The Carrero Heart - Beginning (Friends to Lovers)

Chapter 200

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.

“Hey, mamma, mi sei mancato” I kiss her on the cheek and let her go, catching sight of a blonde head behind her in the kitchen, and it immediately piques my interest. Not really bright blonde, more of a honey color, pulled back in a ponytail over a makeup free cute face, that’s downward facing. She is looking into a bowl as she mixes something and it’s hard to really tell what she looks like, but the slim body hints at young teens, enough curves to be around sixteen, maybe older, definitely interesting. I can’t help the little rise of male interest. I mean I am still slightly under the influence, so maybe I have beer goggles on or, whatever, but she’s a nice view from here. Too young for me though, even I can tell that from here. Cute still. Something kinda sweet and wholesome about her.

“Arry, this is Sophabelle, our newest Huntsberger addition.” My mom introduces her, and she 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. I get a complete shock at my internal response and can barely take my eyes off them, like she draws me in with a color that is incomparable to any blue eyes I have ever seen. So clear, strong, and vibrant. Like they just cut through all your crap and see your soul and beyond and I feel suddenly powerless, and completely naked.

Shit.

She blushes as soon as she sees me, and it makes everything inside of me feel weird. I’m not sure what the fuck 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 spot, caught in her spell.

“Hey, how 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 models for a living. She has the face and the body, and definitely the flawless skin.

I know a lot of models and wonder how we 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 of way.

“Hi.” She says 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 she just planted between us. Her body language and manner are almost ice queen, yet somehow without applying effort.

Ouch.

Definitely guarded, silently hostile; maybe she IS one of their typical children that they like to take in. They always give a home to the ones who need it most, and I wonder what her story is. Interest piqued, for entirely different reasons now.

I have always been a sucker for a sad story 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, and she’s like a little puzzle, waiting to be solved.

“You’re a chatty one, aren’t you?” I chuckle, attempting to break the ice as my mother leaves me to it, watching me with a smile. She always encourages me to interact with the kids she shelters with her love. She has very few who come here from her charity, so I’m used to meeting them, but this one... she’s something else.

Her whole vibe, her appearance and manner. She isn’t like most of the kids I have met. She has a strength, a 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 get-go, and I have met tougher than her.

I can normally spot it a mile away, figure out what the story is. Whether violence, neglect, sexual abuse... sometimes it’s just a runaway, or parents who died from drug overdose. This one however, she looks like a girl from the streets 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 much behind that closed door that just begs for you to take the time to open it.

“Shhh, leave her be. Sophie is just fine once she warms to you, stop teasing her.” My mom throws me a warning glare and tends to brewing coffee for us. She’s like Jake in that respect, coffee addicted and has about forty different 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 a tightness in my chest. The last kid my mom was this close with, his dad had been sodomizing him daily, locking him in the basement and starving him half to death. My mom likes to pay special attention to the worst, believing nurturing these ones gives them a better chance at moving on

in life. I hate the fact that means there is a good chance her story is dark and grim. I glance at her again and try so hard to figure why anyone would hurt someone as angelic looking as her.

She has a strength about her for sure, but there’s an overwhelming aura of vulnerability too, a sweetness that claws at you to take care of her that knocks 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 invested in a millisecond of meeting her. An erupting hatred for whoever put her on the path that made her end up here.

She’s still mixing batter and it bugs me that 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 her attention, force her to look at me at least. It backfires, and I give her a fright, seeing her jump and hop back defensively as though I scolded her, and it feels like in turn she scolds me.

Fuck.

It’s like a little flash behind her wall, a moment of fear and panic at me getting too close and in an instant, I see it, and it wounds me 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 her. She’s poised and stiff, eyes wide and afraid as she holds her breath because I got in her safe zone. On red alert and like a scared rabbit in a trap as she tries not to look at me. My own body bristling with an inner rage on her behalf.

I move back slowly, trying not 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 guarded and I see the slight tremble in that delicate mouth, sucker punching me and making me feel even shittier about scaring her.

She’s a runner, I can tell. Flight or fight so ingrained in that pretty little face, it’s second nature to her... Whoever did whatever they did, it must run deep. She’s here because she found the strength to run and she is still poised, ready to keep going should she find herself in danger.

Fucking bastards.

“Tastes good...you must have the magic touch.” I say it softly, sucking the revolting mixture from my finger and wonder what the hell my mom is making, while moving back to get out of her space without gagging. Six feet minimum, my mom always said, give the kids six feet or more to breathe. If they want you closer, they will let you know. In her case, I’m getting the vibe she wants the world twelve feet away at all times and that only strengthens the fact someone messed her up for a long time.

The ones who have lived with it long term, they are the ones who show the least of it on the surface yet hold everyone far away. Like her. I bet all her scars and pains are under thirty layers of concrete and she tells no one without a fight.

She’s back to mixing, trying to appear unbothered and act like my presence has no effect on her, yet I can tell she’s not relaxed at all. She’s stiffer than a board and her visions keeps straying up to catch me in her peripheral instead of straight on, checking I’m staying back. It makes my heart bleed for her. To be constantly aware of people and men, never able to trust while in a safe environment. So young to be so afraid.

Who hurt you, baby?

“She has, if she only had a softer touch and more patience.” My mom laughs and comes to remove the bowl from her swiftly, saving the batter from being mixed into denseness. She hands her another instead, that’s filled with a new mixture and a fresh spoon. I watch with interest, the hand off, and notice even my mom avoids touching her. No contact at all, not even her normal little affections she has for some of the kids. Its textbook for my mom.

Sexual and violent. That’s what it tells me.

Mother fucker.

That welt of anger rises in me from somewhere deep and I almost lose my cool outer façade for a moment. Gritting my teeth and breathing in slowly to keep all hints of a reaction at bay. I feel sick to my stomach, looking at her, and knowing someone used her that way. People who abuse little innocents like her deserve to be tortured to death, slowly and castrated with a dull rusty spoon.

“You can massacre this one if you like.” my mom giggles and Sophie’s face warms a little, a slight relaxation in her taut muscles and a hint of softening in those eyes. I can’t tear my eyes off her, wanting to lift away the layers and figure her out. She’s like this beautiful mystery that’s shrouded in sadness and it really gets to me. I want to peel apart her mind and show her that not all men hurt girls, in any kind of way. She catches me looking at her and glares defensively. Warning me off, telling me to stay away and I smile back in a bid to ease her suspicion.

I’m making her uncomfortable, being an ass and I should know better. She’s female... clearly has a thing about males for the obvious reasons. I need to back off.