The Carrero Heart - Beginning (Friends to Lovers)

Chapter 209

I have no fucking clue why this particular porn channel is on my TV, it’s not one I even watch, and I can guess Tom and his new woman, when they used my apartment last month, have something to do with it. Never again will I let a guy use my pad as a weekend bang hang out when I am out of town. Never again will I allow Sophs control of the remote if this is the kind of shit she can fumble across by accident. I throw my palm over her eyes in a bid to protect her from further viewing, cursing under my breath that she’s endured this much.

“For the love of god.” I internally sink. Sophie looks traumatized and I groan as I slide the remote out of her little hand, flicking the channel to a movie I was watching last week instead. I want to just rewind all this crap from Sophs head and delete it. The thought of her watching, doing, anything like that shit, has me all messed up inside; a mix of genuine paternal love and a lot of possible jealousy, all at the same time.

Still fiercely protective of her in that way. Sophie is way too innocent and pure; she’s the kind of girl you make love to. Not show her porn and introduce her to anal.

With her past she’s even more sensitive to this shit, and I hate that I just subjected her to the dirtier side of sex, and not the side I would rather she be a part of. The gentle intimacy and love making.

Where the hell did that come from?

Sophie is looking at me in a seriously accusatory way and I know she wants to know if I watch porn. I shrug, not sure how else to answer that and I sure as hell have never lied to her.

Yes, Sophs, I’ve watched porn.

Not this porn and anal is not really something I do very often, never with Tasha. It’s not really something that gets me off either, although I have tried it and could take it or leave it. I prefer the natural way, in many positions. Natasha looks wholly uncomfortable too, her face is paler, and I actually

do not care. Wouldn’t do her any harm to see that sex is normal and enjoyable and our sex life before all this shit, was severely lacking. It’s a touchy subject with her and it’s not even a shock to me that it still pisses me off on some level.

How I ended up with a girlfriend who would rather clean the oven than get fucked, is beyond me, as I know I happen to be pretty good in the sack. It kills me, how little I get to use those skills nowadays, and I literally cannot stop the sweep my eyes do of Sophie as I wonder what she would be like if I ever got that chance.

Stop! Stop, stop. Not a chance.

Maybe that’s what this all is, some grass is greener, sexually frustrated bullshit. Because Sophie looks like she does, a turn on, whether I can accept it or not, want to see her that way or not, and there is so much possibility. While I am completely unsatisfied in my sex life with Tasha and practically celibate. I mean last time I did screw her was about as thrilling as stripping wallpaper. She lays like an empty sack, makes zero effort, or noise, and only seems to get involved when she wants to make me cum faster, usually because she’s passed five minutes and annoyed it’s not over yet. Most of the time I pull out, not even halfway close to being done and give up.

I just don’t get why she dislikes it so much, and I have given up trying to make her orgasm; she doesn’t seem to care about having them either. We’ve gotten to the once a month stage and even then, I’m starting to think it’s her sense of duty that instigates it, and not for any real pleasure. I don’t really get pleasure in fucking her anymore either, as I know it’s not enjoyed, so then I tend to not bother even doing it. My sex life sucks ass, and I am seriously deprived.

There is nothing else for this, just get drunk and try like hell to not ponder over this; all this sex shit has me stirring with longing, and it’ll just add to the disaster that is my evening. I hand the glass to Sophie and pray we can stop fixating on sex, okay, if I can stop fixating on sex, because I have the beginning

of a fucking boner in my pants, and it has everything to do with the fact Sophie just reminded me of how good sex can be, and what I have been missing.

This is why I do not watch porn anymore, it frustrates me, because unless I self-pleasure I haven’t really been getting nearly enough. I really think I’m having some sort of mental breakdown, a stress induced hard-on, if that’s even possible. Or maybe it’s the fact I haven’t had sex in a couple of months, due to the fact my best friend told me she loved me, my girlfriend is frigid, and my life has gone to shit ever since.

I can’t screw the girlfriend, on the rare occasion she is willing, because my guilt at hurting my best friend has made it impossible to even think about doing it. I can’t screw the best friend, because she’s her, and my undying need to protect her overrides everything, even my ability to think beyond her being my best friend. I’m so fucked.

“Interesting movie choices you have.” Natasha drags my head back to the present, away from my fixating sex obsession, and I can’t tell if she is being ironic. Sophie looks at her then bursts into cute laughter, relieving the tension and I somehow end up laughing too, except not at this, at the shit state of my life, and my head, and my heart.

I’ve never been so caught in between a hard place and a brick wall ever, and really for the first time, I wonder if becoming an alcoholic might be a way out. Most alcoholics can’t even get boners, so it might cure me of that anyway. The three of us laugh and I just feel crazily out of whack. The silence which follows is even heavier, and I want Tasha to leave us alone when it fizzles to awkward. I want to spend a night with Sophie, like we used to; a movie, a bowl of popcorn, and give my head one night of a break from this bullshit while I take a time out from the mental torture I inflict on myself.

Platonic, cozy, just the two of us and nothing to stress over or fight over. I want one night of the old us to feel content. Let the bullshit erupt again tomorrow.

“Maybe I should leave you two alone.” Sophie sounds deflated, hurt. It rips my attention back to her and my heart out of my chest in one fell swoop, always able to slap me back to what matters with one upset tone. I don’t get where this has suddenly come from, or what she is upset over. Maybe the porn did get to her on another level.

Shit. Fuck. Shit. Baby?

When she moves to get up, I stop her impulsively, her small hand in mine, concealed by her body and I can’t explain it. I want her to stay with me.... I want my sweet girl beside me, to make everything feel better for her. I want Tasha to leave, even though that makes me a complete dick, but I’m not interested in Tash related guilt. Sophs needs my attention. Maybe the porn triggered a memory, or maybe it’s made her think of me and Tasha doing shit still….

I smile across at Natasha, trying to find the nicest way to get rid of her, so I can be alone to talk to Sophie and will Sophie with every part of me to understand that I want it to be the two of us tonight, to fix things. To console her or to talk out her reaction to the porn so it doesn’t fester in her head. Her counselor was always great at guiding me on how to handle her triggers. Although I’m not sure that’s what this is. This seems more heartbreak than PTSD.

I am so sick to death with being this way with her lately. I need some normal back. Looking at that determined look on Natasha’s face I know the only way to get her out of here, is to go with her, grab a quick drink nearby and drop her home. I won’t be able to get rid of her otherwise. She will drag this out for hours here, if she thinks there is a chance of getting cozy, and we are not having sex, even if she strips naked and grinds on my lap. Sophie will be asleep by the time I get rid of her and that is not what I want.

“We should go, Natasha.” I smile at her, hoping she goes for this idea. Hatching the ‘get rid of Tasha’ plan. “We could go for a drink and maybe talk somewhere else.” I raise a brow, even though I can feel Sophie’s eyes on me, eating into me, and I am trying so hard to ignore it, ignore the crushing guilt that

wounded look gives me. She won’t understand right now, but I will explain to her when I come back that I was just maneuvering us some alone time again.

Natasha visibly relaxes, smiling widely and looks pretty for once, less pinched, and less strained and I immediately feel guilty all over again at the fact I am trying to get rid of her. She thinks I want alone time with her, that I want rid of Sophie, and I just want to shoot myself in the head. This is my worst enemy right here when it comes to these two. The guilt never stops circling between them, and I can never get a god damn break, or settle on feeling more for one or the other on a more permanent level.

I hate being someone who gives too much of a shit, and for the first time ever, wish I was more like Jake and my father, than how I am. Sophie’s palm hits my chest as I move to lay my glass down and she shoves me back aggressively, startling me with the sudden assault to get me out of her way, that spike of anger and sassy, and that unveiled hostility. She’s jealous.

It’s all over her face and her demeanor, and it has the same effect as punching me in the abdomen would. Mood dying, that all I have done is make her madder at me. I fucking hate that she thinks I am doing this for Tasha. I am not trying to hurt her or rub her face in this. I am doing this, so I can spend time talking to her, and I just keep fucking it all up.

“I’m going for a shower anyway... So, knock yourself out.” Sophie snaps, clambering to her feet and my heart sinks all over again. She is beyond the pissed stage and any hope I had of salvaging her mood, just flew south. She isn’t normally a girl you need to walk on eggshells for, and I get why she is being this way, I just have no clue on how else to handle it. The way she gets up sends the wine she is holding sloshing over the rim, because I filled them crazily full and it pours down her dress like a slash of dark blood.

Great! Another reason to hate me. I know how she is about her dresses.

“Shit.” She lays it on the table and grabs the towel she left lying there earlier and begins dabbing it erratically, her face dropping to really thunderous levels. I know her and her clothes, she will be cursing herself for ruining this dress and killing any last ounces of salvageable good mood. I jump to my feet to help minimize the damage and somehow translate that this isn’t what she thinks is happening. She tugs the towel back harshly, face fizzing with temper, and avoids looking me in the eye, no matter how hard I am trying to get her to do so. Even though I am practically ripping my hair out with the crazy facial signals I am trying to send her, without Natasha seeing.

“I can do it. Just go out and go do whatever you’re going to fucking do, with your girlfriend.” She is beyond raging with me, this is obviously my fault and her ruining this sexy little dress is another one of my growing list of misdemeanors. I know her only too well.

Things are falling to shit in epic proportions and all my carefully planned food apology, and leaving her to simmer all day, has just been blown well out of the water. I’m completely hopeless in this moment, no idea what the hell to do as she turns on her heel and storms off towards my bedroom. Deflated because not once did she actually look at me and see what I was trying to tell her. Sophie knows how to make me feel like shit sometimes, even though I know all of this is my fault, but I’ll be damned if I can get a handle on any of it. I go to follow her, feeling crestfallen and sighing, but Natasha’s hand on my arm stops me. I almost forgot she was still here in that moment, head on the bad mood and departing figure of my best friend, while cursing myself inwardly for making everything a thousand times worse.

“I’ll go, I have more skills at wine removal than you.” She smiles adoringly, oblivious to what is really going on here and assuming it’s just a bad mood Sophie strop, because she normally sees her hostile and never knows it is because of her every fucking time. She kisses me on the cheek before following Sophie to the bathroom, and I literally cringe inwardly, body sagging dramatically.

This is all I need. Natasha thinking she’s helping, while Sophie is in ‘death-star’ mode and probably about ready to explode. I have no clue what else to do, except sit back down and rub my face with both

palms while contemplating leaving my own apartment. I don’t want to be around when Armageddon strikes, and it’s only a matter of time.

I am so out of my depth. Natasha has closed my bedroom door behind her, and I really do not know if I should leave them alone together, or not. I trust Sophie, I know she won’t be spiteful or cruel, even if she does hate Tash. She isn’t like that, and she knows that Tasha knows nothing about any of this. I have no fear that she will say anything, yet a part of me wonders if I would prefer it if she did. If she just let all of this come out into the open and maybe, if I had to handle a full-out explosion, then I would know what the hell to do.

I pick up my glass of wine and down it a little too fast; it’s red, one I don’t even like, bought by Tasha as she always likes to have a bottle in the refrigerator to have with meals. I think nothing of picking up Sophs discarded glass and downing that too, figuring what harm could it do to numb some of this out of my head and be a bit merrier to face what I know is coming. Always more of a beer guy, but any form of booze right now is better than being sober while my life falls apart. And it truly is.

I thought breaking up with Tasha would give me breathing space to figure this out, and at times it seems so clear that I don’t want her anymore. We still get on, we have this calm, mature and almost boring relationship, but we don’t really fight, or squabble and we sort of co-exist without any real drama or friction. Sex isn’t really great, but I guess I haven’t really been great at trying to rekindle any kind of flame for a long while, so settled in our routine and not looking for anything else until Sophie hit me with this. At times I want to see the end to my relationship with Tash, then at other times, guilt rips me apart and she seems like the right option. The safer, kinder, and most straightforward option.

I no longer know if what I feel for her is love, or just a sense of duty and caring about a friend. The alternative being Sophie and the whole list of mess that comes with her little cyclone self. The fact that I don’t even know if I could. Sophie is this precious, vulnerable, angelic girl, who had the shittiest start to life. I know her secrets, her scars, and her fears. I know what that asshole did to her on every level and it haunts me inside and out.

Even though I know she is beautiful, that kissing works for us, I don’t know if I could ever cross that line into sex, if it came down to it. I don’t know if we could take what we have and become so much more at all, or if we would be the worst combination. Some people only work as friends, and we could be that way too. She trusts me because I never laid a hand on her in any way that made her feel threatened. She trusted me to keep her safe and protect her when she pushed everyone else away. How can I now cross that line with her, it abuses the trust she has in me and I don’t even know if what she feels is real, or if it is all tied up in how safe and secure I make her feel.

This could be a complete psychiatrist’s nightmare and by allowing myself to follow through I could do her untold damage, ruin everything we have. I could lose her.

Emma assures me that she believes Sophie’s feelings are genuine and uncomplicated, but then I look at how I feel, and I don’t even know if I could love her that way. If this confusion is because I obviously love her, in so many ways, and my need to not hurt her is clouding my logic that I don’t love her. Or what if I do love her, and this is fear, because there is a possibility that going this way with her would be more than I can handle. My feelings for her are already crazily strong. What would letting her into my heart in all ways, into my bed, do to me? What would that do to her?

Arghhhh! My fucking head.

I hate that I am this way, too obsessively over analytical with everything. This is why I avoid drama, conflict, and pick the easiest, stress free options in life. I hate hurting people, hate being the reasons for chaos, and I am the last person in the world who would ever want Sophie hurt, but it’s what’s happening, and I can’t deal with it.

I have a neat approach to life. Boxes and compartments all neatly labelled and filed, and nothing overlaps and gets messy, or else I have no sense of control. This is what happens when they do. I should never be left with this huge of an ordeal, with too many possible bad outcomes and feelings involved.

Then there’s our parents, well our moms ... mine warned me from day one to never go there with her and it’s stuck, all these years. That look on her face when she warned me off and told me Sophie wasn’t a girl who needed anymore heartbreak. It’s always there in my head, and now this mess reminds me of why I shouldn’t fuck things up this way. I’m already hurting her, and we haven’t even gone down this route.

Her mom would never forgive me, mine wouldn’t either and the fact we have a five-year age gap. I’m too old for her, she’s too young for the sort of intensity that would come from us hooking up. I’m supposed to look after her, not take advantage. I should know better.

I can’t even believe I am contemplating hooking up though, that’s another can of worms when it comes to the actual hooking. Sex, with Sophie. Never in a million years did I ever think I would put those two words together and yet; over the last few weeks the thought gets less abhorrent as my brain starts to question the what if’s. She was abused, she might not even like sex for all I know, although I know she has had boyfriends. We’ve never talked about sex, or what she has done with any of them; it’s a no-go area between us and even that in itself makes me question things.

We are best friends! Why have we never talked about this shit? Okay, so I know on my part it’s because I didn’t want to think of her doing any of that shit with anyone, never wanted to see her with some asshole guy, because I figured it was a sibling thing. Now I am not so sure anymore that’s what it even was. Maybe I just can’t handle the thought of her with any asshole guy who isn’t me.

I need to stop and breathe. I sigh again and realize I shouldn’t leave them in there any longer. It’s been a while and it is scarily calm. I’m slumped on the couch and a little tipsy from drinking the half pint of wine too fast, letting my head loose when I should be preventing murder in my bathroom; it’s eerily quiet and I wonder if Sophs has solved all our problems in one fell swoop by suffocating my on-off girlfriend with a bath robe.

Why am I even thinking this way? Fuck, I’m drunker than I thought.

I jump to my feet, ready to face the music with some Dutch courage running through my veins and stroll to Sophie’s room to get her another dress. That way I can at least let her loose from Tasha’s vice like grip, if she is washing the wine out, and send her off to her own room to declaw herself. I can almost imagine she will be spitting teeth right now, seeing as Tasha has the knack for grinding her nerves effortlessly.

I find one of her dresses already hanging on the wardrobe door from her unpacking earlier, similar to the one she had on and walk back down the to my own door. Unsteady on my legs as the wine goes straight to my head from lack of getting to eat dinner, open it cautiously and strain to listen for sounds of violence. With Sophs, you can never tell.

“Natasha? Sophie? Are you in here?” I wander in and see from here the bathroom door is sitting open and I get a full, unbroken view of Sophie standing in what I can only describe in the sexiest lingerie I have ever laid eyes on, on a body that will feature in every wet dream I will ever have again. My stomach tenses, body goes into rigid shock at the realization I just got hard within a second of seeing her in her underwear and that, even though I’ve seen her in bikini’s in the past, somehow this is hugely different. None of her bikini’s were semitransparent, perking things up and cut to turn men on.

My eyes are glued to what I’m seeing before I even manage to drag them off her. Sophie spots me, eyes widening and blushes, grabbing for a towel to cover herself, but that image is etched into my mind and even though I forcefully drag my eyes away. All I can see is sexy, lacy, transparent, dark purple underwear, made for seduction, on a body I want to fuck so badly it has my heart rate upping a gear. Instant thoughts of her under me, peeling off that scrap of fabric…….

Hell no.

Shit, shit, shit.

“I need a minute.” Natasha’s voice rings out and again, alerted to the fact she is still here and again, all I thought about was Sophie. This is becoming a bad habit lately. I have to admit that forgetting she exists is pretty bad form for me.

I take slow steady breaths to cool both the raise in my body temperature, and to calm down the boner in my pants. I have never had a full-on physical reaction like that, not since I was an adolescent, discovering I could get an erection, and I curse myself for drinking that red wine so fast. It was a bad decision and now as my head gets foggier and things start to swim a little, I wish I had just avoided it. Sophie appears with a towel cross her front, avoids my eyes as she storms past and I can’t tell if she is still pissed, volcanic angry, or just done with this whole mess, and me. She whips the dress out of my hand as she whizzes by, and keeps going, right past and out of the door without a word. My eyes follow her, and I groan when I realize her rear view is not shrouded in towel and that is a thong on a sexy as hell ass that is too far too mesmerizing a sight not to follow.

I’ve always been an ass guy, and Sophie has a perfect ten. Impulsively I do follow her, and then have to shake myself and drag my eyes upwards to her dainty little back and shoulders as she hauls the dress over her head, throwing the towel aside as she goes, still walking ahead of me and oblivious I’m behind her. I catch her wrist before she gets to the bedroom door and pull her back to face me, stopping her in her tracks and try like crazy to not still see her in her underwear; it’s the strongest image I have ever had, and I cannot shake it at all. Even with penetrating tropical blue eyes, boring angrily into my skull, all I can think about is scanning that body and heating up with the memory of it.

“I went to get you clothes... What did you say to her?” I have to use all my will power to keep my eyes on her face. Not eyeball that body repetitively and what my mind is currently retaining in all her glory.

“Nothing. She wanted to help me get the wine out. She’s crying over you. Maybe you should go see her and, I don’t know...... Do whatever you do to make her feel better.” She sounds fed up, and I return to the land of reality at the sound of it. I hate that Natasha is in there crying over me, hate that I just spent

the last few minutes thinking about Sophie in her underwear and it’s suddenly all so fucking sordid and wrong. Hitting me in the head like a thunderbolt.

This is my Sophs. My sweet girl who looks up to me for protection and care, not some object to fuck, not some meaningless bimbo that I can use for sex or some grass is greener fantasy. My girlfriend, ex, whatever, is in the bathroom broken-hearted and I shouldn’t be acting like some horny dickhead with his mind on sexual gratification. Property belongs to Nôvel(D)r/ama.Org.

Remorse floods me, coursing through my veins like a hot warm lava, and once again that part of me that always has to do the right thing is back in control.

“I’ll take her home and maybe spend some time with her. I need to talk to her properly.” I try and gauge her response but see nothing but Sophie in closed down mode. The face that screams ‘I need space right now’ and know that whatever I had planned to do tonight in terms of alone time, is now dead in the water.

She’s fed up and she really doesn’t want me to try and talk her round. I know her signals well enough. That makes two of us.

“Whatever. I’m going to have a shower and go to bed.” She answers flatly and again my heart sinks with how things are being left between us. What started out as a shit day, has ended even shittier, with Sophie still as mad at me and nowhere nearer to any sort of decision in what I should do. She pulls her hand out of mine and turns on her heel, making it clear that we are done, and she is in no mood to stick around anymore. Sighing as she goes, and I let her walk away, watching her with that same feeling of dread and a knot of anxiety. She looks tired and I need to deal with Tasha before I can even contemplate fixing some of this shit with Sophie.