The Carrero Heart - Beginning (Friends to Lovers)

Arrick’s POV

~ Seeing Sophie again. (Restaurant) ~

I push the money in the driver’s hand as I follow Charlie and Tom out of the cab onto the sidewalk. I’m still tired from my three hours in the training ring and starving, it’s my turn to pay for lunch and I got to pick the venue. This place is new and no chance of Natasha hitting it with her colleagues on her lunch break either. I’ve been trying to put distance between us since the breakup, trying to stay out of her way and I hate that she has a knack for showing up wherever I am. It feels like she just won’t let go, and although I understand her pain at our breakup, it’s also stifling, and I just want her to move on. She won’t do that if she keeps trying to cling to me.

“Hurry up, man.” Tom, my sparring partner today is impatient as hell and throwing me a look that is supposed to hurry me up. I straighten on the street and glare him down. Back on form lately and I will put him on his ass again if he keeps this up, I’m not one to deal with attitude lately. I shove him in the shoulder towards the restaurant door and catch Charlie laughing at us. He’s my trainer and at six feet seven, built like a giant brick shit house, I am not too keen on any reprimanding from him in public. He’s one of the few guys who can match me in a ring, and he isn’t against trying hard to punch me out. I’m lucky I have speed and agility on my side.

“That was a good session, Arry. Keep it up and a championship will be yours my boy.” Charlie pats me on the back as we enter the building and the young female Maître D rushes towards us with menu’s, grinning wildly. Tom scoots forward to deal with her, seeing a possible fuck buddy, as I turn to my main man. I spend so much time with him lately that we should be sick of seeing each other.

“I figured that focusing all my energy into beating the shit out of people, was better than letting myself drown in self-pity.” I smile at him coolly; he knows how I have been these past weeks and he nods with a fatherly smile. He has seen me at my worst, especially right after finding out Sophie had a boyfriend and pulled me out of the alcohol binge state I went into. He focused me back on fighting and saved me from myself.

Not exactly doing much better nowadays, still broken and living like an empty shell, but at least I have a focus and a release for all the shit going off inside of me. He’s twenty years older than me, but the guy has a seriously mean body and a demeanor that screams ‘I will fuck you up.’ No one knows how much of a softie he really is, how much I respect him and how lately, he has become an ear for all my problems. My Sophie stand in of sorts.

The small brunette is pointing into the back of the busy room at tables up near the back and Tom leads the way. We follow closely, stomachs rumbling, completely starving from an excessively energetic session and I feel good about how I’m doing with my training lately. Focused everything on just doing that and nothing else. Taking a time out from Carrero Corp, taking time out of my own head, and expelling all the shit that keeps messing me up, physically. I’m doing well, honing techniques and feeling positive about a fight I have lined up.

“Is my princess ready to go?”

“I am.” The familiar sweet voice hits me like a sucker punch as we walk down the center walkway of the room and I stumble. I would recognize her voice anywhere, and it’s like being hit with a thousand spiky pins all at once, over every single part of my body. It’s been haunting me for weeks, she’s never out of my head, or my dreams, always there in the shadows of my mind, every second.

That laugh, her cute giggle, carefree and pure, and I am rendered completely incapable for a moment, turning impulsively to see the familiar small blonde head, with her back to me, leaving a table with a blonde stocky guy, that is a shit sight to see. My breath catches in my throat and I literally can’t move, immobile with a mix of pain, and longing to see her.

My Sophs.

I know who he is. Seen him with her from afar. The guy who replaced me, who swooped in and caught her when I let her go. My careless abandonment of the most precious thing I ever had. She doesn’t know how many times I stood outside her apartment and lost the courage to just go in and see her. How many times I caught sight of her coming out and left, afraid, ashamed. Unable to just tell her how much of a mistake I made. How I feel about her. Usually he is right along with her, shadowing her, holding her hand and has been the deterrent in my approaching her for weeks. My stomach twists in my gut and the words are out almost impulsively, because I’m caught off guard.

“Sophie?” I sound pathetic, unsure and I’m aware I’m standing still, in the middle of the aisle while my mates shake their head at me and wander off. Charlie throws me that look...’Good luck’ smirk. He knows who she is, he’s met her many a time on social occasions, he knows she’s the reason my life fell to shit. Is still falling to shit.

Sophie pauses for a second, I see her tense and I can’t stop the way my eyes devour every little piece of her. Her small compact body, dressed in a pale printed floral dress that’s cute, a woolen cardigan and flat sparkly shoes. She looks like Sophie of old like this, and it crushes what’s left of my soul. Her hair back to blonde, past her shoulder now and looking every bit like the girl I dream about every night. I can’t breathe. Body rigid, tensed and waiting to see that face turn to me while holding everything in. This is agony in its truest definition.

He has her hand in his as they turn together, and I have to hold onto every part of my self-control to not rip them apart and shove him halfway across the room. I hate that he’s touching her, that he gets to be with her, be close to her, make her laugh and listen to her problems. I hate that he’s with

and yet fill a part of me at the same time. Those blue eyes that have been missing in my life, burn my heart with just one contact and I have to swallow hard to control how much it hurts. She looks like everything I miss. No girl has ever compared to her, how beautiful she is, how she makes

deserve for this to hurt like crazy when I look at the innocence of her face, the fear in the depths of those mesmerizing eyes. I put it there and I have no right to her anymore. I added scars to

deserved you, baby.

past me, I guess at Charlie as he moves to our table, recognizing him, and long for her to look back at me, to bask in her smile for just a second, to remember what it feels like to connect with her in anyway. To have her undivided attention again. I can almost

her so much, this is excruciating.

felt pain these past weeks, missing her, seeing her from afar, but this right here. It’s worse than hell. Having her look at me like this; closed up, hidden behind the Sophie self-defense system that is clearly on show, while lover boy slides his arm around her protectively. I

hands off her.

like trying to dislodge nails and I’m having such a hard time acting normally. I don’t even know why I’m doing this to myself. I guess I just want something to hold onto... a new memory of her, so they never fade. It’s all I have

in this moment, I just want to imprint every detail of her to my mind. She’s the light

on, and you know? … I have school.” She answers cautiously, holding in everything of her that tells me what she’s thinking. Icing me out. I can almost see her trying to avoid looking at me, all the old tells are there. The ones I spent years helping remove. She’s back to guarded, afraid, seeing me as a threat, and it twists the knife harder. She is fidgeting, picking at her nail, and pushing one foot behind the other, so juvenile, so Sophs, and I want to

you...

have to say I’m an admirer of your fighting skills, Arrick. I see you had another knockout victory two weeks back, against Tiger Marse.” The blonde guy, Mr. Suave good looking and immaculately dressed. holds his hand out to me, pulling my eyes from her as he leans out. Hand waving in front of me expectantly and I really bite down on the urge to break his fingers and ram them up his own ass. I can barely keep my heart rate under control, my breathing, as this courses through me.

make her hate me anymore than she does. I take his hand and shake, applying more pressure than I should because I really, really, want to hurt him right now. Every part of my body is tense and poised to take the fucker down and beat the shit out of him.

hesitate at what else to say, trying to play cool, be a gentleman. I know it’s what she will want; when I just want to pick him up by the throat, mess him up and warn him about what

She’s more important. He frowns back at me unamused, but I ignore him and turn back. I can’t stop myself looking her over again, like a bee to honey. Can’t stop taking in how good she

is a killer”, because this bites like a

this need in me to verbalize how amazing she looks, standing here, watching me quietly. I don’t care if her boyfriend doesn’t like it. I’ll break his nose if he has a problem with it. If I want to tell her she looks beautiful, then I fucking will, and he gets

drunk and tear stained in a dress I hate and leaning on me to save her. What I would give even to have that part back. I would change everything if I could go back and know what I do

to leave her alone. Another stabbing pain, another wound at her hands when she doesn’t even mean it. I hope she knows somewhere, deep down, that this isn’t what I wanted with us. That I would

is, to have her finally talk to me, after months of silent hell. How many times I have tried to will

Stop dragging this out, even if I would have her stand here all day just so I don’t have to not see her again. I’m

at me a little oddly and I wonder if he is trying to figure out what I was to her. I doubt he has a clue. Knowing Sophie, she probably hasn’t told him about the past either, something

Sophs; are you going to Leila’s party?” Still clinging to hope I will see her again. This isn’t enough, it will never be enough. I don’t want a future where I don’t see her. It’s

Can’t wait to meet Daniel, and of course, Leila. Her parents have told me she’s the family fireball.” The guy squeezes her shoulder and I can’t bear it and look away before I physically hurt him. I should go before I do literally punch him out. I never knew it could feel this way.... seeing her with someone. There are no words to describe this agony or the levels