The Carrero Heart - Beginning (Friends to Lovers)

We are in a cab on the way to Lenox hill hospital in the upper east side and Arrick is straining forward on his knees as he texts Jake. His body rigid and huge neon signals that say he needs silence and space.

All he’s told me before whisking me in here is that his father collapsed and was rushed into hospital as a possible heart attack victim. Arrick is pale and quiet, meaning he’s reverted inside of his head and I have no clue how to react. My body churning with worry over Giovanni and torn about how to be there for Arry.

It makes sense that he would go tell his PA he was leaving his own do and I feel guilty that I jumped to conclusions in the bar. We’re sitting apart, not touching and I am getting the strong vibe he doesn’t want me to even try.

He’s lost in his brain, thinking about his dad, and probably tearing himself apart with the fact they have not been talking to one another since he resigned. I wish I had the words or the know how to make this better for him, but the reality is, I don’t. I don’t know what to do or say to have any sort of effect and I sit here numbly quiet, turning this mess over and over in my head.

He won’t be thinking about us right now, he will be obsessing over his dad and all the possible outcomes and driving himself insane. He loves his dad so much and even though it’s been tense between them, he will fall apart if Giovanni doesn’t pull through.

Nothing drives it home more than this moment that the world doesn’t revolve around just me and my problems. That Arrick’s whole focus in life is not on us and me. All year he has been juggling everything while I got to walk away and live in a little closed off cocoon of Arrick and Sophie. Where it seemed like everything was bigger than it was. The real truth is that we are so very small in the grand scheme of our whole lives and the people we love, and I have spent a year dramatizing and acting like I was losing so much and failing to see how much I actually had.

Now that I am faced with really losing it all.

“He’s in surgery.” Arrick blurts out absentmindedly, catching me as I gaze at the back of that sandy head and clear my throat to answer him.

“Surgery? I thought he had a heart attack?” I lean forward to be closer to him, but he leans back in his seat and makes it clear he isn’t in the mood for touchy feely. I don’t visibly react but my heart sinks at that tiny reaction.

“Jake said they took him straight into surgery to do something to his heart valve. He hasn’t really had a chance to talk to anyone as they rushed him straight in.”

It must have happened so fast. Jake was only on his way to his meeting before he dropped me here, so either Giovanni was already in distress when Jake got there, or it happened right away. I feel sick to my stomach with the thought of anything happening to Giovanni. He’s part of my family, my stability even if we are not as close as I am to Sylvana. I can’t even imagine how Arry feels.

to see what he was dealing with on the other side of things, this is exactly what I did to him when we lost our baby. It’s

***

cream leather couches and Jake jumps up as soon as he sees us, coming forward to hug his brother before hugging me. He looks awful and it really drives home how scared they are that Giovanni

left to sit on the far side of the room

or something… I don’t even know. I got to our meeting and everything was chaotic. Restaurant already had an ambulance there and he was being lifted to a stretcher. It happened so fast.” Jake sounds shaky and vulnerable and as they both sit close together, like book ends. There’s no disguising the fear in

my way absentmindedly and even though I throw him a soft look he turns

for a couple hours. I had to send the jet back

it’s eerily calm, the sound of a

I butt in hopelessly; not sure what else I should be doing. I’m so out of my depth, like they need alone time or

put his hand in his pocket, but I wave my shoulder bag at him that’s been across my body this

to me and it isn’t lost on me that I have never been a ‘nothing’ to him before.

you want coffee?

nudges him with his knee, snapping Arrick out of

“What?”

Jake seems to

at his brother, I turn on my heel and head off in search of a vending machine or cafeteria in this place. It’s a private hospital and I’m sure they must have some

take anything that’s happening between

nurse redirects me to a tiny kitchen area with an array of machines and a real coffee pot. It doesn’t take long to make them their drinks as they both take them pretty black with a dash of cream and nothing else and I carry them back to the room slowly for fear of sliding on the polished cream floor. The hospital is creepily

finally wander back into the waiting room there is only Arrick, standing by

to look at me, before coming and relieving me from both mugs, laying one on a low table before going back to