Chapter 10

Arrick’s POV

~ Sophie calls Arrick ~

“I’m fucking doing it!” I snap, throwing down my phone and pull the papers over to me to sign with a tad more aggression than is warranted. Almost stabbing my pen in the damn contract as I dot the I in my name and toss the pen down when I’m done, aware of the eyes on me around the dark wood table of the conference room, but I don’t give a shit. I feel shitty and pissed off and this is the last thing I want to be doing right now.

Some crappy minor brief on one of our low tier businesses who want funds for a re-brand; spending all day stuck at Carrero tower at my father’s request when I want to be smashing a boxing bag into next week to expel this feeling. I don’t actually care if they fold right now, they make less than a hundred grand a quarter anyway and it’s barely worth the time I have spent here today.

“You are not too old to get a spanking.” My dad warns across the walnut conference table, a hint of humor in his cool look and I glare at him equally coolly. Like father like son. We have a good relationship and he has never spanked me in my life, but I wouldn’t put it past him today. He’s growing tired of my attitude lately; my moods of the last few days have had more than a passing glare from him. I know I’m acting like an asshole but it’s hard to be chipper when your life is falling to shit and just fucking sucks on every fucking bullshit level.

“What’s with you?” Adam, the current head of our legal department throws me a friendly smile and I t give him the finger in response. Luckily, we are friends beyond work, and he takes it with a grin and a shake of the head, knowing fine well I have been having personal problems. My father tuts and again throws me the warning glare, this time lacking humor; he doesn’t do overly friendly with the staff, ever. Something his sons clearly never got the memo on, seeing as Adam and I have went on many a night out, and Jake married his PA.

Over familiar is something we are good at, so he can go blame our mother, we get it from her.

“Sophs and he had a lover’s tiff, and she’s in lock down while Arry is in the chill zone. Or is that the friend zone? I get confused which.” Jake laughs, to my left, and I swear I have the urge to throat punch him in this moment. Sitting in his chair like a laid-back dick with a giant grin. Cocky fucker.

My personal business isn’t exactly what I want a table of six men to be discussing right now, even if he just hit the nail on the head. Only three of the men sitting here are even close enough to know who Sophie is, the other two are just suits for the legal brief and look confused as shit. I hate people talking about my business. Especially not about her.

Sophie won’t even take my calls, no matter how many times I try. Texts, messages, nothing. She has closed me out and it’s been days since I got any sort of response from her. It’s driving me crazy, not knowing how she is, how she feels, what’s going on with us. I’ve felt constantly uptight, sick with worry over how she is and in an eternally shitty mood over the fact we have never gone days without talking.

We have never closed down on each other or just ended shit. Pissed at her, yet at the same time, I’m desperate to talk to her. To hear that gentle sweet voice that makes my day better and know that we can get through this. I miss her. Worse than bad.

“Fuck off.” I glare at my idiot brother and dodge the mock slap he throws at my head. So not in the mood for this bullshit today, or any day this past couple of weeks. Sometimes he is a pain in the ass to have as a brother, often forgetting he is meant to be the older, more mature one. When it comes to him laughing over my genuine trauma then, I currently think he is a prize dick.

“What did you do?” My father’s eyes are on me, annoyed that I haven’t spoken to him about this most likely. He is someone I sometimes confide in, but not about her. He’s too close to Sophie, he sees her as a daughter and this would be awkward to talk about, not to mention probably a rage trigger for him. He never sees Sophie doing any wrong, and this would all come back to being my fault somehow.

I mean, she told me she is in love with me. Not a sibling love or a best friend love anymore... sex, babies, marriage and love, love. The real deal. No clue what to even do with that and no amount of mulling it over has shifted my confusion about how I actually feel. Sophie is an all or nothing kind of thing. I couldn’t just date her and see how it went. Couldn’t just blindly feel through it and figure it out as I went. There is a huge pile of overwhelming things stacked up against it before I even analyze where my feelings actually stand. And then, what about my girlfriend? Whom I was too chicken shit to tell, and sort of broke up with instead.

“Why is this something I did?” I bristle defensively, even though it is. I told her I didn’t feel that way and can’t seem to stop obsessing over it, regardless. My heads so far up my ass, I literally haven’t slept in days. Right now, even eating is a chore. I broke up with said girlfriend, because I literally have not been able to touch her since I kissed my best friend in a moment of craziness. It felt like I was cheating on Sophie, the second I saw Natasha, even though it’s stupidly absurd, and so back to front. I cheated on Natasha, by kissing Sophie, but my brain won’t compute that, and haven’t even had the balls to tell her yet. I am so fucked in this.

“It’s always the men’s fault. Have I taught you nothing?” My father smiles softly and Jake nods with a huge patronizing grin. I want to bury my head in my hands and groan until they all go away and stop looking at me. I don’t do well under family scrutiny when my head is already bursting with all it’s trying to contain, and my moods have taken a dive off a cliff for days on end.

“Can we not do this right now?” I glance around the table, drawing my so-called family to the fact we are in company, despite them not seeming to give an utter shit about the fact. Jake shrugs and yawns, covering his mouth to stifle it and slouches back in his chair. Seemingly not caring that staff surrounds us.

“Think we’re done for the day... should wrap this up.” He shrugs. No more concerned than he was five minutes ago and looking bored already. My father still has his eyes on me, dissecting me and probably trying to figure out what I have done to make Sophie hate me.... well, stay mad at me anyway. A little too intensely, and it makes me even more irritated with myself.

Oh, I don’t know, broke her heart by rejecting her, yet kissed her anyway.

Asshole of epic proportions. I still do not know why I kissed her. Can’t even begin to analyze how it felt now the immediate feelings are fading from memory. When I try to, I get this huge overwhelming heavy blackness, which is pretty damn close to an all-out panic attack and I am so not ready to face that yet. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about her though. That in itself has been driving me to the brink of insanity, and I wish I had never done this to myself. Opened that can of worms and let a million crazy feelings leach out from the recess of my mind, where I didn’t even know they had been lying dormant all this time. It’s no longer a clear-cut case of ‘don’t feel that way about her’, it’s now more of a ‘how much do I feel that way about her’ and ‘how long has it been without me knowing it’. The pros and con list on either side of this dilemma are huge, and I cannot navigate it, it’s all too much, too overwhelming, and insane.

I just need her to fucking talk to me. To help me find my bearings like she always does. She has no idea how calm she makes me, how still she makes my head when I get like this and has been my sea of peace I always ran to when my own head was torturing me alive. Sophie is my harbor in my own storm, even though she thinks I’m her cool and level to her own hurricane.

It’s crazy but somehow, we balance each other out in different ways and right now, my scales are fucked, and all the balance has fallen off one end. Sophie is the wild one, she’s the little live wire and the bundle of hard work... but she’s the one who brings me sanity. She knows how to stop me from turning my head inside out. Always so direct and uncomplicated, she says it like it is, she makes me see sense when I have no clue where sense lies.

“I’ll get these down to legal, will get the team on the next steps and get back to you.” Adam is on his feet, pulling all the papers towards him from the center and I send mine sliding towards him too, the pages fluttering as it travels the expanse of desk. The two men in suits get up with him to move, everyone exiting to go as my eyes follow them. Dragging my head back to the present and the matter in hand.

“Great. Keep us updated.” Jake watches them leave too, my father still watching me, and I have my eyes on the desk now, but I can see him from the corner of my eye. Staring at my cell and wondering how long before she stops blanking me, stops punishing me and killing me slowly. I left desperate messages with her folks today, something I have never done in all the years I have known her.

Sophie has me feeling all kinds of desperate and acting like some sad stalker who can’t get the hint that he has been cut off, high and dry. I won’t accept it, even if that does make me that sad desperate cling on. I already have plans to fly, or drive back there, if I haven’t heard from her by the end of the week. I’ll go walk into her bedroom and refuse to let her out until we talk about this shit. Until she helps me get my head back on a normal level and our relationship back on some sort of solid footing where we both know who stands where.

I am so done with this agony. Sophie has never ever pushed me out. I’m the exception to all rules. I’m her go-to guy, the way she’s my go-to girl. I hate this, it’s ripping my life apart in so many ways.

“We done?” I look at my dad and brother, both seemingly intent on staring at me silently, passing one another raised brow looks and I sigh and eye roll. Not in the mood for any lectures or probing. Jake knows what’s going on, he’s been a massive jerk about it and called me a pussy about twenty times this week already. He seems to think this is a simple decision to make. In Jake world he goes after what he wants, doesn’t care about consequences or people being hurt and he thinks I should do the same. He seems to forget who exactly it is we are talking about though, his own fucking god daughter for a start.

“What’s the problem with Sophabelle?” My father is on it again, now the room is vacant of any prying ears, and I strain my head back and let out an agitated sigh, sliding down in my chair, because I know this is futile. I feel about ten years old and about to get another father grilling on something I have done. His lectures are mind numbing sometimes and I have no desire to fight with him.

“She told Arry she’s in love with him.” Jake butts in, and I snap my eyes back to him, sitting immediately upright with a ‘what the fuck’ gesture. It’s suddenly open season on my problems today and it’s not his decision who gets to know the minute details of my life.

“I see” My father puts a finger to his lips and watches me carefully, while I am shaking my head at Jake, who’s grinning with that ‘you’re in trouble now’ face.

Asshole.

I swear my brother is a fucking juvenile sometimes, and I miss the days when he and my dad did not get along. I glare at him and try not to get up and walk off, as I know it’s futile. They would just follow me and keep trying to have this out; at least in here no one is snooping with big ears.

“You don’t love her?” My father actually seems surprised. Another one who seems to think this is a simple A or B type of thing and assumes because she is my best friend, that it automatically means I have been harboring secret sexual feelings for her. I’m pretty shocked though, that his initial reaction is not one of disgust or thoughts of how this may be considered incestual considering the closeness of our families.

For the love of god!

“It’s not that simple.” I say defensively, gritting my teeth and simmering the great Carrero temper deep inside. We all have it, flaw of our DNA, just some of us have a better handle on controlling it outwardly than others.

I get up, so not doing this with him. He is hardly the easiest guy to talk to when it comes to Sophie. He is as fiercely protective over her, as Jake is... as I am. She seems to bring it out on Carrero men, and the feeling is strong enough to incite aggressive tendencies. Jake is smiling, looking smug and I throw my pen at him as I push the chair away. Jake dodges it and grins harder, obviously amused with my turmoil today, my obvious distress over the shittiness of life, and women, and friendships.