things happen when your best friends with playboy #1

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Chapter 1 : I'm a season, I'm going to change

Jace Anderson; he's the kind of guy girls dream about. Medium length blonde hair that had a permanently tousled effect, green-blue eyes, a body worthy of an Abercrombie and Fitch model, athletic, clever, funny, popular, romantic, charismatic.

Except he's the biggest player in school. And also my best friend.

Then there's me: Skylar Valentine - Skye, to anyone I don't hate; Gabrielle is my middle name, but only Jace knows that.

To be honest it's not surprising, really, as to why I'm in the centre of the 'Popular' clique. I have large cerulean blue eyes, framed by long, thick, dark lashes. My hair - the shade a coppery red-gold blend with streaks of brunnette and sometimes vague highlights of lighter blonde depending on where I had vacationed that year - was cut into a large, swooping side fringe and lots of layers at varying lengths.

I have good features - but also silky, straight hair and pale, creamy skin inherited from some vague oriental descent. But despite that, the meat-headed jocks at our school often didn't look away from a girl's chest for long enough to notice any of that. And my chest had been the object of fixation for many guys because of my curvy but very slim figure -as ifI would ever give any attention to them with that attitude.

Sometimes - okay, often - Iwish Jace would think like that. Sure, he has standards, but... well considering he's slept with pretty much everyone in our year, you can tell how high (or low) they are.

Ever since starting high school, I've been plagued by jealous and bitchy girls who hate how close I am with Jace. It's un-fucking-believable how far desperation can push some girls to go, just to get some guy they barely even know.

Once someone started a rumour I was a lesbian, in an attempt to shame me into leaving the school - or something.

Some rich girl had actually tried to bribe people into ignoring me. Worse, when that failed, she'd offered me a couple thousand dollars to 'stay away' from Jace.

One time, I opened my locked in the morning to find it stuffed with condoms.

I'd walked into the bathroom a while ago to find my name scrawled over the mirror in permanent marker, above various insults and curse words. I hadn't told any one, but the school janitor had noticed and washed it off. Welltriedto anyway; a faded but still visible imprint of it remained.

A girl, at one point, had made an actually pretty clever scheme to break up the non-existant relationship (beyond close friendship anyway) between me and Jace. She'd subtly snuck notes into my various books, binders and locker with strangely disturbing doodles about how much I 'loved Jace' - even a page devoted to how I wanted to be 'Mrs Jace Anderson'. All her efforts to try and freak out Jace so he'd find me weird and break our friendship.

I'd tried not to let any of that bother me, Jace always comforted me when that sort of thing happened - but I put on a brave face and cried only in the privacy of my room. I put up with it, because Jace wasn't worth losing over some bitchy girls, even if these bitchy girls made up around a quarter of the student body at our school.

And it wasn't like I didn't have other friends. In fact, I had a lot more real friends than most.

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Hearing a honk of horn outside, I grabbed my bag and, locking the door behind, exited through the huge arching doorways leading in and out of the mansion I called home.

Jace was just driving his car, a lamborghini (typical for a rich boy like him) around the circular drive, shaped by the beautiful, and currently nonoperational, fountain. "Hey Angel!" He called.

Just his nickname for me brought back memories - we'd been friends for years now, but it was when we first met as children that he'd made that nickname - although he hadn't started using it until much later. Our parents, long time friends, had made the two of us play together while they shopped or whatever.

"I'm Skylar Gabrielle Valentine." I'd announced

The young Jace was a lot grouchier then, and had said moodily "What a mouthful. And isn't your middle name supposed to be for boys?"

"No! That'sGabriel." I'd said indignantly "And it's a beautiful name; it's to be the Angelic Messenger, meaning the 'Strength of God'. The angel Gabrielle is supposed to be the bearer of joy, truth justice, love and-"