All Chapters of Falling for My Best Friend's Brother: Chapter 51 - Chapter 60

106 Chapters

049: She said yes

Liam's POVShe finally said yes to going out with me and I drove home thinking about it.Not in a complicated way. In the way you thought about something that had gone better than expected and you were trying to work out what to do with the gap between what you had planned and what had actually happened. The gap was larger than it should have been because I at least expected her to say no a few more times, making the chase worth it.The plan had always been straightforward. Avery Nash was popular and connected and best friends with Jade, which made pursuing her the most effective possible response to every mean thing Jade had said to me on those library steps and everything Colton had been pulling since I walked into this programme. That was the original reason I had wanted to take her out and I had been honest with myself about it from the beginning. I was not going to pretend it was something else when it had been that.But sitting at that table today, watching her think through her

050: Getting ready

Avery's POVGetting ready for a proper date was different from getting ready for a shift at Velvet Underground and the difference hit me the moment I opened the wardrobe door. For the club, the process was automatic. Wig in, makeup and mask on, costume, done. Twenty minutes and Avery ceased to exist. Scarlett stepped out and Scarlett was untouchable.Tonight I was going out as myself, in my own clothes, with my own face, and I was standing in front of this wardrobe for fifteen minutes trying to decide what that looked like.I pulled out a dark green dress and held it up. It was too much for a quiet diner on Clement Street. I put it back. I tried a cream blouse and dark jeans and looked in the mirror and thought it was fine, but fine was not the point, so I put the blouse back too. I settled eventually on a fitted navy top, dark jeans, and the small gold earrings I wore when I wanted to look like I had made an effort without it being obvious that I had.The earrings belonged to my moth

051: Jade's apology

Avery's POV"What are you doing here?" I snapped at her instead of answering her completely unnecessary question. I wondered what gave her the right to think she could ask me that after the way she treated me recently.It came out sharper than I meant it to though. Jade stood on the doorstep with her coat buttoned up and her hands in her pockets. She looked at me a bit confused, obviously wondering about the question she had asked me. I was very disappointed to see her at my door instead of Liam and I was going to let her know she wasn't welcome."I came to see you," she said."Now?" I looked past her at the empty road and then back at her. "It is almost seven.""I know." She looked at my top and the earrings and the bag over my shoulder and that same confused expression moved across her face, briefly. "Can I come in?""I am heading out," I said."Five minutes," she said. "That is all. Please."I stayed in the doorway and I did not move. She looked at me and I looked at her back witho

052: In front of her

Avery's POVWe both turned around at the same time.A dark car was parked just past the lamppost in front of the house. The engine was still running and the headlights on. From the car alone I knew exactly who it was. The driver's door opened and Liam stepped out and leaned against the side of the car. He put his hands in his jacket pockets, waiting. Then he took out his phone to look at it, not at us, obviously giving us space to finish whatever it was we were doing. Beside me, Jade went completely still.I watched the understanding move across her face. It was not slow. One second she was looking at the car, the next she had worked out why he was here, and the expression that replaced her confusion was something I did not have time to prepare for. The warmth from five minutes ago vanished completely off her face.She turned to look at me with her mouth already open."You are going on a date with him," she said.I did not answer."Avery." Her voice had changed entirely. "Are you se

053: I don't care

Avery's POV I took his hand and I felt Jade's eyes on my face like something physical. I turned around before we had even taken two steps toward the car. "Jade." I kept my voice calm. "It is not what it looks like. I will explain everything when I get back, I promise." She looked at me and then at Liam and then at our joined hands and something in her face closed off completely. "I thought you were my friend," she said. "I am your friend." "Friends do not go behind your back to see the enemy." I blinked. "The enemy." "You know what I mean." "I really do not," I said. "Because I am standing here trying to work out how Liam Harrington is your enemy. What has he actually done to you? Give me one thing." She opened her mouth. "Or is it his dad?" I asked. "Simply because your mum married again. Besides the fact that he exists in your house now, what has Liam personally done to you?" She closed her mouth. "That is what I thought." I let go of Liam's hand and I took a step back

054: Satisfaction

Liam's POVI hated being late. But some idiot ran a red light and caused an accident, which delayed everyone. I turned onto our street a little after seven PM and I could see Avery and Jade on the doorstep before I had even pulled all the way to the curb.They were standing close together, Avery in the doorway and Jade on the step below her, and something about the way they were standing told me this was a real conversation. Not a fight, not exactly, but something a little serious. I slowed the car and stopped just past the lamppost and I sat there for a moment looking at them through the windscreen.Neither of them had noticed my car on the curb yet.That was about to change and I was looking forward to the exact second it did. I thought about what Jade had said to me that evening at the library, with confidence of someone who expected to be obeyed, like I was a problem she had identified and labelled and simply expected to clear out of the picture once she had said the word. I had w

055: Not a date

Avery's POVThe diner was his suggestion and it turned out to be exactly right.It was one of those places that had not changed in twenty years and was not planning to. Red booths, laminated menus, a woman behind the counter who called everyone honey without looking up. I slid into the booth across from Liam and picked up the menu and I felt my shoulders loosen and drop."Better?" he said."Much better," I said.We ordered burgers. He got a vanilla shake and I got a coffee because the doorstep encounter had still not fully left my body yet and I needed something warm to hold. He did not push me to talk about it and I was grateful for that. We read our menus in the noise of the diner and it was one of the few times all week that I had felt like I was actually in control of my environment and choices.The food came and it was good. somewhere around the halfway point of my burger I realised I had not thought about Jade or Colton or Brianna or the squad or any of it for about fifteen minu

056: Mild semblance

Liam's POVIt started when she began to dance.Up until that point the evening had been exactly what I had planned it to be. Good food, good conversation, the kind of easy back and forth that told you something real about a person. Avery across a diner table with a coffee and an argument about data points was one of the most enjoyable things I had experienced in months and I was not even kidding myself on it. Then the music changed and we moved to the floor. The bar lights went low and Avery started to move, and I felt some fluttering in my chest.She moved well. I had known she would, given that she was a cheerleader, but knowing it and watching it were different things. It was the way she stopped thinking about it after the first few moments, the way her body just found the music without effort or performance, and in the dim light with her hair down and her shoulders loose and the crowd pressing in around us, something about her outline in the flashing dim lights looked familiar. B

057: Here we go again

Liam's POVJade was sitting at the kitchen table when I came downstairs in the morning.She had a bowl of cereal in front of her that she was moving a spoon through without eating, staring at the bowl like it had done something to offend her. Her mum was at the counter making coffee, still in her dressing gown, humming something quietly. It was one of those peaceful Friday morning kitchens where everything smelled like coffee and nobody was in a hurry yet, and under normal circumstances I would have grabbed something and left without sparing either of them a second look.But I thought about last night. I thought about the library steps and the field and the doorstep and Jade watching me walk to the car with Avery's hand in mine. And I thought about the fact that I had been patient and measured and low-key for weeks now, and that it had occasionally been useful but had also occasionally just given Jade more room to feel like she had more leverage or was more right than me.I decided to

058: Foolish thing

Liam's POVI walked past Colton and took my position in the drill like nothing had happened.That was the whole plan. Not to engage, not to match his energy, just to be completely and entirely unbothered by his existence on the same field. I had learned from the last time that reacting was what he wanted and what he fed off, and I was not going to give him that today. I was going to be in an excellent mood and I was going to make that as visible as possible and let him do whatever he was going to do with it.He started early.We were barely ten minutes into the first drill when Colton leaned toward one of the receivers and said, just loud enough to carry, "Funny how some quarterbacks think a smile from the cheerleading squad means they belong on this field." I kept my eyes on the playbook in my hand and said nothing.He tried again during the second run. "Some people," he said, loud and casual, "use the field to build a reputation. Other people just use whoever is standing on the side

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