All Chapters of Falling for My Best Friend's Brother: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

404 Chapters

021: He didn't come

Avery's POVThe shock on his face was almost satisfying.Almost, because it didn't last as long as I wished so much in my head that it would.Professor Cross touched the side of his face with two fingers like he was checking to confirm what had just happened, and his expression cycled through several things in quick succession. Surprise. Indignation. The particular recalibration of a man who had been very sure about something and had turned out to be spectacularly wrong about it."Well," he said. He straightened up from the desk and adjusted his glasses. "I think it is fairly clear that you are not actually willing to do whatever it takes.""I think it is fairly clear," I said, "what kind of professor you are. How dare you!?"He sat down behind his desk now, back in his formal position, like putting the furniture between us restored some version of the power arrangement he had come in with. He shuffled the papers that were already straight."You came to me asking for a favour," he sai

022: 4am

Avery's POVI sat in the car for a moment.He had not moved. He was still on Jade's front step with his elbows on his knees and his eyes on me through the windscreen. Technically it was his home too because he lived there now. The headlights were still on and they brightened the atmosphere a bit and I could see him better.I turned off the engine and the street went quiet.I got out of the car careful not to appear nervous."Hey," I said."Hey," he said back.I walked up to my own front step, which was about eight feet from his, and stopped. I had my bag over one shoulder and the remnants of stage makeup still under my eyes even though I had cleaned most of it off in the car before I started coming home."What are you doing out here?" I said."I couldn't sleep," he said. "The house makes sounds.""You can't be serious. I know that house better than you ever will. I have never heard any strange sounds before.""Well, something is definitely keeping me up. It might as well be that." He

023: Practice on the field

Avery's POVI was driving.Jade had offered but I had the keys already and we both knew the real reason was that I needed something to do with my hands on the way to cheer practice that afternoon. She sat in the passenger seat with one earbud in and her chin resting on her hand and she watched the streets go past and said absolutely nothing to me for the first ten minutes.I let it go until I could not anymore."Talk to me," I said."I am fine.""Jade. You have said about twelve words since I knocked on your door this afternoon.""I did not sleep well." She pulled the earbud out and looked at me fully. "Can a person be tired without it turning into a whole conversation?""When it is you?" I glanced at her. "No. Usually when you go quiet like this it means something.""Not everything means something," she said."With you it does."She was quiet for a moment. Then something softened slightly in her face, just around the eyes, the way it did when she was deciding to let me closer than sh

024: Working together

Avery's POVBrianna definitely had it coming and I wasn't going to let her get away with making me look bad this time.“I'll see you later.” Priya said and I watched her walk away.I took deep breaths to pace myself before springing into action that definitely would have consequences.I stood at the edge of the track with my bag over one shoulder and I told myself that their actions changed nothing.Colton was no longer my boyfriend. So whatever he chose to do and whoever he chose to do it with was entirely his own business.It was just annoying that they were making me out to be a joke by flirting openly in front of the whole football team and cheer squad.The part I could not shake was not him. It was her. I'm sure Brianna had done it because she wanted to be seen doing it, and she had calculated exactly by who.Which meant I was the point of it.I picked up my bag and walked to the car park, removing myself from that field before I changed my mind and pounced her.Jade was leaning

025: Not your world

Avery's POVFor a moment nobody said anything.Jade stood two steps below us on the library steps with her shopping bag in her hand. I wondered how she knew where we were. Either way, the look on her face was not the quiet, contained version of hurt she had worn all afternoon at practice. This was the other version, the one she got when something she had suspected turned into something she could see with her own eyes.She looked at Liam first. Then at me. Then back at Liam. And then she looked at me with pain in her eyes."What are you doing here?" I asked."I should be the one asking you that." Her eyes settled on me and stayed there. "You told me you had something to do for your mum.""I can explain," I said. "It is not what you think it is.""Then explain," she said. "Because what I think is that you looked me in the face and lied to me so you could come here with him.""We're in a library" I said. "It is not how it is.""Then what is it? Because from where I am standing it looks l

026: Another slap

Avery's POVI heard her footsteps behind me on the steps before I had made it to the bottom."Avery."I kept walking."Avery, stop." Her voice had changed. The edge that had been in it for the last ten minutes was gone and what had replaced it was something more uncertain and less ready to fight. "What do you mean you were sexually harassed? Stop walking and talk to me."I reached the bottom of the steps and kept going until I left the library and was across the paving toward the car park."Avery." She jogged to catch up and came around in front of me and I had to stop or walk into her. She was slightly out of breath and the shopping bag was swinging from her hand. I couldn't believe she came all the way to the library from shopping to confront me for being there with her step brother who she didn't even like at all. Her face was different now, the practiced blankness she had worn all afternoon during practice stripped back to something I recognised better. "Tell me what happened. P

027: Small talk

Avery's POVI sat on my bed in the quiet of my room and listened to Dean's voice finally trail off somewhere downstairs. I didn't give a shit about whatever he was saying. He was useless to me and didn't deserve any respect from me.Then the house went quiet. Maybe my mum succeeded in calming him down, I didn't care.I looked at the ceiling and let it be quiet for a while.My wrist hurt faintly where Dean had grabbed it. Not badly. Just a dull reminder around the joint. I pressed my thumb into it and thought about his expression when the slap landed. The way the certainty had gone out of his face all at once, like a light switching off.I thought about my mum standing in the doorway once again like a coward.I thought about Jade. It's been a while since we had a fight. Besides that, we had never fought about boys. It was annoying that we were fighting about one now, and the worst part being that she even hated him.I thought about Liam and the things Jade said to him.I looked at my p

028: Falling out

Avery's POVI went to the window and looked down.Dean was at the curb in his jacket, moving toward a dark saloon I had never seen parked on our street before. It was not one of the neighbours and it wasn't a cab. It was just a car, engine running, waiting for him like it had been arranged.I picked up my phone and opened the camera.I made sure to get a picture of the plates before he pulled away, along with the make and the colour of the car. I had no single trust when it concerns Dean so I was taking precaution.The car turned at the end of the road and was gone, and I stood at the window in the dark for a moment.Then I went back to Liam's unanswered message. The cursor was still blinking. ‘Would you want to go for a drink sometime?’I typed ‘Maybe’ and sent it before I could think about it more than I already had, then plugged my phone in, got into bed, and stared at the ceiling until sleep eventually came.Sleep came late and I was up before my alarm, tired in the way of someone

029: The plot

Liam's POVI was three blocks from the library and still talking to myself.Who the fuck does she think she is?I kept walking with my hands deep in my pockets and my jaw so tight it ached. I had gone over it three times already and the answer was the same every time. Jade had stood on those steps and called me a parasite. Called my dad one too. Like she had us all figured out after five days. Like the fact that her mum fell in love with someone and chose to build a life with him was somehow something me and my dad had done to her personally.I pulled out my phone and called Jace. He had been my best friend since kindergarten and we played football on the same team in my former college. It was such a bummer to leave him to move with my dad.He picked up on the second ring. "What's up bro?""I need two minutes," I said."Talk."So I told him. The girl on the steps, the word parasite, the whole thing. He listened without interrupting and when I finished he was quiet for a second."Bro,"

030: See her again

Liam's POVShe went still the moment I said her name.Not completely still. Just that small tightening across her shoulders that told me she had heard me and she knew exactly who it was. She did not turn around. She took two steps toward the bar counter like she was planning to order something and let the moment go, like I was not standing right behind her.I waited.She stopped walking.For a second she just stood there and I watched the back of her head and the straight fall of the wig and I thought, she is going to turn around. And then she did.She turned around slowly.She looked at me from behind the red mask and for a moment her expression did something she clearly had not planned. She looked flustered before she pulled her composure back together. Something that looked a lot like the feeling I had been trying to keep off my own face ever since the day I met her right at this bar.Scarlett was never flustered. Every other time I had seen her she was the calmest, most controlled

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