The Carrero Heart - Beginning (Friends to Lovers)

Driving the few blocks to Arrick’s apartment, we are equally silent, both lost in our own heads. His occasional glances my way don’t go unnoticed, but I have no clue how to feel, and I’m dreading the moment we walk into his home and come face to face with the girl who has shared his bed for almost two years. Everything is a mess; I should have stayed miles away from him like I planned, but somehow that tiny flicker of hope inside of me is destroying all my willpower.

Natasha comes out of the nearby bedroom as we enter Arrick’s penthouse apartment, her little brown curled head and slight frame just make her look like a little lost puppy dog, and it’s clear by her makeup-free face that she’s been crying at some point. Natasha is never without her makeup, and seeing her now, I see she is a lot plainer looking than I ever realized. She has that girl next door quality and looks a lot better when made up. It feels odd to see her like this, like I am seeing the girl beyond the outer shell for a moment.

“Oh, my God, you found her. Sophie, we have been so worried about you.” She rushes forward and gives me the smallest of awkward hugs that makes my skin crawl. I stand stiffly, endure it and don’t reciprocate, glad when she lets me go. The thing with Natasha is that despite how much I hate her, and I always make it pretty obvious, she always seems to act like she cares. I’ve never been able to figure out if it’s an act for Arrick’s benefit, or she really is genuine. Either way, I think it makes her weird, and kind of sad really.

Standing back shyly, she regards me with an open face and wide eyes that give her the look of a wounded animal, and I can’t help but feel a tiny tug of guilt. Knowing what I know now, knowing how much she loves him, I would have to be inhumane not to feel something for her. She looks so lost.

“I love your hair; you look so grown up.”

eye roll, irritated that she always has to point out my age in any way she can. Has always treated me like a five-year-old sibling whom she had to stepmother at every opportunity, and right now it will earn her a boot in the teeth with the

a belt to cinch the waist and some

catch a glimpse from the corner of my eye of the girl moving to Arrick and throwing a hug on him. He embraces her for a second then moves out of her arms and saunters off into the spare room to throw my bag in. For a broken-up couple, who have been fighting, I can see no evidence of anything different between them. Same aloof behavior as the past two years of their relationship, and I wonder at what they are actually like in the bedroom if they

as she fills a glass of water. I resist the urge to tell her to back off as she turns gracefully, and I smile emptily at her, putting on my fake nice mask and hoping to God she has no intention of staying here for long. I have so much pent up angst, misfiring on

to what she is doing, moving to the ice maker on the refrigerator and topping up her drink

and just want you home and safe.” Natasha has the nerve

about what is even going on in her boyfriend’s head. For a moment, I feel mad at him that he hasn’t

against the doorjamb from the room I used to use often. He’s uneasy and not his normally solid and cool self. It’s the first time I notice how tired he is, and the shadow of stubble hinting around his jawline shows he’s not as perfectly manicured as

pauses mid movement as her hand tenses on the glass she is laying down on the counter. That flicker of heartbreak on her face, and then it’s