All Chapters of Falling for My Best Friend's Brother: Chapter 341 - Chapter 350

404 Chapters

341: Lunch

Liam's POVI was so glad our project was done and submitted before my fall out with Avery. It would have been a nightmare having to work with her after the incident.The project grade came back on Monday.I saw it in my inbox when I woke up. Grade Release: Urban Planning and Community Development Group Project. I opened it at six forty-five, before coffee, before my brain was properly functional.Distinction.I closed the email and went to make coffee.Later I was in the library at the table near the window when Zoey came in. She did not come to my table immediately. She went to the shelf along the right wall, got a book, brought it back to the table two across from mine, and started reading.I was aware she was there.She had not made her presence into something I was required to respond to, which I had noticed about her appearances in the last week and a half. Just there. Not pushing but not avoiding.There was a Zoey I had been bracing for after everything with Avery. The one who a

342: first words

Jade's POV I saw him again on Thursday. Not in the coffee shop this time. In the lecture hall, which was where I had suspected I knew him from before. we had both attended that lecture for over twelve weeks without ever having an actual conversation. Public Administration was a big module. Big enough that you could sit in the same room as someone for an entire semester and not know their name. You could know just their face and the general area of the room where they usually sat and nothing else whatsoever. He came in late. Not significantly late. Four minutes, maybe five. The lecturer had started but was still on the first slide which was always the agenda slide that nobody actually needed. The agenda was on the module page and everyone had already seen it. Ethan came in and scanned the room and took a seat on the end of the row two ahead of mine. I watched him settle. He pulled out a notebook rather than a laptop. That was worth noticing because most people in that module ha

343: Next rehearsal

Avery's POVI got to the gym early and stood in the middle of the floor with nobody else in it and breathed.I had about eight minutes before the first person arrived. I had the floor under my feet and the lights overhead and the quiet of a space that was waiting to be used. I needed those eight minutes. Because the practice was the one part of the week I was certain about and I wanted to stand in it before it got complicated again.They started coming in at five forty.Mia was first. She walked in, looked at me, said nothing, dropped her bag by the wall, and started stretching. I felt a bit hurt because she didn't walk up to me, but I understood. Right now she meant nothing elaborate. Just I am here, let us get to work.Chloe came in second. She said, "Morning, captain," said with the care Chloe used when she was choosing her words. Not unfriendly. Careful. I had known her long enough to know which one this was.Five more came in together talking about something that stopped when the

344: Squad meeting

Avery's POVVega called an emergency meeting for Wednesday at four.The message went to the full squad list. Mandatory attendance. Meeting room off the main corridor. Thirty minutes. I read it and put my phone down and thought about what thirty minutes in a room with all of them again was going to feel like.Then I stopped because it did not change what it was going to be.I got there first and took the seat at the end of the table nearest the window. Behind me I could see the athletics building and the car park and Liam's usual parking spot which was empty at this hour. I looked at the whiteboard instead. Someone had written a formation count on it in blue marker that had never been fully wiped and underneath it in lighter marks from two or three meetings ago were other diagrams that had become ghosts.I kept my eyes on the whiteboard and waited.They came in. Mia took the chair to my left. Chloe took the seat across from me, put her hands on the table, and looked at nothing. Brianna

345: Ethan

Avery's POVI was alone in the coffee shop on the south side of campus with nothing in front of me because I had not ordered anything and was not sure I was going to.The barista from the week before was not on shift. There was a different one today, younger, who had taken one look at me, asked if I needed a minute before ordering, and I had said yes. That had been twenty minutes ago. At some point I was going to have to either order or leave and I was not ready to do either.My phone was in my bag.I had put it in there before leaving the house because the alternative was spending the afternoon watching the share count on footage of my own face. I had done enough of that this week to know what it cost me.I looked at the wall."Do you mind if I sit here?"I looked up.A man from one of my lectures. He had been in the same room as me for one class all semester and we had been in a seminar group together briefly in July. I knew his name because the lecturer used it. He asked good ques

346: Second meet

Avery's POVHe was at the table again on Monday.Same seat. The one by the outlet. He was already there when I came in and he looked up when the door opened and said, "You came back.""It is a good table.""It is the best table," he said. "I have done the research. The outlet works, the light is right, and the barista on the Monday afternoon shift does not force small talk on customers.""That last one is actually important.""It is the most important. I do not need to be asked how my day is going by someone who cannot help with the answer." He looked at the chair across from him. "Pull one up."I pulled up the chair across from him. The barista came over without me asking. I ordered an oat latte, Ethan ordered another coffee, the barista went away, and neither of us said anything."Did you try the frame?" Ethan asked."What frame?""What the system is trying to solve. For the module. I said it might make the case studies more readable.""I forgot.""Fair enough.""I have had a week."

347: First to say Hey

Avery's POVall I wanted to do when I got home was to tell Jade about the new guy that I met. I didn't consider having feelings for him because I still love Liam, but I just wanted to tell my best friend about the nice guy that I met at the coffee shop. She was still not talking to me yet. I thought she was at least going to say hello at practice on Saturday, but she pretended like I was a total stranger. I came out of my front door in the morning at eight fifty-three and Jade came out of hers about a minute later.We both stopped.Not for long. A second, maybe two, the brief pause of two people who had not expected to encounter each other and were recalibrating. She had her bag over one shoulder and her keys in her hand, dressed for the day, hair done, jacket on — the Jade that existed for the outside world rather than the one I saw at home. I was dressed for the day too. Both of us were ready to be somewhere else and neither of us expected the other to be in the space between o

348: Numbers

Avery's POVGerald had not called me yet. It was nearly one week now.I had spoken to Pat on Friday. She had said talk to Gerald on Monday. Monday had come and gone and it was now Thursday evening and the numbers in my banking app had not improved and the mortgage payment was due in four days.I was at the kitchen table with my laptop open and the numbers on the screen. I had a piece of paper where I had written the same sum three different ways trying to find an arrangement that worked. There was none. Three hundred and twelve dollars short regardless of the order.I did not hear my mum come down the stairs. I only knew she was there when she pulled out the chair across from me and sat down and looked at the paper on the table with the expression she had when she was deciding whether to say something."How long have you been at that?" she asked."A while."She looked at the numbers, then at me. "You forgot to eat again.""I had something.""What did you have?""Toast.""That is not a

349: Game day

Avery's POVIt was Friday and that meant one thing. Game day.I arrived at the stadium at one thirty for a three o'clock kickoff, stood outside the tunnel entrance with the cold on my face and my squad behind me, and thought about nothing at all for about thirty seconds.Then Mia asked, "Ready?" and I said yes and we went in.The changing room was the same one we had used all season, the one down the left corridor with the radiator that worked too well and the mirror that showed you slightly taller than you were. I changed and tied my hair and checked the formation cards one more time even though I knew them."Avery." Priya appeared at my shoulder. "There is a photographer from the campus paper outside.""I know.""He has been there since we arrived," she said."I know that too. Leave it.""Do you want me to say something to him?" she asked."No. He has every right to be here. We do our jobs and we let everyone else do theirs."She nodded and went back to getting ready.Mia caught my

350: Before the game

Avery's POVI was venting inwards about what happened earlier that day.Long before the game time, I had seen something that made my blood boil. I was three minutes late to my lecture that morning. I had taken the shortcut through the main campus path because it was faster and I was thinking about Sandra and the numbers on the piece of paper and nothing else.That was why I did not see them until I was already close.Liam and Zoey were standing near the steps outside the humanities building. Not at a distance. Up close, in the easy middle ground of a morning exchange, the kind of distance two people kept when they had stopped thinking about how they looked together.I slowed. Not stopped. I kept moving, slower.Zoey was talking. She had her bag over one shoulder and she was looking up at him and saying something I could not hear from this distance and her face settled in the easy way of a conversation about something small. Not intense. Not trying to be anything.Then she reached up.

...

33 34 35 36 37

...

SCAN CODE TO READ ON APP