Chapter 58

I’m quick to haul on skinny jeans and then carefully take the sneakers he holds out to me so that we don’t graze fingers. I pull them on over bare feet before standing back up with a deflated sigh. Arrick slings my bag on his shoulder and slides my phone into the front pocket of his hoody, making it clear he’s giving me no chance of escape.

“Don’t make me go back home, Arry.” I try one more time, appealing to his softer side with doe eyes and a wobbling voice, but he only catches hold of my upper arm as he passes me and yanks me with him.

“Don’t. I am in no fucking mood to have Bambi eyes and begging from you. It won’t work on me this time, Sophie. I am so beyond livid with you; I really would consider fucking spanking you.” He hauls me at speed to the front door, stopping as we get to it and turning back on me. “Keys?” He commands at me expectantly.

I lean out to the mantle near the door and point at the vase where Camilla told me she left me a set of keys. Arrick leans over, tips them out and scoops them up fast, opening the door, he ushers me out into the carpeted hall. Still holding me captive while he pulls the door shut, locks up and posts them back through the slot without hesitation.

“You won’t be coming back here, so you don’t need them. Don’t say a word.” He glares at my gaping mouth and hauls me with him. I was ready to object, hating who he is at the moment, this version has never been him.

It’s as though the wall of fear has slowly been trickling down as anger builds inside of me. The realization that he’s still treating me like a child, after everything, and is giving me orders like he owns me. This isn’t the Arrick I know and adore, the Arrick I love! This is more of a boorish Jake Carrero move right here, and I won’t stand for it; I won’t stand for bully tactics and using his strength and aggression against me.

Suddenly finding my fire exploding back up inside of me, I haul my arm harshly, using my other to pry his fingers off as I wriggle and squirm in a bid to free myself. Arrick drops my bag, yanking me closer to control me, but I just up the gear to fight him harder, properly twisting and pushing at him to get him off.

Using arms, fingers, and knees to try and break his hold on me, like a hellcat whose sole intention is to break loose.

I struggle with all my might to be free, pulling at his wrist, shoving at his body, trying to break his hold over me, as hands and muscle counteract every action. Arrick seems to snap. Pushing me back hard and marching me into a wall with fierceness, until he pins me there with my wrists at each side of my head, his nose practically touching mine aggressively. It shocks me into a complete fearful, silent submission.

“Stop it!” He barks at me; those normally soft hazel eyes seem overtaken with green flecks and he is beyond furious. Angrier than I think I have ever seen him in his life, ever. I swallow hard. “Stop fighting me. I’m not about to let you go, so stop fucking trying.” He yells at me, his face crumbling when I burst into instant wounded tears at this version of him; terrified into falling apart. He’s not my Arry and he scares me.

Arrick seems to loosen his grip, his body sagging as he rests his forehead against me gently this time, and the fight seems to seep out of him at a rate of knots. A complete change in manner and vibes as he returns to that gentle boy I know.

“You have no idea how out of my mind I’ve been over you.” He says it softly, anger giving way to genuine emotion as his own eyes glaze over, pleading, to get me to stop. “Sophs, I’ve been worried sick, searching every haunt you used to use in the city all day, banging doors and threatening fuck heads, trying to find you.” He lifts his face up so there is a little distance between us and drops my wrists. My hands free from the sudden release, I instinctively use one to rub the other, even though he didn’t really hurt me. He’s still close enough to keep me held in place, and as his fingers come up to cradle my face, I find myself inhaling quickly. Tears still streaming down my cheeks and heart rate erratic at the sheer craziness of this whole scenario.

“I had to leave; they wanted to put me in rehab,” I blurt out softly, eyes glued to the way Arrick seems to stop and focus on my mouth now that he’s calmer and more like himself. Those grounding eyes, only inches from mine and so easily familiar, like a calling home that only reminds me of how much it hurts to see him. He flickers back up to meet mine and there is something completely unreadable in the depths, I have no clue how to translate.

“Do you know the chaos you cause when you disappear from someone’s life?” Arrick’s turns soft and torn, and I’m not entirely sure if he’s still talking about me running from home. He’s looking at me in a way I can’t translate, I can’t read him at all. My heart’s still pounding through my chest, and his proximity is suddenly suffocating me in a whole new scale of crazy ways. It almost feels like there’s a crackle of tension in the air between us.

“No.” It’s the only thing I can say, unsure how else to even answer that. Arrick frowns hard, a flicker of indecision crosses his face as he moves closer, close enough that I instinctively hold my breath, almost certain he’s going to kiss me, even though sense tells me that’s utterly ridiculous. He stops, almost grazing my lips, noses missing by millimeters, indecision flitting across his face and then he moves back, letting out a breath and running hands through his hair in agitation.

“You fucked me up. You ripped the rug out from under me, Sophs, and then cut me off. Do you have any idea what that did to me?” He paces in the dimly lit hall, while I stay against the wall, dumbfounded, watching him in confusion and no clue what to say to him. I shake my head in answer as he lets out a short breath, staring back at me before slumping back against the opposite wall so we’re directly across from each other. “I don’t know how I feel anymore... About you... About Tasha. I only know that when you cut me off, I couldn’t function. That when I kissed you, everything got turned upside down.”

He frowns at me harder, so many emotions flickering across his face at once, and I stare at him, wide-

eyed and breathless, as I try to absorb what he is saying. “I’ve been a mess. I just really needed to talk to you, talk to my best friend and try and figure some of this out, Soph’s.” He gazes at me imploringly, like he’s begging me to fix this for him, for once.

“I don’t understand,” I whisper softly, my voice ravaged and trying so hard to take in what he is saying and compute it.

“I’m saying … I don’t even know anymore. That I was sure I loved you as a kid sister, that when you told me you loved me, it freaked me out. It sent me into a crazy panic at first, with so many reasons that it’s just plain immoral and wrong, but then after...... After, when you wouldn’t let me talk to you, to see you. When I kept questioning why I even kissed you, that’s when it hit home the hardest. That maybe ….” He trails of as he shoves himself off the wall again and is back to pacing, rubbing his hands through his hair and seemingly unable to settle on one emotion. I stay silent, heart pounding faster, palms sweating as it dawns on me that Arrick is trying to tell me he might care for me, the same way I care for him. That maybe, possibly, there is something there between us, and it hasn’t always been one-sided.

“You think you might have feelings for me that are not platonic?” I respond numbly, directly. Unsure how or what to feel. My head scrambling like crazy.

“I’m saying, that if I loved Tash the way I thought I did, then I wouldn’t even be contemplating the what-

ifs, Sophs. And if I only felt what I have always believed to be sibling love for you, then I wouldn’t be this messed up over us.” He goes back to leaning against the wall, resting his head back against it hopelessly and staring at the ceiling, his whole body unsettled and restless as though he just cannot stay at peace. I watch him, my own body still and in control, as it filters through. A weird sense of calm engulfs me for once. A sense of coolness taking hold inside of me, like a pause, watching and waiting.

It’s like we’re in a role reversal right now, and it’s very odd.

“You were so sure. You told me you didn’t feel this way.” I remind him. Unable to open that closed door in my heart to this possibility, afraid to believe anything he is saying, and I feel strangely detached.

“You’ve always been accessible to me. I never had to try because you were always there. I always knew I could see you, or talk to you, at any time.” He brings his face back down to look at me, frowning while trying to explain. “I always figured you needed me to be your rock in life, but I never really looked at what you were to me, beyond that kid who needed a protector. I never analyzed what life without Sophie in it would feel like.” He frowns hard, swallows softly, and seems to take a moment to really grasp the words he’s trying to formulate. He looks so confused and torn, to the point it makes my heart ache.

“You still see me as a kid, you’re always telling me I am.” I chew on my lip nervously. Not sure why I’m trying to talk sense into him when this is exactly what my heart wants. I don’t know how to feel, or if what he is saying is even filtering through properly, or if I only heard what I wanted to hear.

“No, Sophs, I don’t see a kid anymore. I tried like fuck to ignore the fact you were getting older, and every skimpy outfit or boyfriend, I put down to hating because I was a brother, that I didn’t want to see those things on you. It was easy to tell myself it was down to being protective, to dismiss it as nothing.”

He sighs hopelessly, again messing with his hair and scratching his scalp, agitated with himself and looking exhausted. He just looks like his brain has been in a car wreck and this is the major fallout. “I can’t stop thinking about you.” Arrick walks back, once again backing me into the wall, hands on my upper arms gently, so we’re breathing the same air. “It’s royally fucking me up in the head because Tash deserves none of this. You deserve none of this.” I drop my gaze to the floor between us, jumping slightly when his fingers come to tilt my face back to him, cupping my cheek and jaw. It’s not exactly a new mannerism for him, yet it feels like it’s different from any other time he’s done this, and I’m immediately drawn to how large his pupils are.