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376: Strangers
publish date:
2026-07-20 23:59:23
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Falling for My Best Friend's Brother 378: Sitting outside
Avery's POVI went outside after my mom went to bed, because the house felt too full of everything that had just happened inside it.The cold evening air felt like the only thing that could keep me sane in this nightmare that was my life. My mum said she wanted to be alone for a while and I had not wanted to sit alone downstairs where the phone call had happened. So I came outside instead, to the dark and the quiet and the ordinary street that did not know or care what any of us had just been through.I sat on the front step with my knees pulled up and my arms wrapped around them, and I let myself think about all of it for the first time in days, instead of one piece at a time the way I had been doing since this whole thing started weeks ago.My dad. The one who raised me. The one who had gone to every school play when I was a kid, who had taught me to ride a bike in the car park behind the leisure centre, patient through every fall, who had never once, in years, made me feel like I
Falling for My Best Friend's Brother 377: Enough
Avery's POVDean did not come back.Not that day, not the next, not the one after that. His phone went straight to a message saying the number was no longer in service, and after four days of trying it my mom stopped trying altogether. I knew despite what she said, she still had feelings for him. But she looked obviously very disappointed and upset that she was able to fall for his scam once again. He was moving from place to place and didn't have any other option of a place to hide from his debt collectors other than with us.He definitely must have gotten a tip that his loan sharks came looking for him at our house. That must be the only reason why he would not return after several days. I thought, by the end of that week, that we had heard the last of him. Part of me almost believed it. But another part of me had spent enough of my life learning better than to believe anything about Dean was ever really finished.Then, on Thursday evening, the house phone rang. Nobody used that n
Falling for My Best Friend's Brother 376: Strangers
Avery's POVDean had gone out that morning, something about needing air, and I had not asked where because I did not particularly want to know. He had been in the house four days by now, quiet mostly, careful in a way that looked deliberate, and this was the first morning he had left at all.So when the car pulled up outside on Sunday, a dark saloon that did not belong on our street, it was just my mom and me in the house.I saw it first from the window. Two men got out, unremarkable in dark jackets, nothing that marked them as anything specific. They could have been anyone. Salesmen. Council workers. Men delivering something to the wrong address. There was nothing about them, at a glance, that suggested anything out of the ordinary.They knocked.My mom answered."Can I help you," she said."We are looking for Dean Porter," the taller one said. His voice was flat, professional, entirely without menace on the surface. "We understand he may be staying at this address."My mom's face d
Falling for My Best Friend's Brother 375: Dinner
Avery's POVI made dinner for three, and it was the strangest thing I had done in weeks.Dean came down when I called him, and he stood in the doorway for a moment before he sat, the way a guest sat in someone else's house rather than the way he used to sit here, sprawled and certain of his place at the table, elbows wide, never once asking if the chair he took was the one someone else wanted."Thank you," he said, when I put a plate down in front of him."Do not make it a thing. It is dinner. Nobody is being kind."My mom sat across from him and did not look at him directly for most of the meal. Her eyes stayed on her plate, on the window, on anything that was not his face. I understood that. There were years of things between them that a plate of pasta was not going to smooth over, and I did not expect it to."How is your course going," Dean said, looking at me. It was such an ordinary question, the kind of thing anyone might ask across a dinner table, and it landed strangely in a r
Falling for My Best Friend's Brother 374: At the door
Avery's POVI had finally decided to get over the information and move on with my life as I usually did with every other thing that has happened recently. Little did I know I was in for a treat.He was on the doorstep when I opened the door on Thursday evening, and I almost closed it again before my brain caught up with what I was looking at.Dean. Standing there in a coat that had seen better winters, a bag over one shoulder, thinner than I remembered him being when he still lived under this roof. His hands were shaking slightly, whether from cold or something else I could not tell."Avery," he said. "Please. Just five minutes.""You are not supposed to be here," I said."I know," he said. "I know that. I am asking anyway."I should have shut the door. Every part of the last two months had been building toward the moment where I finally shut the door on this man and meant it, the way I had promised myself I would if he ever showed his face here again. But I stood there instead, my
Falling for My Best Friend's Brother 373: First conversation
Avery's POVI did not eat breakfast.I stood in the kitchen for a while, looking at the gap in the fence, and then I put on my jacket and I went over. The street outside was quiet in the way it always was this early, nobody out yet, just the sound of my own footsteps on the pavement.It was early. His car was still in the drive. I did not check for Carter's. I knocked before I could stand there long enough to change my mind.Liam opened the door.He looked at me the way he had been looking at me every time we accidentally crossed parts since our falling out."Are you looking for Jade? She's in her room." he said."I need to talk to you," I said, before he could turn around and walk away.He stepped back to let me in.We went to the kitchen. I did not sit down. He leaned against the counter and crossed his arms and waited, like as if he knew exactly what I was going to say."Is your dad home?" I said.Something crossed his face. "He left early. Why?""Because what I am about to tell yo
Falling for My Best Friend's Brother 064: Her reply
Liam's POVShe looked at me like the question was either a foolish one or that I was foolish to ask it."Of course I like you," she said. "That is not the issue."I was glad to hear that she at least liked me, but I was still frustrated by the situation. "Then what is the issue? Because from where
Falling for My Best Friend's Brother 008: The audacity
Avery's POV"I was wondering when you were going to pick up," Colton said.His voice was calm, without any ounce of guilt present there. He didn't even sound particularly apologetic. Just smooth and measured and rehearsed, the voice of someone who had spent the last several hours deciding exactly h
Falling for My Best Friend's Brother 007: Stranger from last night
Avery's POVI couldn't move.I just stood there on the front step staring at him like an absolute idiot, and he stared back at me with no recognition whatsoever on his face, which made sense, because the last time he saw me I had a full face of stage makeup, a black wig down to my shoulders and a r
Falling for My Best Friend's Brother 006: Recognise him
Avery's POV My mum thought I was waitressing at a bar somewhere downtown. It was a perfect alibi for my late nights and the decent tips I brought home on work nights. There was absolutely nothing to worry about. I had kept that story clean for months and I had no plans to change it."Busy night,"
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