Chapter 23

“I’ll keep doing this until you can list at least ten things. Ten things that you love more about me than my brother! Come on then … Number one, Sophs?” He chuckles as I struggle wildly, pinned down in an embrace I have no chance of escaping, by muscles that are clearly more than a match for me. I squeal more as he roughly messes my hair again, to remind me that he will, because he’s evil and has no scruples.

“Okaayy … Okaayy!” I wail, knowing this is futile. Arrick has many forms of torture when he is being playful, and he isn’t against pinning me on the floor with my arms under his legs, to tickle me to squealing hysteria again.

“Number one?” Arrick repeats loudly. I have nothing else to do but answer him when he’s like this, knowing he will just keep tormenting me till I yield. I’m more afraid of the tickling than this, and I do not have the energy for that kind of hell.

“You have a nicer ass,” I blurt out, grasping at straws and aiming for one that he already knows anyway. Not that I have ever checked out Jake’s ass, but Arrick certainly has a toned and pert butt of a fighter and often gets checked out. He wears butt hugging jeans most of the time and it’s pretty hard to not see it if you are ever behind him, to the side of him, or if he just turns for a moment. It’s like it draws the eye effortlessly.

“Okay, you think I have a nice ass. Interesting! Can I say, from up here yours looks pretty good too.” He smacks mine hard from over the top of me and I curse him out with the sting that follows. “Number two?” Arrick is enjoying this a little too much. I can hear him grinning, even though I cannot get up to face him in this death hold he has me in. My butt is throbbing from that assault and I glare at the sidewalk.

“You have better taste in movies.” I grapple with his arm, hands on his abdomen and hips in a bid to get free, but he isn’t letting up. All I end up doing is getting squished in a firmer embrace as he laughs at me, enjoying my pitiful efforts. His chuckle vibrates through me from his upper body, and even though I am still fighting him, I am also laughing, unable not to.

God, I hate him sometimes!

“Come on, Sophs, you can do better than that. I thought you loved me more than Jake.” He grips me a little tighter, so I gasp for air and try to stamp on his foot. He dodges with another laugh, turns so I’m dragged in a half circle, and almost fall over my own cases.

“God’s sake, do you have to be such a pain in the ass? Sometimes I fucking hate you! … Ugh … You have a nicer face!” I yelp and wriggle uncontrollably, energy waning under his relentless hold and getting seriously annoyed with being restrained.

“Thanks, I will try to take that as you think I am hotter than he is.” He’s fully laughing now, properly, and undisturbed, completely smug with how incapable I am of getting free and utterly amused.

He is such an asshole at times.

“I like your tattoos more than Jake’s … Arrick this is not fun anymore.” I whine at him, my legs aching with holding me in this pose and sides starting to throb with the effort of laughing. I’m torn between finding this hilarious and wanting to smack him in the face, or the balls. Right now, if I could get a hand free, I would definitely attempt the latter.

“Okay, six, more than halfway done. Not many now and I will let you go. Come on, Mimmo!” He urges cockily.

I scramble for something, anything from the top of my head that will appease him, trying to calm the throbbing sore throb from blood overflow and think rationally. I can’t keep complimenting his face or body in case he thinks I do actually have the hots for him and blurt out the first stupid thing that crosses my mind.

“You’re a better kisser.” I let out in complete desperation, clutching at straws crazily, and wracking my brain for more on the spot compliments. It’s not that there isn’t a huge list, but I cannot think while being this exhausted and held down at an angle that’s making me dizzy.

“Wait … What?” Arrick releases me so suddenly that I almost fall forward to kiss the sidewalk. His quick reflex catches me in an instant and pulls me upright so fast I sway, to now face a profoundly serious looking man who has lost all the earlier humor and seems startlingly shocked.

“When did you kiss Jake?’

Arrick has an edgy tone to his voice suddenly, the look on his face is scarily pissed and his eyes are alarmingly green for someone with hazel. I can only shrug, fumbling, as I didn’t expect this sort of reaction from him, or at this sort of speed. I can barely catch up with the sudden mood change that is so out of character for him, and no idea why he would even think I kissed Jake of all people.

“I didn’t. Well, I mean, he has kissed me on the cheek a couple times, but I’ve seen him kiss Emma a whole lot so I can imagine.” My face is heating now that I think through how my answer was conveyed. Arrick’s studying me with such an odd expression that he’s making me nervous. He looks like he might want to hit someone, that death glare of Carrero he reserves for assholes he wants to beat.

“You imagine kissing Jake?” Arrick is not joking; the whole change in his demeanor has me suddenly antsy and unsure how to react to this mood I’ve never seen on him. He is completely serious, tilting his head at an angle, frowning harshly with that tone that says he is more than a little bit mad; he’s practically gritting his teeth. He’s doing his utmost to keep that temper simmering out of sight, but he’s not doing a particularly good job.

“Eww, No! I mean, I’ve seen him kissing her, so from … you know … that one time that we did, I guess you are probably better.” I’m floundering pathetically, heat well and truly creeping up my cheeks in mortification, so I know they are probably blushed, as Arrick’s gaze narrows harshly.

“That one time we did?!?!? Sophie, what hell are you on about? We have never kissed!” He’s angrier now, voice hitting a loud shocked snap, completely unlike him, and people walking by on the sidewalk take a wide berth around us, eyeing us suspiciously. Probably wondering if we are having a domestic, and he’ll start throttling me because he looks like he might.

I don’t get it!

“You probably don’t remember; you were really drunk.” I make a move to pick up one of the bags on the ground, to break his intense focus on me, but he catches my wrist and brings me back to him. My stomach somersaults, hands trembling at how weird he is being and have no choice but to be pulled to face him again.

“When? Where? I would remember doing something like that.” He is clearly wracking his brain to find that elusive memory and doesn’t seem to like it one bit. His frown intensifies on me and his grip firms. He’s making sure I don’t get away until he gets all the answers he wants. Fairly sure he thinks I am having some sort of breakdown and imagined the whole thing, or maybe dreamt it up.

“My seventeenth birthday party. You were so drunk, and you aimed for a kiss on the cheek when you said happy birthday to me. Somehow it ended up on the lips, and we sort of kissed a little bit, for maybe like ten seconds.” I flush at the memory, something I have always pushed down and tried to bury as wholly inappropriate, considering he is more like a brother to me. I try never to think about it, as all the emotion which surrounds it is crazily confusing to me.

I can remember it vividly, a few seconds of soft lips caressing, and then the smallest parting of his, as though he wanted to take it further before he snapped himself away, apologized like crazy and left. It was my first real kiss by someone who wasn’t my sick perverted father. The first time I trusted someone enough to even kiss me that way at all, and because it was him, I hadn’t felt any fear or repulsion.

“Shit, Sophs, I don’t even remember that at all. I’m sorry I kissed you; that must have been traumatizing. I can’t believe you never told me this.” He regards me apologetically, letting me loose suddenly to scoop up the bags from the ground, seemingly letting go of all the anger in a flash. Our previous game forgotten in the new change to his mood. He’s reverted to non-mad and just seems a little shocked at learning he once kissed me, in a very non-best friend kind of way.

“It wasn’t that bad, it was kinda nice, I guess.” I don’t want him to feel bad about something that wasn’t awful. I avoid looking his way, aware he has straightened up to frown at me before moving back to the rear of his car.