The Carrero Heart - Beginning (Friends to Lovers)

I wake up with a dry mouth, burning eyes and pounding head as the sound of music assaults my senses. Arrick has tunes pounding through the floors as I blink awake and realize I am still on the couch, face down, and the blanket is wrapped around my legs like freaking restraints. I feel like utter shit, and the table is littered with cold pizza and the scraps of a weird middle of the night scramble for food. We ate, fell asleep and woke up at the same time. Well actually, stretching out and slapping the back of my hand in his face was the catalyst for his grumpy rise from the dead, and he did try to push me off the sofa in retaliation.

We raided the kitchen for munchies, watched another movie for like an hour while grumpily arguing over absolute pointless crap because we were both tired, and in my opinion, Tom Cruise is far hotter with an Irish accent and boxing gloves, than he is in either Top Gun or Cocktail. We both must have fallen asleep after that, as everything beyond the horse dying in ‘The Never Ending Story’ is hazy in my head.

I can still see the indent on the cushion beside me from his head and the whole couch and I smell like him. I guess he stayed here with me the full night after all.

I groan and look around, spying him in the kitchen, singing to himself as he makes a fresh pot of coffee. He’s still rumpled and wearing last night’s clothes too, so I’m guessing he hasn’t been up for long either.

“Ughh, shut up.” I yell at him and go back to burying my head under the pillow I have been lying on. Annoyed that I have had like no sleep and he is being his usual happy, chirpy morning person self that grates on my nerves. I’m fairly sure he got as little sleep as me and it is way too early for this kind of nonsense.

I swear the music gets louder.

across the kitchen, and catch him smirking my way, remote pointed at the stereo with that childish look of a mean boy. Sometimes I love him to bits and sometimes, like right now, he is a total ass who makes my life a living

to melt me with dazzling smiles is not going

another glare, and I at once set about trying to wipe my eyes awake and tame the hair that

look like a train wreck. I groan and get up to lazily trudge to his room for the nearest bathroom; the spare room is the one I normally get sent to,

after me, meeting an extended middle finger thrown back at him without even looking his way. In no way have I ever been a morning person and with an added hangover I can see me choking him with my bare hands. He laughs as I push open his door and shuffle into his immaculate bedroom, which is still in darkness from not opening the blinds in here. It’s completely clean and neat with

religiously. My face looks like I have been face painted as a panda then stood

on the vanity by the door. I run a finger along the unit and pop it open to locate some wash products and spot all of Natasha’s crappy choices of shampoos and shower gels. I select a few and throw them all on the shower floor. I turn to the mirror with another grimace before kicking the bathroom door shut to his bedroom and strip off. I don’t even bother to lock it, knowing if he hears the

open the bathroom door and wander into his room, a lot more pulled together than the hazy fogginess of being ripped awake leaves. The soothing gray walls and mix of urban meets modern in his domain are welcoming; scaffold, wood and concrete assorted shelving he had built in here hold a lot of books and memorabilia as they span the one wall by the bed facing me. I smile at the large framed picture with Jake his

a change of hair and eye color, it makes them crazily unalike. Like salt and pepper. In build, however, they are clearly matched. They both inherited height from Sylvana’s side of the family, maybe width and strength from Giovanni, but all that muscular Adonis-like power they each share is most definitely straight out of their Italian roots.

clothes from last night are on the end of the bed, along with my shoes and one of Arrick’s hooded sweaters. He’s left them here so I can get dressed into something that fits me and making it clear I am not to walk about without a top on over it. I eye roll at the obvious brotherly move and slip off the