• • Second Chances

[Jacqueline Rose Pucill]

Jacqueline had been back in New York for a bit now but she felt like she had barely been back a week. Everything seemed to move so quickly, she was afraid to blink sometimes; worried she would miss everything. In the short time she’d been back though, she’d found herself a nice big loft studio, filled it with everything she would need to design clothes and what wasn’t already in the loft, was being delivered within a couple of weeks as some of the things she’d purchased were one of a kind. Her stubborn soul wouldn’t let her have something generic when she was starting a design company. All she really needed now was an assistant to do all the mundane office things that Jacqueline really didn’t have the head for. She didn’t have a head for business so much as she knew how to get what she wanted, no matter what it was. Her family name didn’t do much anywhere other than France but the money spoke volumes and the Pucill’s had plenty of that. Jac didn’t particularly like using her family money to get places but it wouldn’t stop her either; especially when she was using it for the greater good.

She needed a sounding board, someone who was more street than she was. Jacqueline could easily admit that she’d had a fairly easy life. Everything had been given to her really and though she worked her ass off through school, she really hadn’t needed to. She’d kept a part-time job through college because she got bored easily and sitting around her dorm room really hadn’t interested her. So she needed someone who had an opinion and could voice it without worrying about hurting Jac’s feelings. She was a tough cookie, she could handle a little criticism. Jac knew what she liked and what she would wear but another opinion was always needed in matters of fashion, especially ready wear clothes like Jac intended to design for the charitable line she was creating. She hadn’t needed to worry about finding herself an apartment, Jax made sure to practically yell at her for even suggesting staying at the hotel until she found something else. So it was just putting everything about the new business together that she had to worry about. Well, that and the current limbo she was in with Jaxon.

She missed him terribly and naturally wanted to be around him but she hadn’t wanted to cramp any new lifestyle he might have started. He could say a hundred times that he was the same old Jaxon that she knew and loved but she didn’t want to intrude either way. There was a lot going on in her head and as much as she needed a sounding board, she didn’t really have one; at least not for personal issues. She had Jax and he was great but she couldn’t talk to him about him. Jacqueline needed a girlfriend. Unfortunately, she hadn’t actually made all that many in New York before she’d run off to Africa. Jac was so lost in thought she narrowly missed getting hit by a yellow cab speeding down the street. The only thing saving her from the collision was the hand that gripped her bicep and yanked her backwards. Stunned, Jac took a minute to blink at what could have been her final moment in life. “Oh, my god!” She said, breathlessly, finally turning to the owner of the hand. “Thank you.” She said, shakily.

Tag || @open!
Words || 632
Clothes || Coming Soon!
Music || Perfect Storm --Brad Paisley
Notes || <3!

[bronte ellery o'connor]

Slamming the door behind her, Bronte’s dark eyes were filled with a burning rage that were a trademark of her genetics. The small bar would later be filled with men of ill repute, but right now it only housed her brothers and father. “You can all go straight to hell for this.” She spat, slowly crossing the room, ignoring Casey’s proud smirk. She knew her brothers found amusement when she lost her temper, but one day they would truly be on the receiving end of it and Bronte would love to see who was laughing then. “I’ve spent the early hours of the morning trying to find Jamie in the warehouse district because you sent him into a sting operation!” She shoved Kyle from the bar stool and was only slightly pleased when her father acted surprised, jumping in to grill the eldest son for details. Jamie hovered in the background like a lost puppy. He hated it when he couldn’t do something on his own and had to call in big sis, but he was running away from sirens and police and he didn’t know what else to do. Bronte was the one with the brains and the clever plans. She had been able to get him out and pick him up before the cops could get their hands on him. When Kyle brushed it all off with a general comment about Jamie having the cleanest record, Bronte shook her head. “You just don’t do it, dumbass. That part should be obvious as hell. He’s got an alibi with Hook for last night now and that’s it from me. I’m done and anymore screw ups you can clean up alone.” She stormed out the way she stormed in, ignoring her father calling her full name. She knew he’d be sitting in her apartment when she got home later, but she’d deal with that then.

Right now she needed to get rid of this anger and Bronte could only walk it off from where she was in the city. None of her favourite spots were local to the family ‘business’. She had wanted it that way for a reason; so that she could distance herself from everything the name O’Connor stood for. It was bad enough that the name set off alarm bells to almost everyone these days with the empire her parents had built up over the years. They wanted Bronte to protect that, to make it all seem legit in the eyes of the law, but she didn’t want to waste her college education and her business degree on something she had never been able to stand. The only reason she still had any connection to the damn bunch of them was because blood was thicker than water and no matter how many times she tried to pull away she always came running when they begged her for help. She annoyed herself with the decision, but she couldn’t fully turn her back on them, always worried something terrible might happen if she didn’t help them. Bronte might hate her older brothers most of the time, but she would never forgive herself if something awful happened all because she wouldn’t come to their aid when they needed her most.

It was her curse, she supposed. She knew she could be just as bad, if not worse than them when the right mood struck her. She was an O’Connor through and through, even if her record was squeaky clean. She was just better at hiding it, she guessed. Walking down the street she thought about the dozen places she could go from here, and the changes she wanted so badly for her life. None of them could happen though. She had tried, but the family name stopped her each and every time. It didn’t matter that she couldn’t be linked to a direct crime or incident, she was still part of the family; the deadly daughter one employer had called her upon rejecting her. It had taken every ounce of strength Bronte had not to break his jaw in that moment. It was only that she flicked her dark eyes up at the right time that she saw the accident about to happen and reached out to grab the woman before she could step into the path of the cab, pulling her back forcefully. She watched the cab blur by and then let go of the blonde woman’s arm. “Of all the ways to leave this world, splattered on the windscreen of a yellow cab not exactly great.” She mumbled, recalling several times in which she had seen life leave the bodies of men.

• • •

TAGGED! Jacqueline Rose Pucill
WORDS! 784!
OUTFIT! Cute Criminal!
LYRICS! Sketches of Pain - - - Audible Mainframe
NOTES! <3 <3 <3

[Jacqueline Rose Pucill]

Jacqueline had so many things running around in her head she probably couldn't have said which way was up at the moment. It was strange being back in New York after being away for so long. There were so many things that were going to take a while to get used to. The noise for starters, she was definitely not used to that anymore and an actual bed was a surprising treat to find uncomfortable. She had become so used to the cot that a cozy bed was yet another adjustment she needed to make. And the last that she was actually having difficulty with was the large crowds. She had spent the last few years in a very small village with barely a hundred people in it where the only noises were conversation and wild animals. She wasn't used to the traffic but that had been easier to get used in in the short time she'd been home because she'd gone into the closest big city for supplies often enough that she'd never really been away from it. Not to mention the trips in and out for her flying lessons.
 
However it wasn't the things she wasn't used to that was having her sidetracked. She was quite easily getting used to city life once again. It was all the things she had to do that day that had her mind everywhere other than where it should have been; on the streets of her favourite city. She needed to go through all the places she needed to look at for a studio space, she needed to worry about finding an employee or two, people that could help her with the office related things Jac didn't want to deal with and she needed to find someone who could pattern her designs. Jac knew what she was doing, every aspect of fashion but she couldn't do every single part of it by herself. And if she could have someone on hand or even teach someone how to pattern, her life would certainly get a little bit easier in the mess that would be organising and then getting an entire fashion label off the ground.
 
"I think I'd like to be a little older than I am and I would hope to have accomplished a hell of a lot more in that time before I find myself decorating a New York City street like some sort of modern art." Jacqueline agreed. She shook her head, getting the image of what could have been out of her system. There would be time enough later to worry about the what ifs of this moment when she was retelling it to Jaxon. "I'm not taking no for an answer, let me repay you with a coffee or something sweet." She continued. It really was the least she could do. After all, the girl did save her life. If buying her a coffee and a pastry could ever be considered sufficient payment, Jac would pay that price happily and quite easily.

Tag || bronte ellery o'connor!
Words || 504
Clothes || Freaked Out Frenchie!
Music || Perfect Storm --Brad Paisley
Notes || <3!

[bronte ellery o'connor]

Bronte was a city girl through and through. The few vacations she had taken away from the bright lights and the noise had always ended with her feeling relieved to be back where the lights were neon and the sirens were pretty much constant. It didn’t matter to her that sirens were always the sound that came right before trouble hit and she had to clean up something somewhere. Home was home. She just wanted to wipe her hands of her brothers and their schemes, make them realise that without her they would be practically helpless. Bronte could go places and she had been told that by her teachers in school and her college professors. It was just that the family thought that she already had a place, so why should she bother even looking anywhere else? Sure she was just as tough as her brothers, and sharper minded than them, but that didn’t mean her destiny was in organised crime and dodging the law.

She has other passions, other talents. There just hadn’t been time to let them interfere growing up. She was the little girl in a big man’s world and Bronte had played her part well. Her father had told her countless times about how she had proven herself to him, and to others. Enough was enough though. Bronte didn’t care about their opinions or what they wanted from her. She wasn’t their cleaner or their pawn. She was twenty-four, capable of taking care of herself without them interfering in her business, and she wanted to make it work this time. She might have been Bronte O’Connor, but her name was not all she had. There was a college degree that had done nothing more than look pretty on her wall since graduation and it was time she put that to use, as well as trying to find a way to make someone take her seriously beyond making them feel scared because ‘it was what O’Connor’s did best’, as her mother would say.

Brushing her hair back from her face, Bronte put her hands on her hips and watched the cab drive off into the flow of New York’s traffic, turning right at the corner and then vanishing from her sight. “He’ll fuck up sooner or later anyway. It’s just better if he doesn’t take you with him.” She wasn’t cynical, but she knew at least a dozen cab drivers were corrupted in some way, making deals with the devil to settle debts and pay off bills. It never ended well for them and she had seen too many of those bad endings. Her dad called them life lessons, but Bronte had still been a kid in braces and she wasn’t all that sure how she felt being a witness to some of those moments yet. Her life was messed up; that was all she knew for certain. “Hey, I’m a New Yorker, I’m not about to turn down free coffee!” She smirked, flicking her attention back to the woman again. A tattoo on Bronte’s arm might have revealed that the girl was born in Kansas, but Bronte saw herself as New York through and through, since all of her memories save for a handful were of the city that never sleeps.

• • •

TAGGED! Jacqueline Rose Pucill
WORDS! 549!
OUTFIT! Cute Criminal!
LYRICS! Sketches of Pain - - - Audible Mainframe
NOTES! <3 <3 <3

[Jacqueline Rose Pucill]

Jacqueline had a lot of things on her bucket list to get through before she would be close to ready to find out what happened next. Unlike most people, she wasn’t afraid of death, she would happily welcome it when the time came but it wasn’t there yet so the Grim Reaper would have to chase her down until it was time. And until that day came, she was going to continue crossing off things and adding new ones to the bucket list she mentally kept. It was a silly thing but after her cancer scare, it had seemed like a good idea to cross off some of those things and really find herself and being able to take that free breath. It had been scary, not because she was on death’s door but because she had so much she wanted to do and hadn’t thought she had the time to finish it all. She would have hated herself if she hadn’t gotten at least a good chunk of that list scratched out.

She was well on her way to accomplishing some of those goals. Thanks to Jax’s help, she’d found a delightful studio space with so many windows, she wouldn’t need much extra lighting, just some things for when she was working well into the night and she’d already spoken to a couple people about getting some one of a kind furniture in the place so it didn’t feel like something out of an Ikea catalog. Jac was making her fashion aspirations a reality one piece at a time and to be a chalk outline on the side of a New York City street wouldn’t get her further than she was. So she was eternally grateful to the feisty blonde who’d saved her life. “Hopefully when it happens, it doesn’t include a manslaughter charge.” Jac said with a shake of her head though if her own experience was anything to go by, it probably would. The invitation to coffee was the very least she could do. Saving someone’s life deserved so much more than that but Jac honestly didn’t know what, she just knew it was true.

Jacqueline smiled, pleased she wouldn’t be turned down politely. She hated that. If someone didn’t want to do something, they just had to say no. She wouldn’t expect an explanation unless she asked for one and this girl was a stranger, she didn’t need one. “Excellent!” She asked, clapping her hands together. “I passed a cafe about a half block back that way.” She said, pointing in the direction she’d been coming from. Her little studio wasn’t in the neighbourhood but there was a custom furniture store the way she’d been heading towards but it could wait. She’d seen their work on the website and thought they might be perfect but she wanted to check them out in person, see for herself in they grabbed and held her attention like the other three shops hadn’t. If that were the case, it would probably be the one she chose in the end, but she wanted to talk to Jax about it first and wished she had an office assistant or manager or something to go as well. She didn’t mind making the decisions but she wouldn’t really be the one sitting in the chairs or at the desks, it would be other people and she wanted them to be comfortable.

Tag || bronte ellery o'connor!
Words || 625
Clothes || Freaked Out Frenchie!
Music || Perfect Storm --Brad Paisley
Notes || <3!

[bronte ellery o'connor]

Bronte had seen her first man die when she was eight. It was some creep who tried to snatch Jamie and herself, but hadn’t considered how fast or nimble little kids could be. They had ran, their dad hadn’t been far away either. He also hadn’t hesitated to put a bullet between the eyes of the man who had been chasing his children. It was all over some deal gone wrong and while the man bled out in an alley, lifeless eyes staring at Bronte’s scuffed up Chucks, her dad had crouched in front of her and said simply, ‘death comes for us all, one way or another’. Since that night she had taken a rather cold approach to the end, as though some empathy had been stripped away from her along with another thread of her innocence; not that she had much left at that age. Her parents had never done too much to conceal their life of crime from their children, raising the four of them to be a part of the criminal underworld whether they wanted to be in it or not. Yet somehow there was a shred of goodness left in Bronte’s heart and she still longed for that way out, for a shot at a normal life.

She had no clue about where to start with that though. She had the O’Connor pride though, so she wouldn’t be caught dead working for minimum wage in some fast food joint, or packing bags at the grocery store. Bronte had slogged her way through college – the first in her family to do so – and she wasn’t about to cast that aside just so she could earn a measly monthly income and call it her own. Hell no. She wanted a way out, but she also wanted a yellow brick road. “Just watch out for them cabbies, and maybe it won’t.” She didn’t trust them, but then Bronte’s problem was that she knew too much about too much. Whether it was the type of people her family and others in the criminal underworld used to inconspicuously make their drops and contacts, or the dirty laundry some power players kept hidden, it skewed her view on life. She wouldn’t call herself cynical, since she still carried a small well of hope in her heart, but she was definitely privy to the darker knowledge of the city that many remained oblivious to.

Bronte grimaced, and folded her arms. She wanted to be polite about this, but when her usual nature was blunt, it was difficult. “If it’s the one with the yellow umbrellas, avoid it unless you want to get poisoned. I have no idea how that place is still in business, but almost everything they use is like a week out of date.” She said, not at all sure if that was the place the woman had been talking about, but Bronte knew it was really nearby. “There’s a new bistro just up a block though. I’ve not tried it yet, but no one’s died in there or barfed on the baristas so far.” She offered, just in case it was the yellow umbrella place. She was all for free coffee, but not at the expense of health.

• • •

TAGGED! Jacqueline Rose Pucill
WORDS! 544!
OUTFIT! Cute Criminal!
LYRICS! Sketches of Pain - - - Audible Mainframe
NOTES! <3 <3 <3

[Jacqueline Rose Pucill]

Jacqueline had lived in many places in her thirty two years. She’d attended boarding school from the time she was old enough, her parents expecting her to have the absolute best education money could buy. There had also been her hometown, running off for school and New York between a scattering of other places her family had hotels in. Of all the places she’d been though, New York was her absolute favourite. The city had a life of its own and Jac loved being able to be a small part of it. There were so many people flooding the sidewalks and the roads in their cars and on their bikes. She loved how the city was so different yet hadn’t changed in the time she’d been gone. It had been a warm fuzzy feeling to realise not much had actually changed in all that time. She’d expected so much to be different but nothing really was; not even she had changed that much. She was still the French girl in the big apple, trying to make her dreams come true.

That would definitely never change. Even when she achieved the goal she was after, she’d have another dream lighting a fire behind her eyes. She was a determined woman, though Jax would say stubborn and maybe he was right. But it got her where she wanted to be so people could call that particular trait whatever they’d like. “I’ll pay more attention from now on.” Jac said with a chuckle. The whole reason she’d needed saving in the first place was because she hadn’t been paying as much attention as she probably should have been. Jacqueline wasn’t in any way naive but she was probably more trusting than she should have been as well. But she’d always thought she was a decent judge of character.

And though this girl looked a little tougher than the women Jac knew but she also seemed nice; at least she was to Jac and that was really all that mattered. Even if she was beyond blunt. Jac liked her instantly with her next words . She laughed out loud whilst grimacing. “I’m definitely going to avoid that place then. Officially.” She said, ending on a sigh. The place looked so cute, too; pity. “Lead the way then. It’s been a while since I’ve been around this area.” She admitted. The city might not have changed much but the store fronts had well, some one them had anyway. “I guess that means you’ve saved my life twice today. What do you offer someone who’s done that?” She asked, smirking. She was being genuine about that. It seemed like coffee just wasn’t good enough after the cab and then the cafe. Though excellent, coffee just seemed to fall short.

Tag || bronte ellery o'connor!
Words || 507
Clothes || Freaked Out Frenchie!
Music || Perfect Storm --Brad Paisley
Notes || <3!

[bronte ellery o'connor]

Bronte had lived in New York City since she was four years old. In that time she wondered how many people had crossed her family, upset the wrong member and ended up in a hospital bed. She knew her older brothers didn’t care who they hurt, and her father was tactful in how he took care of those who upset his family. Her mother had skills too and Bronte wasn’t exactly without her resources. She could at least say honestly that she had only ever fought in self-defence. In her mind that counted for something. Still she wondered how many people knew her when she walked down the street. Did anyone look at her from a distance and instantly hear the name O’Connor ringing in their ears? She already couldn’t get a legitimate job because of the family affiliation. People were either scared of pissing them off or were already in deep with them for some reason or another. New York might be a city of dreams to some, but Bronte saw it as a city of desperation and lies. When her family were what they are it was kind of impossible to see the glitz and glamour without seeing the gore and blood that ran beneath it all.

She wasn’t a cynic. She was a realist. Bronte had grown up without any illusions about what people were capable of. She saw the harshest of humans, escaped from some of the most monstrous of men, and now she was fearless when it came to that sort of thing. There were still things that scared her or sent chills down her spines, but humans were not one of them. She could stare down the barrel of the gun without flinching, and she’d fight back without giving a second thought to getting shot. Her father had raised all of his kids that way. If an O’Connor was ever going down they were going down with a fight, kicking and screaming and hopefully taking someone else with them. “Might be a plan, sweetness.” She said with a dark smile. Cabbies weren’t the only thing she wished people would look out for, but Bronte wasn’t about to don a mask and cape and become a vigilante. She could barely protect her family from their own mistakes, forget the rest of New York!

“Yeah, I think the owner must be letting the health inspector screw her every month. Sorry.” It was the only thing Bronte could think of. Either that or someone was being paid ludicrous sums of money to keep the place open, but even that seemed a little bit beyond the realms of drastic, and she had grown up seeing people who were at the edge of desperation. “It’s this way.” Bronte swung her arms slightly as she walked, head held high. She laughed lightly and shrugged. “I don’t know. Can’t say I really make a habit of it.” Saving her brothers from themselves wasn’t really ever rewarded. Hell, Bronte didn’t ever think they thanked her for it, and she had put her ass on the line enough times to reel them in from a jail term! She spied the bistro up ahead and pointed it out with a quick flick of her wrist. “There’s our spot.”

• • •

TAGGED! Jacqueline Rose Pucill
WORDS! 554!
OUTFIT! Cute Criminal!
LYRICS! Sketches of Pain - - - Audible Mainframe
NOTES! <3 <3 <3