All Chapters of Falling for My Best Friend's Brother: Chapter 311 - Chapter 320

404 Chapters

311: Ready

Avery's POVI woke up before Liam.He was still asleep next to me, his arm heavy across my waist, his breathing slow. I lay there and looked at the ceiling and thought about the conversation from last night. The forum post. His casual voice. The way he had watched my face while I delivered the dismissal.He had accepted it.But he had not believed it.I had known Liam Harrington long enough to know the difference between him letting something go and him putting something away. When he let something go his body relaxed and the conversation moved on and he did not come back to it. When he put something away his body stayed exactly the same and the conversation moved on and you could feel it.Last night had been the second.I slid out of bed carefully, went downstairs, made coffee, and took the chair at the kitchen table with my phone and opened the forum thread.The comments had grown overnight. Three hundred and twelve now. I scrolled past the ones I had already read and found the new

312: Game night

Avery's POVI felt them watching me before I stepped onto the field.Not the usual watching. Not the way a crowd looked at a cheer squad before kickoff, half interested and half waiting for the real thing to start. This was different. The attention had an edge to it, as if the crowd were looking at me and cross-referencing something else at the same time."You ready?" Chloe asked beside me in the tunnel."Always," I told her."You do not look always," she told me. "You look like you are about to walk into a courtroom.""I look like I am about to lead a routine," I told her. "Same face. Different context."She held the look a second longer than she needed to, then the music started and we went.The field was bright and loud and the stands were full. I took my position at the front of the formation, raised my arms, and called the opening count. The squad responded the way they always did, tight and clean and together.And I performed.I performed the way I always performed when everythi

313: Athletic conference

Avery's POVThe week after the game was supposed to be a recovery week. Light practice, no fixtures, the squad resting before the next block of the season. Instead Reyes had reminded us twice in the group chat that the athletics board conference was on Thursday and attendance was not optional for team captains and starting players.I had forgotten about it until the second reminder. Between the forum post and the phones in the crowd and the syllable that might have been Scarlett shouted from the stands, the conference had been the last thing on my mind.But Thursday came and I put on the version of myself that events like this required. The one that smiled at strangers and shook hands and said things like thank you for your support of the programme while holding a glass of water I did not drink.I was good at that version of me.Liam was across the room talking to Coach Reyes and two board members whose names I had been given and immediately forgotten. Jade was somewhere near the back

314: Drive home

Avery's POVLiam did not wait until we got home to ask.He asked in the car. Three minutes into the drive. His hands on the wheel, his eyes on the road."What did Colton say to you?" Liam asked."I told you," I told him. "Small talk.""Avery." He glanced at me. "You were shaking. In the lift. Your hands, your jaw, your shoulders. I could feel it through your back when I put my hand on you." He looked at the road again. "That is not a reaction to small talk."I looked out the window."He made a comment about my work," I told him."What kind of comment?" he asked."About Crestwood," I told him. "About the kitchen. He said something about how it was beneath me. That the captain of the cheer squad should not be washing dishes at a community centre." I kept my voice flat. "He knew it would land. I was already on edge about the forum thing and the game, and then he was standing there being smug about my job and I froze. It caught me off guard. That is all."Liam drove for another block with

315: The near drop

Avery's POVPractice on Friday started wrong and got worse.The energy in the room was off from the moment the squad walked in. I could feel it the way I had learned to feel room dynamics over a year of being the captain, the difference between a squad that was focused and one that had brought something in with it.Brianna was already on the floor when I arrived. She was stretching near the back wall with her group around her and she did not look up when I came in."What is the plan today?" Chloe asked, falling into step beside me."Full routine," I told her. "Top to bottom. Vega wants to see the pyramid section at full speed.""The pyramid section has not been clean since the second game," Chloe told me."That is why we are running it today," I told her."Is Brianna's group on the base?" Chloe asked."They are always on the base," I told her. "That is where they are placed."Chloe looked at me with something she didn't say."Let us get started," I said.I called the squad together. T

316: Proposal

Brianna's POVFour days after the near-miss stunt at practice I called the meeting.Not because of the stunt. The stunt had served its purpose and Vega's expression afterward told me she had noticed exactly what I wanted her to notice. But the stunt was not the reason for the urgency. The reason for the urgency was what Colton had told me on the phone that morning about what happened at the athletics board conference.We met at the bar. Same corner table. Same four faces. Nikki arrived last, took a seat, ordered nothing, and looked at Colton with the look of someone who had been given the summary and wanted the rest."Tell them," I told him.He leaned forward."I spoke to her at the conference," he told us. "Alone. At the refreshments table. Nobody else was close enough to hear.""What did you say?" Zoey asked."I told her I knew she worked nights," Colton told us. "I told her the establishment she worked at had an interesting reputation. I mentioned the nights. Wednesday and Friday."

317: The plan

Brianna's POVNikki did not waste time.She pulled out her phone and opened a diagram she had drawn herself — a sketch of the stage layout at the Velvet Underground, the wings, the lighting positions, the audience sightlines. She put the phone flat on the table and turned it so we could all see."Each performers set runs forty-five minutes," she told us. "She performs seven sections with transitions between each one. The transitions are where she adjusts her costume, takes water, resets her position." She pointed to a spot on the diagram. "The fourth transition is the one we need.""Why the fourth?" Colton asked."Because during the fourth transition she turns fully away from the audience," Nikki told us. "Every other transition she faces forward or turns to the side. The fourth is the only one where her back is completely to the room for approximately six seconds. She adjusts her costume at the hip and reties her hair. It is part of the choreography. She does it every single time.""

318: Can't stop thinking

Liam's POVThe thing about a thought you could not put down was that it got heavier every day you carried it.It had been ten days since I asked Avery about the forum post. Ten days since she laughed and counted the impossibilities off on her fingers and redirected the conversation to the campus cat investigation. Ten days since she fell asleep against my shoulder and I stayed there in the dark knowing her answer had been rehearsed.I had not brought it up again.I had done what Jade told me to do, which was drop it. I had done what Tate told me to do, which was focus on the person in front of me. I had gone to training and played the game and been in Avery's house and held her hand and kissed her goodnight, doing every single thing a boyfriend was supposed to do while carrying a question I could not ask.But the question was still there.And it was getting louder.I called Tate on Wednesday morning."I need a favour," I told him."Last time you said that you ended up at a club and I

319: As usual

Avery's POVLiam pulled up outside Crestwood at twenty-five past five and I kissed him and got out and went inside.Pat was at the counter again. Gerald was off on Wednesdays now, something about a doctor's appointment that had turned into a recurring thing, and Pat ran the kitchen on those evenings without needing to talk to do it."Evening," she said."Evening," I told her. "I need a few minutes before I start.""Take your time," she said, and went back to what she was doing.I went to the window and stood to the side the way I always stood and watched the street. Liam's car was still there. He was looking at his phone. Something about the way he was in the driver's seat looked different tonight but I could not name it.He pulled away.I watched the car reach the junction. It turned and was gone. I stayed at the window for another thirty seconds because I had learned to wait for the car that came back because the driver forgot something. His car did not come back."I have to go," I

320: UNMASKED

Avery's POV Something touched the back of my head. Not hard. Not a pull or a grab or anything that registered as an immediate threat. A light pressure near the ribbons at the base of my skull that was there and then gone in under a second. The kind that registers before you have decided to notice it. The kind your brain filed as background noise because you were mid-performance and a light touch at the nape of your neck was not worth interrupting anything for. I almost did not notice it at all. I was mid-transition. My back was to the audience. The fourth section had been the best of the night. The music had shifted to the deeper amber lighting and the slower choreography and the room had responded the way it did when a performance hit the level where the performer and the audience were breathing together. I had felt it. The connection that only happened on the good nights. The one that made the stage the only place that existed. My hands were at my hip adjusting the

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