The Carrero Heart - Beginning (Friends to Lovers)

Arrick’s POV

~ Meeting Sophie for the first time ~

I get out of the cab and drag my rucksack with me, tired today, after the long flight on a commercial airline from LA and glad to be back on home turf. It was a hell of a week at a bachelor party that turned into a crazy, endless, sleepless, drunk fueled mess. I don’t remember half of it, and I’m sure I still have that Veronica girls cell number written on my chest in red lipstick. I went straight from bed with that blonde girl, Tanya or Tracey, whatever her name was, to the airport, and now I’m desperate for a shower.

It’s not like me to hit on women for a one-night hook up only, but it was my last night in LA, and I knew I would never see either of them again. Sometimes being a horny male slut is as good as going twelve hard rounds in the boxing ring to relieve tension. I’m getting as bad as Jake and I know I should really curb some of the reckless behavior lately. I just feel so listless and restless all the time, out of whack and school is boring me. I’m smarter than most of my class and I don’t even have to try to make the grade. While everyone is stressing out and studying, I’m flying through effortlessly. My mind isn’t being challenged and I’m considering dropping out for a year to let them catch up because I’m bored, ready to find something new to do with my life.

I’m spending more time with Nathan, my roommate, at the gym than ever. He’s been pushing me to take my hobby further because he sees talent there in my boxing and martial arts, but I don’t know. It seems a weird thing to chase for a career and I know my father will probably hit the roof. He expects me to join the family business, form the Carrero trio and dominate our field of expertise with him and my brother.

I guess after years of not condoning how Jake went, I can see me following the same path, despite my reservations and hatred of how he parties and hooks up with randoms. I mean, I’m not that bad yet, I at least date a few weeks at a time, until I get the same suffocation from their neediness, or another jealous outburst pisses me off, and then I let them down gently. I even stayed friends with some of them, but no one ever made the long-term cut. I’m not really ready to settle down with a girl. I’m now nineteen, just turned, in college, and too young for that shit yet. I have a lifetime ahead of me to meet a girl that gets to me on another level.

I push open the front door and get the hugest smile from Mariah, our housekeeper, as she tries to relieve me of my bag. I shake my head and stop her hand, dropping it by the stair instead.

“I’ll leave it here, it’s heavy. I’ll carry it up when I go.” I lean and give her an affectionate peck on the cheek, getting a blush in return and another huge happy smile. She’s been part of this family since I was born and she’s like an aunt, or even a second mom to me nowadays. My mother raised us to treat our staff like equals, despite my father’s aversion to it, and we have had mostly the same faces around us my entire life. Mariah pats me on the cheek and moves off, gesturing towards the kitchen as she goes, and I nod in thanks. She knows me so well and who I instantly look for on my arrival home.

“Mamma. Where are you? I’m home.” I call out for my mom, hearing voices in the kitchen and the noise of crockery banging. She’s in her favorite place, making great things to eat and I’m ecstatic. I’m starving, and nothing beats my mamma’s home cooking. I can almost feel my stomach turning over in anticipation of some good home cooked Italian grub. Her forte.

I wander to the kitchen door, greeted with her immediately, looking beautiful in a floral dress and wiping white flour dust from the print. She looks good, happy, upbeat, blushed from the hot kitchen and I embrace her tightly. My Mamma is a beautiful woman, still looks young for her age with a body to match, and I can see why after all these years, my father is besotted with her still.

“Ahhh, il mio bambino.” She hugs me tightly, planting a kiss on the corner of my mouth and pats me on the cheek too. A tender affection I always miss when I’m not here and I smile warmly for it. We are close, and I love her to death. I miss my family when I’m not here, but I have been a restless soul for years, and being home never seems to satisfy me. I’m here for a week, then back to school to take some finals and decide what to do with the rest of my year. God knows after that.

to really tell what she looks

glances up, completely flooring me for a second, when tropical blue eyes, large for her features and set in a completely devastating way on such a flawlessly ethereal face, look back at me. It’s like being sucker punched from left wing while simultaneously being slapped in the face with icy water.

Shit.

kind of reaction it is, not one girl has ever given me this kind of immediate internal flip over, and I really do not like it. Swallowing hard, I push out this stupid feeling, these crazy thoughts and scan her face instead. Pretty hard to do while those eyes are focused on me intensely and I am rooted to the

you doing?” I say the first thing that comes to mind and try not to cringe at my lameness. God, I sound completely predictable and it’s the worst line ever. She’s gone back to looking down at what she is doing and for a moment, I forget my mom is even standing beside me. So focused on that face and a little shell shocked by the reaction I just had to her. She looks young, unsure, guarded, and with those dazzling blues off me I can appreciate the pouted mouth, slender face and high cheekbones of a girl who probably

have never crossed paths; then I remember my mom said she’s a Huntsberger kid. They only take in children who are usually running from a life that hurts them, and I give her a second look, evaluating that piece of information with scrutiny. She doesn’t look abused, neglected, or even scarred. She just looks.... closed off. So crazily pretty though in a uniquely beautiful kind

flatly, glancing up quickly, nervously, and looks back down at what she’s doing. Not interested in me in any way, shape, or form. I don’t miss that pretty clear signal. It’s like a massive sign

Ouch.

like to take in. They always give a home

and someone in need of protecting. I know I take after my mother in that respect and it’s why she works with abused kids. She hides it well, and for once I can’t read someone and it’s unnerving. My lifelong gift eludes me, annoyingly so and suddenly I just want to know. I don’t know why, but there’s something about her and watching her trying to ignore my presence, I really want to get inside her head. That outward closed off shell, it hides so much,

me with a smile. She always encourages me to interact with the

confidence that is usually absent in the care home kids, and a deathly distrust of me, which is odd in itself. People always like me right away, especially my mom’s kids. Known for putting them at ease and making friends from the

of the Hampton’s. Healthy, tanned, well dressed in jeans and a unicorn T-shirt with sparkly shit all over it. Cute and perky. Clean and manicured. Posture of a girl from wealth, and the calm outward manner of a very street wise and strong female. No hint of anything, except in those eyes that are like a doorway to another place. So

types to gush over every day. I can take it or leave it. I get the message though; this one is a personal case. My mom rarely takes a kid to heart unless it’s something really bad. I double glance at her and get that horrible gut ache that brings up instant anger, twisting heaviness and

me off kilter. She is multi-faceted and knowing that as one of my mom’s special kids, she must have endured the worst. I’m crazily

she really has no interest in me, that those eyes are hidden from this angle. I walk forward and dip my finger in what she’s mixing, in an attempt to catch

Fuck.

deeply to see it. She’s definitely an abuse case, all the signs are there, and it makes me instantly sick to my stomach for

to react, because I don’t want to embarrass her or make her feel even more uneasy at my presence; it’s the last thing I want. I shouldn’t have gotten in her space. I should have read the signs and stayed back, showed her she can trust me. I feel like such an asshole for such a punk move without reading her first. She takes a long slow breath, attempts to get herself back to cool and