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 hell just

dazzling smiles is not going to

about trying to wipe my eyes awake and tame the

in tear-stained makeup and probably look like a train wreck. I groan and

little miss,” he jests 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

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

towels and his bathrobe and dump it all 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

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 brother, close to his bed. Both smiling

shapes: some of their features are identical, but when set differently, with 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. I find it hard nowadays to pick out which brother is more capable of beating someone to death. Arrick has a pretty strong lead with being a professional fighter, but Jake helps train him as

so I can get dressed into something that fits me and making it clear I am not to walk