Arrick Carrero
Arrick glanced down at his phone lighting up in the center console of his car and sighed as Sophie's name flashed on screen. That air of irritation and anxiety mingling together and pushing solidly to the surface. He was running late as it was, which he hated like crazy, but he knew for a fact that whatever she wanted he would give in to. Sophie just had a way of getting under his skin, even when she was being as infuriating as in the past months, and try as he might, he had no willpower when it came to her. Hitting his dash, that connected to his phone, her voice rang around the interior of the car as soon as he pressed it.
“Arrick … Arry? Are you there?” She was slurring badly, most likely way too drunk again, and he couldn’t do anything but sigh and reel in the urge to be mad at her, picturing her in his mind’s eye and getting stressed. He hated knowing she was out there in that state; calling him meant she was probably alone and those sad act, so-called friends of hers, had yet again ditched her. His temper rose internally, heart rate rising, and muscles started to tense.
“Yes, Sophs, I’m here. Where are you this time?” He knew why she was calling, she needed picking up again and as he checked his dash for the time, he cursed quietly.
Natasha would be waiting for him, it was another ten minutes to her apartment, and he could guarantee Sophie would be in the opposite direction, back in the city. Once again, he would have to choose between his girlfriend and Sophie, and they all knew he would always go where she needed him, without hesitation.
Lately, Natasha and he had argued way more about how much time he spent running after Sophie, but he couldn’t help it. He felt responsible for her, after years of being the one person she turned to, he cared about her so damned much that the thought of her being drunk and vulnerable out there somewhere, was making him sweat. Sophie was a weakness, one that he had never truly understood. Putting it down to years of seeing her vulnerable and in need of being taken care of, and him being a protective person who cared a little too much about what happened to her. She was the closest thing he had to a sister, and he always figured that’s what this was.
“I’m at Randy’s club alone, Arry … I lost everyone and I can’t find my bag.” She sounded so young and vulnerable, sucker punching him in the gut, winding him around her little finger effortlessly. All it took was a tearful tone and he could picture those Bambi eyes, all huge and soft blue like a wounded kitten, and that perfectly pouted mouth trembling, ready to cry. He gritted his teeth as the stab of anxiety hit him hard. Sophie was young and beautiful, a little too beautiful if he was being honest, and a prime target for assholes and creeps who tended to seek her out. She just attracted trouble without even trying.
Randy’s club was a twenty-minute drive back, if he picked Natasha up first there would be a catfight in here for sure. Despite the numerous times he had them together, neither seemed to warm to the other. He also didn’t like the thought of leaving Sophie in that god-awful place longer than he had to and picking Tash up first would do just that. He had no energy for another ‘Tasha-Sophs’ scene and was already U-turning his car in the street, back to her without hesitation. His hands already making the choice even when he’d still been mulling it over.
Natasha would understand, she would moan at first and get upset, but ultimately, she had to accept that Sophie would always be a part of his life, and he would never stop taking care of her. She was his best friend; someone he had spent six years being a rock for when she had faced reliving the trauma of her own childhood at the hands of an abusive parent.
Sophie was a part of him, a bond formed over years of helping her find her feet in her new life in her new adoptive family’s home, and in a safe environment. They had clicked, somewhere between looking at him like she didn’t trust him and wanting him to fall into a crater, and the first time she allowed him to buy her a milkshake without acting like she wanted to punch him in the balls.
“I’m on my way, Sophs, go back in the club and stay there until I come get you.” He sounded pissed, hell, he was pissed, even if he was trying not to show it. She was getting too damned frequent with these situations she put herself in, and she no longer even listened to him, or to reason anymore. It just made him sick to his stomach to think how many close calls or dumb situations she’d gotten herself into that she didn’t call him for.
Turning nineteen last year had somehow seemed to flick a switch in her head that she should live wild and party like Leila, her sister, used to do. It was simpler when she was just a kid, hanging out and easy to guide, being happy to just chill and watch a movie, rather than go out getting drunk and laid. And that part was something he just didn’t allow himself to think about at all; Sophie and sex were two topics he never wanted to link in any way, shape or form, and he sure as hell didn’t want to meet any of the assholes she dated.
It was a hell of a lot easier when she was a big-eyed fifteen-year-old who followed him around obediently and looked up to him for advice, hanging on his every word. He missed that girl like crazy; he often thought about her and longed for the days when the two of them used to be able to just chill, sofa surf and share junk food, with that easy effortless quality time together.
Natasha wasn’t one for any of that; she hated most of the stuff that Sophie and he loved, and the fact she didn’t see what he did in her made things more strained. There was no common ground between the two women.
He knew he wasn’t around as much for Sophie as he had been in the past because of it, and lately, all he did was pick her up from bars and clubs and take her home to recover when she was a mess. They barely talked about anything at all when he saw her.
He was too old for this shit now. He was turning twenty-six in a few months, and the last thing he needed anymore was all this drama, every week of his life with her. He missed the Sophie who used to be happy to go out with him, go away together or just hang out doing normal stuff, like jet skiing, playing Xbox, snowboarding, watching foreign cartoons and vegetating, or any of the other pastimes they had shared in the past few years. He missed the small things, before she started dating assholes, and living on the edge of wild. He just missed her, endlessly.
What he wouldn’t give for a sober call, and that sweet voice on the other end just asking him how his day was, instead of crying for another rescue. He had no clue how they had even got here.
“Are you mad at me?” Her crestfallen tone and the start of tears made him instantly guilty, that ache in his stomach and pang in his chest. Sophie wasn’t much of a crier unless she thought Arrick was pissed at her and he never understood why she fell to pieces when he was mad. She sure as hell didn’t give a shit if any of her adoptive family got pissed at her, especially not her sister or Mom, whom she had been closest to. To his recollection, she didn’t really get upset when her own friends did, but then Sophie had found keeping friends outside of the family hard, especially with her past and all the demons it held. She didn’t really trust people enough to form real bonds, so he knew how important it was that he stayed in her life, even when she was behaving like a train wreck on a path to destruction. Not that he had a choice; life had a way of feeling empty when he didn’t hear from her for weeks, and thankfully he had only endured that a couple of times.
“No, Mimmo, I’m not mad, Sophie. Go inside, stay warm and wait for me.” He tried to soften his tone, soothing her drunken ruffled feathers gently, in a bid to coerce her to do as he wanted. When she was like this, she was an overgrown child he needed to manage carefully; that internal spitfire of hers ready to overreact and bite, even if it only hurt herself.
Sophie was someone who was easily pushed into the defensive, closing up and lashing out at those who mattered, when trying to protect herself, and being drunk escalated it tenfold. She had always been that way and very few had his skill at knowing how to handle her. Too stubborn to think logically or realize she was cutting off her nose to spite her face sometimes.He upped his speed, putting his new car through its paces to get to her a little quicker as the tension in his body escalated. It was late, almost ten p.m. and the city was aglow with the usual never-ending illumination of New York, as his sleek steel gray Mercedes slid through the night effortlessly. He was biting his lip as his eyes roamed the traffic impatiently, checking his mirrors as he shifted in his seat.She always made him feel anxious when she was like this, so many scenarios running through his head of what could happen to her, and his inner body twisting the tango of uptight anxiety. Sophie was
Arrick picked up his cell phone and scrolled to his most recent calls, hitting Natasha’s name, laying it back down in the console, eyes glued to the road, frowning. He hated driving in mid-town traffic past eight p.m.; the hustle and bustle of people hitting the nightlife always made it a headache to navigate.“Hey, Darling, are you almost here?” Natasha had a soft feminine voice that made her sound like a child most of the time, and he was hit with that pang of guilt at the fact he was doing this to her again.“Hey, Tash. Look … I’m sorry, but I need to cancel our plans tonight. You go and meet everyone and enjoy dinner. I need to go deal with Sophie.” He waited with paused breath at the long silence which stretched between them, zero response as she took it in, and he could already picture the hurt expression on her face. Knowing that she was taking a moment to choose her words wisely and think about her reaction. Natasha wa
Sophie HuntsbergerI drag myself heavily through the crowded club once more, everything moving and tipping like I’m at sea, disorientated and foggy, although I’m less drunk than I was. My phone is still glued to my ear, even though I seem to have lost Arrick and hear nothing but silence. Pulling my cell down to look at the blank screen I realize my battery has died and I just sigh in complete deflation. Fed up with how my life is turning out lately as nothing seems to go right anymore.Taking a long deep breath to try to center myself into sobriety, my body sagging, drying my face halfheartedly with the back of my hand now that my tears have once again subsided, and my heart has resorted to numb emptiness. I don’t even care if my makeup is smeared or even cried off. Arrick has seen me worse so many times.I let my cell drop in my hand, beside my body and hold it loosely, too disconnected to really feel anything bu
Dionne played the role of girly best friend for weeks. Looking back, I now see that she was milking me for anything she could get; a never-ending stream of money on tick with promises to pay it back. My clothes, my shoes and now my man. Luckily, my cell was in the back pocket of my denim skirt, a habit Arry drilled into me from an early age. To always keep my cell phone on me in case I ever need him … no matter what. My lifeline to my boy.My other friends seem to have vanished as quickly. As soon as I stumbled out of the ladies’ room, tear-stained and lightheaded to find them, I realized I’d been abandoned. We all came here to get drunk before our main event; a huge party in some exclusive bar across Manhattan, and my time in the bathroom was long enough to get ditched. Again.This isn’t the first time they have all gone on to the next place and left me to it. None of them cares about me, they only care that I pay my share, or more, of t
I dropped out of school because I didn’t see any point in it, none of what I was learning interested me, and I sat drawing clothes, coloring in doodles of shoes in every lesson. My head on getting out and going to max my credit card on whatever hit the boutiques that week, daydreaming over the outfit I wanted to try out when I got home. Besides spending money on clothes, the only other thing which brought me joy was matching outfits for new looks, searching out shoes and accessories that made it all pop. Fashion is everything to me. I adore every aspect of it and love nothing more than customizing things with my own style, teaching myself to sew in my spare time. It’s one of the few genuine joys I seem to have.I broached the subject of fashion school only once; my parents dismissed it as frivolous and pointless and told me that I have the brains to do so much more. As much as I love them, and I really do, it crushes me in a way that they dismiss something I have
Arrick’s aftershave surrounds me like a sudden familiar haven, a solid shield of pure muscle and a beacon in the dark. That wave of cold turns to tingles and internal shakes of sheer relief, my body instantly slumping and falling forwards to lean into him as the adrenaline turns me into a mess of jellified uselessness.“I swear if you don’t turn around and walk off right now, then you’ll be taking all meals from a tube, Dickhead.” Arrick snarls in that husky Carrero tone of the most perfect male voice I’ve ever known. My boy! Like familiar soothing music that just makes you whole. Bristling with aggression and dwarfing the other man with his sheer build of alpha intimidation in all his glory.Arrick is hitting the six-foot-one mark, maybe more nowadays, and his build has gotten a lot wider and stronger since he matured and started professional fighting. He’s a vision of physical perfection that goes so well with the face of mal
Uncertainty sends my already fragile stomach into a washer-like frenzy, hating that being in tune with him means I am so sensitive to exactly this kind of thing.His car has been deposited on the sidewalk neatly, all four gleaming wheels on the concrete, of a sleek gray Mercedes he bought only weeks ago to replace his electric blue sports car. Arrick is growing up, leaving behind that young fast life, and settling down, and I don’t know how to feel about it. He’s changing, has been for a while, and I guess it’s one of the reasons we are not as close as we once were. He’s growing up and I’m too far behind him.We move to the car, where an exceptionally large black-coated bouncer is leaning against it casually, with a beaming smile as he sees us approach.“Arrick, my main man!” He grins and fist bumps him as we close the gap, still holding me firmly, heating up my body despite the chill around us and my lack of jacket. I s
“Arrick?” I glance his way again, hating his ignorance, the silence making it almost unbearable to continue being so quiet. I lean over to let my fingertips trail down his arm, over his black jacket meekly as the little tiny eruptions of anxiety play off inside me like fiery tingles. Trying to attract his attention and knowing he won’t ignore physical touch.I catch that tiny tensing of his jaw deepen, muscle twitching under his cheekbone, and know for certain he is more than just a little mad with me. He’s in closed off, livid as hell mode. My stomach sinks again, breathing slowly to push back the effects of the night’s drinking and the new waves of hurt that are directly connected to him.“Leave it alone, Soph