All Chapters of Caught Between The REID Brothers : Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

Harper's POVI was still annoyed about Madison. I had thought of seven good responses since that bathroom. All of them were excellent. All of them were approximately a few minutes too late.I kept playing it on a loop. “I don't know about that just yet.”Close then spoke up.“You have to come watch us, don't let us ask twice, please.” I couldn't refuse.“Okay,” I smiled and left them.I was still running response number five in my head when Ashton found me in the school library as my thoughts kept wandering.“Ahah, I knew I would find you here. Practice is in twenty," he said."I know.""You're coming, right?”"I said I would."He looked at me for a second. "You're still annoyed about Madison.""I'm fine.""You have the face you make when you're fine but it is actually just the complete opposite for being fine.”He fell into step beside me. "Is it still about Madison?"I looked at him sideways. "How did you know?""Because she has a very specific effect on you, and I can see that it c

Harper's POV"I'm sorry, but I'm going with Ethan."The words came out before I could pull them back.I heard Ashton go very still behind me.Ethan's face relieved and warm and familiar that my chest responded to before my brain could intervene. "Yeah?""Just a movie," I said quickly. "That's it.""That's all I asked for." He looked past me at Ashton just once, brief and pointed, and then back at me. "I'll grab the tickets. You good to go now?""Give me five minutes."He nodded and stepped back, pulling out his phone, giving me space.I turned around.Ashton was standing by the car with his face arranged into the version that gave absolutely nothing away. The closed one. The one I had been looking at the first week when I still thought he was just an arrogant hockey captain with a bruised ego and nothing underneath it."Ashton—""It's fine," he said."I'm not trying to blow up the arrangement, I just…. he's my best friend.""Harper." His voice was flat and even. "I said it's fine.""

Harper's POVThe cold version of Ashton was so much worse.With the confrontational version I knew where I stood. There was friction and sharpness and at least something to push against. This version, the polite, present, perfectly functional version was somehow the most unsettling thing he had ever done to me.He showed up. He did everything right. He said the correct things at the correct times and introduced me to the correct people and stood at exactly the right distance and it was all so precisely calibrated that it made my teeth hurt.I had broken something and I didn't even fully know what it was.Which was the most infuriating part because technically, rationally, I had not done anything wrong. I went to a movie with my best friend. That was it. We had popcorn and bad action sequences and I was home by eleven. There was nothing in our deal that said I couldn't do that.But I knew Ashton. Or I had started to know him, which turned out to be the same problem from a different ang

Harper's POV"It's nothing," he said. "Can we get back to—"The phone rang again. Same screen lighting up in his jacket pocket, visible through the fabric."Answer it," I said."Harper, there's no need.”"If it's nobody important then answer it and prove it." I held his gaze. "Or I will.""You're not answering my phone.""Then you answer it."He looked at me and I looked at him and the phone kept ringing and neither of us moved and then I reached forward and pulled it out of his jacket pocket before he could stop me. He said my name sharply but I had already accepted the call and pressed it to my ear."Hello?"A pause. Then Sienna's voice came through, warm and familiar in a way that turned my stomach immediately."Hey, just wanted to say thanks for dropping me off earlier. Really appreciate it." A small laugh, practiced and light. "And don't forget about our date. You promised."I pulled the phone away from my ear.I looked at the screen for exactly one second. Then I looked at Ashto

Harper's PovI went to the library after my last class because I had an essay due and absolutely no motivation to write it.I sat at my usual table in the back corner, opened my laptop, stared at a blank document and typed exactly one sentence before Ethan dropped into the chair across from me."Hey." He dropped his backpack on the table. "You look tired.""Thank you for the lovely compliment, Ethan.""Not terribly tired. Just like you didn't sleep." He pulled out his own laptop. "I need help with the economics paper. Can you explain opportunity cost without making it sound like a punishment?""It's about trade offs," I said, closing my own document. "Every choice has a cost that isn't the price you pay. It's whatever you give up to make it.""Okay that actually makes sense." He typed something. "See, you should be a professor.""Hard pass."He laughed and settled into his laptop and I went back to staring at my own blank document.Three minutes passed."So Madison wants to do a coupl