All Chapters of Falling for My Best Friend's Brother: Chapter 71 - Chapter 80

Liam's POV'Long', she wrote. 'Ran into someone when I got home who I really did not want to deal with.'I did not ask who. She would tell me if she wanted to.'Sorry,' I typed. 'That sounds like a rough end to a rough night.''It is what it is,' she replied. 'Tell me about yours.'I looked at the windscreen and typed. 'I keep going over what she said. I cannot get it to stop playing in my head.''What did she say?''That she liked me too much to give me what I wanted.'The three dots appeared and disappeared twice before her reply came through.'That is a terrible thing to hear', she wrote. 'I am genuinely sorry.''The worst part is I believe her completely,' I typed.'Yes', she wrote. 'That would make it worse.''How do you deal with something like that,' I wrote. 'Honestly.''You do not really,' she wrote back. 'You sit with it until it becomes bearable and then you keep going. That is all I have got, sorry.''That is actually more useful than you think.'I looked at the screen for

Avery's POVHe looked at the lamppost while he answered."Like being handed something I had been wanting and being told I was not allowed to open it," he said. "And the part that makes it worse is that she was not lying or playing games or trying to soften anything. She was just being honest about something she cannot change. There is nothing for me to do about any of it.""It is easier to be angry at someone who lied to you," I said. "When the truth is the wrong answer, there is nothing to do about it. You just have to accept it."He looked at me. "That is exactly the thing I have been failing to do for the last hour.""I'm sorry about that."He shook his head and looked back at the road. We sat for a moment without saying anything more. My body was adapting to the cold now and his shoulder was warm against mine where the jackets touched. I could hear his breathing slow down a little, like the act of saying it all out loud had taken something heavy off him. I did not move. I did not

Avery's POVI closed the bathroom door behind me and stood in the hallway for a second with my hand still on the doorknob.The box. The shelf. The way I had not been able to remember the last time. None of it had made sense yet and I needed it to do so quickly because standing here in the hallway at three in the morning was not a plan.I went back to my room. I closed the door. I sat on the edge of my bed and picked up my phone with shaking hands.I opened the period tracker.It loaded the calendar and I stared at it for a moment without reading it. The little coloured squares. The arrows. The neat predictions the app had been making for years of me using it that had always been right, give or take a day. I made myself focus on the numbers.Five days late.“No fucking way.” I said to myself in the dark room.I read it again. I checked the date. I checked the date on the normal calendar on my phone. I checked the date on the tracker. Then I read the number again because I needed it to

Liam's POVI sat on the bench in the changing room with my elbows on my knees and the helmet on the floor between my feet and let the noise of the rest of the team go on around me without trying to be a part of it.My head was somewhere else and had been all morning.Avery's front porch. That was where it had been since I had walked back home after our talk last night. I was thinking about the way she had answered the question I had asked her like she already knew what I was going to ask.Tate dropped onto the bench beside me. He had his pads under one arm and he smelled like wet grass."You good?""Yeah.""You sure? You missed the first whistle on that last set.""Did I?""Coach noticed.""Did he say anything?""Not yet. But he looked at you twice.""Great."Tate shrugged and bent down to unlace his boots. "I am not the one you have to apologise to. But yeah. You missed it.""Noted.""Whatever is going on, sort it," he said. "We have got a game in eight days.""I know.""Alright then

Avery's POVFor half a second I could not move.The corridor went very quiet around me, or it did inside my head at least. The assistant was standing two steps below us on the stairs holding her clipboard against her chest, looking up at me with the polite slightly anxious look of a person who had been sent to chase someone down and was trying to do it gracefully. Liam was beside me with his hand on the rail.I felt him notice. I felt him register the half-second freeze even though my face had not moved. The thing about Liam was that the things that did not show on me showed on me to him.I made my mouth move."I have a lecture in ten minutes," I said. "Tell him I will email him."The assistant blinked. She had clearly not been given a script for that one. "He said it would only take a few minutes.""I really cannot. I will email him this afternoon. Thank you."I said it in the brisk friendly tone you used when you wanted to close a conversation without making the other person feel ru