up." If you're looking for the emo fucks, they don't usually get here until 7 AM, you know, when school actually starts?"

I smirk. "Maybe I'm interested in field hockey. Something has always been alluring about chasing dude's butts with a piece of wood. Must be why you're interested."

Dustin's face dropped and I chuckled.

"D-dude, I'm not ga,"-

"Save it," I bark darkly, locking the door and he stiffens and takes a step back. "I didn't ask about your sexual preference, you irreverant waste of oxygen," I charge to him and slam him against the wall, forcing my hand right around his neck while thrusting my knee to his hip to keep him in place. He gruffs out a noise of discomfort and fear, wriggling around but I've got him on lock. His eyes bug out wide like some cartoon character. It's comical. With my free hand, I take the 'lights' tattooed hand to punch him right across the face and go right up to his disgusting ear. Perks of being ambidextrous, I'm talented with both hands.

"You leave Aurora the FUCK alone, hear me?" I roar, spit flying into his ear.

"Yes, yes!" He whimpers. "Yes," He cries weakly. Pathetic piece of shit.

"You're embarrassing. This is nothing, this is pussy shit. If I really wanted to whoop your ass, I'd put you in a wheelchair. Consider this a very fair warning, and I don't like playing fair, fucker," I bark, removing him from the wall only to slam him back against him.

"DO YOU HEAR ME?"

"You got it man, y-you got it! I'm done, o-okay, I'm sorry!"

I lower my knee to kick him right in the nuts which has him yelping and tumbling over, crutching the area. With that, I quickly make my way out of there. I had already had Nate cover the security cameras like I'd asked, so I was in the clear. I'd kill Dustin, but I didn't want Aurora going through the distress. I was going light, but I wanted to go harder. Maybe for her, I'd learn to get soft.

"H-hey, did you still wanna do hot chocolate and stuff?" A sweet voice piped up shyly.

Looking up from my locker, little Aurora stood with her fluffy bangs over her blueberry eyes. It was the end of the day, and I hadn't seen or heard from her and was beginning to get discouraged. My heart started racing insanely and my smile grew.

"Aurora, hey, of course," I said. "What changed your mind?"

She smiled shyly and shrugged, playing with the frills at her cardigan sleeve. "H-how..can anyone say no to hot chocolate?"

I smirked, eyeing her innocence with admiration. "I don't know, baby," Her cheeks reddened at the nickname like they always did. "They'd have to be crazy," I said in a funny voice, eyes wide, and she giggled immediately, warming my heart.

"Yeah, I got all the stuff- different flavors. Raspberry, hazelnut, toffee, strawberry. A bunch of syrups like chocolate and blueberry, and candycanes and marshmallows,"-

"Oh...I don't eat marshmallows. They have gelatin and I'm trying to go vegetarian. B-but it's no big deal, my family won't make vegetarian meals so I'm used to it. But, t-thank you so, so much for all of this, this is amazing and all I could've ever asked for," She said in awe. Of course she would be trying to go vegetarian. A sweet little thing like her couldn't even bring herself to eat a chicken nugget. She was so sweet and gentle and caring.

"Oh, no biggy, we'll just go to the store and get vegan ones."

"No, Arlan, I don't mind...you've already done so much. I didn't mean to seem ungrateful..."

"Oh, Aurora, please, I don't feel bad. It's okay, plus, it'll be fun. Let's stop at the store."

She smiled shyly. "O-okay. I'm just gonna grab my backpack from my locker and I'll meet you back here."

"I'll be here," I say with a warm smile, and soon she's off. When she turns around, I notice she has heart shaped pockets on the back of her jeans. How precious. I hold my smile for two beats longer before pivoting on my heels and pressing 9 on my phone. It rings once.

"Hello, Sir, dinner is almost ready for tonight,"-

"Throw it all out, she's a vegetarian. I'm coming home with new food, prepare it during the movie."

"But Sir, the steak is all,"-

"Throw it out or I'll slit your mother's throat," I snap and promptly hang up, spinning around to see her cute little ass finding her way back to me.

"Got your backpack?" I smile.

"Yeah," She says softly, wobbling side to side a bit with the newfound weight on her shoulders. "Although it's pretty heavy," She says under her breath.

"Here, here," I come up behind her and slide it off her shoulders. "Let me take it for you." For me it felt like essentially holding a gummy bear but for a small girl of her frame and height it probably crushed her.

"Are you sure?"

"Not a sweat, doll. Really. Let's make our way to the store now."

I peer just past Aurora to see Amethyst staring at me, like an annoying fucking bitch, from her locker. I squeeze Aurora's shoulder. "Let's go."

After picking up the vegan marshmallows, we rummage through the 'beyond meat' isle and why anybody eats this stuff is 'beyond' me. See what I did there. Yet, Aurora looks like a kid in a candy store.

"If you'd like, we have free samples," A man with an apron and Health Foods hat says, approaching us. "We've just gotten in a new shipment of fake meats and we're trying to increase sales." Yeah, cause it's so shocking that no one's buying this stuff.

"Really?!" Aurora says squealing.

"Really?" I deadpan.

Aurora looks to me with slight disappointment.

"I mean..really! Why haven't we, uh, found this sooner?" I scratch my head. Aurora squeals and jumps up and down.

"Show us!" She pleads.

"Yes...show us," Fuck my life.

I follow his lead with her tagging behind. I feel small fingers touching my hand and look down to see her locking hands with mine, leading me faster to the fake meat. She's holding my hand, yet again touching me, and it's driving me insane. Something activates in me from this small touch and my bandaged-tattooed hand flinches. I want more, but I'll have to wait.

"This here is broccoli tofu balls, in place of meatballs!"

"So cool!" Aurora jumps up and down, taking a sample. He offers me one too.

"Joyous," I mumble under my breath.

"You know...I had a really big lunch so," I trail off when Aurora peers up at me with big eyes. Damn it. Am I really about to eat a fucking broccoli ball for this girl? I look back to him with a forced, tight-lipped grin, "So one broccoli tofu ball won't hurt," It's hard to hide the pain in my voice.

"Enjoy!" He says, handing me mine. I sink my teeth in and immediately regret it, holy healthy Hell. I force myself to smile at Aurora and look happy while eating this green shit. God, why does anybody eat these things?!

"Next, we have fakeon, which of course, is fake bacon!" He has a new tray with what looks like two strips of red soy that taste like plastic. Why would anyone want to fake bacon?!

"Oooh, yes please!" She says, taking the sample and biting into it. I fake a smile and accept my sample as well. Cardboard tasting-worse than plastic.

"WOW!" Her eyes are wide. "This is soo good! And no pigs were harmed!"

Except for her idiot foster-stalker Dustin this morning.

"It's great, really," I fake agree, politely smiling at the employee who walks away. "Hey, pick up anything you want doll. Whenever you're with me, you can always eat vegetarian," I offer.

Her eyes widen even further.

"Really?!" She says through a mouthful.

Hook.

"Of course."

"Oh...then I wanna come over all the time!"

Line.

"That's great to hear, baby."

She blushes.

"I...I kinda like when you call me that. It's funny."

I smirk.

Sinker.