‘Dickhead.’ I pout angrily and curl myself upright to glare at him like a wounded puppy.
‘You’re cuter when you’re pissed, Cara.’ He leans up and reaches out to lasso my wrist but I slap him away hard, putting some venom into the slap so I hope it stings him. Frowning harder, glaring and showing my dislike for what he did to me. It only makes him laugh more, amusement all over that annoyingly handsome face.
‘I hate you.’ I sulk petulantly, watching him get on his knees to shuffle closer to me and sits on his haunches as he gets there.
‘Sure you do.’ He leans in and kisses me on top of the head, ruffles my hair and slides off to go walk to his room, obviously to preen himself up for ‘Miss Domestic’ coming.
‘We both know that will never happen Mio Mimmo.’ He swaggers a little too confidently into his room as I just watch him with a mix of indulgent simmering annoyance and genuine affection, even when he is being a total asshole. I can’t help but literally love the ground he walks on. Angrily adore him.
Asshole.
I get up and wander towards the spare room, throwing back my hair and lifting a stubborn moody chin to show I am not talking to him anymore.
I need to dry my hair and take some time to avoid the annoying bitch he calls his girlfriend when she arrives, psyche myself into being a good little get along for his sake, so he doesn’t resort to more torture that has me seething.
Chapter 4
The banging around in the kitchen and the smell of food for the last few minutes, I assume is the one known as ‘girlfriend’, being all domestic and crap and acting like the good little housewife she aspires to be. I have managed to dry my hair into some sort of straight silkiness without having straighteners and am literally starving. I ended up leaving most of my smoothie out in the lounge and it will be ruined by now. Warm and melted and totally unpalatable.
I can hear Arry talking to her as I make my way out, swallowing down that tide of sheer ‘grrrr’ I always get when she’s around and walk casually out into the middle of the room. Nonchalantly unaffected by the presence of the little grey cloud in the apartment.
I catch sight of him leaning his butt against the kitchen counter, tossing an apple up and down and catching it as she moves around the stove and sink. She seems to be chatting to him and I stand for a second to watch the cosy little couple, doing cosy little ‘coupley’ things. It just makes me eyeroll.
Watching these two has me wondering why people stick together after the passion fizzles away, they barely touch one another from what I have seen, they don’t laugh and kid around the way he does with me. Natasha is far too grown up for that and I know it irritates her when he hangs me upside down or chases me through the house when I won’t give something back. She’s like a non-fun mom who had kids too young and regrets having to be the grown up. I only ever see them exactly like this.
Where is the fun in love if it makes you behave like this all the time?
Is this what a grown-up relationship looks like?
Arrick is in mature mode, listening to whatever she’s saying with that dead pan expression and talking back with a look of boredom on his face, well actually he always looks a bit like that when he’s not smiling, but I want to believe it’s boredom. Because it’s her, and she is the most mind numbingly boring person I ever met.
I remember once he tried to bring her along when he took me snowboarding for a weekend. His family own a ski lodge up in the mountains and it was like going off for a weekend of fun and adventure but taking your gran in tow. She didn’t want to try anything, even skiing. She didn’t like when the group of us that went, all sat outside after dark, around a fire, and got drunk. She hated that Arrick played his guitar and everyone had a little sing along, she seemed mortified that he can not only play, but sing too. I guess the absence of his guitar in recent years is down to her, the whole ‘happy hippy’ vibe by the campfire just seemed to make her wholly uncomfortable that night and she looked incredibly awkward.
She just wanted to stay in the lodge, read books by the fire and bake cakes for us all coming back in the evening. It just made him feel like he couldn’t come with us and he spent most of the trip stuck at home with her too, while Nathan took me with him, and acted like my stand in Arry for a few days. Not that I mind Nate, he’s Arry’s best male friend, next to his brother and we get along crazily well.
‘Hey, hey.’ I cut in and swagger into the space between the lounge and kitchen confidently, chin already up defensively, and eyes roaming for things to criticise. Arrick immediately flashes me that look which serves as a reminder to behave. I cross my eyes at him and catch that narrowed brow look deepen, almost to scowl proportions.
Like I said, zero sense of humour when it comes to the wench.
‘Hi Sophie, god you look interesting in that outfit.’ She beams at me, pointing out the fact I am in the oversized Arrick hoody over my designer frayed mini skirt, the top practically eats the skirt and makes it look like I am walking around minus one. Her eyes move alarmingly down my long naked legs to the small feet that are clad in a pair of Arrick’s sport socks to keep warm. On me they look like leg warmers and keep sliding down.
‘Student chic…Totally the rage.’ I reply blandly, earning another frown from his side. Another chastising ‘behave or else’, thrown my way. I sigh it away.
‘Well, only you could pull it off and make it somehow work. Very cute.’ Natasha giggles and goes back to the stove, pouring batter into a pan as she cooks up pancakes.
Arrick leans out to me so he leans down in a stretch, catches the hem of my hoody and lifts it with a questioning look to peek under the edge. I realise he is checking to see I do actually have a skirt still on under it and slap his hand away with a scowl.
‘Had to check.’ He smirks and I realise he’s being funny, eyerolling harder and throw him the middle finger when Natasha’s head is turned. He catches it and yanks me closer to him so he can get me in a head lock and rubs the top of my head hard, friction burning my scalp as penance for giving him the bird. I yelp, squirm and start fighting back, making attempts to stand on his foot and making a lot of noise as he keeps grabbing my hands and pinning them to his body.
‘Arrick! Can you and Sophie set the table? I won’t be long and like to have a little space in the kitchen.’ Natasha’s stern tone halts our messing, well and truly told off by mommy dearest, and I am pushed aside like a naughty kid with a shove in the head. I bat out at him and immediately go to smoothing my hair and fixing my clothes while cursing under my breath at him. Natasha flutters sweet little brown eyes his way, an attempt at retracting her harsh tone and acting like she’s not a bitch after all.
Too late.
He pushes himself off the counter with a smile her way to walk to me, shoving me with him as he does so and gets a shove back in retaliation. Arrick is still in shithead mood, taking pleasure from pushing me around this morning. I guess he’s missed it these last few months and making up for lost time with overkill.
I’m ushered out to the dining area by his huge window view out onto New York and deposited by the table. Being high up has its advantages and I always loved sitting here. He pushes me aside with a strong hand on my waist, to get me out of his way with a smirk and heads to the unit by the window which houses all the mats and cutlery for this table. He has a pretty formal set of linens and things for those nights he likes to cook for his friends and setting the table is totally unnecessary for us having breakfast. Another Natasha rule I presume.
To me, it’s always been normal to see him cook and have people round to eat. I have always seen him do it, even when he lived at home with his family. His mother encouraged her sons to cook and is someone who, despite having house keepers, still does it herself too. I think it’s where he gets this attitude that he likes doing things for himself. Even though he can more than afford domestic help, he doesn’t want more than just the odd visits from his little cleaning lady.
Natasha hates it. Surprisingly.<
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She likes him to be old fashioned and dependant on her, likes to fulfil that role as little woman about the house, who cleans and cooks and brings him a beer and his slippers in front of the TV. She has no clue. Arrick is traditional in so many ways, but never in that way. I think if he ever expected that from me, if I was her, I would poison his beer with drain cleaner and tell him to go shove his cooking pots up his ass. I don’t know why she sees being that way as some sort of fulfilling life. I thought women burned their bra’s back in nineteen canteen, to get away from that role.
I don’t think I ever want to be that girl, for any man. I want to be something that I love, a life more fulfilling than someone’s domestic sex slave. Like maybe in fashion or design, maybe have my own little studio one day and spend my life flying to fashion weeks all over the world, while showing off my ideas and lines.
A strange feeling settles inside of me when this pops crazily into my head and I find myself staring out onto the New York skyline dreamily. Caught for a second on an idea of a dream that I haven’t thought about in years.
‘Soph’s?… Earth calling Sophie.’ Arrick’s voice snaps me back to reality and I realise he’s already laid out all the mats and glassware and is setting the table. ‘Where were you?’ He smiles at me softly. Watching me as he leans over the table and puts down the silverware.
‘Thinking.’ I reply breathily, feeling stupid for such a childish notion as the one I just had, but a little eerie feeling deep down swirls and I can’t ignore that for a moment it had been like a little excitement for a possibility. I shake it away and smile.
‘It was nothing.’
‘Sit, she won’t be long and you know what she’s like. She prefers serving us rather than us helping ourselves.’ He frowns towards her in the kitchen, a hint of disapproval; her back is turned and she’s happily clattering cookware and humming to herself like a contended little cat. Blissfully happy in her self-made role.
I mean it’s not like he is all she has and this is the life he even wants for her. Half of me wonders if it’s why he still hasn’t asked her to move in with him here. So he can still have his own space, his own man cave and do things like cook when he wants, or play Xbox and leave his dishes in the sink overnight, without her interference.
Natasha is really anal about neatness and things having proper places. She also has ideas on how he should behave, with him being so well known and carrying responsibility. She’s the reason his Xbox moved to the study and he had to buy an extra couch so we could play it in there. It doesn’t fit the picture of mature she has in her head for them as a couple. It doesn’t fit the picture she has of how he should be and I wish she would just let him alone to be himself. Arrick has layers, like anyone, and he’s happiest if you just let him be, to do his thing and be himself.
I watch her too, walking around the table to where Arrick pulls a seat out for me, so that I am facing her. This is where I always sit, it’s like it has an invisible ‘reserved for Sophie’ on this seat and here I get to stare painfully at that little curly brown head and ponder it for a moment.
Natasha has possibilities in life, she’s not exactly ugly or stupid. She’s a nurse for god’s sake. She works in a hospital, so that must have at least been hard to become one. The sad thing is, I really do see her being happy with just this; a domestic role in his life, being the little wife and popping out a ton of kids. I know it’s a life Emma is happy with, but at least she has her work too.
Emma kept her career in the children’s charity she runs, she still coach’s sessions for damaged kids and counsels so many when she’s not being a domestic goddess. And Emma at least likes when Jake cooks or helps, or even just lets the housekeepers do it.
My sister Leila runs her own little ladies club, a cocktail bar in the Hamptons and can sashay and sway her ass around like business woman of the year, her husband Daniel fully supports it because she loves it. Swanky ladies club for all the women who want to be more than mom’s and has her finger in so many small business spots in the area.
Sylvana, Arry’s mom, oversees a massive child abuse Charity and my own mom is a respected private Doctor. She has never given up work, even when raising her kids. All of them are happy being more than the expected.
I look at Natasha and know that she wouldn’t. She isn’t like us, growing up with wealth and help and the norm of having staff who can free up your life so you can do more. I can’t imagine her being happy having any sort of house help or expectance to keep working when she settles down with kids. I can’t imagine Arrick really being able to deal with a wife who wants him home all the time and expects to let her stay home and just be his little woman. He still has his own life, his fight career and his role in Carrero Corp.
Arrick likes his weekends of spontaneous wildness too, the trips we sometimes take to do fun stuff. Like jet skiing at his dad’s yacht in the Caribbean, skiing in the mountains or snorkelling in Barbados. I know it’s no coincidence that the trips became less frequent when he met her; she has her job, her responsibilities to the hospital, and drags him back to a boringly normal life of work and future planning. Natasha isn’t as fearless as him, she doesn’t like sports and she prefers to be here, a real homebody.
The only good thing I can see about her to be honest, is that she isn’t a gold digger. She could have been, I suppose. With his money. But she isn’t and has never asked him for anything in way of money or expensive gifts, she likes him to pay when they go out on dates, not that she would have a choice, but she keeps her own shared apartment with friends and pays her own bills. I know they had a fight last year because he wanted to pay off her school loans from becoming a nurse and she wouldn’t let him. Sometimes I wonder what the point in that was really. If she marries him he will do it anyway and she’s only leaving herself to work harder to meet all her bills. I know it pisses him off that she won’t let him help in that way, but I guess in a sense he likes that she’s not with him for that reason. God knows he dated a lot of gold diggers in the past. Not that he cared, back then he was all about casual sex and fun. Can’t say I prefer this over that though, at least with casual women, I didn’t have to suffer any of them, he kept us very far apart.
Arrick has moved to his own seat so his back is to her and he can get a beautiful view from here of outside and that stunning skyline in the morning light, it’s a grey day but it still looks gorgeous. He looks pensively out for a moment before turning eyes back to me with a look of contentment suddenly. That little boyish calm look of happiness that used to be common and now is a lot rarer, he always seems stressed out nowadays, which is totally ridiculous. Arrick has so little to stress over.
He watches me for a few seconds before reaching out and catches my hand across the table, interlacing my fingers in his in a gesture that makes me instantly forget how much of an ass he’s been all morning.
‘I’m glad you came home with me, glad that we talked.’ He looks at me honestly, no cool guard up and I can’t help but smiling back at him, all moods fluttering away in the light of that smile.
‘Me too.’ I pull my hand away as I see ‘Madame of the kitchen’, coming our way with plates and a tea towel slung over one arm. Even though I know there’s nothing in it, I feel uncomfortable at her seeing when he’s being warmly affectionate. She smiles brightly, completely pleased with herself no doubt, for her culinary masterpiece, as she slides two plates of pancakes in front of us.
Two plates of weird looking ‘splat’ cakes, swimming in white fluid of some sort that has coated lumpy bits under its surface. I blink at it in confusion, mouth snapping shut as she kisses Arrick on the cheek sweetly and stands back to admire her offerings with pride. I have to curb the urge to screw my face up and point at it dramatically. A sense of disappointment coming over me in a wave.
‘You two eat, I’m going to clean myself up in your bathroom. Made a mess of my clothes.’ She smiles affectionately, pointing at a tiny little dot of batter on her floaty dress and shakes her head
. She leans down and lays the towel over my lap for me, as though I am a child who clearly leaves a mess, and then moves off towards his room while untying the apron I now realise she is wearing.
Who the hell brings and wears an apron to cook? And yet still gets food on her dress!
‘What the fuck is this?’ I lift up the weird looking flat and obviously anaemic attempt at a pancake with my fork as soon as she is out of ear shot, alarmed to hear it fall back off with an actual thud noise. I lift the plate to check it hasn’t cracked through and drop it back down in complete disapproval.
‘Shhhhh, she’ll hear you. It’s a pancake. Clearly.’ Arrick stifles a laugh, goes to dig into his flat white offering, drowning in what I think is yoghurt and maybe some kind of fruit cocktail massacre. He tries not to look at me.
‘Where is the real food, and syrup? Where’s the bacon?’ I look at him in sheer dismay. Starving yet unable to actually offend my mouth what whatever the hell this is. My stomach is doing a rhumba, but in no way in hell am I going to infect my constitution with some organic, wholesome, probably gluten free, bull crap that looks like fried eggs minus the yolk.
‘Shhhhh. Lower your voice. She takes my diet seriously, she’s just being a good girlfriend and doing her best. You’re going to hurt her feelings.‘ Arrick frowns at me, but those dimples on display are a clear sign he’s trying not to laugh. He obviously knows his woman’s cooking sucks.
‘I am pretty sure that pancakes, real ones, have flour, and maybe colour to them.’ I point out with a serious expression, sheer disbelief on my face that she actually thinks this stuff is edible. I hate to think what he actually eats when she’s here. I mean, maybe that’s why he indulges me in take out a lot. So he can get a decent meal when she’s overtaking his kitchen and pretending she’s some sort of Martha Stewart.
The Carrero Heart_Beginning_Arrick and Sophie Page 8